Thief

[deanb]

Is there a Lvl 2 Focus vision? Cos you two are the first I've heard of any wires going from the pressure plates and the games certainly never given any mention. At Erin's house it specifically shows you to look for hidden buttons, but not following any wires from plate to button, and in my experience none of the wire boxes have been attached to pressure plates (or..anything). The only wire box connected to anything is in the brothel at a boiler, but as I said I didn't have a wire kit at the time, so no idea what that would do. There was certainly no pressure plates in the rooms. Why would it be a weird conclusion that it's a red herring. Given the games existence of empty rooms and dead ends it's not exactly far to assume that some wire boxes are just there to look pretty. Obviously it's not going to be a direct translation from one to another but as an example in DXHR the cameras turn off, turrets shoot other people, doors open. The game has never once taught me what the wire boxes are for. You guys are saying it's for pressure plates, but the game has taught me that pressure plates are disabled via hidden button. Though game also taught me pulleys can be activated by blunt arrows and 8/10 that hasn't been the case. And also not very clear on what can and can't be climbed. Game as a whole has a problem with conveying information and mechanics in a clear and consistent manner.

 

As for the rooms I'm not talking about regular things to pick up, there's usually at least one thing in the drawers though it's rare it covers the cost of the arrow, I'm talking about the fact they're just dead end rooms, there's no exploring to be had, no alternate routes, no special collectible (of which the many many empty slots to fill imply this game has a lot). It's a bit deflating. Once again comparing to DXHR; you smack open a hole in the wall and there's a stash of ammo, grenades, gear, pocket secretary. You crawl through a vent and there's a different way in or a hidden room, and maybe even a computer with story goodies or passcode for upcoming areas. Heck in some places there might even be a Praxis Kit. It made exploring and upgrades worthwhile, it rewarded you. Thief is just a tease. You climb up a crumbly building with ropes hanging from the rafters only to find....rafters. Why put any way of getting up there if there's no reason to actually be there. It's like the complete opposite of games with invisible walls and doors that are just textures.

 

edit: Sorry I should add, since I feel it's important, that by no means am I marking this as the worst game of all time and that I absolutely hate it and it sucks and what not, though I know from the back and forth of you guys pushing me for more and more that's what it maybe comes across as. It just that the game was, for myself (and from the reviews likely many others too), frustrating, lacking in polish, and generally just not worth my time to try and complete. Maybe in the far flung future I'll get to it and maybe see about working my way through it. But from my 10 hours with it (probably a bit less, have a habit of alt-tabbing), so a fair shake, it just wasn't a game I was happy with wasting my time on.

[TheMightyEthan]

@FLD: you can't do all of the their challenges in the same run of the mission, you can only get the ones associated with the play style you used. I forget what the three styles are, but they're like ghost, predator and warrior or something, and at the end of the mission it rates which of those play styles you used, and you can only get the challenges associated with that one.

[toxicitizen]

-snip-

For the red herring thing, it just doesn't make sense. If it was just meant to look pretty then your interaction with it would be seriously limited. It certainly wouldn't have that wire-cutting animation. I never felt like the game failed to properly explain any of its core mechanics. Literally the only thing I would agree it failed to convey properly was the barricades you squeeze through. I wasted a bit of time at first looking for a way to the next city area only to realize what I thought was a dead end was actually the way through.

 

Pressure plates and buttons, I don't remember any but I'm sure there were. Doesn't mean they all need to be like that. Most of the traps and pressure plates I've deactivated were from wire boxes. Buttons have mostly been for secret passages and hidden rooms. Why can't both be used? What can and can't be climbed is fairly obvious. There's always some kind of visual cue, either scratch marks going up or some white stuff on the edge. Plus, all the claw points are highlighted blue automatically, I believe.

 

I honestly have no idea why you insist on coming back to these so-called dead ends and "empty rooms" if you concede there were some things to loot in there. There's rarely just the one place to go after you fired your rope arrow. Usually you can leap off to other buildings and go to other rooms and such. So I honestly don't see what the problem is here. Break in, steal things, leave the same way you came. It's called Thief, what did you expect? You say there's no reason to be up there but the things to steal ARE the reason to be there. I don't know, it just seems like a really strange thing to get hung up on. It's not like you can't ignore The City and just focus on the story missions...

 

And you really should stop comparing it to Deus Ex. They definitely share a similar pedigree and history but they're two completely different games. Deus Ex is a much deeper and larger game and if you keep comparing your experience with Thief to it then yeah, it's going to seem disappointing by comparison.

