I've been playing a bit of the first two Thief games (blind playthrough on Expert), and they're definitely great, but are somewhat overrated. I do like that levels are open-ended and you have to learn to navigate them on your own, instead of having a precise GPS and quest markers. That's essentially the strongest aspect in Thief (and a surprisingly basic feature at that). Small additions like head bobbing and audio cues greatly contribute to the atmosphere of the game, and extra objectives on higher difficulties are also a plus.
My issue is that these games don't work as well as people lead me to believe. The enemy's field of vision is too damn wide, and sometimes guards spot you at impossible angles and/or distances, especially when they're in "caution" mode. The pacing of the game slows to a crawl when you've missed a key item, and have to explore the whole level again in search of it (which will probably be completely empty in case you knocked out/killed all guards). Guards never wake up, the combat is absolute trash, you get stuck in bodies, you can't move at normal speed if you move sideways or backwards, which means looking around while moving can feel counter-intuitive, and what boggles my mind the most, is that some enemies will taunt you when you hit them with the blackjack, but they're basically being stunlocked, which actually puts them at a disadvantage. Hitting them enough times will eventually knock them out (or even kill them), which makes no fucking sense whatsoever for them to stand there and just laugh at you.
Robert Morris
It certainly has its shortcomings, but its overall a nice experience imo.
Guards at times even have an innate sixth sense on your precise location in the dark if you make noise even beyond their supposed hearing and sight range if they detected you from a distance away.
James Morales
If you could make a combo of thief with kicking like dark messiah that would be dope
Levi King
Is it going to be Dark Mod or your own engine?
Follow these 2 rules: 1. Don't make blackjacking too easy. 2. Have horror elements.
Robert Sanders
Exploration, exploration, exploration. Also the ways in which the game put obstacles in your way to make exploration more satisfying than "Oh look you turned down this street and found a pile of gold neat!". The multiple floors that made different amounts of noise. The lighting played a huge part as well, even though some places looked like you would be in shadow but your meter said you were detectable. Both of these combined made some scenarios very intense. You had to decide whether you would stay in spot and hope the guard that just turned the corner didn't see you, or you tried to move to a different spot which would require you to possibly move into even more light and make noise on the marble floor. The one thing I wish it had more of(which was expanded in some fan missions) was the vertical aspect of the maps. Another aspect of exploration was the use of items with the environment. The multitude of arrows you had made you feel like you could tackle any situation but your overall weakness when it came to defending yourself gave a nice balance. The items laid around in some levels were plentiful but they never gave too many of one item which made you think on your feet. All in all it was a game based more on skill and problem solving on the fly.
Caleb Jackson
Yeah, I fully agree with you on the shortcomings list there. Guard AI is just bad in general. I mean, in stealth games, AI are supposed to be a LITTLE stupid, but they flit back and forth between offensively retarded and shocktrooper.
Between that and the movement clunkiness, how horribly slow the bow draw feels and the like is the kinda stuff I'd be keen to improve on for my little shindig.
The broad experience is excellent, but there's definitely a lot of small bits to the core mechanics that could use sprucing.
Haha, I'd actually been thinking about that. Kicking in Dark Messiah was kinda OP though. If I implemented kicking, I think it'd probably just make the guards stumble back a few steps or fall on their butt. Enough to give you a moment to bail(or stab them if you're going violent-like) but not a "fly off the cliff at mach 20" like DM had, as fun as that was.
I use a game engine, so it'd be a full standalone. For blackjacking, got any particular opinions on what'd make it too easy? I know if you stealth behind people in the thief games long enough you raise the jack and basically get a free, guarenteed knockout because it stops them from moving. I'd probably just make the player have the smack them themselves and try to not dick up the angle of attack.
On horror: yeah, at least one horror mission. 'S tradition, after all.
Levi Brooks
In some levels, it's easy to run through the whole thing just knocking people out. Even if they get alerted, they can't react fast enough. It makes the game too easy. Generally, you can leave your guard down in any area of the level where you have been before. There's no need to be alert and it makes the game boring. Have guards with helmets, monsters, undead, and automatons. Those kinds of enemies are more challenging.
Make it so that the player can never truly feel safe.
William Rogers
Put in a mod where when you kick them in the balls it plays that'smypurseIdon'tknowyou.wav
This was my strategy in Splinter Cell Chaos Theory plus piling all the bodies up in one mass
Daniel Diaz
The new Thief wasn't a bad game (by modern standards) per se. It's just not up to the standards of the original few.
I'd actually been planning on having knockouts and gas arrows be a temporary down like the MGS games, for example. Blackjack a dude, and he's out cold for a few minutes, but will eventually come to.
Gas arrows to make 'em sleep would last longer, but still never really be permanent. Kills would obviously be permanent, but then you have bodies and blood which can alert others.
Guards that find KO'd people could wake them up as well.
