faetal on 29/5/2012 at 10:20
Quote Posted by Papy
Can you explain what you mean with that? Because "planning" and "on-the-fly" doesn't really go together to me.
They are not mutually exclusive. Planning on the fly means that rather than sitting and watching patrol routes for 5 minutes and then deciding what to do, you plan in smaller intervals and have to adapt and change depending on the situation and its dynamics. As mentioned above, the "old" system is essentially just a puzzle, whereas making the detection agent behaviour more stochastic means that you can not execute a plan just by observing looped behaviour. You need to be more reflexively adaptive.
My guess is that by a combination of the blink mechanic and the vision cones of the guards, you might have more of a window to avoid detection if the guard's unpredictability catches you out in the open for a brief moment anyway. So I don't imagine it will be much harder. Still it is good that someone is trying something new, this is how progress is made. If nobody tries, nothing ever changes, so even if it sucks, devs know to try something else if they want to improve stealth.
Papy on 30/5/2012 at 04:26
Quote Posted by ThePhotoshop
The guards don't just 'turn around randomly'. Anything they do randomly is designed as an opportunity for the player
I'm not sure what you mean with that. Do you mean that stealth, in this game, is in part about waiting until something, which is not under the control of the player, distract the guards?
Quote Posted by faetal
the "old" system is essentially just a puzzle
From a system point of view, I agree Thief could be reduced to a puzzle. But from a player point of view, it couldn't. No mater how long you were willing to wait in order to gather information about the environment, you could never have enough to make the game "just a puzzle". As I said, unexpected situations happened with Thief. I had several "oh shit, it's time to flee" moment with Thief and I'm a very careful player.
I replayed Hacker II recently. This was one of the first stealth game and this one could more or less be qualified as a puzzle. With a lot of work, it was possible to have a perfect information about the system. The guard took exactly 2 seconds to do walk one square, he had a perfect 180 degrees vision, his patrol route was 150 squares, meaning the sequence restarted every 5 minutes. As for the two monitors, they both switch cameras every 2 seconds, the first one switch between cameras 1 to 30, meaning the sequence restarted every minute, and the second monitor switch between cameras 31 to 38. It was always the same order. The code for the safe was always the same, the order to switch off the alarm was always the same.
I made a map of Hacker II and, only by looking at it, it is possible to know exactly how to solve the puzzle. The only information you need while playing is the exact time and you have it displayed in the monitors. It also needs a bit of dexterity, but not that much.
But even then, I'm guessing few players made a map with all this information. I'm guessing most gathered only enough information to succeed and they adapted to the situation as they played. This means that even with this game, the stealth gameplay was not "just a puzzle" for most player.
As for Thief, it was simply not possible to have this kind of perfect information, even for the most patient player. So no, it was simply not "just a puzzle".
faetal on 30/5/2012 at 11:18
Ok then, allow me to re-phrase "just a puzzle" to "tantamount to a puzzle".
For all I know, that could still win out as the best system for sneaking, but if Dishonoured chances its arm and wins out, I'll consider anything closer to reality (and hopefully by extension, more immersive) which works to be an improvement. Sneaking as it stands is good and tense, but I too often find myself wondering things like:
"Why has he given up and gone back to his patrols? If I were his boss, I'd fire that prick."
"Why (as recently as DE:HR) does this guy not question why his partner is no longer doing his patrols and isn't questioning the machine pistol lying on the ground? If I were his boss, I'd fire that prick."
"Why does no one take breaks, or check out minor events (tin can falling over in an alley way etc..) while on their patrol routes? I hire people, not automatons. I'd fire those pricks."
I appreciate FULLY, that we are never going to have full realism and also that full realism may not actually be fun, but I'd hope for a game which gets the smoke and mirrors positioned well enough that you stop noticing these things. Thief actually got so much right that the mechanics have not moved on much from there, largely due to not having a great need to, but since sneaking is such a great mechanic, it would be a crime not to see if the envelope can't be pushed forward a little.
Thirith on 30/5/2012 at 12:08
@faetal: Good point about "smoke and mirrors" - it's more about hiding the seams than about realism. Introduce too much randomness and it's frustrating for the player; make the AIs too predictably mechanical (which is okay for mechanist bots, I guess...) and it feels fake and gamey.
