1eyedking Is Thief a downgrade from Deus Ex/System Shock 2/etc?

[skacky]

Stealth might have been an afterthought but the system itself is still the most robust to date, with Chaos Theory and The Dark Mod being direct imitators with a few improvements or differences here and there. (not talking about social stealth mechanics like in Hitman here, entirely different stuff).

 

[Lyric Suite]

Level design bitch, can you dig it?

 

[anvi]

Thief is a stealth exploration game. If you're going to stack up its "stealth mechanics" against Hitman or Splinter Cell or whatever to see which one lets you do more "cool stuff", you're going to miss the point.

Well to me anything stealth is just boring anyway. I don't like stealth games like Splinter Cell because the whole thing is the same all the way through. Thief was a bit better because it had a bit more to it than that, but Hitman has way more. Thief was pretty revolutionary at the time but I wouldn't want to play it again now.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

Thief is a stealth exploration game. If you're going to stack up its "stealth mechanics" against Hitman or Splinter Cell or whatever to see which one lets you do more "cool stuff", you're going to miss the point.

Well to me anything stealth is just boring anyway. I don't like stealth games like Splinter Cell because the whole thing is the same all the way through. Thief was a bit better because it had a bit more to it than that, but Hitman has way more. Thief was pretty revolutionary at the time but I wouldn't want to play it again now.

So you're one of those hitma players that completes the missions by killing every single person in game?

 

[anvi]

Why would I do that? I like to win each mission in a smart way, with no deaths or at least minimal, and get a good rating at the end like Silent Assassin, or Professional etc. You don't need much stealth to do the smart solutions, you just rely on disguises. You can even find disguises in locker rooms and places so you don't always have to kill or knock someone out to get a disguise. Then you can just walk around half of the map without any suspicion. You can also get inside a lot of places by climbing up walls and trellises and things to sneak in. If you then set explosives or traps or whatever, you can kill the targets without harming any innocents and without using stealth at all. That's my whole point. You could play the game exactly like Thief if you wanted, by sneaking up behind guards and ganking them. But you can also play the game many other ways. It is a more well rounded game.

 

[Stakhanov]

You don't need much stealth to do the smart solutions, you just rely on disguises

Do you not see the contradiction in your argument? Mechanically, Hitman and Thief work rather differently.

 

[Dev_Anj]

You could play the game exactly like Thief if you wanted, by sneaking up behind guards and ganking them.

And if you did you would quickly discover that the levels are simply not built for that kind of approach and the core stealth mechanics are very lacking. Hitman's appeal has never really been traditional stealth, it's more of a bloody puzzle game so to speak. Most of the challenge comes from figuring out which disguise to wear at where and how you'll approach the target. Suit Only playthroughs are a very niche playstyle which Hitman levels have started accomodating only recently, and they're basically the equivalent to Supreme Ghosting Thief levels.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

You could play the game exactly like Thief if you wanted, by sneaking up behind guards and ganking them.

And if you did you would quickly discover that the levels are simply not built for that kind of approach and the core stealth mechanics are very lacking. Hitman's appeal has never really been traditional stealth, it's more of a bloody puzzle game so to speak. Most of the challenge comes from figuring out which disguise to wear at where and how you'll approach the target. Suit Only playthroughs are a very niche playstyle which Hitman levels have started accomodating only recently, and they're basically the equivalent to Supreme Ghosting Thief levels.

Yes. I see the major difference between Thief and Hitman being that the solutions to Thiefs stealth encounters are much more versatile and adaptive to your play style, while Hitman's are more scripted and puzzle like. Hitman's direct line of lineage is more something like "Commandos" than "Thief" in that it's less about mastering the underlying game mechanics than it is trying to search for and discover the multiple solutions to the task at hand that the developers explicitly designed into the game. Thief's encounters are definitely designed as well, but they've always seemed less rigidly puzzle like to me than Hitman. So playing Thief is all about understanding the mechanics, your available tools, and adapting them to the environment in real time. Whereas, while Hitman might seem to have a bunch of solutions, they all tend to be more rigidly designed and gimmicky (i.e. use X or Y environmental object to kill dude, find the one single dude who's standing alone so you can take his clothes, get some poison from X location and stick it in Y object, or etc.).

