Fidcal on 11/10/2009 at 13:30
Some good ideas there cacka. I hadn't considered KO's and kills so long as not discovered. In fact we've only really gone on alert levels. I see the reasoning behind you're time limit; the less time you take the less likely to be discovered. I like to play slow though so would feel penalized just for exploring and examing things in more detail. If that were included at all I think a lower penalty perhaps. Again, depends on the FM as you say and that might not be easy to pick up by the code. FM file size is not the only factor relating to time spent.
I'll copy and paste your ideas to our bugtracker link for future review so they are not overlooked. At the moment our scoring is somewhat oversensitive imo and takes into account even very low level "mmm... thought I heard something ... must have been rats" type of thing. I don't think there will be time to upgrade it before Release 1 though.
Melan on 11/10/2009 at 13:34
I don't think time should be a consideration. This is just not that kind of game.
redface on 11/10/2009 at 13:41
Shouldn't the scoring take into account the number of AI in the mission as well? Knocking out 3 out of 10 AI is different than 3 out of 30. Or maybe not?
Fidcal on 11/10/2009 at 14:07
KO 5 out of 5 and then you can be 100% stealthy. Actually this is another very good reason why even undetected KO's and kills *should* be penalized. If you KO every AI you come across and then you can bump about that section and make as much noise as you like and still get 100% stealth score.
So let's take a typical (?) player profile: Works through a 'typical' FM with 15 AI and KO's them all at the first opportunity. Some stealth skill is needed to reach those KO's. With cacka's values the player would get 45 deducted giving them 55% which might be reasonable actually. And that's OK because many players are [not - edit!] too concerned about excessive stealth. The score system would be just to add interest for ghosters and semi-ghosters.
There's another problem. With all this deducting it is clear that one would mostly get a better stealth score for a small FM than a huge one. One could be reasonably stealthy throughout a large city FM but with 50 AI there are just more situations for getting detected.
Also extinguishing lights is another thing that might be considered but this might be difficult to detect.
btw at the moment Dark Mod AI detect the sound of water splashes and go to full alert if within about one metre. So that would be covered. But they would not necessarily notice candles snuffed or electric lights put out unless the FM maker specifically sets them that way. It can be annoying to have alerts for every open door for instance. In Chalice of Kings for instance, a main objective will be noticed sooner or later unless the player optionally replaces it with a duplicate. :thumb: So that part is just that bit harder to stealth but you don't *gain* points for difficult stealthing. Maybe the FM maker should add a weighting factor.
cacka on 11/10/2009 at 18:49
Thinking about it, they had a nicer system in Hitman, where your ranking was determined by the amount of noise you made along with how violent you were.
Noise would be minor alerts, major alerts, bodies found etc.
Violence would be ko's, kills, headshots, backstabs
You could break that down again into 1 point for a ko, 2 for a kill, 1 for a minor alert etc.
So different rankings can be assigned depending on the score.
no violence and noise would be a ghost
no violence and 1 noise would be a shadow
10 violence and 10 noise would be one of those lunatics that likes to pile all the bodies in one room and take a screenshot :)
Malleus on 11/10/2009 at 19:19
Quote Posted by Fidcal
At the moment our scoring is somewhat oversensitive imo and takes into account even very low level "mmm... thought I heard something ... must have been rats" type of thing. I don't think there will be time to upgrade it before Release 1 though.
There is scoring in The Dark Mod? Like, at the end of levels? Like, with percentage? :wot:
R Soul on 11/10/2009 at 19:33
No there isn't:
Quote Posted by Fidcal
Just out of curiosity and to take your mind off the tension, here's a question you can discuss.
demagogue on 11/10/2009 at 19:47
Yes, it's there now. At the end of the mission, on the "Mission Stats" page there's an entry that says "Stealth Score". What Fidcal was raising is how to make it work better. It is really sensitive now; I always get zero on my FM, but then there are some plot-forced busts in it.
On that note, BTW, I was wondering if there could be a way for a mapper to exempt plot-forced busts from contributing to the score. That way a ghoster could still get recognized as ghosting and still finish all the objectives. On the other hand, a bust is a bust and it might be better to just let the bust count and ghosters will know that the score counts the plot-forced one's too (it also might introduce some logic problems, since how do you robustly distinguish plot-forced from regular busts every time). Maybe if the Score could have a parenthetical note the mapper could add like "(-20 plot-forced)" so it's at least descriptively accounted for.
R Soul on 11/10/2009 at 20:28
In that case: Bloody hell. That Dark Mod still looks great, but I don't think a scoring feature is necessary.
Malleus on 11/10/2009 at 20:35
I don't like the scoring feature either. Wouldn't statistics be enough?
