Decline Thiaf Pre-Release Thread

[Excommunicator]

Well, I don't see a big difference between humping the ledge to see if an invisible wall blocks your way or checking if it's climbable with a command.

Of course you don't because you're reducing them to small, insignificant instances that involve neither time nor interactivity as a meaningful measurement. Even though it's straying from the broader point, moving up to a ledge to test its interactivity is completely different to getting what is essentially a mapped layout of the room before you even explore it. Like I said, it isn't about what it means in isolation, but designers are the same as most people in that they are often clueless fools who don't understand how the final effect of minor mechanical changes is often more than the sum of those changes. You can't say "well this mechanic is insignificant by itself so there's no point complaining about it" and then ignore the broader effect it'll have on both the the way the designers construct the game world AND the way people play the game.

The "exploration factor" would come from having a reason to do so.

What are you saying, that exploration is only relevant when the reward is guaranteed? A guaranteed reward means not only that you will get it at the end, but that you need to know what the reward is before you look for it, as well as what is required to get there. That is the criteria for a guaranteed reward. Do you really think exploration is about that? Exploration is about the possibility of reward. This means the possibility of finding something you didn't expect (or want) and even the possibility of finding nothing at the end of your search.

A game like Thief is very much about "the more you put in the more you get out". It is this very principle that carries the entire lore of the game which you only get to see if you go searching for texts. If the game is going to prompt you for interactivity so that you don't actually need to use that part of your brain even at a low level then it's going to be stunted from the beginning and flawed from conception, no two ways about it.

I haven't played Fallout 3 so I can't comment but it sounds to me like you're trying to use a very simplistic example to explain how a theory can't be relevant. If in Fallout 3 all you do in the environment is search for miscellaneous items then that implies a very poor exploration system to begin with. If you are entering an area with preconceptions about the possibilities of interactivity then you are already a step behind in what "exploration" actually provides. Proper exploration requires there to be an element of uncertainty; "there could potentially be something here which doesn't fit my prior encounters of the game" which can be as simple as a switch that looks completely unfamiliar or an object you haven't seen before. Now I get that designers these days are trying to avoid or eliminate everything in games which relates to uncertainty in order to prevent potential frustration or confusion by half witted players, and that's a much bigger problem but this is a part of that ideology in action. The design process is flawed from the start and it flies in the face of what exploration is actually about.

 

[Lancehead]

Caius Cosades is something you find just by checking names on doors and moving on to the next if he doesn't live there.

Or you could just ask the guy at the bar and walk straight to his house, yeah. I still don't get your point. Having each person's name on the door didn't help the WHERES CAIUS people, so I don't see why highlighting each drawer that can be inspected would somehow help them.

One leans towards expectation of an active player while the other leans towards accommodation of a passive participant.

 

[Morgoth]

This abomination needs to die outright as soon as the new SE president takes over.

 

[MapMan]

This object highlight is a bad thing to do in ANY type of game. It actually takes A LOT from the experience. It takes away any logical thought, exploration and search for stuff. You just turn on highlight, no colorful stuff, move along. This been the case in ALL games that implemented such feature. Let me give you an example:

Recent point & click games have implemented that feature. I thought its not harmful, atleast I won't be pixel hunting! Right? Wrong. The whole game turns into a braindead click-thingy. You enter a screen, highlight stuff that's clickable, click on it until its no more, move onto the next screen. You don't need to think, you don't need to listen to tips/advices/dialogues, you don't need to search for anything. This makes any p&c game boring. I stopped using the highlight and game started to be much more enjoyable again. It's not the 90's anymore, pixel hunting doesn't occur that often.

Another example might be the latest Tomb Raper. You can highight everything that's usable. Again, this takes the whole search and exploration point away.

So while this doesn't sound like it has a lot of impact on a game, well, it actually does. And the impact is really negative.

 

[Dexter]

What are you saying, that exploration is only relevant when the reward is guaranteed? A guaranteed reward means not only that you will get it at the end, but that you need to know what the reward is before you look for it, as well as what is required to get there. That is the criteria for a guaranteed reward. Do you really think exploration is about that? Exploration is about the possibility of reward. This means the possibility of finding something you didn't expect (or want) and even the possibility of finding nothing at the end of your search.

A game like Thief is very much about "the more you put in the more you get out". It is this very principle that carries the entire lore of the game which you only get to see if you go searching for texts. If the game is going to prompt you for interactivity so that you don't actually need to use that part of your brain even at a low level then it's going to be stunted from the beginning and flawed from conception, no two ways about it.

