vfig on 9/6/2020 at 17:29
I have a concept for my upcoming fm that relates to the compass (sorry, not ready to reveal it yet), and it'd be useful to get an idea of how it's likely to affect players before I start building it. To that end, one question:
How much do you use the compass in Thief?
fortuni on 9/6/2020 at 18:10
When playing I hardly ever use my compass but they are almost essential for accurate lootlists and walkthroughs, so please all authors carry on including compasses in your missions. :thumb:
Corsair on 9/6/2020 at 18:53
Rarely, but it is used if there are readables or goals that state you need to go a certain cardinal direction to reach a goal or find an item.
Stefan_Key on 9/6/2020 at 21:56
Rarely and for the same reasons mentioned above.
But I don't mind if there's one. Garrett's gear is always sparse.
Starker on 10/6/2020 at 00:13
Always for big/outdoor/city levels. Almost never for short/indoor levels.
I think with big/outdoor maps it's easier to make a mental note that a building or a place was in the southwest corner of the map and with shorter/indoor levels it's easier to remember the route you took to get somewhere (go up the stairs, follow the corridor, turn left, etc).
howeird on 10/6/2020 at 01:47
- A map with a red dot of Garrett's current location would be nice.
- Compass is often times pointless with no map
- Replacing the compass with a gps is the way to go. PokeGarrettGo....weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee !!!! :D
klatremus on 10/6/2020 at 03:04
I check the compass many times per mission, especially for new ones. Less if i know the mission well.
FenPhoenix on 10/6/2020 at 03:57
I use the compass as a "meta" tool constantly.
Its main uses in this direction are as follows:
* It provides a way to instantly deselect a lockpick.
Imagine I'm unlocking a chest. I switch to my lockpick (F4 or F5). After I'm done lockpicking, I need to switch off my lockpick or the chest won't open. I have a few options to be able to open the chest:
* I could use the mousewheel to scroll to another inventory item. However, there's some problems with this:
* If this inventory item happens to be a key, then it will just try to use the key on the chest and fail.
* There are almost always TWO lockpicks in a given FM, and the lock might end on either one. I would then have to remember to scroll in the direction AWAY from the second pick, which will be different for each pick. If I scroll off one pick and onto another, then I have the same problem as if I scrolled onto a key: frobbing the chest will simply try to use the other pick and fail.
* If it's a very small thing you're unlocking (a cashbox, say), then if your next item happens to be a consumable AND you happen to move the mouse just slightly while moving the scroll wheel, then you might accidentally de-highlight the box and end up using your consumable instead.
* That's not even to mention if you're using a mouse with an imperfect scroll wheel where it might scroll back one notch on you even though it didn't physically and all that junk, but even ignoring that, the above points are enough to make it an annoying option.
* I could hit the "clear inventory" key. However, if you hit that key while a lockpick is in the middle of the screen, it will merely make the pick slide back to the corner of the screen. You have to hit the key AGAIN to make it actually disappear. So every time I want to simply open a chest, I have to hit the "clear inventory" key twice. Alternatively, I could release the right mouse button, wait for the pick to slide all the way back to the corner, then hit the "clear inventory" key once. That's even more annoying, because while if you simply look at the lockpick movement animation it may not look like a big deal, in the course of normal gameplay it feels like agency has been ripped from you for what feels like an eternity, and you feel like Fumbling Jack The Clumsiest Bumbler In The World. Super annoying.
* I could try to hit the shortcut key of another item. But that item might very well not be in my inventory (or indeed not even exist in the mission), and besides the compass there's no one item that you can ever just trust to nearly always be there. Well, other than perhaps the lockpicks, but those are exactly the items that don't help us. Also, the item shortcut keys are likely to require a long hand movement to get to them, because they can't all be right next to the lockpick keys.
* I could hit the compass key (bound to both F6 and C for me). My lockpick is INSTANTLY deselected - no waiting for it to slide to the corner and no having to hit the key twice - and I open the chest. Bam. Done.
* It provides a way to instantly reset to a known point in the inventory.
I can memorize that keys, for example, are "three notches from the compass" to get to them quickly. Maybe I could use another item (lockpicks for example) as that base, but some FMs don't have those or give them to you later, and there's not really any other item that's as reliably present most of the time as the compass. Note that the "clear inventory" key only clears your selection, but does NOT move you back to the start of your inventory. You're still wherever you were. So when you next select an item, it's just whatever was next from the point you were, which is basically never useful because you will have forgotten where you were by that time anyway.
Another thing the compass key can do is to let you make sure you always have an inert item selected when you go to try to pick up a bunch of consumables, because whenever you pick one up it gets selected and if you don't deselect it before trying to pick up another, your frob might de-highlight and then you'd use your current consumable instead of picking up the new one. However, for this case, the "clear inventory" key works just as well (requires only one press), so this one is really neither here nor there in terms of the argument, but thought I'd mention it.
The above reasons are why I always bleat on and on about how missions should just give me the damn compass. But having said all the above, if there's an interesting gameplay purpose for refraining from giving the compass, then I'm willing to accept the tradeoff. But if it's just "well you shouldn't need directions and it doesn't do anything beyond that", I would implore authors to consider its usefulness as a meta tool. To me at least, it's nigh indispensable in that role.
prengle on 10/6/2020 at 06:19
it's been a while since i even opened thief 1 or 2 but i honestly forgot that either game even had a compass in the goddamn inventory before i saw this thread.
Taylor on 10/6/2020 at 11:27
I use the compass exactly the same way as FenPhoenix said, to clear my inventory.
I rarely use it as compass, because most missions can be easily navigated without using a compass and/or do not contain anything related to directions.
It's mostly when something is hinted with a direction (or even requires the compass to navigation) where it gets into real use.
I think if it's told you need to use your compass, or at least it can be guessed (without being a genius or possessing thought reading abilities) it's completely fine and a good idea. As far as I recall, a few missions require you to navigate yourself with your compass in a certain area.