Crouch-Sneaking and I STILL make noise?! Help!

[Seanobi.old]

I am near the throne room on the first level, on Expert, and there are surfaces that I just CANT get passed without the guards tripping out on me, lol... Which I know I can run on the carpet, but it's the hard floor...

The ONLY THING that I DO NOT LIKE, is when I am crouching (x), and holding shift (walking slowly) ... They can STILL hear me on harder surfaces, and people cheat with the "tap-forward" thing... which I think is bull. I feel like I cheat when I do that, and feel like I am ruining the experience for myself...

Or am I missing something here? Is there another "sneak" button I need to press, or anything like that? Any tips? Or fixes? Or is it meant to be played like that...... or maybe I am just used to Thief: Deadly Shadows? Does this issue also happen in Thief 2 as well?

[istvan_v]

Автор сообщения: Arucard

I would assume the problem is related to the difficulty level.

I do not think the difficulty level makes a difference here, unlike in Deadly Shadows. It only affects the player's maximum health (also damage and healing in Thief 2), the placement of objects/enemies/etc. in the map, and of course the objectives.

On "noisy" surfaces like tile, metal, and gravel, it is necessary to move as slow as possible (crouch + walk + slower speed modifier), and pause at regular intervals to avoid making a footstep sound. Crouch + walk may also work, but not always. Another way to reduce speed is to strafe or move backwards instead of forward.

Автор сообщения: The Cat Petter

If the surface isn't a loud one, I can run right behind a guard and he will not notice. Is that normal?

Yes, as long as they are not already alerted. Running on stone or wood can provide a cue to searching guards, but unalerted ones will just make a comment about the slight noise.

[istvan_v]

Автор сообщения: Seanobi

What does "Slide On" do? I don't seem to notice any affect???

It modifies the turn left/right keys to strafe left/right. It is an old game, and not everyone used mouse look in the 1990's. :)

[Lex]

Автор сообщения: istvan_v

Автор сообщения: Seanobi

What does "Slide On" do? I don't seem to notice any affect???

It modifies the turn left/right keys to strafe left/right. It is an old game, and not everyone used mouse look in the 1990's. :)

Yeah and come to think of it - it's pretty cool to have such little reminders of good ol' times =)

[Seanobi.old]

Автор сообщения: Lex

Автор сообщения: istvan_v

It modifies the turn left/right keys to strafe left/right. It is an old game, and not everyone used mouse look in the 1990's. :)

Yeah and come to think of it - it's pretty cool to have such little reminders of good ol' times =)

Yeah, I miss the good ol' days. I just missed out on when games started immediately using WSAD keys. Even Quake 3 Arena, the earliest versions, didn't originally use WSAD key bindings if I remember correctly. And if they did, I remapped them to the arrow keys due to being used to Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, and Rise of the Triad.

The first time I really used WSAD was when I got The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind for PC. I was so used to playing it on Xbox beforehand too - backwards compatibility sucks terribly with Morrowind I wish they would change that, or at least re-release it on the online Marketplace on consoles! But I'm getting off topic...

Morrowind was really the first game I payed with WSAD controls and I thought to myself that it was such a good key binding system that I wondered why many other games didnt use it.

So really, I just don't know when the WSAD keys became a thing.

Does anyone know??

[Lex]

@Seanobi, same here, I don't know as well but for the reason that I got my own PC pretty late and before that I played it at friend's place or smwhere else, so all I remeber - feelings, not key bindings)

[dunbaratu]

As for the original question - The Dark Engine (the game engine underneath Thief 1 and Thief 2) put the player utterly in control of how fast they move, and then tied the noise you make to how fast you move AND NOTHING ELSE ABOUT YOUR POSITION OR STANCE (*). Each surface (metal, marble, wood, etc) has a different threshold speed where if you move across it faster than that, it starts making its noise. The more difficult surfaces set the threshold speed lower so you have to move slower on them.

"But wait", I hear you thinking, "That makes sense with an analog control stick like on a console, but how do you move at any arbitrary analog speed with keyboard commands? Don't you just have discrete speeds? Run, walk, slow walk, and crouch?"

