Wow, the patch has made a big difference.

[Mad_Gerbil]

DE:
I was playing DE last night and about 10 minutes into a thief asks if I'd come and remove all the AI from the spawn area. The thieves were stashing AI bodies in the spawn area and soon there were 3 AI patrolling the spawn (TOO FUNNY). I removed them from the spawn and planted them in Loki's where there were soon a 1/2 dozen AI wandering about. It would be tough to get in there.

FOLLY:
I was KO'd and there were no AI so I waited and didn't click into spec mode. Two miniutes later there was an AI that woke up and I took him over. That was so odd.

MISC COMMENTS:
1) The AI are carrying the games these days.
2) 1.3 takes different skills that is for sure. The thieves move SO fast and are so hard to see I dunno if I have the "twitch ratio" to handle it. I had a couple of games last night where I didn't see or damage a thief at all. That would be a deficency with me, not the game (guarding may now take more skills than what I have)
3) Korman has become a maze. I don't like it. Without knowing where the gems are located I've no idea how any guard team could possible guard it.
4) I like the changes to Aquatone ALOT.

[Lurox]

Instead of having everything handed to you, why don't you get the hang of it yourself? :wink:

[Garlisk]

Instead of having everything handed to you, why don't you get the hang of it yourself? :wink:

what the hell does that have to do with what he just said? lol

[Mad_Gerbil]

Instead of having everything handed to you, why don't you get the hang of it yourself? :wink:

As much as I'd like to be a skilled "twitch" gamer, I am not. I am simply not RL skilled enough to be anything more than mediorce. That is one reason why I came to TUT.

[-=V12US=-]

DE:
I was playing DE last night and about 10 minutes into a thief asks if I'd come and remove all the AI from the spawn area. The thieves were stashing AI bodies in the spawn area and soon there were 3 AI patrolling the spawn (TOO FUNNY). I removed them from the spawn and planted them in Loki's where there were soon a 1/2 dozen AI wandering about. It would be tough to get in there.

FOLLY:
I was KO'd and there were no AI so I waited and didn't click into spec mode. Two miniutes later there was an AI that woke up and I took him over. That was so odd.

Good tip! I didn't think of that at all.

MISC COMMENTS:
1) The AI are carrying the games these days.

Too true, I've seen AI's rack up frags faster than most human players could.
Allthough this is a good change for thievery as a whole, it'll cripple both pure ghosters and DMers, so thieves have to be sneaky, but not fear to whip out their BJ every once in a while.

2) 1.3 takes different skills that is for sure. The thieves move SO fast and are so hard to see I dunno if I have the "twitch ratio" to handle it. I had a couple of games last night where I didn't see or damage a thief at all. That would be a deficency with me, not the game (guarding may now take more skills than what I have)

Don't sweat it, they might be faster, but we got the uber hotshot AI's
We'll just have to cooperate a little more and think about strategic AI placement...

And theres nothing a firebolt can't handle. :grin:

3) Korman has become a maze. I don't like it. Without knowing where the gems are located I've no idea how any guard team could possible guard it.
4) I like the changes to Aquatone ALOT.

I'm making a guide for this map and I noticed it too, but all the changes have been for the better... Korman now offers total guard flexibility. Thieves need to get the church for the loot, so the guards can opt to guard only the church.
The crypt has become easier to guard (more light), so that's a viable option too.
The rectory can pose a little problem, because the thieves can get there much faster... but if the guards manage to kill one thief, they can use his lockpicks to find the gem no time, after which you can turn the rectory into a fortress once again.

And don't forget about the uber AI.

[LaughingRat]

I can see this game becoming about letting the AI deal with the thieves, since they're so good at it, and human guards' jobs would be to look for KO'd AI and reawaken them, so there's a larger force of active AI to deal with thieves.

Don't know about you, but that's not what I want.

[-=V12US=-]

I can see this game becoming about letting the AI deal with the thieves, since they're so good at it, and human guards' jobs would be to look for KO'd AI and reawaken them, so there's a larger force of active AI to deal with thieves.

Don't know about you, but that's not what I want.

Well, than turn down the intelligence level of the bots on crackaz so we can see what difference it makes.

You got da power! :lol:

[Beowulf]

The AIs aren't much better than before.
I can't see why all call them "uber" or "hotshots" now.
They're just a little bit more sensitive with their hearing ability
and react to KOs and help-shouts like they should.
Still predictable, still easy to deal with.
And when playing a guard I love when AIs take out thieves.
LR that's just laughable. Like AIs still don't place traps or are too easy to
get away from, they cannot mantle... So human guards won't turn into
AI-waking drones.


Maybe it's that a KO doesn't equal one less guard anymore.
Funny that Mr "search for counters!" belongs to the ones
who only bitch about it.

Joelio if you read this, you know it's not an insult.
You're one of my gods! The amount of things the AIs react to and are capable of
is just awesome.Well I don't have to tell ya, you know your work.

[PhaeThorn]

AI guards are fine imo. Though, still still make me mad sometimes ... after a bitchy day. But i like them.

Whoever made them ( joel in this case ) sure did a good job on AI ( the words, not the bot ).

