GMDX Dev on 18/6/2016 at 16:35
Quote Posted by Starker
Thief has a light gem that gives you instant feedback on how your visibility changes based on the lighting, your stance, moving speed and the equipment you are using. So you can instantly get a feel of just how visible you are.
That's not entirely necessary. Your held weapon already provides visual feedback as it too goes lighter or darker based on current lighting. The gem is just a form of assistance good for when you're not holding anything in hand, and may or may not be more accurate, I'm not actually certain on that.
Edit: you got a source on the gem changing based on speed/stance/weapon? I'm almost certain you're incorrect and it's light only.
Quote Posted by heywood
What? You expect them to develop separate games for the PC and consoles? The whole point was to make one game that could work on both PCs and leading consoles because that was the only way to sell enough copies to cover the ballooning development costs.
My point was IW in particular was a very disappointing game because the developers went in with the mentality consisting of "how can we streamline it to optimize sales" rather than "how can we translate Deus Ex onto consoles without losing too much of its identity due to hardware constraints". If the PC was the leading platform the game still would have been streamlined, because that was their intent due to their previous games not selling well enough to provide notable growth. Invisible War could have been a great game with little streamlining, lesser console hardware or not.
Starker on 18/6/2016 at 17:28
Quote Posted by GMDX Dev
That's not entirely necessary. Your held weapon already provides visual feedback as it too goes lighter or darker based on current lighting. The gem is just a form of assistance good for when you're not holding anything in hand, and may or may not be more accurate, I'm not actually certain on that.
Edit: you got a source on the gem changing based on speed/stance/weapon? I'm almost certain you're incorrect and it's light only.
Well, my source is playing the game. Light gem is something of a misnomer, really. It's actually a visibility gem.
You should play the game and see for yourself, and you'll realise just how far off you are with...
Quote Posted by GMDX Dev
Thief doesn't have much that sets it apart from Deus Ex's stealth gameplay.
GMDX Dev on 18/6/2016 at 17:40
Quote Posted by Starker
Well, my source is playing the game. Light gem is something of a misnomer, really. It's actually a visibility gem.
You should play the game and see for yourself, and you'll realise just how far off you are with...
I have played it. While your visibility changes based on all those things, I'm pretty sure the light gem doesn't represent it, it only represents light levels. Could be wrong though.
Starker on 18/6/2016 at 17:44
Nope, the light gem changes based on your visibility. Have you never noticed it change when you equip a water arrow or crouch or shift speed modifiers?
GMDX Dev on 18/6/2016 at 17:48
Nope, though I haven't played it extensively as I have the others to notice the finer details. It is my least favorite among the Immersive Sim classics, you may be able to tell.
Vae on 18/6/2016 at 17:54
Quote Posted by Starker
Light gem is something of a misnomer, really. It's actually a visibility gem.
You are correct...The Visibility Gem reflects the player's
visibility...This is modified by light source, stance, movement, weapon, and arrow type.
Add to that, it is a granular, 16-stage system...Far superior to that in Deus Ex.
Starker on 18/6/2016 at 17:55
Well, these "finer details" are actually a pretty important component of how the light gem works. It's what allows you to teeter just on the brink of detection while holding your breath and it's what keeps the stealth from becoming a crapshoot.
Thirith on 18/6/2016 at 17:55
I can't talk about how exactly Thief and Deus Ex do stealth, but I can say that I never enjoyed stealth as much in DE. This might be due to the exact mechanisms, the level design, the way guards work in the game or anything else, but Thief's stealth (especially in T2) remains my favourite stealth gameplay - and that after I bounced off the game repeatedly at first. Again, I can't say why exactly - some of it is definitely the levels, some is due to the character you play - but Deus Ex never made me enjoy the stealth much. Then again, that's the main reason why I like but don't love DX: none of the individual elements feel all that great to me. It's great that the game brings all of those elements together, but I still wish for a DX-style game that has the same kind of freedom but where each approach (e.g. stealth, combat, traversal, conversation) is as enjoyable as in the best games that focus on one of these.
GMDX Dev on 18/6/2016 at 18:05
Fair enough. I was wrong regarding the technicalities of the gem.
Nameless Voice on 18/6/2016 at 21:26
Having played both extensively, I always found Deus Ex's stealth to be a pale reflection of Thief's.
It mostly feels like a game of hiding behind things, rather than Thief's more complicated system of light and shadows. Sometimes shadows make you a bit harder to see in DX, but mostly it's just about blocking line of sight. Sound and sound surface were less important, instead you just crawled everywhere. The AI is also much more basic, lacking Thief's more nuanced systems of alert levels, searching, etc.
Maybe it had a lot of Thief's systems, but they weren't as nuanced and finely tuned as Thief's systems.
