lordhern on 12/4/2020 at 02:49
Quote Posted by Galaer
lordhern: Wrong mission name. Blackmail is about Truart's mansion. You are talking about Trail of Blood.
Thanks for the reminder - corrected above.
lordhern on 12/4/2020 at 22:48
Thief 2 - Life of the Party [NewDark]
playmode- IRONMAN failure I had to reload after reading the scripture -see details below
ghost - Busted - property damage - see below.
perfect thief - Impossible - see above.
supreme ghost - Impossible - see above
perfect supreme - Impossible - see above, also must nudge the lady's at louisa's out of the way.
Total time 16 Hours, 36 minutes 07 seconds
2853 / 2853 loot
pockets picked 24/24
locks picked 12
all damage stats 0
secrets found 7/7
This level is a joy - the BEST one of the entire game and it's a royal PAIN to try and ironman it in ghost mode. ironman in blackjack-everything mode is easy.
Regarding the pickpockets. - while the archers are in their scripted argument you can pick their arrows - just be sure you are out of sight when they are done as they might go into level-2 hunt or level-3 alarm when they wrap up their verbal assault on each other as normal alerting is not possible to detect.
For the ring with the house-breakers i entered via the building basement and looted the room during their scripted conversation. similar alert warnings apply. I also exited via the basement taking all the boxes to angelwatch.
for the chest pick on the 3rd floor I used moss arrows to silence the path from the door to the bed behind the red-dressed lady, strafe-ran-jumped behind her - then picked the chest - then I strafe-ran-out of the room - she level1 alerted a total of three times.
nudging - In an apartment I had to nudge a guard out of the way to get some loot. - I also had to nudge both ladys on the way to the tower, had to nudge the stationary guard outside the office to get around him.
other 1st level alerts: opening doors to get purse pick on floor 3, ,also when I used a vine arrow in the library the lady with the servant commented on the noise. A noble on the 6th floor alerted to me making noise in the fountain and the secret door on 5th floor - causes all patrollers to comment when passing it.
reason for ironman failure: I found the golden boy hung-up on the 2nd window sill - he had exited my box train and the disabled mine I had left in that windowsill was too far "into" the window i.e. not close enough to the edge.
my method of dealing with the golden-boy is based on what Sneak discovered in his RELENTLESS search for ways to ghost the game. For this level I normally carry nearly EVERY available box in the mission to angelwatch and bring it to this room to make a continuous line from the golden-boy spawn point to just past the 3rd window. I also drop a mine into the corner of each windowsill (and disable each of them.)
I discovered the disabled mine wasn't close enough to the edge of the 2nd windowsill and the golden boy had wedged into the edge of that window - I did not have an invisibility potions - so I was forced to reload, reset the mine in the corner of the 2nd windowsill and proceeded with a normal ghost attempt run.
after a busy evening and a good night sleep I came back to the computer to find the golden boy at the wall. This was probably around the 13 or 14 hour mark so I have no idea WHEN he actually made it across the room.
after I bypassed the golden boy I tackled the office. I tried for nearly twenty minutes to grab the blue-prints through the painting - no joy - so I had to pass office guard twice more going to back out to turn off the safe alarm. the office guard commended SIX times in total. I made sure to re-enable the safe alarm after i grabbed the blueprint.
the first-floor loot was the last bit of loot I went after - and it wasn't a problem - when I got downstairs after waiting out the golden boy the first-floor guard had fidgetted out of the way so i was able to grab both statues w/o issues.
I was able to return all but one box to it's starting point. I misjudged tossing them and one went sailing down to street level and shattered. all the rest were ok.
On my way back to the tower I discovered all four of the arguing archers dead - This is the first time I've seen them all dead before. has anyone else had this happen?
Galaer on 13/4/2020 at 07:58
lordhern: Wow, you decide to move golden child by doing Sneak's way and you waited 16 hours while attempting Ironman. That's just crazy.
As for your ghost failure reasoning - it's wrong. Ghost mode only requires from you to avoid 2nd alert, avoid doing damage to enemies and avoid damage property. It doesn't require you to close any door, you can leave them all open. Supreme ghost excuse not closing door only in the case where door is unable to close. Like in your case - safe is unable to close. That's not a bust.
What is a bust is destruction of crate that you threw down on street. It shattered and this is damage property, which is a ghost bust.
lordhern on 13/4/2020 at 10:50
Quote Posted by Galaer
lordhern: Wow, you decide to move golden child by doing Sneak's way and you waited 16 hours while attempting Ironman. That's just crazy.
As for your ghost failure reasoning - it's wrong. Ghost mode only requires from you to avoid 2nd alert, avoid doing damage to enemies and avoid damage property. It doesn't require you to close any door, you can leave them all open. Supreme ghost excuse not closing door only in the case where door is unable to close. Like in your case - safe is unable to close. That's not a bust.
What is a bust is destruction of crate that you threw down on street. It shattered and this is damage property, which is a ghost bust.
Corrected above - btw have you over encountered all the archers dead? I have played this level dozens of times to find one or two on one side or the other still standing.
