JarlFrank on 8/9/2014 at 23:31
What about a thread where we talk about things we generally like or dislike as design elements used in FMs? While we can cite examples, this should not be about praising your favourite or bashing your least favourite missions, instead it should be kept more general about which kinds of features or design ideas you like (or not).
I'll start:
I love FMs who have a lot of exploration and places that you can reach by rope arrowing or mantling/jumping. Walking along a street, roping up to a window high above you, stealing everything inside that room... then looking through a smaller window at the opposite of the room and seeing a garden with loot in plain sight, but you can't reach it from here, so you know that you should explore the city further in order to find a way there. This is the kind of exploration gameplay I love in Thief. Melan and Skacky usually put a lot of this into their missions.
But what I really hate is when the exploration is based on finding tiny switches hidden behind furniture without any hints in readables or guard conversations. I don't enjoy this at all, and when a mission has too much key and switch hunting, I will just read a walkthrough because that kind of gameplay just feels frustrating to me. Exploration, for me, is to see a place that is obviously accessible, but having to figure out how to reach it (either by rope arrow, or by climbing and jumping, or by finding a backdoor somewhere, etc), or to look for a secret that has been previously hinted at in a readable ("Lady X always spends so much time fiddling around with her desklamp for some reason", "Servant, I have told you so many times to leave the desk lamp alone! If you touch it again you will be fired, just leave it out when cleaning my room!", etc). Randomly looking for tiny hidden switches isn't.
I love missions that have good-looking architecture and are generally well constructed. When a place either feels like it could really exist or feels like a weird surreal dreamscape (like the OM The Sword), I have a good feeling about the mission from the start. I tend to dislike it when FMs get proportions all wrong, though - especially if everything is way too big and empty. There is one FM set in a museum - I don't remember the name of it - where it was especially bad, every room was just gigantic and took quite long to run through. All the objects placed in the rooms felt tiny due to the size of the architecture. It's nothing that will make me stop playing as long as the gameplay is good, but it definitely leaves a bad first impression.
I also don't like horror missions so I tend to avoid them (I don't play horror games at all because I don't like being scared by creepy supernatural stuff), but I've grown tolerant of some of the horror elements used in Thief FMs. Still won't touch anything that has "making the player so scared he jumps from his chair" as a main feature, though. :p
I used to dislike starting without a blackjack, but now I find it not too bad as it adds some additional challenge to the beginning when you are forced to ghost until you find it. I also like optional ghosting objectives, but I dislike it when a mission enforces no knockouts without a good reason.
Azaran on 8/9/2014 at 23:56
I love long missions and campaigns, I like to lose myself for a few hours in the game. In terms of genres, I love horror and supernatural themed missions (Calendra series, Ruins of Originia, Rocksburg, etc.), as well as large city missions, and Lost City/Civilization ones (Broken Triad, etc...).
For things I don't like as much, I have a hard time playing daytime missions. I love the night, the darkness aspect, and daylight kinda throws me off. I don't mind if there's 1 daytime mission in a campaign, followed by night ones, but just daytime not so much.
There's also some FM styles and themes (which I will not name or describe here) that aren't really my thing. There's a handful of missions (which shall remain nameless) that were released over the years which are magnificently built, but whose themes just don't appeal to me. Nothing wrong with them, it's just a matter of personal taste
Azaran on 8/9/2014 at 23:59
And there's a lot of people who dislike missions that only use stock resources (no new textures, objects or AI), but I don't mind as long as they're interesting and well built. The magnificent Nightmares/Cauchemars campaign is a great example of this, as well as Equilibrium and a few others
King No One on 9/9/2014 at 11:21
In short I hate anything that impairs my immersion in a mission and reminds me I'm just playing a game.
In particular I've never liked high loot requirement objectives in missions. I know that thief is the name of the game but some FMs take it too far (anything over 2000 and I'm seriously doubting Garrett's ability to carry that much swag). Too often I've been denied a mission clear because, despite completing every other objective (while breaking the map searching high and low for secret loot) I find I'm still a little short of the 5000 minimum.
AI placement and environment design can also let a mission down; If I can't reconcile the number of AI with the amount of beds/privies I find I'm taken right out of the experience.
On the other hand I love missions with more than one environment to explore and multiple 'factions' of AI to infuriate/set against each other. I guess that's why the only mansion missions I really enjoy are those in the vein of The Sword OM; a seemingly straightforward heist stumbling into the heart of darkness beating beneath the presentable exterior.
Also I've always time for FMs that use space in an innovative way; making fewer hostile AI go a long way and opening up tons of possibility for vertical/subterranean exploration. It's become something of a tainted notion since the reboot but having more than one way to approach the objective is also appreciated.
bjack on 9/9/2014 at 22:06
This topic has been beaten to death before, but I'll bite again :ebil:
Love:
* Good design - like buildings that make sense, most doors pick-able, furniture in places that are logical, and realistic room placement.