I do think the Hitman games are fun (especially the WW2 Hitman rip-off "Death to Spies," which I've always had a soft spot for, bugs and all), so not bashing them, but I much prefer Thief. Playing Hitman involves tons of trial and error as you try to work out what the solutions are, which can get tedious. Whereas, if you are good enough at Thief, you stand a reasonable chance of making it through any level your first try, just because the underlying gameplay is that consistent and well thought out.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Also, level design. It isn't by accident that the Thief modding community is so active. Thief is like the stealth version of Doom. The base game is so good it is just begging for new content to be made.

 

[Doktor Best]

So why have I been made out to be apparently claiming I'm allowed an opinion and nobody else is entitled to one? I went over this whole thread (my god, you lot really are the pathetic trash of society) and right from the very beginning I'm CONSTANTLY stating its a matter of opinion. But hey, plenty other people with other opinions are turning up now, doesn't look one-sided and clear-cut after all does it you rabid idiots.

You degenerates ask if it is I that was abused as a child (for not liking your precious game as much as you do), but what leads to the formation of deranged individuals that hang about on this forum and act utterly insane as exemplified in this very thread? It's funny, you look at me as if I'm crazy yet it's the majority of individuals in this place that are the bottom of the barrel of society, and a mixture of plain weird, insane, harassing, racist, trolling neckbeard sadists. I'm willing to bet a man like that is not formed from a good upbringing.

Such lax rules on a board is going to attract the worst of the worst. As always I'm disappointed this is the only place that recognizes the widespread decline. No wonder developers stopped catering to hardcore gamers if this is the representation of them.

The problem is not you stating an opinion, the problem is you doing it in a condescending way and going all self-victimizing as soon as you get backlash for doing so. Are you seriously asking yourself why everyone is bashing your ass while in the very next paragraph of your post you insult the "majority" of individuals here blatantly for pointing out that your view on the topic is flawed? As for the personal attacks, are you seriously surprised? Of course they're coming for you, you are a fucking easy target.

Also, saying that you merely stated your opinion and that people may aswell fuck off if they disagree doesnt help your case one bit. I could come here and say, that in my opinion, Skyrim is a much better game than Deus Ex. I think so because in Skyrim you can swallow a whole loaf of cheese in a split second, which in my view clearly is a sociocultural statement about the important topic bulimia, which made me think a lot about those poor people, whereas Deus Ex lacks such a "deep subcontext" and is just a silly nerd-jerkoff to over the top conspiracy theories. Do you think my opinion should then be free of criticism because i said its just an opinion?

And one last thing. "Immersive Sim", you keep using it capitalized, as if it were some new revelation genre classification, is a kind of questionable term in my eyes. I mean, whats the exact definition for this genre? I did some google research i found out that Warren Spector came up with it and he put up these "core features":

-first person perspective
-a level of interactivity with the gameworld that goes beyond that of typical first person shooters
-a "believable gameworld"
-physics
-no failstates other than death
-"unforced narrative"

Thats all fine and good, but this doesnt define a genre. Its just a summary of game design choices that allows for many different genres to exist within these parameters, because those are no core mechanics. Lets just look at your comparison for example. Thief is a stealth game, all aspects of the gameplay revolve around stealthing. There is no dialogue system, there is no way to bruteforce the game. Deus Ex on the other hand offers those things, it is an accumulation of gameplay aspects of different genres to provide the player a form of freedom that other games do not have. It defies categorization by nature if you ask me. Comparing Deus Ex to Thief is about as a meaningful comparison as comparing GTA to Forza. I mean both games have cars right? They also were designed to have (kinda) believable driving physics. You can play them both in third person perspective. And both games also have a currency system! They are both in the lets say "car driving and money hoarding genre" and when we compare them it is pretty clear that GTA is the better game right? Because you can also shoot people in GTA, but can you shoot people in Forza? No.

