T2 FM - Legacy of Knoss (Nov 2022)

[nicked]

You're not soft-locked if you get into the theatre before getting the theatre key, because there's another copy of it inside the theatre.

[vfig]

It was designed to be a difficult challenge, since it's more-or-less the climax of the mission.

i just played this and thought that area really sucked (a blemish on an otherwise great mission). i was under half hp by the time i got there.

it was designed to … reward patience and planning.

how can i plan when i dont know whats coming? enemies spawn without warning after i read the plaque, putting me on the back foot already; and half of the ones that spawn hang around at the only path forward. the entire area is wide open; there are almost no fully dark areas, and nothing at all to block line of sight once i am seen. no corners to retreat to. and because the enemies respawn, i cant even use the tools in my inventory to get rid of them. in the end i just leroy jenkinsed, ran past everything and outran them. the next bit in the building with the things in close quarters was also painful (i was down to three hp by then). did they respawn too? i assumed they would too, like the others of their kind, but didnt stop to find out. died a bunch in there too, because again there was nowhere to hide, and one hit was enough to end me. it wasnt an enjoyable challenge at all.

thankfully it didnt ruin my overall enjoyment of the mission, but that whole area felt like a huge misstep.

[nicked]

Again, sorry if people are getting stuck there. It didn't come up as a problem during testing but it's clearly causing issues for some. Maybe I should have disabled respawning on Normal or something, for players that prefer the gung ho approach.

[vfig]

Maybe I should have disabled respawning on Normal or something, for players that prefer the gung ho approach.

like, i don't prefer the gung ho approach at all. but i felt like i wasnt given any other options. it wasnt any one thing, it was all these things together:

• enemies spawning without warning
• brand new enemy type with unfamiliar reactions, capabilities, and behaviour
• hostile geometry that doesnt provide much in the way of safe places to observe, and no clear places to safely retreat
• ranged attacks without cover objects to move behind, and with very limited room to dodge around
• many ranged enemies all at once
• uncertain objectives for the whole area, so trying to figure out what to do while under fire
• late game, so low health and supplies likely
• enemies respawning, so those supplies actually wasted when trying this approach to dealing with them
• again, late game so player is tired and low on patience

this last point is partly on me: i try to do fms in a single session when possible; and generally (because i think it makes for better videos and is usually more engaging for me to play this way) i avoid quickloading, so mistakes and missteps cost me more than they might with other playstyles.

so it wasnt just the respawning. and for what its worth, disabling respawning on Normal wouldnt have fixed things for me: there's no way i would restart and replay the whole mission up to this point on a lower difficulty setting this late into it: that would take too much time (and also, for the videos, i try to approach every fm completely blind).

[Taylor]

The part of the underground cavern where the fast zombies spawned were almost like how I'd imagine the 6th part of Harry Potter, when Harry and Dumbledore go for the medallion. Only there is four of these pedestrals around. Of course that helps little, if you are not familiar with Harry Potter.

Actually perhaps with a single exception you could stand in a dark spot before reading the plaques, giving you a head start against the zombies.
The two farther pedestals were the more difficult ones, because one of them had a hard exit jump and the other was on the end of the long archway, so the skulls had plenty of target practice opportunity, in case they spotted you.
Didn't know about them respawning though. I only killed some skulls in the central tower where they were in a small enough number at a time, so it seemed easier to murder them (without the risk of the entire area ganging up on me) -- they did not respawn for me so even if they do so, if you don't dally there too much, you are fine.

I thought the place as difficult as it should be. Maybe annoying a bit, but I wouldn't expect expert to be a cakewalk
(can't say anything about normal, maybe if it's similarily difficult it should've done a bit easier)

[Stingm]

I have made it through on normal without getting killed and it was very fun and challenging. I was shocked when reading the plaques and the zombies etc appeared. I went back the way I came and ran until in a dark area. It was very challenging but also very doable if I took my time. I will say that if I decide to play hard, I imagine it might be a lot worse. But overall, another excellent mission by nicked. I have also played both missions in order and it was even better.

[zajazd]

This mission is obviously in the top 5%. I played on Normal and fled and hid from the flying skulls.

[Wormrat]

Finished on Hard with only ~4000 loot and 1 secret. Very cool mission, good sense of progression. The city layout is interesting and feels liberating, but is also nice and "tidy" and not overwhelming. I completed the side objectives but definitely need to explore the city again and see what else I can find. (I also need to finish Catacombs of Knoss... ) Thanks nicked!

EDIT: Wow, I'm noticing lots of cool stuff and scenes I didn't catch the first time around. I think I was rushing a bit because I wanted to get to the underground bits. There's a lot to see and do and it's all tied together nicely with the setup and characters.

[Thinking Robot]

Question for opera house secret



Said secret is above the main actres room but where is the switch?

Edit: Found it, search the rightmost wooden beam behind you

[mungomango]

I'm immersed in this mission right now and I'm loving it, so I just wanted to drop by and give a huge thank you to you Nicked for a brilliant piece of work.

I think you've got the balance just right throughout, it's a classic! I played the first Knoss mission and thoroughly enjoyed it too.

Once again, I salute you sir for all the hard work and effort you put in - it's really, really appreciated!! Warms my cockles to know good old Thief is still going after all these years

[tone_lord]

Absolutely brilliant mission!
Its depth and interest are in the rank of the very best missions of all time in my book.
Endless exploration with cross connections abounding
Rooftops, sewers and caverns, town, up, down, sideways, and upside down and sideways-- it has it all
Great detail in all environments (the caverns are a bit bare, but a clever remark from Garrett in-game is the actual payoff there)
Very well balanced overall, it seemed to me.
I like how it suddenly opened up a whole new set of problems just when I thought I was very near the end.
A triumph all around. It has nearly everything that I love in a Thief mission and does it all very well.
I missed four secrets and left about 1200 loot (not surprising given the size and complexity of the environments; really looking at all possible nooks and crannies and climbing possibilities is essential), so I think I'll go back into this one again (maybe not start over, but re-explore).
Thanks so much for this mission, nicked. Great work!