* Readables that are only a page or two long.
* Clues to secrets, but not too obvious.
* Lot's of puzzles, but not ones that require multiple back tracks across town to solve.
* Some undead AI are cool, if they make sense to the story.
* A great story line that is consistent with Thief, or complementary.
Hate:
* Mechanist furniture in Hammerite or Pagan buildings. Stupid! :erg:
* In that vain, anything without continuity. Serving wenches roaming the graveyard. Hammers hanging out with Mechanists and Pagans at the local pub.
* Another pet peeve is lighting that has no switch - especially in bedrooms. Do these people never sleep? :joke:
* While I do not typically ghost, FMs that are absolutely impossible to ghost are annoying. Please do not put 2 guards in bright light on a critical path that cannot be bypassed. It forces an altercation.
* Super linear games - ones that must be completed exactly as the author intended - if you stray from their exact order, you cannot complete the FM.
* No kill options that include all AI, including beasts, insects, etc. This includes using a modded human AI that looks like a beast and acts like one, yet is considered a man and verboten for a kill.
* Having to trek 20 minutes from one edge of town to the other , back and forth, over and over, just to get an objective done.
* Super long water tunnels w/o air pockets or sufficient air potions available.
Mildly to moderately dislike:
* New Dark FMs that push the polygon count so far that it slows the game down to 14 FPS - even with a decent video card. Sorry, but the new look is not that fantastic that it should kill a 2 GB vid card.
* Hard helmet AI that patrol in fully lit areas - with almost no shadows.
* Tomes - 40 page books on the history of the snake people verses the muck lords. On page 37 you get a clue that is essential to win the game. Good luck with that one.
* Full dark that require a hand held light source that only casts a 3 foot range. Nice, so all the beasties see me, but I cannot see them until too late.
* Marble everywhere, 30 hyper-sensitive guards, super lit, and no moss arrows.
* Keys hidden in silly places. Things like having the Master Hammer's key in the Burrick dung heap in Pagan town - one that is being watched over by a Mechanist guard. :rolleyes:
That is way more than enough. Still, when the "hate" things pop up in an FM, I just move along and keep playing. It is rare that any of those make me stop altogether. I am thankful and happy to have any FMs available. Can't beat free! :cheeky:
Azaran on 9/9/2014 at 22:30
Quote Posted by bjack
* While I do not typically ghost, FMs that are absolutely impossible to ghost are annoying. Please do not put 2 guards in bright light on a critical path that cannot be bypassed. It forces an altercation.
* Hard helmet AI that patrol in fully lit areas - with almost no shadows.
These I like, because they force you to be creative. I was playing one recently where a huge area was tile floor swarming with guards, and I only had a few moss arrows. After some strategizing and careful planning I pulled it off and got them all without being noticed.
Quote Posted by bjack
* Tomes - 40 page books on the history of the snake people verses the muck lords. On page 37 you get a clue that is essential to win the game. Good luck with that one.
That one I agree with, it's pretty tedious. I like my readables short and sweet
ZylonBane on 9/9/2014 at 22:42
HATE: Secret buttons that are so hidden you can barely find them even when you know exactly where to look.
TheDarkOne93 on 10/9/2014 at 00:13
Love: missions that are large in area and have a lot of busy work so that there is much to do in order to accomplish objectives and if the area was rigged with alarms, elite guards, and security automatons that would punish the player for being careless, but it would also bring a more challenging experience to the level that now you have to complete the level while the area is under alert, or you would have to find the main security station in order to turn off the security system(s).
I would love a mission to take place in the Baron's Palace with tons of security, and the City Army in force protecting it.
Hate: missions that take place away from the major factions (City, Hammers, Mechanists, and Pagans)
LostCitizen on 10/9/2014 at 08:06
Like:
- short to medium sized readables...
- ... which explain the story in the way that you feel important, because you will break these events, e.g.you will find some ancient treasure and you will change the history current. Also you ask yourself-what would happen if you never discovered these notes? The secrets will remain hidden forever, forgotten and nobody would know them anymore;
- making your own tools (e.g. in a factory...), but not too complicated.
Dislike:
- timed actions (although they are a nice change of pace sometimes; they also have to be reasonable and connected to the story);
- tremendous long lock-picking of the wooden boxes in the basement /barracks areas, containing only a couple of coins or broadhead arrows;
- long camvator sequences.
Zontik on 11/9/2014 at 12:19
Gathering loot as a final objective is just an evil. When you take your last piece of golden cake and have 4.5 seconds to find the rest... it kills the immersion.
Fortunately, it is rare method, and it is probably the only thing I don't like in OMs.