My point is, if you cannot even compare games within the same genre with eachother, why even come up with a new genre? It is a retarded superfluous term that describes nothing and whoever came up with it was probably molested as a child. Just my opinion man.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Spector didn't make any of those games, he just produced them. I don't know why everybody keeps holding him as an authority on anything when he hasn't done any actual design work. Not to sound ungrateful since without him we wouldn't have those games but come on.

 

[MasPingon]

Proposal for new avatar for Ash, reflects him well.

 

[Dev_Anj]

Doktor Best Great post! I must only add that it's amusing how many of the games he defines as "immersive sims" fail this requirement: "-no failstates other than death".

Ultima Underworld can be rendered unwinnable if you toss some key items into lava. System Shock 2 can be rendered unwinnable if you don't have the right build or weapons to defeat The Many or SHODAN. Thief has a few missions where being detected by guards or important people, or raising the alarm fails the mission. Heck, even Deus Ex, arguably the most open ended of these games, has points where it can be made unwinnable if you don't have the resources and are unlucky, eg. the four bots you need to take out at Vandenburg. Not to mention several soft failstates with events like various hostage situations or rescuing Tiffany. If even this small selection of games which shared some staff doesn't fit this category well, how can it be expected to describe a series of games?

 

[Ash]

The problem is not you stating an opinion, the problem is you doing it in a condescending way and going all self-victimizing as soon as you get backlash for doing so. Are you seriously asking yourself why everyone is bashing your ass while in the very next paragraph of your post you insult the "majority" of individuals here blatantly for pointing out that your view on the topic is flawed? As for the personal attacks, are you seriously surprised? Of course they're coming for you, you are a fucking easy target.

I know you people lack reading comprehension but come on. I was "self-victimizing" regarding people crossing the line, and also false accusations (that I'm not letting anyone hold an opinion).

It is a retarded superfluous term that describes nothing and whoever came up with it was probably molested as a child.

You're entitled to your opinion, retarded as it may be. It was coined by Warren Spector, a man involved in the majority of said games, and it's short for "Immersive Simulation". It makes perfect sense.

Great post!

Of course you think it's a great post, because you're the most dimwitted of all.

 

[Ash]

They've yet to make a broad but deep game I guess. Not that I think Thief is notably more deep in any of its mechanics or systems, or overarching design, except that the stealth is on-point and most things are without flaw.

 

[Lyric Suite]

I'm of the opinion that a game like that cannot be done. Something gotta give, you cannot have a game that can do everything and be perfect at everything it does at the same time. The important thing to me is whether the game offers something concrete. If you are going to include stealth in your game it has to have some degree of substance to it, otherwise it is just LARPing, like in Oblivion or Skyrim, where much of the game's mechanics and interactivity are extremely shallow and mostly driven by pretend on the part of the player. Stealth in Deus Ex may not have been as refined as in Thief but it still was pretty good. A master of none maybe but Deux Ex did indeed jack in a lot of trades, it wasn't just pretending like most modern games do.

 

[Ash]

I'm of the opinion that a game like that cannot be done.

See: Deus Ex w/GMDX, because that's exactly what I aim for and what codexers stated I have achieved.

Officially? It can be done, just not with standard two year dev cycles.

 

[Dev_Anj]

See: Deus Ex w/GMDX, because that's exactly what I aim for and what codexers stated I have achieved.

 

[anvi]

Hitman involves tons of trial
Thief, you stand a reasonable chance of making it through any level your first try, just because the underlying gameplay is so simple.

ftfy. Really surprised by all the Thief love here.

 

[anvi]

They've yet to make a broad but deep game I guess. Not that I think Thief is notably more deep in any of its mechanics or systems, or overarching design, except that the stealth is on-point and most things are without flaw.

Would that mod let me enjoy the game if I got bored with the original Deus Ex? I only ever got about half way through that game and got bored. I tried again 10 years later and got to the same place and lost interest again.

 

[Ash]

Depends what you didn't like about it. Combat is better, stealth is better, everything is more tight, polished and deep, except the plot and soundtrack.

