- Anything that involves a forced combat or annyoing numbers of undead outpowering the player
- When there are almost no ambient sounds
- Pixel scouring keyhunts....boring.
- Excessive forced combat.....Thief is a stealth game not a hack and slash game.
- Obtuse or illogical puzzles....frustrating.
- Uncalled for gross or indecent readables, especially if describing violence towards or demeaning women....unnecessary and never adds to quality.
- Huge mainly vacate maps with few clues where to go....boring!
Originally Posted by Dark_Taffer
I agree: an empty room is nice to have for places to duck into, and/or put unconscious bodies in. In fact, I scope them out and remember them so I can sometimes carry a body back to one I've seen before, rather than hope the side of shadowed corridor will suffice.
I've already commented on the ladder thing: it's generally fixable, but some FM authors miss the fact that there is a "hidden" physical aspect about ladders and it just gets overlooked sometimes. It is annoying though, and I hope betatesters will help and point those issues out. A ladder that goes up a wall and then meets a ledge that's at a 90° right-angle to it however, is its own problem. Not so much fixable, but should just be redesigned as it doesn't make a lot of common sense in about 99% of the instances they're used in. Thank goodness for NewDark and NewMantle tho for those times when ladder issues aren't fixed properly.
I believe — but don't know for 100% certain — that this is another little "bug" that crops up from time to time. I just saw it recently in The Seven Sisters, and I'm sure it's cropped up in others as well.. Usually, a guard who has been previously alerted, somehow doesn't return to its original "low awareness" state and even though they visually appear to return to normal idle or normal patrol functions, they are actually still in a heightened awareness (vision & hearing) state. They look "normal" and behave accordingly, but there's something "stuck" behind the scenes and it's not really back to normal. I was able to reliably wait an increased amount of time, and the AI eventually did return to the low awareness state, but it took a good while. Meanwhile, if I didn't wait long enough, it didn't matter where the guard was, they could always see me if Garrett was illuminated above anything but near-total darkness, and the AI could be 60 units away (well outside normal range) and be looking in the complete opposite direction!! But nope, as soon as the light gem went past a couple of ticks up in brightness, immediate high alert for that guard again!
There are scripts now to help deal with this, all sorts of debugging and things that can give an idea of what's going on. Might be a conflicting metaprop, maybe something else... But, it shows up often enough to just be a normal "quirk" that we have to deal with from time to time.
I would also have to add:
Doors that open in the wrong direction. I'm not talking about ones that can be approached from either side in the regular course of a mission, but about ones that are usually locked and you're in one part of the mission and have to progress to the next part and the only way to continue is through a locked door.
With a key, it's not so bad. I pretty much unlock a door and automatically jump back out of the way. Sure, there are some instances (and quite frankly, many) that wouldn't make sense like a huge mansion with doors mounted on the outside... but still, typically doors open toward the inside of a building for practical purposes -- mainly that being that the hinges would be on the inside then, and that's safer to prevent people from just taking your hinges off your door, and even if it was locked, they could then gain access. So, an exterior door that opens to the outside just makes me cringe.
But with the lockpicks, it just gets frustrating to not know exactly when the door will unlock and then bonk you in the nose and require you to step back.. possibly having to frob the door closed just to get it unstuck from you.. then have to reopen it. Easy to solve: just reverse the door placement and have it open the other way. Simple fix. Too many times I've got a nice little niche hiding spot next to a door, I'm immersed in shadow, and then bam! door hits me in the nose and I have to now probably move out into the light and risk being seen, just to get inside. Thus, this same problem of having to step into the light occurs a lot of times with a keyed or lockpickable door.
Just don't do it.
Minor problem, I know, but it's still annoying.
When my brother and I started to play Thief in 1999, we were sometimes joking about Garrett being recognizable because of the imprint of a doorknob in his face.
Oh LOL. That's too funny. Never thought of that!!When my brother and I started to play Thief in 1999, we were sometimes joking about Garrett being recognizable because of the imprint of a doorknob in his face.
Out of curiosity, did you two have a similar explanation for why his shoes are so damn loud?
Levels with tons of keys and nothing that really opens with the lock picks... what the heck are they for, is he a master thief or not...
No. Nothing else truly matters with a giveaway doorknob face!
No, we actually never thought about this. Only when someone here on TTLG mentioned that the loud sound on floor tiles matches some shoes with hard bottoms, while walking on stone walls or streets rather fits some leather-made shoes, did I think about how these loud sounds could either fit the shoes Garrett wears, or be something he would accept at all.
But then I accepted it as game mechanics, and that was that.
About my dislikes in a mission: Having to run distances you usually would take a train for, and then having no shortcut for the way back, and still having to go back.
