Hammers and Swords as hidable evidence ?

Mandrake on 27/3/2005 at 21:02

One thing that always bugged me in the game, was that knocking out a guard would cause his hammer or sword to fall noisily to the floor and stay there, so after hiding the body it would still be visible, but unpickupable.

Somehow though, the other Guards wouldn't notice a hammer lying there where their comrade was moments before :cheeky:

With the editor it should be possible to change this now. The changes that would be needed are:

1) Making a dropped hammer or sword a "pickable" object, so that it too can be picked up and hidden. Should be pretty easy, although it might involve editing the archetypes for the guards. (And saving the Gamesys ?)

2) Making AI's see the fallen hammer/sword as a cause for concern. Hard to know what level of concern they should have though. Should it be similar to a pool of blood or a light going out where they start walking around a bit but don't become alerted ? Or should they draw their weapon and start looking ? Not sure how to do this yet but it shouldn't be too hard to figure out.

Is anyone else already working along similar lines ?

OrbWeaver on 27/3/2005 at 21:22

I would prefer to change it so that the guards did not drop their hammers or swords when they were knocked out. Why would a sword fall out of its sheath of its own accord, just because the bearer was no longer conscious?

Mandrake on 27/3/2005 at 21:30

Quote Posted by OrbWeaver

Good point! I forgot about that. If the guard is unalerted and their sword is sheathed, or hammer on their back, when they're knocked out or killed it should stay connected to the body instead of falling off, and should also stay connected when you pick them up and carry them, so you can remove all evidence.

HOWEVER, if they're alert and using their weapon (eg holding it in their hand) and they are killed, the weapon should THEN fall from their hand to the ground, and need to be seperately picked up and hidden.

This encourages stealthy take down of a guard as if you take him down when alert not only do you make a lot of noise, but you have to hide his fallen weapon as well as the body, which might involve a second trip to a dark spot to hide the weapon.

Brilliant. Why didn't they do it like this originally ?

Seymour_Gibbs on 27/3/2005 at 21:52

Quote Posted by Mandrake

Brilliant. Why didn't they do it like this originally ?

Attention to detail overloads the XBox's mediocrity chip, don't you know?

Dark Arrow on 27/3/2005 at 22:06

It could also be that they wanted to create a game you can play through, instead of a polished, but unbeatable game.

Mandrake on 27/3/2005 at 22:35

Quote Posted by Dark Arrow

It could also be that they wanted to create a game you can play through, instead of a polished, but unbeatable game.

So the weapon staying attached to their body makes an "unbeatable game" does it ? :rolleyes: Or having to pick up and hide a sword if you killed an alert guard ? Yep, sounds real unbeatable to me :tsktsk:

The general consensus (and I'm in full agreement with it) is that the game is WAY too easy as it is now. I played the original two games on "Hard" (not expert) and found that a fairly good challenge, but TDS I played on Expert and found it far too easy...enjoyable, but ultimately not very challenging.

We have a chance to fix that in FM's, and more realistic things like Guards noticing their fallen comrades hammers and swords lying blatently on the ground in front of them is just one of many small tweaks I can think of which together would make a more interesting and challenging game...

And there is no reason that extra "difficulty" things like this couldn't just apply on higher difficulty settings, the scripting system is certainly powerful enough to make a "feature" like this only apply on hard or expert....

TDS didn't have enough differentiation of difficulty levels compared to the first two games, eg in terms of objectives etc, and once again that is easy to fix now in FM's using scripting. (Extra objectives, such as no kill and so on)

Bumbleson on 27/3/2005 at 23:06

So, can it actually be done? Torch guards have scripts that control when they should drop it, but weapons aren't linked the way torches and other items are. There seems to be no property or script command to control under which circumstances a guard drops a weapon or not.

hEKTOR on 27/3/2005 at 23:08

I was truely baffled by this sword drop and hammer dropping thing. It makes a noise but no AI hear, and it lies on the ground though nobody sees it, and you cant pick it up! Ok its not a game ruining bug but ... WTF! things like this really detracted from my thiefy experience. It would be great if it could be fixed somehow.

Mandrake on 28/3/2005 at 09:40

Quote Posted by Bumbleson

I'm sure I've seen the script for dropping weapons when dying, although I can't remember where exactly. I think the script might be attached directly to the weapon model and check the "death" status of the parent.

I'll see if I can figure it out anyway....I can't see why something like this would be hard coded....

Edit: maybe I was thinking about the torch guard after all.... :erg:

Dark Arrow on 28/3/2005 at 16:32

Quote Posted by Mandrake

No. I meant that the people in IS were probably thinking something along the lines of: "We got a week before the game ships. Should we concentrate our efforts in making the game playable by fixing the major bugs which may prevent playing the game from start to finish, or try polishing the game some more."

What I mean, is that they probably had more pressing concerns when making the game than trying to fix something that wasn't broken.