issues / questions

[Szynek]

Hello,

I'm trying to get into Thief DS; I always bounced off of this game somehow, but decided to give it another try. I've just started, but I already have questions and problems:
1. Taskbar flashes for ~1 second every single time on loading screen. Any way to fix it? It's annoying and kind of breaks the immersion.
2. I was playing the game for maybe more than an hour, and it already crashed twice --> https://imgur.com/a/0Uht12K ; any way to fix that?
3. Please tell me, that there is some HD texture pack or texture detail option that I missed. I mean, I know that it's an old game, but really, what the hell is this? --> {LINK REMOVED}http://www.mediafire.com/view/8pesaf.../bbb.png/file; floating lamp aside, this texture may actually look worse than vanilla Thief. Yes, graphics aren't the most important thing for me (I've just finished original Blood again couple of days ago) but this looks really bad in this game, maybe because it stands in such a contrast with honestly really good lightning effects.
4. Is there some mod, that makes leaning faster / more responsive / actually usable? I used it all the time in previous games, but here it seems just so clunky and slow, that I rarely bother with it.
5. This one is a bit hard to describe, but every once in a while, I start moving too fast, there is no foot sound, and I can't jump the whole thing feels like some sort of spectator mode in online game; re-loading a save helps. Anybody encountered this issue, is there a fix for that?
6. What difficulty level would you recommend, for somebody that finished T1 and T2 multiple times (just original games, no FMs, also no TDM)? I played this first large mission on 3/4 difficulty and the game seems extremely easy so far. I mean I started with 20+ water arrows which is more than enough, guards seem blind at times (even if I'm not fully invisible). Some of the mechanics doesn't seem to work properly, for example when you water the torch right in front of the guard, he just walks casually into this dark place just waiting for easy takedown (instead of trying to search the place or taking any sort of aggressive stance); I also noticed that I can pretty much blackjack the guard without even having to crouch (and more importantly I can run very close to him before that). Does the game gets harder later on?

For the record: I'm playing with SneakyUpgrade 1.1.10, and didn't try without it, cause I kind of assumed, that it is as necessary as TFix/T2Fix in previous games.

[Fennick]

Hey there, just finished the game yesterday actually. As general advice, there's a tweaker program for the Sneaky Upgrade that you can mess around with (dunno if you already have). I'd recommend looking at the games PCGamingWiki article too for more fixes.

1. PCGamingWiki lists a desktop effects fix with the Sneaky Upgrade, but I'm not sure if that's the same thing. Personally, I just kinda dealt with it, since it didn't break the game for me.

2. What were you doing when it crashed? I had two specific moments in the first couple missions that I had to work around, and didn't have any issues until one of the last missions with a few more crashes (always happens a few seconds after loading a save).

3. PCGamingWiki (again) lists and upscaled texture pack, though I didn't use it. Looks like your only option. (can't see your link btw)

4. None that I know of. Even with the fixes, the game is pretty clunky compared to the originals. I just ended up not really using it at all.

5. This is a common problem that seems to only have a chance to occur when you're jumping or mantling. Solutions say to lower your frame and refresh rate, but if you take out your arrow and aim it, you should be able to move normally again (make sure to jump to cancel the aim and save your arrow).

6. The game is a lot easier in certain aspects, but I found I had to lower the difficulty down one from Expert simply for the 90% loot requirement (I couldn't deal with it anymore after the mansion mission). Watch out for the Cradle level though, I think thats one of the few that actually got me frustrated a few times (and also the one that crashed a few times when I tried loading saves). The last quarter in general can get a bit desperate with some enemies that can't be knocked out or killed.

Honestly, the AI felt more or less the same as the previous games. They react to things in certain areas but not others, and I can dispose of them easily for the most part.

Overall, like I mentioned before, it's still a pretty clunky game even with the fixes, and I think thats just due to poor optimization - the fact that this was also designed for console is probably to blame, as usual. Sorry that I couldn't help you with some of the issues, hopefully someone else may have some better insight.

[Szynek]

Thanks for the answer.

Ad. 1. I already have the SneakyUpgrade, didn't find any option like this in installer. The only thing I found out, is that going fullscreen instead of borderless, makes the screen flash white instead of seeing taskbar for a second, so it wasn't much of an improvement.