[Vortex85]

Finished on Expert, thanks for the fun mission, nicked!

The underground area was huge and looked really cool! I felt relief getting back out to the streets again. I enjoyed exploring the different areas of the city too. I was surprised by the ending!

Really good job!

[fantazm]

Quite remarkable mission, very well thought layout of the City, superb atmosphere, trivia and side-plots from readables etc.

Personally, had no particular troubles other than engine limitations during climbing and jumping. Once I was randomly yeeted out from the window and splashed on the street below haha. Flying skulls were not a trouble for me, as I have aggresive and even combat-oriented playstyle, so I even did several of them for fun.

I have two questions though concerning some things encountered during this level.


1. In one of the rooms accessible through climbing, there are two holes in the wall through which one can hear wailing of the female zombie. Is this second room in any way accessible or it is there only to give ominous feeling that sometimes nasty is going on in this district?
2. In the pub there are two walls, likewise with some bricks missing. Through one of them a statue is "peeking" through the opening, through other (in the basement, near the secret entrance to the crypt) one sees flies, another statue and I think haunt can be heard. Again, are those only for the secretive feeling or can they be accessed?

I am looking forward to play your possible future creations. Cheers and have a nice one!

[nicked]

You are correct that those areas are for atmosphere only, and are not accessible.

[fantazm]

Thank you for quick answer! And once again, congratulations on creating this fantastic level. Besides, Catacombs of Knoss were also very fun and I admired an aesthetic tribute to Bonehoard (which remains one of my favourite levels). You have very good feeling of "level space", if you know what I mean. I cannot stress this enough, how well designed all of these FMs were in terms of progressing from one location to another and multitude of way one could enter some places and this is damn important, isn't it.

As for now, I will certainly sleep better knowing that I did not miss any other secrets. Surprisingly, the hardest one for me was the one above this spooky room for main actress. From the side of the fireplace I saw this little window overlooking this room but it still took me surprising amount of trouble finding access there and I almost skipped the lever. I was also temporarily out of rope arrows, as I neglected taking their back, thankfully it was possible to climb the half-closed door and jump in there without arrow.

Builder bless you!

[vfig]

is it just my pathologic-poisoned brain, or are all the readables in this mission written in iambic pentameter? for example:

Now as I write, their titles fade and blur, for what was written in them chilled my blood. The letters seemed to squirm upon each page as if their knowledge wasn’t meant to be, and I could feel them tugging at my mind and filling me with madness as I read.

or if i manually add line breaks:

Now as I write, their titles fade and blur,
for what was written in them chilled my blood.
The letters seemed to squirm upon each page
as if their knowledge wasn’t meant to be,
and I could feel them tugging at my mind
and filling me with madness as I read.

its far too consistent to feel like coincidence. and after all, since Legacy of Knoss is both the mission and the play within the mission—

its possible the mission is in fact the play itself, with Garrett as the star, performing in his role unwittingly? no, surely just my mind is playing tricks.

[nicked]

Well done, you are the first person to spot that.

[FenPhoenix]

Well done, you are the first person to spot that.

So I wasn't crazy thinking that clock guy's note sounded "almost like a poem but not quite"! Madness, I can't believe I never twigged for any of the others!

[vfig]

Well done, you are the first person to spot that.

i doubt i would have noticed anything if i had not been doing a lets play. as i was reading everything aloud, i noticed i was speaking with this rhythm…i thought it was coincidence at first, but then it simply kept on happening!

and yeah, FenPhoenix: it was watching you also playing through this mission that reminded me of this peculiarness. my videos are still some weeks away, so figured i should ask the question here.

im quite delighted its deliberate! a joyful detail, very nicely done.

[cavador_8]

I am noticing quite a bit of stutter with this mission. Like when running in open spaces, it stutters. I noticed this same issue with other missions from this author such as Behind Closed Doors, Death's Turbid Veil, Pirate's Downfall, and Violent End of Duncan Malveine. However, this author has created some missions that have no stutter issues at all such as Memoirs of a Dead God, Sturmdrang Peak, and Whispers in the Desert. I'm trying to figure out what creators are doing with certain missions that cause stuttering. Is it an excessive map size, custom textures, etc. There is no fix for this issue by the way with New Dark. I have tried every single possible cam setting, with or without mods, drivers, etc. It has to be something creators are doing differently with certain missions.

[downwinder]

cavador, on my old comp i got a lot of stutter when i seen some of the bushes/grass textures, it might be that or just the open space with so much to render slows down a comp, since i got a better comp all is good

[cavador_8]

I have an RTX3080 with 12GB VRAM, and i9 processor, and 32GB of system ram. It's not really the pc itself. The frame rate always remains a constant 60fps without ever dropping a frame. The sort of stutter I am talking about might not even bother most people. I am very perceptive to it though.

[jiansonz]

Fantastic mission, super enjoyable.

I need some help with the last objective, though. I don't understand what I need to do to trigger it. I do not know what a 'bolt hole' is and I do not understand which room is Tybalt's secret room. Maybe I haven't found it yet? I've been in several places in the sewers but that has not helped.

EDIT Found it! I was sort of right regarding my rhetorical question.

[Unkillable Cat]

After all this time has passed (and I've replayed this FM) I have a question for nicked:

Are you planning to continue the Knoss-story?

[nicked]

I have a couple of ideas, so maybe one day, but it's not something I'm currently working on.