Galaer on 13/4/2020 at 13:16
Quote Posted by lordhern
Corrected above - btw have you over encountered all the archers dead? I have played this level dozens of times to find one or two on one side or the other still standing.
Never. I guess 2 archers released their arrows at the same time, but it never happened to me. But I had some weird situation with them. It happened when I was doing one of my challenge runs. Archer from tower survived, he went into search mode and somehow fell on lower floor and... get stuck on ceiling. It was on Tafferpatcher 1.25. Really super weird.
klatremus: You mentioned that you don't like design changes in Newdark Thief 2 (like this chest in Shipping and Receiving). I don't know how to revert it back in T2Fix, but this is how to do it in Tafferpatcher. Tafferpatcher creates in your Thief 2 folder, folder called "
patchedmis" with all patched mission files and dml fixes. If you delete this folder, you will play Thief 2 with new mantle, but also with original design.
I don't know how T2Fix works. If it's like TFix for Thief 1, then maybe deleting dml fixes help.
lordhern on 13/4/2020 at 19:16
i'm currently trying the "running interference" on hard mode rt now - i'm trying to sort out where the loot difference is. the number of loot items doesn't seem any different. so i'm running two VM's side by side and switching between the hard/expert to find the 10 extra.
I'll report back when i locate the extra ten.
Reporting back.
the gold plate that was out front on Expert is now in the basement on a table between the fireplace and the dumbwaiter. value 50 on Hard.
The plate out front on Hard is now a dull plate with worth 10 goods.
so there is an extra loot item after all on Hard.
klatremus on 14/4/2020 at 07:15
Quote Posted by Galaer
klatremus: You mentioned that you don't like design changes in Newdark Thief 2 (like this chest in Shipping and Receiving). I don't know how to revert it back in T2Fix, but this is how to do it in Tafferpatcher. Tafferpatcher creates in your Thief 2 folder, folder called "
patchedmis" with all patched mission files and dml fixes. If you delete this folder, you will play Thief 2 with new mantle, but also with original design.
I don't know how T2Fix works. If it's like TFix for Thief 1, then maybe deleting dml fixes help.
I keep a completely different folder with vanilla Thief 2. I simply copied the .mis file into the NewDark folder and tested. Then the chest was reset to where I remember it being. If I just deleted the .dml file the chest remained in the changed position. I think .dmls only alter texture alignments and cosmetic stuff. At least this chest change was hardcoded into the .mis file. Saying that I don't like it is an understatement. I think this is an example of gross alteration of the authors' original intention of gameplay. However subtle players seem to think this change is, it's wrong on principle.
Galaer on 14/4/2020 at 08:44
There is one more difference that I remember that you will probably not experience. Remember front guard from Angelwatch. He's always looking in one way, so there is no way to grab 2 statuettes without invisible potion. Well, in Tafferpatcher it was changed, so he frequently turns towards door. Thanks to that it's possible to supreme ghost collecting these statuettes. But since you altered your mission files, you will never experience that. I believe that 1st secret passage in Gervasius Manor has been enlarged, so it's easier to go through it. In Olddark I remember getting really annoyed that I couldn't get through it.
On the other hand, can't you consider all these changes you don't like, a Newdark feature and just mention that in your ghost reports. I mean there is new mantle that you should probably disable, because it's a huge game changer. Also have in mind that a lot of glitches possible in Olddark is impossible to reproduce in Newdark.
Also have in mind that your reports will not be that useful for new ghosters. They will start ghosting in Newdark and be very confused by experiencing different situations from what you experience. So I would say it would be better if you stay with fixed mission files, instead of altering them to your liking. I we already have your Olddark ghost reports and you just want to repeat all of them with Newdark attached to the name. That's not gonna work. Sorry.
klatremus on 14/4/2020 at 16:04
Oh my ghost reports certainly reflects NewDark. I include any differences from OldDark to NewDark in green, so that it's easily visible to readers. The OldDark text is still preserved. My current ghost run is with the fixed missions, I was just saying I compared to the vanilla version by temporarily copying over the original .mis file.
If that guard in Angelwatch is now turning, that is almost a worse alteration than the chest in Shipping. Why on earth was that done???
I don't remember the secret passage. Do you mean the one you enter the building with in the beginning? If so, that is an understandable fix.
Galaer on 14/4/2020 at 16:50
klatremus: Sorry. Looks like I misunderstood you previously. I believe there is even more changes that doesn't always make game easier. On Tafferpatcher 1.25 people walking on stairs in Angelwatch have tendency to get stuck at the middle of stairs leading upstairs from your position. If you manage to get upstairs above them, then after returning to stairs they block at the middle of even higher stairs. So getting to Ballroom is tricky. No idea if the same thing happens in T2Fix though.
And I believe there is many more changes in different missions than that. And yes, by secret passage I mean secret entrance to Gervasius House. As for why these changes have been implemented, this is just my guess, but I heard voices of few people that Thief 2 was rushed. So maybe authors tried to implement these fixes, but failed to do that in time. So fans fixed that in their place. That's just my guess though.