I think what he's saying is that running around blindly from possible lootable container to container picking up everything that you can open by pressing "E" and by further pressing "E", often without even looking inside the containers cause you couldn't be fucked to and just stuffing everything in your mouth or pockets by just using the "Loot All"-Option on everything like in most Bethestard games or Bioshock: Infinite is rather shit gameplay.

Pixel Hunting an image for interactable objects often is too and was one of the most frustrating things in Adventures when you basically knew what you had to do but probably missed an item a dozen screens back because the interactable field was only 2x2 pixels wide, especially if the items didn't stand out from the background. That's why most new incarnations have some sort of Optional hotspot/highlight bound to a button. It's not like this is a new thing either, most of the Infinity Engine games had a highlight functionality for containers and other shit and they weren't the first games to have that feature either. I remember having the problem in Drakensang that I missed some relevant item, since the game didn't have the feature and I had to read up on it and go back to search the entire grounds around where I remembered having fought the enemies to find a few pixels wide 3D object and I remember it being annoying as hell. I'm also happy that it'll be a feature in Project: Eternity and the new Torment too, since it isn't as much about how complicated the game or its systems are, but how hard it is for a player to interface with it through a monitor and often fucked up camera system. There could and should still be secrets and other things that don't show up on "highlight", but it's usually a good feature to have in games with hundreds of containers and loot-drops and it's often also entirely optional.

Recent point & click games have implemented that feature. I thought its not harmful, atleast I won't be pixel hunting! Right? Wrong. The whole game turns into a braindead click-thingy. You enter a screen, highlight stuff that's clickable, click on it until its no more, move onto the next screen. You don't need to think, you don't need to listen to tips/advices/dialogues, you don't need to search for anything. This makes any p&c game boring. I stopped using the highlight and game started to be much more enjoyable again. It's not the 90's anymore, pixel hunting doesn't occur that often.

So the "thinking" part of Adventure games isn't in actually solving the puzzles, combining items together and getting an idea how to accomplish given tasks, but in searching the screen with your mouse for interactable objects and hoping you didn't miss anything because it was too small?

 

[Lancehead]

Not sure why pixel hunting is in this discussion. Pixel hunting can be frustrating because it can get tedious. Focus highlighting is straight out of button-awesome design philosophy.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

This screenshot...

Isn't that just highlighting which parts of the scenery can be interacted with? Clicking until you find something you can open / pick up doesn't require a lot of intelligence or effort either.

What if you have limited time to work with, because someone is going to enter the room within 30 seconds? What if there's a safe behind the painting? What if there's a switch opening a secret passage under the desk? Makes no difference whatsoever, right?

Searching the environment efficiently while being stealthy is what thievery is all about. The whole point of Thief's higher difficulty levels was forcing the player to explore more thoroughly, and you're fine with removing all that because herp.

 

[Infinitron]

The original Thief games used a type of art design that made it clear which items were treasure, which were mere items, and which were just scenery. You still had to pay attention, but you didn't have to do any "pixel" hunting either.

 

[Dexter]

Searching the environment efficiently while being stealthy is what thievery is all about. The whole point of Thief's higher difficulty levels was forcing the player to explore more thoroughly, and you're fine with removing all that because herp.

In 3D games where the objects aren't either a) few enough not to be an issue or b) sufficiently emphasized on their own to be distinguishable it often leads to degenerate gameplay where you are systematically combing a place clean by running through it, turning around and aiming at anything that looks remotely interact able and double-tapping "E" to pick up anything while trying not to miss a single angle or corner, for instance in Fallout 3 or Bioshock: Infinite, the difference there being that it's the "F"-key:



It's very "gamey" to boot, since nobody would react that way in reality and isn't much fun if you think about it.

 

[Infinitron]

In 3D games where the objects aren't either a) few enough not to be an issue or b) sufficiently emphasized on their own to be noticeable

Otherwise known as "poorly designed 3D games"

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Searching the environment efficiently while being stealthy is what thievery is all about. The whole point of Thief's higher difficulty levels was forcing the player to explore more thoroughly, and you're fine with removing all that because herp.

In 3D games where the objects aren't either a) few enough not to be an issue or b) sufficiently emphasized on their own to be noticeable it often leads to degenerate gameplay where you are systematically combing a place clean by running through it, turning around and aiming at anything that looks remotely interact able and double-tapping "E" to pick up anything while trying not to miss a single angle or corner, for instance in Fallout 3 or Bioshock: Infinite, the difference there being that it's the "F"-key:



It's very "gamey" to boot, since nobody would react that way in reality and isn't much fun if you think about it.