Ad. 2. Good to hear, that would explain why I had no problems for a while now (at least since the first day in the City).

Ad. 3. Yeah, Steam blocked the image for some reason, I think you can see it here, if you really want --> https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=150878 ; though I have to say, that I didn't see anything THAT bad since then, but still, really bad first impression (this texture is like the first thing you see if you come closer to the light in very beginning of the game). I will look into this texture pack (not sure how I missed that while googling), it looks interesting, gonna see how much it improves things.

Ad. 4. That what really gets me: how could they do so much worse than the original games. I loved how in T1/T2 you could just hide in the shadow behind seemingly small obstacle, and peek from around the corner to see whether the guard is coming and also snatch some item from him when he walked next to you. This game completely doesn't do it for me, because besides general slowness, it seemed to me as if sometimes my head even go stuck on the wall, with some weird texture clipping. Overall better to just ignore it for the most part.

Ad. 5. I figured out at some point that the jumping was the reason, but I didn't know that you can come back to normal from there (I usually just reloaded the save). Thanks for the hint. I'd rather not lower the framerate.

Ad. 6. Agreed, I never played the original on the highest difficulty either, as this was too annoying to me for the very same reason. In general, the game is still to easy for me for the most part, except that it can be just annoying at times (especially City, because those are the same areas over and over again with re-spawning enemies, so I ended up running through them, because I'm already sick of those streets). The Citadel seemed a bit harder, but still nothing special.

Originally posted by Kobo:

Honestly, the AI felt more or less the same as the previous games. They react to things in certain areas but not others, and I can dispose of them easily for the most part.

I have to disagree with that as to me AI ranges between weird and just plain bad. The bad is mostly the fact, that they just don't react (or don't react fast enough) to me walking towards them from behind and even if they do, they just stop in one place to voice some concern, making it even easier to blackjack them. The weird, is when - I got to be honest - I have no idea what is going on. I've seen guards get stuck at obstacles (or even each other) several times, sometimes even without me even interacting with them in any way. Most notably, the creature "guarding" the altair in Pagan Sanctuary, just did half of a circle of patrol route, and then got stock walking infinitely towards the rock. I finished the Citadel level yesterday, and I had no idea what was going on there half of the time: guard in the theather started looking for me, and got stock in the corner below the stairs, and never got out of there; when I got to the room with water, there were some bodies, but I didn't kill anybody, and 2 enemies just stood there 1 meter from each other staring at themselves with their swords out and kept looping dialogues about hearing something.

Originally posted by Kobo:

Overall, like I mentioned before, it's still a pretty clunky game even with the fixes, and I think thats just due to poor optimization - the fact that this was also designed for console is probably to blame, as usual.

I agree, though the game is still better than Deus Ex: Invisible War (released around the same time, if i remember correctly), which if rumors are to be believed, was also handicapped because of the consoles. This is especially true if you consider that both games had tiny, claustrophobic maps and overall were kind of a letdown, considering the source material.

If you like Thief series, I'd recommend checking out his one (finished demo couple days ago, it actually prompted me to give Thief DS another try) --> https://store.steampowered.com/app/1150760/Gloomwood/ It's basically Thief 1/2 with a moustache, pretending not to be Thief ;) I mean ok, there are some guns here and there and I suppose the story will be different, but mechanics and architecture feels really familiar.

[Fennick]

I think a part of me was already expecting to run into clunkiness, even without my research into the game beforehand. I did like some aspects of it, like the hub world (though it did get tedious for me too) and being able to keep your loot beyond a single level (and in that case, I ended up having more cash than I knew what to do with by the end). Despite that, I was more interested in just finishing off Garrets story than anything. I was coming right off of finishing the latter half of the second game, so I was still "in the zone" to play more - Now I'm digging through the vast hoard of fan missions.

Even if you never touch it again after, I hope you are at least able power through it to the end.

Originally posted by Szynek:

If you like Thief series, I'd recommend checking out his one (finished demo couple days ago, it actually prompted me to give Thief DS another try) -->

It's basically Thief 1/2 with a moustache, pretending not to be Thief ;) I mean ok, there are some guns here and there and I suppose the story will be different, but mechanics and architecture feels really familiar.

Wow, I had to do a double take once the screenshots loaded in. I'll definitely be checking this out soon-ish.