infinity on 18/5/2009 at 07:13
I think that a good blend would be nice. A mini-game that doesn't pause the immersion would be nice. I love the suspense of hearing a guard coming my way and struggling from one pick to the next just hoping it unlocks before the guard turns the corner. If they can manage to squeeze in a mini-game that doesn't ruin the immersion feeling I think it would be a nice balance. But a minigame that requires skill. In TDS you could just click around and pick any lock in 4 seconds. Another way not to go is Oblivions lockpicking route which was also poorly done (although it requires more skill than TDS).
Beleg Cúthalion on 18/5/2009 at 07:21
You still can hear guards in TDS while lockpicking, plus, even in real life picking a lock would be sort of a "minigame"; only because the term sounds so childish and is applied everywhere it doesn't mean that it's something bad. It's the required focus on the lock that makes this whole thing thrilling, the distraction is useful one might say.
This advanced lockpicking system in DromEd/TMA sounds cool, is there any FM example of it?
jay pettitt on 18/5/2009 at 08:21
Happily, one of the unintended side effects of (
http://www.ttlg.com/FORUMS/showthread.php?p=1041415#post1041415) hacking a couple more .ini files to make walk the default movement speed, rather than run, was to fugger up the keyboard input so lockpicking
had to be done with the mouse. But for sure the use of keyboard shortcuts and the HUD in the standard game made lockpicking an inconsequential, throw-away experience. Getting rid of the hand-holding turned what had become a naff system into one which was genuinely fun.
(I'm sure I remember a couple of locks late in the game (museum perhaps?) that had sweet spots off the 8 main direction points and that you
had to mouse.)
Lock picking certainly didn't pause the game, and, for me at least, didn't break immersion, at least not once the game was tweaked suitably, after which then I felt the immersionness considerably enhanced. The only real niggle was that mouse look was suspended while picking took place. Holding down CTRL to mouse look while picking was a bit rough, but I thought on balance that the picking was good. Oh, and I suppose getting 'sucked in' was a bit rough too. But I gotta say I much prefer picking with mouse - it feels much more fluid and touchy-feely than keyboard systems ala Splinter Cell.
There was quite a lengthy discussion on the DarkMod forums a long while back about possible picking systems and various pros and cons. The best compromise I could think of went something along the lines of:
Sucking the player in sucks. Picking could take place by frobbing locks specifically, not doors/lids generally (doors and lids would have to be more complicated and have regions that were frobbable or that behaved differently when frobbed). Because player is then already tightly focused on the lock there's less jarring sucking the player in before you get to see a coherent hands/lock interacting thing going on.
I think I remember thinking that it might be quite neat if you were engaged in pick mode while you held down the frob button. Releasing frob would release you and get you back to normal mouse looking and moving about mode. You could then return to the lock and resume from where you had left off.
There was some worry that mouse picking without a HUD could be endlessly frustrating for new players. Lock picking might therefore be automatic, time based and slow (a little like T1 & T2). Player could speed it up by interacting with the lock and finding sweet spots with the mouse ala Deadly Shadows.
DJ Riff on 18/5/2009 at 13:08
Quote:
The problem with TDS lockpicking is there were only 4 spots
There were 4-8-16 spots. The hardest ones (0-22.5°-45°-67.5°...337.5°) cannot be picked by keyboard, but there was only ONE such lock in the whole game (Fogerty's Jewelry AFAIR).
belboz on 18/5/2009 at 14:01
Lockpicking in real life you actually feel the pins not hear them, which is something you cant do in a game, for safes in real life you hear the cylinders unlock notch click and you write down or memories what number is on the dial at the click, in a lot of safes they made the click silent so it cant be heard anymore.
In thief 1 and 2 in the editor you would pick the number of pins, usally wasn't a good idea to have more than 4 pins, and the randomness of the pins, that controlled the jiggle, but you were still in game during the lockpicking, and usually the gameplay around a lock picked door was fiddled with until it was basically a split second before the guard came round the corner to see the thief that the door would actually open after being sucessfully lockpicked. Basically poo in the pants time.
In thief 3 from what I remember, I only played through it twice, I can't remeber any poo in the pants moments from lockpicking, all I remember is my blackjack didn't seam to want to work, and the roof in the museam floated above the walls.
Beleg Cúthalion on 18/5/2009 at 20:05
Picking locks in the Cradle could have some nasty surprises. :weird: Still, the concole version of TDS had force feedback for the sweet spots, well that's something.
The Magpie on 18/5/2009 at 22:14
The lockpicking game mechanic of T1 and T2 was subpar. If my memory doesn't betray me, I seem to remember a LGS person mentioning (either in an interview or on the old forums) that several more challenging lockpicking methods were considered during the design phases, but scrapped. Ithink it was for lack of time.
So where do we stand on alternative methods of lockpicking? I thought the Fallout 3 implementation was particularly satisfying, for instance.
--
Larris
Renault on 18/5/2009 at 22:23
Quote Posted by Beleg Cúthalion
This advanced lockpicking system in DromEd/TMA sounds cool, is there any FM example of it?
I used it in Through No Vault of My Own. The basic idea was, you could lockpick yourself into a dead end if you chose the wrong sequence of picks (3 available), and the only way to get back on track was to use the "reverse" lockpick to get out of the dead end and back to the correct path.
It is used in a few other FMs, just can't remember which ones at the moment.
Rinscewind on 19/5/2009 at 00:20
In TDS, the thing that I really despised was the animation that forced the player to dedicate about two seconds of time to being situated in front of the lock. The player lost control of the character and so it became difficult in the face of patrolling sentries to time things efficiently - no head movement to see just how far away the guard was, only the sound of footsteps.
When the picking was broke off before completion, there was a second (reverse?) animation that took just as long to undedicate the player from the lock picking process. That lack of control was the bigger thing about TDS that changed the game in a way I didn't like - no rope arrows being the other (the gloves I didn't mind but were far too generic, better maybe to have embedded claws and so climbing only wood and stone faces would seem logical).
In T1/2, complete control of the character when picking locks was essential when the level designer put pickables in troublesome places, such as with sentries patrolling past. Looking out of the corner of one's eye by turning the head so as to not stop picking is an indispensible thing to be able to do. Removing that freedom removes any skill a player has at sneaking during possibly important times.
Albert on 19/5/2009 at 01:04
This shouldn't be much of a debate, take the animation of DS and the freedom t1-2 and I'm game...