That's like saying quest compasses are awesome because nobody gives you sufficient directions to find places on your own in Skyrim. Games being poorly designed doesn't mean that features which lessen the impact of the bad design are good in and out of themselves.

 

[MetalCraze]

Or you could just ask the guy at the bar and walk straight to his house, yeah. I still don't get your point. Having each person's name on the door didn't help the WHERES CAIUS people, so I don't see why highlighting each drawer that can be inspected would somehow help them.

The Caius Cosades door wasn't highlighted and that was the problem. Thankfully in Oblivion Bethesda fixed this shortcoming of the series.

Do you expect people to know they can put out candles without marking said candles in blue? Bro retards need a huge text in the middle of the screen telling them "PRESS X TO PERFORM TAKEDOWN" instead of, you know, just coming close to a dude and stabbing him?

Do you expect the target audience to play the game on their own or repeat after the designer's script telling them what to do?
Guess which one of these two made AssCreed, many devs of which work on Thiaf, popular?

If they can't perform a task as simple as checking names on doors in Morrowind, they sure as hell will never be able to figure out that you rob people by taking their stuff.

 

[Diablo169]

I sincerely hope this becomes vaporware.

 

[tuluse]

The original Thief games used a type of art design that made it clear which items were treasure, which were mere items, and which were just scenery. You still had to pay attention, but you didn't have to do any "pixel" hunting either.

I picked up a lot of vases and other things that looked like they might be valuable but weren't.

 

[JarlFrank]

The original Thief games used a type of art design that made it clear which items were treasure, which were mere items, and which were just scenery. You still had to pay attention, but you didn't have to do any "pixel" hunting either.

I picked up a lot of vases and other things that looked like they might be valuable but weren't.

But you learn what's valuable and what's not after a while of playing.

 

[deuxhero]

Recent point & click games have implemented that feature. I thought its not harmful, atleast I won't be pixel hunting! Right? Wrong. The whole game turns into a braindead click-thingy. You enter a screen, highlight stuff that's clickable, click on it until its no more, move onto the next screen. You don't need to think, you don't need to listen to tips/advices/dialogues, you don't need to search for anything. This makes any p&c game boring. I stopped using the highlight and game started to be much more enjoyable again. It's not the 90's anymore, pixel hunting doesn't occur that often.

The best way to avoid making that feel frustrating has always been to have the non-critical items always get well written flavor text/conversations (Ace Attorney is pretty good at this)

 

[MetalCraze]

I picked up a lot of vases and other things that looked like they might be valuable but weren't.

You mean you had to actually check items to know if they are valuable? Fuck that I want them marked in blue.

 

[Tigranes]

The very first room in Thief 2, for instance, teaches you that some things are loot and others are decoration. By the time that level is over, you have a pretty intuitive understanding. Sure you had to pick up a few duds then watch them fly across the room when you dropped them, but you didn't do that all game unless you were a retard.

Wait, I guess this means any valuables people are carrying will also be marked in blue. Maybe they can have floating tooltips over each person's head saying "$75", and a ka-ching sound when you walk up to them and press X to simultaneously blackjack and rob them.

The awesome button has been imported into Thiaf!

 

[Clockwork Knight]

The Caius Cosades door wasn't highlighted and that was the problem. Thankfully in Oblivion Bethesda fixed this shortcoming of the series.
Do you expect the target audience to play the game on their own or repeat after the designer's script telling them what to do?
Guess which one of these two made AssCreed, many devs of which work on Thiaf, popular?
If they can't perform a task as simple as checking names on doors in Morrowind, they sure as hell will never be able to figure out that you rob people by taking their stuff.

Caius' door isn't highlighted, but by that point the player know these doors can be interacted with (you have to go past a series of doors to even get out of the Census Office). The problem is that people who couldn't find Caius didn't even make it to Balmora. Once you get there, you can just open each door until they find him.

What if you have limited time to work with, because someone is going to enter the room within 30 seconds? What if there's a safe behind the painting? What if there's a switch opening a secret passage under the desk? Makes no difference whatsoever, right? Searching the environment efficiently while being stealthy is what thievery is all about. The whole point of Thief's higher difficulty levels was forcing the player to explore more thoroughly, and you're fine with removing all that because herp.