Pages upon pages of consistent codexer praise. With such quotes as "turns an excellent game into a masterful one" and "it's the definitive Deus Ex experience". But if you never liked Deus Ex because you don't like ARPGs or cyberpunk games then there's no helping (you ).

 

[Azrael the cat]

Spector didn't make any of those games, he just produced them. I don't know why everybody keeps holding him as an authority on anything when he hasn't done any actual design work. Not to sound ungrateful since without him we wouldn't have those games but come on.

Spector can be given some credit, in that as producer he hired a lot of great talent in the right areas (Deus Ex's writer, and giving him so much freedom to write the game bible prior to doing the levels, Harvey Smith, putting the voice acting budget in the right areas, and 'getting'/backing what the team was going for). Other than that, I do agree with your general comment.

 

[Azrael the cat]

I'm of the opinion that a game like that cannot be done. Something gotta give, you cannot have a game that can do everything and be perfect at everything it does at the same time. The important thing to me is whether the game offers something concrete. If you are going to include stealth in your game it has to have some degree of substance to it, otherwise it is just LARPing, like in Oblivion or Skyrim, where much of the game's mechanics and interactivity are extremely shallow and mostly driven by pretend on the part of the player. Stealth in Deus Ex may not have been as refined as in Thief but it still was pretty good. A master of none maybe but Deux Ex did indeed jack in a lot of trades, it wasn't just pretending like most modern games do.

In fairness, Deus Ex wasn't a master of none. It was a master of reactivity and design principles that gave players tremendous freedom (even small things, like not making 'kill X' a mission parameter even when it seems like it must be, hence allowing you to run from Gunther Hermann if you've picked up on (and sympathise with) the idea that he's just a pathetic pawn who gave his body for UNATCO and is being manipulated by genuinely evil folk like Simons, and probably doesn't deserve to die (and getting a fitting 'thankyou for disposing of our obsolete agent, yes, we sent him so you could kill him, not the other way round, glad to see you keep on working for us despite yourself' message from Simons if you do kill him).

 

[Correct_Carlo]

In fairness, Deus Ex wasn't a master of none. It was a master of reactivity and design principles that gave players tremendous freedom (even small things, like not making 'kill X' a mission parameter even when it seems like it must be, hence allowing you to run from Gunther Hermann if you've picked up on (and sympathise with) the idea that he's just a pathetic pawn who gave his body for UNATCO and is being manipulated by genuinely evil folk like Simons, and probably doesn't deserve to die (and getting a fitting 'thankyou for disposing of our obsolete agent, yes, we sent him so you could kill him, not the other way round, glad to see you keep on working for us despite yourself' message from Simons if you do kill him).

Yeah, its mastery is primarily narrative and choice based. You can approach tasks in a bunch of ways. The brilliance of Deus Ex, though, is that a lot of these aren't necessarily explicitly scripted. The designers just allowed for the narrative to hold together and react, regardless of what the player does. I don't think it masters any of its various gameplay mechanics terribly well, though (e.g. stealth, combat). Unlike Thief, I don't think Deus Ex would be fun to play without its overarching narrative and the freedom of seeing how your actions affect it. Whereas out of context Thief levels are still fun to play even if they have zero narrative, mainly because the gameplay is so good.

I do think the newer Deus Ex's are better at combat, but I also think they are way more tedious to play stealth. Mainly because of boring level design (who wants to crawl through vents!) and an over reliance on "press a button to auto play an animation" stealth take downs of enemies, which removes the surprise, variability, and skill of knocking people out. Thief's method of just aiming at the right spot with the black jack is a much better method of knock out, as you have to time it perfectly, you can sometimes mess up, and you can even knock people out a split second after they are startled if you time it right (which can be exploited if you are skilled enough). It's a shame that 90% of all stealth games since Thief have taken the "press a button to auto-play a take down animation" approach to stealth. It's way more boring.

 

[Multidirectional]

See: Deus Ex w/GMDX, because that's exactly what I aim for and what codexers stated I have achieved.

Don't listen to those codexers, some modder said they are stupid.
I will play your mod eventually though, no doubt. Sometime after I'm done replaying Thiefs.