SubJeff on 30/7/2008 at 07:10
That's a very interesting idea. I don't know how fun it would be. Challenging certainly.
Quote:
We have grown from enthusiastic, naive, 'we're gonna outdo T3' ranters
To fair NH, The Dark Mod team have never really been ranters :p
Beleg Cúthalion on 30/7/2008 at 07:41
How did Splinter Cell manage the issue of guards being waked-up by their colleagues? I'll never again leave ttlg for half a day if this meant reading posts for half an hour. :erg:
What Subjective Effect said - long time before someone wakes up (helmets? caps? that might be an issue; unconsciousness by gas?) - and probably the difficulty level no one has mentioned yet could solve the matter. Either they wake up quite late anyway - thus stirring up the idea of a thief who left before anyone noticed - or they would be on EXPERT only for those who like the challenge. I think that'd be an idea to consider if you want to have both elements included. In general, I don't think adding realism per se makes gameplay worse. Opening doors slowly etc. is in fact more real but also more exciting I believe. And last of all, guards finding a body, unconscious or not, will sound the alarm anyway, so waking one fellow up again doesn't make things very different. Placing KO'ed guards on a bed though, like many of us surely do, could be considered by the other AIs to make things more complex. Or funny.
(I'd like to hear the voice file sets for those situations. "Benny? Benny! Why is it always you?")
RavynousHunter on 30/7/2008 at 08:55
I'd like guards and bystanders to be able to differentiate between unconscious and dead bodies. You'd think they'd be able to notice weather or not their buddies are breathing. Also, I think the whole script-controlled difficulty is a pretty neat idea, especially if it allowed you to easily add your own custom difficulties. That would be awesome! :thumb:
bartekb81 on 30/7/2008 at 13:04
I got very sad, because these posts have just shown me how EASILY Thief 4 could be screwed up... Too many changes and too ambitious approach will almost certainly kill the game...
Agree with New Horizon and the rest:
TDM should be tuned up Thief, not pretending to be better like T: DS but continuing all that we know and all that we have loved in the Thief franchise.
LESS IS MORE.
Although I agree with Beleg Cúthalion, that knocked out guards could have been easily woken-up by their colleagues. It was well implemented in Splinter Cell and penalized only for not well hidden unconscious people.
But guards can't wake-up by themselves just like that, in a random ways. It can't be happen due to a playability AT LEAST. Second reason is realism, which of Subjective Effect has mentioned before.
I also agree that Thief(especially 1,2) is a very imaginative game because it doesn't tell us about every aspects of the Garrett's life...It doesn't show us all the City at once...It wasn't even showed Garrett's face and made him so mysterious(T: DS spoiled it, unfortunately).And what is unknown and/or mysterious builds us atmosphere and immersion, too.
Open, free-to-wander cities are welcome in action games and RPGs, but (could) not in Thief, where the story and immersive, stealth-based gameplay were always more important than "realism"... More we know, more we lose.
So it fits once again,
LESS IS MORE.
Springheel on 30/7/2008 at 13:51
Quote:
Think about it... What if you knocked out every guard in bafford's? This means that you would have no reason to be stealthy anymore. If they wake up, you would think twice about running through an area.
No you wouldn't. You'd just kill the guards after knocking them out. Just as quiet, and no chance of them waking up. But not the kind of behaviour we really want to encourage.
As NH has said, we debated this *to death* on our own forums early on, as it seems to be one of the most common "new ideas" about how to improve Thief. The arguments against it can be summed up like this:
1. It isn't realistic (as SE pointed out)
2. It penalizes the player for using stealthy equipment, and actually encourages them to kill the guards instead.
3. What do AI *do* after waking up? It isn't exactly realistic for them to just go back to their old patrol routes like nothing happened. If they start yelling or running around randomly, what does that accomplish? It draws all nearby AI to a location that the player probably left a long time ago.
4. The technical hurdles are also quite significant. How do you create code and animations that allow AI to get up from any possible position they may have been dumped in? What if the player stuffed them under a table or dumped a few other AI on top of them? How does the AI retrieve its weapon? How does the AI navigate back to its patrol route, or to somewhere useful, especially if he has been dumped in a hole or behind some crates?
Ultimately, it came down to: challenging to implement + not very realistic + adds little or nothing to gameplay = not worth doing.
