WileECoyote383 on 17/4/2016 at 23:39
Hello all! I decided to attempt Supreme Ghost on Lord Bafford's Manor today, and I did a writeup on my methods for completing the level, as well as my thoughts on Supreme Ghost as a playstyle. In case you're not familiar, Ghosting is a set of rules for playing Thief missions invented by some folks on the Eidos forums where the main goal is to complete the level completely undetected, and Supreme Ghost is the most strict, difficult version of that playstyle. You can read the rules here: (
http://forums.eidosgames.com/showthread.php?t=30310) Enjoy!
OM T1 Lord Bafford’s Manor
Ghost: Success!
Perfect Ghost: Failed! (skipped 100 loot in the cave with the spiders, missed a pickpocket on one of the 2nd floor patrollers)
Supreme: Failed! (had to nudge the basement guard who stands in place to get past, which is an engine exploit, but other than that no 1st alerts or other rules violated).
Perfect Supreme: Failed!
I’ve always been a huge fan of the Ghost playstyle, but up until now I’d never dreamed of attempting Supreme Ghost. It always seemed way too difficult to bother with, and the finicky crate fiddling to get past spiders and the like always turned me off. However, I was in a daring mood today, so I decided to go for it, and what better mission to start with than Lord Bafford’s Manor? This wasn’t my first experience with Thief, since I played Thief 2 first, but it still feels nostalgic to me. Since this level would be mostly easy but with a few tricky/finicky bits, I thought it’d be a good way to gauge how much I’d enjoy Supreme Ghosting other missions. To make things more interesting, I also decided to play with Northon’s Ultimate Difficulty Mod installed, which increases A.I. perceptiveness and movement speed, among other things (you can download it here if you wish: (
http://www.moddb.com/games/thief-the-dark-project/downloads/ultimate-difficulty-mod-for-thief-1gold)). These are Bafford’s guards we’re talking about, so they’re still pretty incompetent, but it at least forces you to be a bit more cautious and patient. Without further ado, let’s jump right in!
I started up the mission, making no purchases. I was anxious to get started, so I chose to skip the briefing and the bear pits conversation, despite how much I love them. I navigated around the south side of the castle and hopped into the sewers, grabbed the well-hidden tiara in the water, and here’s where I hit the first tricky bit. There was a gate that I needed to open to progress, but in order to comply with Supreme rules, I needed to close the gate and the door leading to the room with the switch. The only way to do this was to hit the lever and make a mad dash, closing the door and ducking under the gate before it finished closing. This took a few tries, but I eventually managed to get it. Already I’m feeling both the frustration of having to make really awkward and precise movements just to do something completely pointless like close a door, and also the satisfaction of finally executing it correctly.
I exited the sewer, hid behind the building to avoid the notice of the patrolling guard, nabbed the key off the drunken guard, and used the famous technique of locking a door and standing in front of it so it doesn’t fully close to be able to return the guard’s key, get inside the well house, and relock the door at the same time. Whether this counts as an engine exploit I don’t know, but I’ve never seen it reported as such, so I won’t consider it a bust. I hopped into the well and took a swim. The next bit was the bit I was dreading most. There was a cave with 4 small spiders and a chest with a ring in it. There was no way of getting that ring without the spiders seeing me using conventional methods. I, however, knew of an unconventional method that would allow me to get the ring. By stacking two boxes from the nearby basement in a certain location and jumping on top of them, I could exploit the vertical limit of the spider’s alertness circle and grab the loot undetected. I could, but I didn’t. I quickly realized after hauling the first box into the cavern and trying to slip back into the water to get the second one that this was a more lengthy and tedious task than I had the patience for. I am a fan of many aspects of supreme ghost, but spending 20 minutes fiddling with crates just to get past some spiders that can’t report my presence to anybody is not one of them. I took the crate back to where I found it and proceeded with the level as normal, accepting that Perfect Thief would not be achieved.