You'd think that, and misunderstanding that has made Thief games a huge challenge for people who didn't have the originals and read the manual. They think that, for example, its impossible to move quietly on metal no matter how slow you go.

And that's false, you CAN move silently even on metal. The trick is in understanding how The Dark Engine calculates your speed for the purpose of noisemaking.

The Dark Engine calculates your *average* speed over the last fraction of a second. I don't know for sure if it's over the last half second, or quarter second, but it's something like that. Some very small window of time like that. It decides how much noise you're making based on the average speed over that very tiny time interval. What this means is that you can go even slower than a walk, even slower than a crouch-walk, by going tap-pause-tap-pause-tap-pause-tap on the keyboard instead of just holding down the key. You need to make sure you tap and pause fast enough for the engine to notice some of that time was spent standing still, so that the average movement over the last half second or so is less than it would have been had you held the key down steady.

On the one hand that makes it easier to get past things like metal grates once you know that - you just have to go *REALLY* slow across them. But, on the other hand, it puts the onus on you to get it right with your own fingertips, which feels great for a Thief game - it feels touchy and scary like it should as you feel the tension of "will I screw this up and make a sound?" Also, it makes you feel the need to make the tough balance between going fast enough to get past the dangerous bit to the next bit of cover before the guard comes back, but doing so slowly enough not to make sound as you do it. It puts that delicate balance at your own fingertips, which is great at making the player feel the tension. It makes some things easier, but also more tense in a way.


(*) - There's a misunderstanding that crouching makes you quieter. It doesn't. At least not directly it doesn't. Crouching just causes your maximum speed to be slow. It's the fact that you're moving slower that causes you to be quieter, not the fact that you're crouching. Technically you could be just as quiet while standing fully erect, if you move very very slowly. It's just that then it's up to you to make the effort to move slowly manually with the tap-tap-tap movement described above, and it can be very hard to do it right. Crouching, by lowering your top speed, makes it easer to tap-tap-tap your speed at a very slow level.

[Seanobi.old]

Автор сообщения: madings

As for the original question - The Dark Engine (the game engine underneath Thief 1 and Thief 2) put the player utterly in control of how fast they move, and then tied the noise you make to how fast you move AND NOTHING ELSE ABOUT YOUR POSITION OR STANCE (*). Each surface (metal, marble, wood, etc) has a different threshold speed where if you move across it faster than that, it starts making its noise. The more difficult surfaces set the threshold speed lower so you have to move slower on them.

"But wait", I hear you thinking, "That makes sense with an analog control stick like on a console, but how do you move at any arbitrary analog speed with keyboard commands? Don't you just have discrete speeds? Run, walk, slow walk, and crouch?"

You'd think that, and misunderstanding that has made Thief games a huge challenge for people who didn't have the originals and read the manual. They think that, for example, its impossible to move quietly on metal no matter how slow you go.

And that's false, you CAN move silently even on metal. The trick is in understanding how The Dark Engine calculates your speed for the purpose of noisemaking.

The Dark Engine calculates your *average* speed over the last fraction of a second. I don't know for sure if it's over the last half second, or quarter second, but it's something like that. Some very small window of time like that. It decides how much noise you're making based on the average speed over that very tiny time interval. What this means is that you can go even slower than a walk, even slower than a crouch-walk, by going tap-pause-tap-pause-tap-pause-tap on the keyboard instead of just holding down the key. You need to make sure you tap and pause fast enough for the engine to notice some of that time was spent standing still, so that the average movement over the last half second or so is less than it would have been had you held the key down steady.

On the one hand that makes it easier to get past things like metal grates once you know that - you just have to go *REALLY* slow across them. But, on the other hand, it puts the onus on you to get it right with your own fingertips, which feels great for a Thief game - it feels touchy and scary like it should as you feel the tension of "will I screw this up and make a sound?" Also, it makes you feel the need to make the tough balance between going fast enough to get past the dangerous bit to the next bit of cover before the guard comes back, but doing so slowly enough not to make sound as you do it. It puts that delicate balance at your own fingertips, which is great at making the player feel the tension. It makes some things easier, but also more tense in a way.