To my mind, the existing Thief games did a pretty good job of getting the balance right - I have to admit I'm not a master thief, though, so my own mistakes definitely made things more credible. However, so many years later we can expect them to do better at the things that by now feel like Thief tropes, i.e. the "If I were his boss, I'd fire him"-isms.
Pyrian on 30/5/2012 at 16:19
Papy's confusing me again.
Are you against unexpected setbacks, a la your comments about guards randomly looking around?
Or are you for unexpected setbacks, a la your comments about Thief?
I mean, you went on this whole rant about how games should be deterministic so your setbacks are always your own fault rather than just happening unexpectedly, but when that's attacked as being "just a puzzle", you go on to argue that Thief is, if not random, at least chaotic beyond determination, which is functionally equivalent. Okay. So what's the problem?
Papy on 30/5/2012 at 16:58
You are confused because you assume that a lack of information about a system is equivalent to randomness. That's not the case. The result may be the same, both lead to something unexpected, but when I play a game I'm not only aware of the result, I'm also aware of what was the cause of that result.
I'm neither for or against the unexpected, but I'm against losing (or winning) because of a roll of dice.
faetal on 30/5/2012 at 17:05
I wasn't attacking it for being just a puzzle, more framing "stealth now" so it could juxtaposed against a hypothetical "stealth in future".
Yakoob on 30/5/2012 at 17:56
Papy, but isn't what you are saying basically contrary to the idea of "immersive" and "organic" games? And hence my point - if everything follows a clear and predictable (if you had all the info) pattern, it's more akin to a first-person puzzle game than a simulation.
I'm not attacking you, there's nothing wrong with prefering more "structured" games in this sense, just getting a feel for your viewpoint :) I do agree too random is damn annoying and neigh on unplayable. But I prefer some randomness in the mix; otherwise I always end up feeling like I am not making up my own solutions, but rather, figuring and retracing what the developers were thinking.
faetal on 30/5/2012 at 19:06
I liked that thing in NOLF2 where some of the AI had pseudo-radiant interaction with the environment. Even something like that to sling in some random variations would be good.
Pyrian on 30/5/2012 at 21:01
Quote Posted by Papy
You are confused because you assume that a lack of information about a system is equivalent to randomness. That's not the case.
Mmm. Computers don't actually have true random number generators. Technically, there is no randomness, only lack of information. Still, that's not really what you mean, either, I think:
Quote Posted by Papy
The result may be the same, both lead to something unexpected, but when I play a game I'm not only aware of the result, I'm also aware of what was the cause of that result.
Okay, but that's categorically different than your earlier argument. So, now I have to ask: Why do you care about that distinction? You've experienced a setback not entirely in your control and have to spontaneously deal with the change of circumstances. Maybe you didn't know the guy was going to turn around or maybe you didn't know another guy was around the corner. You think of one as being random and the other not, but that's basically just in your head, it's not a difference in gameplay.
It's probably a difference in
re-play. (Not necessarily, but in a typical implementation.) I.e., if you reload, the other guy will still be there, but the head turn might not. In this case, I'm actually on the side of randomness: on reload I have to face the same uncertainty that I faced the first time, whereas in the deterministic case I now "magically" know where the next challenge will be. (Of course, one could keep "rolling the dice" to eventually win by pure luck, but that's not my preference, so it doesn't bother me; I regard any reload as a profound failure, essentially cheating, and minimize it.)
Last but not least, I do hope we're exaggerating a bit. A guy suddenly turning completely around for no reason in his endless routine isn't really immersive, either. More realistic would be that the points where behavior is less predictable are, themselves, predictable. I.e., guards might look around when going around a corner or after stopping to look at/interact with something. That sort of thing keeps in the randomness while still leaving in the ability to avoid a random setback if you're careful.
I always come back to the fact that I played Bioshock without using Vita Chambers (I'd reload if I "died") and you (Papy) just
couldn't get yourself to play that way until they patched it so you could set that as an option. There's no difference there except in your head. And sometimes, Papy, I think what's going on in your head
completely unnecessarily is your biggest impediment to enjoying some things.