Highlighting the containers / doors that aren't scenery pieces won't help if you can't get to the room / Balmora. The safe behind the painting and the switch under the desk wouldn't show up highlighted because the objects would be covering them. If you have limited time before a guy walks in, hgihlighted containers won't help if the time limit is strict enough that you can't check everything at your leisure. Etc. I don't see anything worthwhile being removed, just hovering over objects.

The "exploration factor" would come from having a reason to do so.

What are you saying, that exploration is only relevant when the reward is guaranteed? A guaranteed reward means not only that you will get it at the end, but that you need to know what the reward is before you look for it, as well as what is required to get there. That is the criteria for a guaranteed reward. Do you really think exploration is about that? Exploration is about the possibility of reward. This means the possibility of finding something you didn't expect (or want) and even the possibility of finding nothing at the end of your search.

No, I meant it as in what's really being added to the game if I have to jump against the ledge to see if it's "real", instead of checking it with a command? The ledge that can't be climbed still can't be climbed. I don't see much difference between both cases, which is why I don't get the

reaction. It seems like a reaction against a concept ( see Tigranes' post - "Awesome button! The valuables will be highlighted too! Press X to blackjack! ") instead of actual gameplay changes.

 

[Azazel]

Instituting a binary ledge climbing system is the anti-thesis of exploration. Instead of having a wall that is too tall to mantle until I pile some crates up against it, I now just have a wall that I cannot climb at all. It's bullshit, this kind of level design is taking us back to a really fancy version of DOOM.

Fuck, even DOOM had more freedom than what you are suggesting.

 

[FeelTheRads]

No, I meant it as in what's really being added to the game if I have to jump against the ledge to see if it's "real", instead of checking it with a command?

The question is actually what is being added to the game if you get highlights?

Maybe you can tell? I can't. I can see what it removes, though. It removes any sense of exploration. If removes pretty much any possibility of missing something that could be found in another playthrough and as a consequence it kills replayability.

Meh, I don't even know why I bother. The Codex today argues like the every other AAA publisher and popamole website out there. Let's remove everything cuz "it's not important".

It's like that thing this guy was talking about:

"I can't overstate how completely evil complexity is, especially in a sandbox game,"
"Constantly ask yourself: What can I remove from the game?"

I'm sure he meant things that aren't important and/or don't add anything to the game, though. Definitely.

 

[MetalCraze]

The problem is that people who couldn't find Caius didn't even make it to Balmora.

They did. The first quest specifically says go to Balmora. Why else all the "I can't find Caius Cosades in Balmora" whining?

You give players too much credit. I have no doubts now that many are just too stupid. I can see how it really is now.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Instituting a binary ledge climbing system is the anti-thesis of exploration. Instead of having a wall that is too tall to mantle until I pile some crates up against it, I now just have a wall that I cannot climb at all. It's bullshit, this kind of level design is taking us back to a really fancy version of DOOM.

Fuck, even DOOM had more freedom than what you are suggesting.

That's beside the point, I don't like impassable ledges either. But the gameworld has to stop at one point.

The problem is that people who couldn't find Caius didn't even make it to Balmora.

They did. The first quest specifically says go to Balmora. Why else all the "I can't find Caius Cosades in Balmora" whining?

You give players too much credit. I have no doubts now that many are just too stupid. I can see how it really is now.

The quest says "Go to Balmora" but I think it's a matter of people just sprinting in random directions as soon as they are out of the Office, because they didn't pay attention to the dialogue telling them how to get there.

Meh, I don't even know why I bother. The Codex today argues like the every other AAA publisher and popamole website out there.

A masochistic need to stay around people you hate, I imagine. Try doing stuff you like, I hear it's pretty rad

 

[felipepepe]

Not only many players are stupid, but also lazy. I remenber the whole drama of quest compass in WoW....in ye old days quests would just say "Look for X between the two northen mountains", and while it was oviously clear if you spend like 2 minutes looking, people would still download that "Quest Helper" add-on like mad, that not only showed the quest locations on the mini-map, but also added a huge arrow for you to follow:

Blizzard just saw that a massive part of their audience was using it and decided to implment them officialy in-game. It was not the case of a evil publisher/developer deciding to dumbdown things, but ratrher the players demanding dumbing down from the developer.

 

[FeelTheRads]

A masochistic need to stay around people you hate, I imagine. Try doing stuff you like, I hear it's pretty rad

Very clever way of saying "you have no life you suck lol". You just won internet argument, bro.