The next problem came with the two guards in the basement. There was only one way out of the basement, and one of the guards was blocking it with his back turned. The only way I could get past was by nudging him out of the way, which is an engine exploit and busted supreme. I know the point of supreme ghost is that it’s not always achievable and is merely a way to increase the difficulty of playing the mission, but considering how I obeyed the rules perfectly in every other aspect, it was frustrating to be unable to claim success for Supreme just because of this one section. Oh well, moving on. After nudging him out of the way, I hugged the wall to avoid detection, and snuck up the stairs and through the servant’s quarters to the kitchen, picking up a stack of coins and a gold vase along the way.
After navigating through a couple of empty storage rooms I found myself in the mansion proper. I know this place so well it feels like a second home to me. The orange carpets, the yellow brick walls, the ornate tile floors and the weird Medieval-style paintings are all so familiar to me. I may not be welcome here, but it still feels like home. I cleaned the place out and had very little difficulty doing so, with only the odd patroller requiring that I be a bit patient and wait for him to pass. One of the things I like the most about Supreme Ghost is how much more precise your movements have to be. You can often get away with a lot in vanilla Thief, and eventually it can just become a game about pushing the AI as far as they’ll go without actually hunting for you, which isn’t particularly tense or immersive. In Supreme, on the other hand, you have to be disciplined and patient, which forces you to slow down and take the level and the world of Thief seriously, which makes for a far more satisfying experience.
Once I cleaned out the first floor, it was time to move to the second. I navigated the hallways, snuck past the patrollers, grabbed the ring from the living room and found myself in the tiled area of the second floor, easily the hardest bit of the level. The one advantage to using the Ultimate Difficulty mod over vanilla Thief is that you can creep-crouch on tile floors without making any noise if you’re moving as slow as possible, which eliminates the need to tediously press and release the walk button over and over like you had to do before, though the latter method is faster if you’re good at it. I cleaned out the dining room and Bafford’s bedroom, snuck my way into the secret room just in the nick of time, and picked a key to the Throne room off one of the patrollers. I could have picked the other key, but I just wasn’t bothered, and now I’m kind of regretting it, because if I had I would have gotten every pickpocket. My OCD is displeased.
The next part was the throne room, and since I knew it was the toughest bit of the level I was both anticipating and dreading it. Without the ability to extinguish torches there was a lot less room for error when sneaking past the stationary guard. Luckily, I came in at a good time and he turned around fairly quickly, allowing me to sneak in with far more ease than I expected. I listened to Garrett’s snarky comment (one of my favorites) and nabbed the scepter. Now all that was left to do was grab any loot I missed and get out. I pickpocketed the guard and dropped his key on the carpet, then snuck out the throne room with slightly more difficulty than I had coming in, but still not much trouble. I returned the throne room key from the patroller, exiting through the library and grabbing the tiara on the way. There was only one challenge left, and that was the guard barracks, which was a simple matter of listening to determine where the patroller was and running past when he was looking away, then doing the same on the way down. With my objectives complete and every piece of loot I was able to acquire in my pockets, I headed downstairs via the tower and exited out the gate, closing it behind me with significantly less trouble than the one in the sewer. Mission complete!
Overall, I’m conflicted about Supreme Ghost as a playstyle. I love the idea of returning keys, closing doors, and leaving everything as it was when you found it. I have found myself doing this occasionally even when playing normally, and I find it to be a very fun form of roleplay. I also love having to be more careful about my movements, instead of just rushing through as fast as possible while being just careful enough that the guards don’t start hunting for me. Being unable to use consumables like water and moss arrows can create some frustration, but it also forces you to think about the level differently and find alternate solutions to problems that were previously easy to solve, which is very enjoyable. On the other hand, the finicky nature of some things you are required to do in order to obey the rules, like closing the gate in the sewers and stacking crates to manipulate spider AI, are simply not fun and break my immersion in the game world. The backtracking required to return certain keys and crates to the place they were before can also be quite tedious. Overall, I don’t think Supreme Ghost is for me, but I will certainly integrate aspects of it into my normal Ghost runs from time to time, and I think it’s something that every hardcore Thief fan should try at least once, just to see what it’s like. Just remember to quicksave frequently!
