New Horizon on 7/3/2007 at 13:57
Quote Posted by Abysmal
And I think people are mistaking the developer's intention for more forgiving recovery as a shift in focus to combat, which I never got that impression.
I don't think it's a mistake really. There was an interview with Warren Spektor
awhile back where he stated that it was their intention to make Garrett more of a fighter and to get him out of the shadows. Spektor found it boring to have to sit and watch guard patrols for five minutes in the shadows and wanted more action. That's not an exact quote, but it's essentially what he was saying.
Muzman on 7/3/2007 at 14:56
That problem of what its like to watch Thief over someone's shoulder, from a selling perspective, has always been its greatest obstacle. The playing of a Thief game is always yours and yours alone. Spectating just doesn't work like with most games. It would have taken a lot of faith just to make it in the first place for that very reason. It would be very sad if someone with the experience of Warren Spector fell victim to that sort of standard subjectivity of "it not being fun to watch".
Quote Posted by Gvozdika
Those who find T3 too easy (which it obviously is), why dont you use ThiefBot?
My TB settings are:
Visual 3
-> 4 to 5 would be more realistic but I find that scripted events and conversations get easily interrupted then because you have to be close for them being triggered.
Audio 10
-> Fairly realistic I think, you cant run up on guards for a knock-out anymore unless on carpet, you have to wait for them to stand still which can prove very tricky.
Tactile 20
-> No stealth-bumping into guards. None at all!
Hit Points 1,3
-> Same as expert. Just dont kill humans.
Combat Speed 1,2
-> Same as in expert, seems just fine.
I spent ages playing with thief bot and trying to 'eyeball' any differences in the settings and I cannot work out the wildly inconsistent stuff people report about it. I had the game installed on Win98 to begin with and after lots of testing concluded that values over 10 are meaningless, there is no discernable difference, and values up near 10 are absurd. Audio and visual of 10 made the game unplayable. Hiding in shadows no longer functioned, NPCs would go nuts on the other side of the map at the sound of me walking (which means any scripted convos in the game didn't work at all). Completely broken. Tactile works like a radius; at 10, guards would sense me from about 10-15 feet away. Should be renamed 'armpits'.
Then, and here's where it gets interesting, I upgrade to XP. Now the only values of any worth are between 1 and 2 (makes some sense considering the difficulty defaults). Setting any of the above to 2 produced roughly the same results as setting them to 10 before I upgraded.
Don't ask me why. Now I've upgraded again and can't really play the game at all.
Gvozdika on 7/3/2007 at 16:11
If its any help Im on XP, too. Never had any major changes in my overall configuration so I cant tell wether I would experience any differences.
With audio set to 10 I have had 3 Cradle Puppets attracted to a mine explosion in the Hall of Records, the one up in the observatory didnt show up so this setting seems just fine to me. Interstingly knock-outs seem to be completely silent. As are elevators and some other stuff that is experienced as very loud by the player.
Visual of 10 wouldnt work indeed, that I tried.
As for tactile, now that you say it I sometimes get a "whats this" from a guard that has his back turned on me allthewhile I dont move at all. Ussually I do not though. Then again seeing how so many guards seem to have caught a cold, no wonder they dont sense my armpits. Or maybe they just out-stink me. I think this needs further investigation on my part.
---
So I set tactile to 100 and find two things:
- As long as Im crouched I can bump into everyones back without being detected. As soon as I stand up theres a response.
- I dont know what 100 feet are in meters but there is no way they can detect my stench, my breathing whatsoever. No matter how close I am.
I recall the Pagan archer in the docks running all the way to the tavern for no apparent reason and Warden Stout coming in for me out of nowhere in Pavelock. Without using TB. I think these are rare bugs that arent related to actual sensing something.
New Horizon on 7/3/2007 at 17:58
You really don't need to use Thief bot to adjust the AI settings, they're all exposed in the Default.ini file. I would assume that the defualt.ini would normally over ride any other settings. Thief bot was needed to keep AI from dropping back to normal difficulty before the bug was fixed. You're better off making the changes directly to the default.ini.
Gvozdika on 7/3/2007 at 21:05
Unfortunately those settings wont effect the city missions. But speaking of editing files, is there a simple way to change the caps in equipment like it is done in your mod?
New Horizon on 7/3/2007 at 22:03
Quote Posted by Gvozdika
Unfortunately those settings wont effect the city missions.
True, but the city stuff isn't really the meat of the game. If you want to alter those however, you can alter them in the T3Editor and save a custom gamesys.
imperialreign on 7/3/2007 at 23:14
Quote:
Y'see, I just have to disagree about the equipment thing people are bringing up here. I don't know what games you all were playing before, but I distinctly remember having a motherload of equipment in T1 and T2 that I hauled around in each mission. We're talking 40+ arrows, 15-20 water arrows, 10+ moss and fire arrows, tons of bomb and mines, etc...it honestly didn't feel much different to me from T3 (which at least had limits, such as a max of 5 mines/gasbombs).
Me, I always had a stockpile of broadhead arrows in T1/T2 - mostly because I didn't use them for anything aside from causing distractions;
but, I never seemed to keep a large assortment of water arrows; I TRIED to use them sparingly, but in T2 there's lights everywhere :rolleyes:
maybe everyone's arsenal just differed due to different playing styles
Jashin on 9/3/2007 at 10:54
I'm back from a few days of internet trouble.
I more or less see the situation clearly now - the purists are upset that T3 isn't the exact mirror image of Thief in all aspects (graphics, feature set, technology...). In short, it's not the game as they know it. Meaning when the dev broadened the range of options between totally passive and full-on aggressive, the purists snapped. It's the same basic scenario with 3rd-person pov - some just can't live with perfectly reasonable tenant of "just don't use it" and salem-witch-trialed the thing as a blasphemy to god.
The A.I. routine argument is a farce. If you enjoy getting stalked till judgment day + 1 and reloading that much, be my guest. That's one of the most un-player-friendly aspects in T1, that on the very first level and once discovered, I couldn't run away and the damned hammer chased me through the smudged underbelly of the mine till he caught me. T3 is easier granted, but it hasn't been made worse by extension. If the cornerstone of your Thief experience is "how hard it is" (subjective) and not the atmosphere, the sounds, the characterizations, etc., then you're responsible for that my friend. I know for a fact that I play for those above-mentioned.
imperialreign on 9/3/2007 at 22:44
Quote:
It's the same basic scenario with 3rd-person pov - some just can't live with perfectly reasonable tenant of "just don't use it" and salem-witch-trialed the thing as a blasphemy to god.
My only gripe with the 3rd-person capability of TDS, was the fact that the Garrett's movement still acted like you were in 3rd-person when you were in 1st - it took some getting used to, and made certain manuevers overly difficult (i.e. after mantling onto a thin rafter, turning yourself to be able to move along the board without falling off; as compared to just moving the mouse) - it was kind of like . . . a turning radius, I guess
Cronkhite on 9/3/2007 at 23:12
Quote:
the purists are upset that T3 isn't the exact mirror image of Thief in all aspects (graphics, feature set, technology...).
Not this one. Graphics are not relevant. Gameplay is.