[LaughingRat]

The AIs aren't much better than before.
I can't see why all call them "uber" or "hotshots" now.
They're just a little bit more sensitive with their hearing ability
and react to KOs and help-shouts like they should.
Still predictable, still easy to deal with.
And when playing a guard I love when AIs take out thieves.
LR that's just laughable. Like AIs still don't place traps or are too easy to
get away from, they cannot mantle... So human guards won't turn into
AI-waking drones.


Maybe it's that a KO doesn't equal one less guard anymore.
Funny that Mr "search for counters!" belongs to the ones
who only bitch about it.

I can tell you haven't played as a thief much, Beo. The new AI make a BIG difference. As soon as the patch was installed, there was a HUGE drop in the percentage of thief wins. The increase in their hearing was not slight, a KO in the graveyard of Korman brought AI from both the church and the rectory searching - quite a distance away. And their ability to unerringly nail a thief in complete shadow, at 0% visibility, with a tagbolt and then proceed to butcher him is terribly unfair to the thieves.

Your comment in another post about how funny it is to just watch the thieves get slaughtered shows that it's not really a balanced game you're interested in, it's just killing as many thieves as possible. Fortunately for the community, most of the server admins ARE interested in a balanced game, and are starting to adjust accordingly.

But I think it goes back to the fact that you've only really played WITH the new AI, and not AGAINST them. I doubt you'd be so amused or approving if it was you being relentlessly killed off, with no chance of playing a good game.

[Bloody-Reaper]

It's veeerrryyy rare that the ai kills me...

Either thieves are just to careless when next to an ai. (Thinking theyre still at 1.2 level), or they just suck at thievery.

[Mad_Gerbil]

LR:

The people who are screaming the loudest are DM thieves which are the VERY least skilled thieves at moving around the map unseen and the VERY least skilled at retrieving guarded objectives.

MOVING AROUND:
In fact, I'll see a typical DM thief 100 times for every one time I'll see a ghoster move. Until now, they've not had to pay for being sloppy movers because if a human saw them they'd simply BJ him and there was little chance of the AI responding. Well guess what? All that sloppy movement now comes at a price.

RETRIEVING OBJECTIVES:
DM thieves have no clue on how to retrieve a guarded objective. They are so used to clearing the map of all but one guard FIRST that they have no clue how to behave now that plenty of AI are always around. Again, 1.2 left them with very bad habits and no real thieving skills.

The people who aren't raising a big stink are those who learned the light map through ghosting AND learned tactics needed to retrieve camped objectives without the need for killing. For them, moving unseen and the presence of more than one guard on the map is business as usual.

I think the dominance of the DM thief is at an end in 1.3. Sure they can contribute but this "clear out all but one guard then gather loot and objectives" BS has been dealt a BJ of it's own and I'm tickled to see it.

Sure, the AI still may need to be turned down a notch, but I think taking the whinings of a DM thief who has no knowledge of how sloppy they really are when it comes to moving around the map is silly. I'm telling you, they are VERY SLOPPY movers and they are paying for it now.

The AI are finally smart enough to punish the careless habits of a DM thief and I for one think it is about time.

[Mad_Gerbil]

For Example:

I saw a DM thief try to DM an AI who was standing in the presence of two other AI and a human. He was cut to ribbons and then bitched about the "insane AI". I think we all agree that trying to DM an AI with 3 other guards present should result in a messy and quick death for the thief.

But I have to wonder, what did the AI used to be like that a DM theif would even attempt such a thing. I've seen this serveral times in the past few days (with similar results) and have to wonder what the thief is thinking.

So do we turn the AI back to the point were this type of nonsense is typical again? Where a thief feels like he should be able to attack an AI standing in a group of 3 other guards and get away with it? Should we take that DM thiefs opinion seriously?

[Kiech Bepho]

The AI before weren't alerted unless they saw the body. Now they instantly know what happened even if they are far away.

And as for DMing going away, I don't see it. More and more thieves are talking about buying swords and extra arrows. The main issue still exsists for thieves to DM guards: the guards are in the way, and hunting for them. In Thief that wasn't really an issue, the guards didn't act like you were there, there were a lot more shadows, no time limit, and few guards that are impossible to pass by without being seen...and there was no sound bug.

Kiech

[LaughingRat]

Gerb:

Yes, I'm going to take the opinion of a "DM thief" seriously. I'm going to take ALL players opinions seriously. The reason is that I run a public server, that's available to ALL players. Unlike you, I'm not of the opinion that hardcore ghosting is the "One True Way" to play Thievery. I'd rather see a game open to multiple playstyles.

While I'll agree with you that attempting to take out one guard in front of three others is just plain ridiculous (as well as complaining about how it didn't work afterwards), the Genius level AI are far to acute at hearing things from a long way off, and at bullseyeing a thief hidden in complete shadow.

I'm sure there are players who are capable of handling even the Genius AI without too much difficulty, but again, I'm running a public server. It's NOT just for the highly skilled players, but for the brand new players as well, and it's not terribly fair to them to give them no chance to play and enjoy the game because they haven't learned to play that skillfully yet.

I do see the trend Kiech mentioned, though. I can easily forsee a move towards "lethal methods" on the part of some thieves, and I honestly don't see a problem with that. See my previous comments on multiple methods of play. Grank and I will continue to strive to run a server that allows all playstyles as valid, while trying to let none of them get out of hand. The devs have included a number of server configurable options in teh game to make this more possible now than it was previously.