Quote:
I'd like guards and bystanders to be able to differentiate between unconscious and dead bodies.
That, on the other hand, we DID do. :)
TheGrimSmile on 30/7/2008 at 15:24
Quote Posted by electrikcar
Garrett needs a SACK for gameplay and realism reasons, this is Thief after all.
The sack starts empty but as it is filled with loot it becomes large and cumbersome, slowing the player down and producing more noise while moving. The individual loot items have size and weight which affects the sack dynamics, making small valuable items more attractive than bulky ones. The player has the option to drop the sack and leave it in a discrete location to free them up for stealthy scouting, the player can only carry a small amount of loot without the sack and this needs to be manually deposited in the sack before more loot can be collected. Moving the sack is risky, so the player needs to have already scouted ahead for a new sack hiding place. If the sack is found by a guard it is picked up and carried to a secure part of the map where the contents are emptied onto the floor. If Garrett doesn't stop the guard doing this, he needs to pick-pocket the sack back off the guard and recollect the loot off the floor. Once the mission objectives are complete and the player is satisfied with the size of their sack they are faced with the challenge of leaving the map carrying the large noisy sack. So basically the greedier you are and/or the less discerning you are about the size and weight of the loot, the harder the game becomes.
Okay... I have a large problem with this.
This actually discourages the player from finding all the loot. The goal of the entire game is to steal as much as you can while still completing the mission.
What does Garrett do when he needs to shoot an arrow, or climb a ladder? What if the mission requires you to take something and you don't have enough room for it?
The point is this; Garrett is greedy. He's a thief! He wants everything he can get! His landlord(s) push him hard for the rent, and he still has a few arrows to get on the side. He's got information to buy and bribes to pay off.
When you play Thief, you want to get a lot of loot. If you've worked hard enough already to find it, then why make it worse by having to haul it all out? The challenge is in getting the loot, not getting around and out with it.
This topic sure does update fast, huh?
Edit: Oh, this may sound stupid to some of you, but... what is body awareness? I just can't figure it out!
sNeaksieGarrett on 30/7/2008 at 19:29
Wow, so many posts in recent times....:eek: It's going to be a bit of a chore answering everybody.:p
First, I want to say that Zillameth and New Horizon definately have some good arguments on the whole guards waking up idea. After the way they explained it, now I'm thinking it would be a bad idea. Now Subjective Effect posted (page 2) a very good response, the whole bit about in real life the blackjack's effect on a person... After reading this, it seems to me that this would be a reason to not allow guards waking up, because most likely you will be long gone or have beaten the mission in an hour before they even wake up.:erg:
In reply to chade's post on page 2: First off, I don't understand the link between a rock star and garrett.:weird: That's an.. odd comparison.
2nd, being realistic doesn't mean it "punishes" the player, but I can understand what you are trying to say... By making AI wake up, it causes the player to have to deal with that character again, unless of course you left already then it wouldn't matter. It's not like it would say on the screen: "You have 20 mins to escape before guard #5 wakes up." That certainly seems punishing, but if it's not some sort of gameplay goal forced on you then I don't think it's a punishment. Just an annoyance.
In reply to Jah:
Quote Posted by Jah
Quote Posted by New Horizon
Which again punishes the player for being stealthy, since now they still have to contend with the guard they 'properly' removed from the play field.
I already suggested possible ways of penalizing the player for using violence, thereby making violence a less desirable option. How exactly are you "punishing" the player for being stealthy, if the alternative is even worse?
I agree Jah, but I think what New Horizon was trying to say is that you're being punished for knocking out the guard since he will wake up again, whereas if he was unable to be waken up, then there's no punishment. The alternative would not be worse for avoiding to knock him out, because you wouldn't have that uncertainty of when he'll get back up again... Whereas if he can't wake up, you can knock him out or not knock him out and it won't matter. I hope that made sense, and sorry if I got you wrong NH.
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
As I've stated 2 posts above - guards waking up is NOT realistic, regardless of how you feel.
How is it not realistic? Don't people wake up from being unconscious eventually? You said yourself that they could wake up an hour or half a day later.. Which, if you were playing Thief for over an hour and the guard woke up it would work... They could make guards wake up within 1 hour real time, or 30 mins real time or whatever depending on how the game's time is set. As I said above though, you'd probably be long gone so this isn't really a good arguement, I know.
hey electrickcar, that's quite an interesting idea...:)
springheel:
Quote:
No you wouldn't. You'd just kill the guards after knocking them out. Just as quiet, and no chance of them waking up. But not the kind of behaviour we really want to encourage.