1. Intending to frob a door open, but ending up drinking my only health potion, or throwing a flash bomb.
2. Rooms full of foot lockers: All requiring lock picking. All empty.
3. Food without restorative power.
4. The impossibility of descending the rope arrow you came up on.
5. Irregularly shaped caves where you constantly get stuck in the textures and can't tell up from down.
6. Garrett's footwear choice for tiled rooms.
7. Loads more - but hey, I'm still playing it like you all are!
Things I like:
Finding a big hammer that always cheats the 'no kills' objective.
Hence why I am OCD about clearing my current inventory selection and have that bound to two different keys!!!
Just for you, all the hammers in mine will explode into a cacophony of noise and light and draw every guard in the vicinity and do NO damage!!!Things I like:
Finding a big hammer that always cheats the 'no kills' objective.
I only just recently found that this is a possibility!
Authors that know most of these gripes, but, do it anyway.
Oh, and the improper overuse of sound ambients that have noticeable hard limits. You know, the ones that just start up suddenly with no build-up, then you cross that threshhold and it suddenly stops again. It just breaks immersion for me to have this "soundtrack" in your head that just strangely starts and stops in specific places.
I doubt anyone just learns the sound schema implementation for Dromed; there's a process, and every explanation I've seen on how to do them specifically states how to avoid that issue. And if there are tutorials out there that don't, then they need to be fixed to include that info.
Since I like to ghost every mission, I hate it when there is no other option than fighting. There are two reasons for this. First, Garrett is not a good fighter with the sword (swings take too much time and it's almost impossible to deflect the enemys' blows with the sword). Second, I like to think about Thief as an "in real life" game (it might sound stupid), so if an enemy sees me I think he can give a description about me to the baronial police (as he would in real life) so I try to avoid any contact with NPCs unless they are friendly towards me.
Missions with OVERLY LOUD MUSIC SET TO KILL MY EARS. I'm looking at you Cardia!
also ambient elavator sounds that are too loud.
I have to disagree with this one.
Missions which contain excessive combat like Cardia´s old missions Mechanist Facility, Playground of Doom, Jon Dosio´s Compund, Temple of Death or Vadrigar´s Prison are superb missions and labeled as hack´n slash.
The same goes for Kill Factory II - Escape from the Planet of Robots.
I wish - if Cardia ever reads this - he would release another Mechanist Facility style mission, but much larger with much more NPCs and bosses.
In this mission, I love how the Mechanist bodies just explode after being hit by the custom explosive weapon.
All of these missions are pretty entertaining, I would recommend to play them.
Depends. Once you learn how the AI posture, it's doable. I want to avoid every fight as well.
However, my nephew once quickly dromeded a cube with no exit, put thirty guards in there, hopped into the game, and killed every last one of them. I still can't do it, but he's memorized all their movements and tells.
I've watched people beat the stuffing out of a couple of dozen guards at one time with the sword. I can maybe handle 2 in some FMs, but not many.. I'm assuming the ones I can't have had their movements enhanced somehow.
The secret trick is to circle them clockwise while slashing them with your sword. Just keep distance and try to hit them from the back.
I think of it fondly as the "circling strafe of death."
You make it sound so easy, but it's actually too hard for me. You need to hold run forward and strafe to run quickly enough to avoid enemies attacks. And you need to also keep turning, but not all the time. If it was simply holding turn button it would be easy, but you need turn sometimes more lightly and sometimes sharper. In other words you need to control your turning. You obviously need to attack. And you need to observe terrain to avoid walls, enemies and obstacles on ground. This is just way too many things to worry about. That's why my fights are usually hit enemy, back off and hit him again. Frustrating, but it requires less things to worry about.
Strafe is a modern standard behaviour for left-right buttons, all rotating is made with a mouse. I suppose you still use a Wolf3d/DooM-era input layout...
Good old "how to fight haunts" tactics
Actually standard guards don't even need this tactic, just a nice charge-hack-retreat tactic, and can be killed mostly without any damage. It's possible, but much harder/luck based with faster enemies like assassins or haunts to perform such maneuvers without getting some hp lost in the process.
Also weaker enemies (normal guards mostly) often get into a hit recovery animation when slashed with a power swing. It can happen but less often to other enemies too, giving a slight advantage in the fight.
when you can beat Killing of Timer, The by jis then you are good with thief sword :P
also the deathmatch fan missions are good to get the sword skills up
This one is completely emotional/sentimental but:
Missions where there clearly a secondary plot that Garrett/Protagonist can help with, but its there just for flavour.
Recently playing "Insurrection" by hipbreaker and theres even this voiced character that wants the zombie cure for his wife, he asks garrett for it too.
But hes there just for flavour... you cant help him in anyway, even after you have the zombie cure.
When a main objective is behind something that is tagged as a secret.
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