How would you improve on thief?

Chade on 9/7/2013 at 21:48

I'm curious how everyone here would improve on thief 1-3 (while making a fictional thief 4) if given the chance? I was thinking about this last night because it's not at all obvious to me what I'd change.

Big conceptual improvements only ... let's assume all the incremental improvements are a done deal.

No expectation of turning a profit, unless you want to.

(NOTE: "while making a fictional thief 4" edited in after seeing Starker's post and realizing my sentence was totally misleading. Still, Starker's post is interesting, and if you have any big conceptual improvements to thief 1-3 as well, let's hear them.)

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One thing I'd like to try changing is that Garrett never really gets challenged in any way. Sure, he gets punished if he screws up. But ultimately, Garrett can only really score own goals. None of his opponents are capable of scoring goals for themselves.

Imagine, for instance, if Garrett dropping the eye off to Constantine had been a playable section. The player could easily have dropped the eye off without being noticed, attempted to steal the reward, found it wasn't there, and escaped without Constantine ever being the wiser.

So yeah, not entirely sure how I'd do it, but I'd like to introduce an enemy that is capable of actively seeking Garrett out while he's hiding and putting Garrett on the defensive for once.

Ideally, Garrett being hunted would become part of the story, and I would hope that you could make the story quite personal, with lots of in-game interactions between Garrett and his nemesis.

operativex on 9/7/2013 at 21:51

I wish that Ghosting would pay-off story wise. For example in T3, it would be nice if they gave you the opportunity to steal the Jacknall's Paw and Hammerites Chalice and have those two factions never know you stole it if you remained completely undetected for both missions. This is probably the main reason I gave up the Ghosting play style because it makes no difference in the end.

"Ideally, Garrett being hunted would become part of the story, and I would hope that you could make the story quite personal, with lots of in-game interactions between Garrett and his nemesis."

It should have been this way with the Enforcers, but they were implemented halfheartedly.

Starker on 9/7/2013 at 22:28

I would push the noir angle more. I think Garrett and the City provide a great opportunity for a good noir story. I'd put in more missions about infiltration and spying. I think Thief lends itself very well for these types of missions.

T2 scaled the supernatural elements back a bit too far for my taste. I'd put a level there to scare the players shitless. I'd also make Victoria more of a femme fatale. The biggest changes I'd make would be after Life of the Party.

T1 is kind of hard to touch without it falling apart. I'd get the story going sooner, I guess.

Chade on 9/7/2013 at 22:37

Sorry Starker, I meant big improvements while making some fictional thief 4. Edited OP to reflect that.

Still, big conceptual changes to thief 1-3 are interesting as well. I don't think I've seen anyone emphasize the noir side of thief quite as much as you do. Are you a big noir fan in general?

Vivian on 9/7/2013 at 22:46

It would be interesting to have more of an idea of the consequences of what you are doing. I mean, you steal from people, and not just steal from them, utterly clean out their houses of everything valuable. Some of them probably have enough other assets to recover, but some of them don't. As you progressed through the game, it would be a nice shades-of-grey feature to see, say, the lord of a manor you robbed at the beginning of the game living in a gutter later on. Or, more likely, his servants all out on the streets, now either redundant due to their masters bankruptcy or fired for assumed complicity with your actions or negligence in failing to stop you. Something to make you realise that you are being mostly immoral.

Starker on 9/7/2013 at 22:57

Quote Posted by Chade

Oh, then I guess I'd start a new character, as I consider Garrett's character arc pretty much finished. I'd still keep Garrett around, just not as the central or necessarily playable character, although missions that deal with old Garrett could be interesting. I'd take Garrett's newly adopted protege and make her do missions for Garrett in a new Keepers' organization. I'd make the new organization more about about careful balancing of the various powers in the city and less about employing magic solutions. Character-wise, she'd be just a chip off the old block, but there are interesting directions where you could go from that starting point. You don't see many female anti-heroes in games.

Yes, I'm a big fan of noir in general and genres that mesh well with it, such as cyberpunk.

Ghostly on 9/7/2013 at 23:33

I'll try my best to tangle my thoughts into readable manner, I would have shed more light to have partially expanded the cannon backstory of Karras to be more of an ex Hand Brotherhood mage of those who conducted dark, necromantic and extremely sick experiments, far beyond the mountains of Cragscleft away from humanity of The City, my vision would be that Karras would have gained something crucial from the base that later allowed him to make these servants through the abusings of the Order of Hammerites.

So not only would he have been an ex hammerite but someone far more twisted individual, this would have allowed a better integrated Thief 2 Gold edition, that would have included missions that lets Garrett and Viktoria brainstorm a means of contacting an old Hammerite priestess and through said priestess to finally unravel that you are actually dealing with not only someone who's charmismatic and manipulative but also very badly immoral necromancer individual that also betrayed his very own necromancer order and hammerites.

