Muzman on 13/6/2013 at 22:29
Heh, makes sense I guess. Well it's all right Punchy, take it easy, you're safe now (well... hopefully)
Chade on 14/6/2013 at 05:35
Yes, well ... to make a more positive contribution:
Regarding combat in a thief game, the standard approach suggested by people here sounds a bit too much like "beatings will continue until morale improves" to me.
Obviously, the desired final state of combat should be that the player moves out of combat and back into a rewarding stealth experience. Combat is primarily something that concerns new players, and for a newbie, it is highly likely to be one of their first experiences with the game.
So ideally, I'd want combat to be something that:
1) Can be handled by somebody new to the game.
2) Is entertaining enough to make a good second or third impression ...
3) ... but still discourages the player from entering combat again.
4) Doesn't screw up the following stealth experience.
The obvious approach is to make it fun to escape guards on easier difficulty levels. Reward the player for hiding in unconventional places. Have the guards overshoot quickly while searching, giving the player a chance to slip away. Make the guards a bit clumsy when running through areas with lots of obstacles (e.g. kitchen). Give the player fun and cheap tools to temporarily disable the guards. These mechanics should be the first things you make harder in higher difficulty levels.
This approach would keep guards alive after a confrontation, so the player still gets to sneak past them. They should probably not get any alertness bonuses after they've calmed down though. It doesn't make sense to make stealth harder when the player is struggling to stay out of combat in the first place.
Muzman on 14/6/2013 at 06:30
In general I think the main assist to failure scenarios is just good large complex levels. Coupled with many escape tools/mechanics that should cover you enough to get the hang of things. But then you hit navigation problems that are pretty discouraging for a lot of people (I guess other people's quest markers aren't my problem. It'd still be good to have everyone's experience as naturalistic as possible, is my general attitude).
Depending on how finely grained things are you could definitely have bumbling, badly co-ordinated guards on early levels (drunk, forgetful etc) and then move up to the Royal guard later. It's when the fiction doesn't match the gameplay that less than ideal things come along I guess.
I remember people even finding Ramirez's place too early in the game for them though. They just assumed the alarm would always go off and weren't really aware of what difference that made to guard position and behaviour. Making them think like an infiltrator (without interrupting the experience) is ideal there.
So much comes down to level design in this it's not even funny. DS actually had really good systems and mechanics for what it was, just mostly weak levels to put them in.
They're talking the talk as far as large levels goes. So we'll see if their idea of large and complex is the same as mine. From memory, apart from the RAM being an obstacle last time, the T: DS team had even lost faith in them as console streamlining and CoD styles began to take over. Things have changed now at least. Hard to say how much.
I would love some kind of overarching system to track how much violence you do. A little bit like Dishonoured's chaos level, only actually good. You'd expect the next mission to be different if word has gotten out of entire households being wrecked or murdered. I'm not sure how to do that though. Garrett reading about himself in the paper would be kinda fun.
SubJeff on 14/6/2013 at 10:34
Yeah, that's something that the Dishonored crew likely got from the discussions we've had about an open world Thief on here over the years - the wanted posters. I think you could have different grades of wanted or warning posters that go up if you really mess a place up.
You should be able to survive combat situations in a 1 v 1 only imho. Perhaps 1 v 2 on lower difficulty levels. And the difficulty of that situation should be compounded by AI calling for and receiving help. If a 1 v 1 is fun but hard and a 1 v 2 very hard (and v 3 practically impossible) stealth would be advisable but combat not an insta-fail. Of course you could scale this. I remember taking on (?Death) Knights in Dark Messiah. 1 v 1 was tough, 1 v 2 was rock hard until you got good. Man that game was a thing of brutal beauty.
Jason Moyer on 14/6/2013 at 10:47
I think it's at least a little reassuring that a dev, playing on what seemed to be an easy difficulty level, died during the preview.
gunsmoke on 14/6/2013 at 12:24
Deadly Shadows had Garrett wanted posters, too.
And on the combat thing, I want to be able to slash someone up but have to hightail it out of there and re-hide.
faetal on 14/6/2013 at 12:31
I'd like to be able to do that whole Amélie thing where you break in, fuck with their house in lots of subtle ways, make them think they're going crazy. You know, fuck with their shoes and their toothpaste - all of that.
poroshin on 30/6/2013 at 12:59
Quote Posted by Renzatic
There was something rather otherworldly about Thief 1 & 2. But really, I think it has more to do with Dark and the weird, almost realistic but not quite lighting and shadows it produced than a conscious design decision on LGS' part. A lot of the early 3D engines that came out around then had a similar look and feel to them.
A huge part if that feeling in the originals was due to sound design, too.
EvaUnit02 on 17/8/2013 at 18:52
The release date is February 28th. Quite surprising to see it this early, actually.
Quote:
London (16, August 2013) - Square Enix® and Eidos-Montréal™
, the award winning studio behind the critically acclaimed Deus Ex: Human Revolution® today announced that THIEF™ will be released for Windows PC, PlayStation®3, PlayStation®4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One on 25th February 2014 in North America and 28th February 2014 in Europe and PAL territories.
“This city will not die with the old and the poor holding it back.
The time has come for a new future”
-Baron Northcrest
“No more will our homes be taken and our families starved.
This City belongs to the people. We must seize it back.”
-Orion
Garrett the Master Thief is entangled in the growing layers of conflict between Baron Northcrest and the oppressed masses led by Orion, the voice of the people. In a City on the brink of revolution, Garrett's skills are all he can trust as he walks the fine line between politics and the people.
Gamescom '13 trailer: (
http://youtu.be/l-LXdBcQNkY)
HAHAHA:-
(
http://www.iforce.co.nz/View.aspx?i=ofvaoq05.15b.jpg)
Inline Image:
http://iforce.co.nz/i/ofvaoq05.15b.jpg