Thinking Robot on 21/4/2016 at 20:27
A great and well written report, it was informative and fun to read.
This report gave me a good opportunity for replaying baffords manor. :thumb:
I don´t know, how the difficulty mod affects the gameplay, the default AI of the Bafford Guards is pretty bad:
I managed to quickly run past the guards in the basement, without getting noticed by the guard. Just after the conversation ends, the mentioned guard will walk through a dark spot, wich is a good opportunity to run past the guard.
I assume, these guards will become as aggressive as haunts. Maybe I should try this mod. :cheeky:
I wonder how to ghost trough the next mission(s). In example, sneaking around the zombies in the Cragscleft Mines was hard, but possible. But there are two impossible spots for me to ghost (trying the mentioned rules):
1) On expert difficulty, a priest is guarding the entrance to the barracks from Cell Block 1, a torch is extinguishable. Even with the torch extinguished, this priest ever got alerted by my way to return from the stairs.
2) How to steal this golden hammer stealthy under the view of a priest and a novice (still in the barracks)? Frustrating. :mad:
Maybe you will find a solution for these problems. Go on! :D
TheDuriel on 21/4/2016 at 21:32
the priest is impossible without at least a first alert halfway up the stairs.
the hammer... again impossible without first alert... and depending on what changes were made to the maps... might take you about 6-12 hours of waiting, at which point he bugs out and turns his back to you. some versions have it fixed... but i have no idea if tfix comes with that
have fun :D
WileECoyote383 on 30/4/2016 at 00:55
Sorry to disappoint you, but I don't plan on supreme ghosting the whole game, especially not with this mod installed. Zombies in this mod are faster than Hammer Haunts were in the original, and that combined with their enhanced perception makes me question if ghosting an already hard mission like Cragscleft is even possible. If it is, it would take an immensely frustrating amount of trial and error, something I'm not willing to do right now, and that can be said of the supreme ghost playstyle in general, though I have normal ghosted most Thief 1 and 2 missions and I can do writeups of those if people are interested.
I'm about to go on kind of a rant, but I really, really can't recommend this mod enough. It really makes me feel like the first time I ever played Thief, when I was constantly nervous and feared the guards, where I cautiously crept through the halls and slowly snuck up on guards to blackjack them, rather than just running up to them full-speed because I know they aren't going to turn around and spot me. In this mod they do, and you have to be very careful and have a plan going in if you want to stay undetected, or get away if you are detected. It also forces you to use all the items you're given. I only used Scouting Orbs in one mission in the entirety of Thief 2 before this mod (to see the tower guards in Eavesdropping), but after installing it I often find myself having to use them to peek around corners and scout out areas, since the guards aren't nearsighted anymore and you will be caught if you blunder into a brightly-lit hallway and find a sword-wielding thug standing at the opposite end. It feels like you actually need the items, rather than just being a crutch to save time and effort, which is a hugely welcome change. There are also other routes I've taken that I never needed to before, such as climbing on the crates in Shipping... and Recieving to get past the guards more easily, that force you to explore the level more and uncover possibilities you never considered. I really can't recommend it enough, it made Thief fun again for me just when I thought it was getting boring and tiresome. It would, however, probably be a a good idea to go into it without attempting a self-enforced playstyle like ghosting, since that would likely just cause frustration (especially in monster/undead levels from T1). Instead, try to play it more realistically, blackjacking guards and using resources like water and moss arrows when you need them, and avoiding doing so when bj'ing a guard is too risky (he might spot you or it might be too hard to hide the body) or you need to save resources for later. Unfortunately, the mod is not compatible with TFix or TafferPatcher, so you'll have to uninstall and reinstall the unpatched version of the game, but I think it's worth it.