This would have allowed an actual reason for Garrett to pay a visit to the mystical castle compound in the snowy and craggy mountains with an integrated castle, this would really have allowed it to be more of a unraveling someones past to in order to be able to stop them in a more logical manner, to find out your dealing with the leader of the necromancer order and as Garrett would then be stealing a living object from the compound (something similar to the Eye) that would better allow Garrett to stop Karras and by thieving said object for Garrett to take with him to the Soulforge, would inheretly wake up the dead in the mountains, the unspeakable horror, would then from consequences of Garretts action be an imminent danger to The City, imagine hordes of mystical and would-be immortal creatures as a bi product from necromancers experiments, seek revenge onto The City, imagine this metropolis surrounded by this Cragscleft mountain where the hordes of horror dashes down from.

Conclusion, the snowy mountains acted as a graveyard where the Necromancers dumped the failed experiments, would have given Viktoria much better way of conducting a suicide mission to stop this undead force all at the same epic time as Garrett kills Karras with help of his stealth, with the object turning out to be the one and only unholy living entity of a dagger capable in killing Karras himself, before the rust gas is unleashed, since then Karras would of been the leader of necromancer order, now just disguised as mechanist leader that just wanted to kill off the universum for going into total madness.

In other words, I would have changed the very core story of Thief 2 gradually for something far more deeper, better and that much more epic and could have been used as a reference in Thief 4 because apparently there's this plague back in The City again, and the fictional habitants of City be against Baron for his lackluster of stopping the hordes from Thief 2 events in the first place, that something that should have been long forgotten is reawakening again in Thief 4 10 years after the events of Thief 2 and since Viktoria is dead there would be only one possible individual left to know how to deal with it competently, Garrett himself, all the while The City goes into turmoil from angry mobs going against Baron and turning metropolis into chaos, with this riot that have been breed for said 10 years.

I could very well envision a sequel instead of a reboot to the franchise with my own fictional Thief 4 all the while converting the outdated Thief engine 1:1 onto new even far better HD, technology, AI advancements and et cetera quality to really make it feel like ahead of its time of 2013.. :cheeky:

Springheel on 10/7/2013 at 00:18

I think I'd try to boost the "sim" element and make the stealth a little bit more realistic. Change the way sound works so that surfaces are more realistic--tile would actually be very easy to walk quietly on, but gravel or creaky wood would be quite hard. AI would have multiple traces hitting the player randomly, so that partial concealment behind objects increases your chances of hiding, even in light (allowing for reasonable daylight missions). AI behaviour would be more sophisticated--they would search in teams, move to protect important places when alerted, and notice when their environment was altered (notice a suspicious pile of crates, for example).

This would make things more difficult for the player, but this would force them to rely more on their tools. I've always thought using tools should be a big part of the game, but in Thief I find myself often not using them because they make things too easy.

Too balance out the added difficulty, I'd factor in light sensitivity, so that AI that just came out of a brightly lit room would take a few moments to adjust to darkness, and would be unable to see the player. The player would then be able to make plans based on where AI are looking (like intentionally tossing a distraction near a bright light, so the AI looks at it and is temporarily blinded), and make it so AI can't automatically tell the player's footsteps from some other guards.

Those are the areas I'd be putting "next gen" power into.

Azaran on 10/7/2013 at 08:59

Aside from having Stephen Russell, I would go in a more medieval direction for the overall theme like T1 (and 3 to a certain extent). Thief 4 looks 1920s -ish, which is dangerously close to the modern era for me; I prefer medieval. I can live without the classic factions as long as there's interesting ones, and there should be a presence of the old factions regardless, even if it's just hinted at. Also very important for me, there should be a good supernatural element, especially undead. An undead mission would be nice.

Quote Posted by Starker

T2 scaled the supernatural elements back a bit too far for my taste. I'd put a level there to scare the players shitless.

1000 times yes!

Flavia on 10/7/2013 at 09:25

Quote Posted by operativex

I wish that Ghosting would pay-off story wise.

I wish not :wot:
I mean, previous games made really good job allowing us to play however we wanted, not judging, not punishing (well, except for one abomination-of-a-mission, but let's not talk about it). It gave game fluidity and great replayability value, since every mission could be played in at least dozen ways. Favoring one playstyle - ghosting or any other - would destroy that and probably put half of current fanbase off.

Quote Posted by Chade

So yeah, not entirely sure how I'd do it, but I'd like to introduce an enemy that is capable of actively seeking Garrett out while he's hiding and putting Garrett on the defensive for once.

Ideally, Garrett being hunted would become part of the story, and I would hope that you could make the story quite personal, with lots of in-game interactions between Garrett and his nemesis.

Quote Posted by Starker

These are actually some great ideas.
I'd like to see Garrett meeting some sort of pioneer detective. That would give a game a totally new dynamic. Our thief would have to not only steal, but also make sure to not leave traces his opponent could use. Like not dropping important notes near the beginning of the mission. Wiping shoes before entering shiny clean mansion. Not dealing with wrong fence. Making sure his servant girlfriend, who let him inside the mansion, won't be suspected. And mess with investigation as much as he can. That would leave place for missions like spying, infiltration, maybe breaking intro a watch station to destroy evidence.
Then, depending on player's action Garrett would or would not get caught (and escape).
And at the end of the day the two would unite to fight some greater evil, because of course xD