 

Finally, when you say things like the game "stole your time" and whatnot, which I get was a joke but still, it does give the impression that you have a very low opinion of it. And that's fine. Problem is a lot of your criticism honestly seems to be born from your own incompetence at the game rather than any of the game's failings (and God knows it has many). And the rest of it just makes it sound like either the game's just not for you or you went in with the wrong expectations.

 

 

@FLD: you can't do all of the their challenges in the same run of the mission, you can only get the ones associated with the play style you used. I forget what the three styles are, but they're like ghost, predator and warrior or something, and at the end of the mission it rates which of those play styles you used, and you can only get the challenges associated with that one.

I'm pretty sure I was able to get them all on one mission but yeah, I realize most of the time you can't get them all. It just seems a bit counter-intuitive.

 

 

Off-topic: Has the forum started being crazy slow again for everyone else? I think it's the worst it's ever been for me.

[deanb]

Huh, never felt there would be much to the barricades to not get. It's clearly there for console limitations to break the hubs up a bit, same with the windows. And if the game is specifically teaching you a mechanic then that specific mechanic is how it should be implemented. Might as well not make a point of teaching any mechanics if you're not going to stick to them. It's like game design 101.

 

Yes the blue glowy bits for your claw are obvious and stand out, and there are some places with scratch marks, for most things you can climb though there's no indicators which means it can be half-hazard on whether you can climb something or not. Just got to try. As I mentioned previously, in my efforts to traverse the city I ended up in a place I wasn't meant to go.

 

Everywhere has loot though, what's the point in having a limited use arrow to get to somewhere that's got the exact same stuff as I can get just by walking down the street with coins littered along boxes? As you said yourself the game is about resource management, if I'm wasting resources to get something that'd cost me nothing normally then that's not a great experience.

 

The comparisons to Deus Ex would be due to: Both from the same studio, both being in stealth-genre (Deus Ex less so, though substantially better pulled off), and them being the two most recent games I've played.

 

I managed to get 10 hours into the game, so I'd hardly say I'm incompetent. In fact competence wouldn't really play into any of the complaints I've made. Even if I was an amazing player it's not going to suddenly open up new routes and fantastic loot in rope arrow areas, it's not going to give any feedback on what the wire cutters are for, make the wheel bug go away, stop the mini map from constantly hiding, make the mechanics more consistent. I only went in with the expectations the game set up (and being reduced in price so quickly from launch it didn't exactly set high expectations in the first place)

 

off-topic: Yeah, it's slow again. SL managed to go to a part of the site he shouldn't have been able to and it's meant forum having to access 2+ year old sections of the database so it'll have gone past Dreamhosts buffer and triggered their fucked up "kill switch" thing.

[toxicitizen]

Why the barricades and windows are there is fairly obvious, there was just one in a weird place (on a semi roof kind of area) and I just went right past it because the game didn't make it immediately clear there was a way to squeeze through. It just happened to be the first one I encountered. Once I realized what it was, I just kinda went "oh, duh".

 

I'm not sure what else to say about the climbing. It all seems pretty clear to me where I can't or can't go. Only thing that comes to mind is once early on I couldn't climb on a crate and quickly realized it was just because it had some junk lying around on it. And arrows aren't that limited, you can just buy some more if you run out, which if you loot things you'll be able to afford easily. Or just don't "waste" them and you won't need to buy more. Why would every single random apartment be filled to the brim with riches? You have to loot a few places before getting any kind of significant haul. Still not seeing the problem.

 

As for Deus Ex, same studio but different teams. Thief is a pure stealth game but, although I personally played it as a stealth game, Deus Ex isn't really one. It just provides that option but it's not as in-depth in its systems and the game isn't entirely designed around the stealth. I expect a little more depth in the systems of a proper stealth game than I do in Deus Ex. And to suggest that Deus Ex has better stealth is borderline laughable. It can basically be boiled down to "are you crouching or in cover: yes/no?". I think there's an element of sound to it but light isn't a factor and visual detection is fairly binary. It's pretty basic stuff.

 

When I said incompetence I didn't mean how good or bad you actually are but rather the understanding of how the various systems of the game work. Your comments on the wire boxes and other things seemed to suggest you didn't have a full grasp on a few things. Hardly the game's fault, it taught me everything I needed to know just fine.

 

To be honest, the more we talk about this the more I think you probably wouldn't like the old ones either. Just kinda sounds like it's not really up your alley.

Edited March 30, 2014 by FLD

[TheMightyEthan]

Yeah, the only system I had trouble figuring out was also the squeezing through barriers thing, just because there was no obvious indication that I could do it.  Once I realized that it was a thing it didn't trouble me anymore.