2. It penalizes the player for using stealthy equipment, and actually encourages them to kill the guards instead.
While you have a very good arguement, and makes me believe that it's not a good idea, I just have to reply to these two points because I don't agree.
First point of yours: Once again, it's not the developer's fault if a player doesn't want to play steathely..
I wouldn't kill the guards. Unless you were using the term "you" in a sort of "one" fashion, which I understand, but I don't think
everyone would kill the guards simply because they know they will wake up again later.
Your #2 point: No it doesn't. How is making them wake up encouraging you to kill them? All it does is make it more challenging. Those that want to kill them obviously shouldn't be playing thief then, or should learn. As someone mentioned before, it's a single player game so I don't see the big deal.
But your point about the technical aspect is obviously the main problem that would make the option of waking AI a waste of time.:) Beleg Cúthalion had a good point too though.
Hmm, you're right TheGrimSmile:( Perhaps it could be only implemented in a special difficulty mode or something? I think perhaps what would be cool is to have the normal difficulties and then a seperate challenging mode with more "realism" thrown in..
Chade on 30/7/2008 at 21:37
Quote Posted by sNeaksieGarrett
In reply to chade's post on page 2: First off, I don't understand the link between a rock star and garrett.:weird: That's an.. odd comparison.
You must be taking it too literally. I thought the comparison was obvious. People want to be Garrett because Garrett is cool. What followed was my attempt at explaining why people find Garrett to be so "cool", when on the surface he doesn't really do anything that "extreme".
Quote Posted by sNeaksieGarrett
2nd, being realistic doesn't mean it "punishes" the player, but I can understand what you are trying to say... By making AI wake up, it causes the player to have to deal with that character again, unless of course you left already then it wouldn't matter. It's not like it would say on the screen: "You have 20 mins to escape before guard #5 wakes up." That certainly seems punishing, but if it's not some sort of gameplay goal forced on you then I don't think it's a punishment. Just an annoyance.
Depends on what the guard does when he wakes up. Does he just get up and start patrolling again? Sounds pretty stupid. More likely he gets up and makes a big fuss, guards come running over, possibly alarms go off, etc etc ... by the time this happens, the player could be anywhere, and the gameplay consequences will be unclear.
Also, even if the guard waking up isn't a big deal, people probably won't like to leave loose ends, and will act to minimise future uncertainty by killing the guard.
Finally, my concern is not just about punishing the player for stealth, but also interfering with the players control over the pace and direction of the gameplay. As I said earlier, I believe that Garrett being in control is part of the core thief aesthetic.
jay pettitt on 30/7/2008 at 23:14
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
To [be] fair, The Dark Mod team have never really been ranters :p
You're fooling no one ;)
Realism sucks. Ok, it can be an aid to mood and immersion and suspension of disbelief and all that stuff - but a significant aspect of thief is to make you think - wahoo I'm the greatest, most daringest cat burgular evah wahoo; reality doesn't necessarily help here (at least not nearly as much as rope arrows). I'm sure you can go too far the other way and there's probably a not entirely easy to ascertain balance to be struck, but given the limits of the media I would also imagine that when you get down to it you only want sufficient realism such that pairing it away any further would hurt the experience by making it seem overly silly or immaterial.
From my armchair it is easy to imagine that waking guards may be neat, but it may also be the case that they make playing against guards less predictable, leading to frustration rather than fun. It's the kind of call that I'm more than happy for other people actually doing the doing to wrestle with. Still, it'd be interesting to try...
New Horizon on 31/7/2008 at 00:19
Quote Posted by sNeaksieGarrett
Your #2 point: No it doesn't. How is making them wake up encouraging you to kill them? All it does is make it more challenging. Those that want to kill them obviously shouldn't be playing thief then, or should learn. As someone mentioned before, it's a single player game so I don't see the big deal.
Because the point of knocking a guard out, is to stealthily remove them from the playing field. If they wake up, they're going to alert the other guards...not go back to their patrols...and they, or any other guard, will kill YOU. :)
At least, that's how it would transpire in TDM...as we're attempting to make the guards better at what they already do, rather than simply add more routines that we would have to somehow try and balance against the existing gameplay.