(*) - There's a misunderstanding that crouching makes you quieter. It doesn't. At least not directly it doesn't. Crouching just causes your maximum speed to be slow. It's the fact that you're moving slower that causes you to be quieter, not the fact that you're crouching. Technically you could be just as quiet while standing fully erect, if you move very very slowly. It's just that then it's up to you to make the effort to move slowly manually with the tap-tap-tap movement described above, and it can be very hard to do it right. Crouching, by lowering your top speed, makes it easer to tap-tap-tap your speed at a very slow level.

Wow! Thanks for the incredibly generous thought and input that you have given us! :D That's awesome!

[The Cat Petter]

Thanks Madings for the info!

[dunbaratu]

Автор сообщения: Cats are not evil!

If the surface isn't a loud one, I can run right behind a guard and he will not notice. Is that normal?

And I know this is an old thread.

There's a fraction of a second delay between "game engine decides the guard has noticed you" and "game engine flips the guard's suprisable flag to false". During that delay, you can still get backstab damage or do a knockout.

Thus you can have this happen:

"HEY! You Ther..." *BONK... falls down*.

[Seanobi.old]

And I can actually circle strafe behind guards and hit them just right while they are alerted, and knock them out as well.

[MuangMuang]

I'm trying that 'tapping technique'. But It doesn't work! I tap, pause for like 0.5 sec, then tap.
It's slow as hell as it is, and it STILL alerts guards that are like hundred kilometers away.

[dunbaratu]

Автор сообщения: MuangMuang.SWAG

I'm trying that 'tapping technique'. But It doesn't work! I tap, pause for like 0.5 sec, then tap.
It's slow as hell as it is, and it STILL alerts guards that are like hundred kilometers away.

You probably still need to be using other helps to keep your top speed down - crouching, using the walk key instead of the run key, etc. the tapping method goes slower than holding the key down does, but "slower than a run" can still be "faster than a walk".

Do you actually HEAR the sound of the floor coming from the video game, or are the guards being alerted despite you being silent? If you still hear the sound, then the technique isn't working. If it's working, you don't hear the 'clang' of metal or the 'clack' of marble. The game has good, correct audio clues about your walking sound. (However other audio clues are misleading, as there's some sounds that are very quiet in the game engine's calculations but are deceptively loud in the user interface - like using lockpicks.)

[Discarded]

Автор сообщения: Seanobi

I am near the throne room on the first level, on Expert, and there are surfaces that I just CANT get passed without the guards tripping out on me, lol... Which I know I can run on the carpet, but it's the hard floor...

The ONLY THING that I DO NOT LIKE, is when I am crouching (x), and holding shift (walking slowly) ... They can STILL hear me on harder surfaces, and people cheat with the "tap-forward" thing... which I think is bull. I feel like I cheat when I do that, and feel like I am ruining the experience for myself...

Or am I missing something here? Is there another "sneak" button I need to press, or anything like that? Any tips? Or fixes? Or is it meant to be played like that...... or maybe I am just used to Thief: Deadly Shadows? Does this issue also happen in Thief 2 as well?

half stepping, or as you call is tap-forward is the only way to get close on tile short of a moss arrow. i think it's bull too, infact i wish someone made a mod so that walk+crouch+toggle was just as quiet.

[Discarded]

if you use crouch, walk, and toggle you can go a greater distance before letting go of the move key

[Flowernose]

Im posting for everyone who comes across this on google
My understanding from saving and reloading the same guard over and over
Each time you alert the guard by having them spot you or investigate a noise you create.They get +1alert
Alert increases their hearing
Over time they go -1alert back to nothing
0alert is required to 1shot with a bow.Area the arrow lands doesnt matter fyi
Therefor use savenload to confirm if the guard dies from 1shot of the bow.If not then your need to afk until your alert drops back to 0
Guards searching a noise effectively have 0 alertness aswell so you can throw or shoot something and then pass as they investigate