PinkDot on 21/5/2020 at 15:35
Quote:
Talking personages who inform important things.
This game processes sound in a rather nontrivial way, so it is very difficult to hear and understand every word even in the native language. Trying to parse the dialog in poorly known language from afar is very irritating.
You mean like a conversation with information crucial for completion the mission? I think an interesting way of solving this problem, without resorting to scrolls and letter only, would be after every important conversation, Garrett would receive a 'sound item' in inventory, called something like 'overheard conversation' (snappier suggestions welcomed) with key sentences playing back upon 'using' the item - like looking back in memory, of what we've heard. This way, no info would escape from the player.
Psych0sis on 21/5/2020 at 15:48
Quote Posted by <Username>
Extreme loot goals forcing the player to spend hours looking in every nook and cranny.
Minimal differences between loot goals on difficulty levels: something like 94% on Normal, 95% on Hard, 96% on Expert.
Readables with meta information like "Garrett feels disgusted after reading this", breaking the immersion by telling the player how they should feel.
Guard voices replaced with another language so you can't tell if what they are saying is "Who's there?!" or just some idle talk.
Sound clipping between ambient sounds, or ambient sounds instantly stopping when the player enters another area.
Lights with infinite radiuses causing weird shadows and affecting the framerate negatively.
Spelling errors in mission info files, ingame objectives or books.
Yeesh, sounds like you've played some bad missions! Now imagine if one mission did all of this at once, oh my! :tsktsk:
A.Stahl on 21/5/2020 at 16:18
Quote Posted by PinkDot
'sound item' in inventory, called something like 'overheard conversation' (snappier suggestions welcomed) with key sentences playing back upon 'using' the item
Why not just use subtitles? Text is your friend. Text is the best invention of humanity ever. Why humiliate the player by forcing him to listen to ununderstandable speech over and over? Why not just add to the inventory a scroll with corresponding text?
Karras35 on 21/5/2020 at 16:42
Candles or torches that burn in abandoned places :erg:
PinkDot on 21/5/2020 at 17:11
Quote:
Why not just add to the inventory a scroll with corresponding text?
That would do as well, I suppose.
A few from me:
- Dead, rotten bodies lying all over the place, in sight of living people, who just could not care less for yet another corpse they need to step over on their daily walk. (I'm talking about corpses placed by mission author - not player)
- Dead bodies storytelling. Corpse/skeleton as an exploration reward - with valuables lying around and a diary filled in up to the last moments before their death. Not a terrible idea as such - just overused.
- Wooden textures with incorrect grain direction.
- AI in places inaccessible for them (like in a tower accessible via ladder, which they can't use)
- neutral AIs, who lets you steal their belongings - looking at you, when you're robbing their house/shop
- missions, which take lifetime to complete, cause they have entire game world packed into them - all factions, all environments, all monsters etc...
Azaran on 21/5/2020 at 19:31
Quote Posted by ganac
Everybody?! I think it's time for a Total Crap 2 Contest.
Please no.
<Username> on 21/5/2020 at 20:01
The real purpose of this thread is collecting ideas for Total Crap Contest 2. :ebil:
lpowell on 21/5/2020 at 20:29
Overly detailed custom models for things that don't need models. Often they are completely pointless. Like those bookshelf models stacked with individually-rendered books you see in some missions. They detract from the look of the game. It's almost like an uncanny valley effect. Sometimes abstraction is your friend. Just putting a rectangular prism with a bookshelf texture slapped on one side usually looks better.
Similarly, sometimes ultra-high-res textures can look jarring in Thief's old engine. I'm all for improving and expanding on the look of the original game but there's a balance to be struck. imo
Being able to climb out of the playable area is always a bummer. I'm much more tolerant of it than I used to be, I mean, there are OMs and classic FMs where it can happen, and testers can't catch everything.
trefoilknot on 21/5/2020 at 20:39
Cookie cutter solutions to problems without clear guidance on what the player is supposed to do.
If you're going to restrict the player by only allowing one solution (already not a great start), at least make it possible for the player to figure out exactly what to do.
For example, an objective like:
"Make sure (insert character here) gets what's coming." Kill him? Knock him out? Lock him in a room with an angry burrick? Oh.... you meant find the note where he confesses to some misdeed, and place it on the desk (not the bed or nightstand, mind you) in some other character's room.
Plenty of other examples of this kind of taffery, but I don't want to call out specific FMs.
howeird on 22/5/2020 at 02:20
- Locks need a purpose: Picking a lock in a darkroom (etc..) has no suspense with no patrolling guard/creature. Locks that need to be picked should be on a patrolling guard's route. All others should be left unlocked.
- I don't care for obscure key hunt mission. The story is more important.
- Dew Drop needs a make-over. Chucky clone with a knife would suffice.
