I'm 35 hours in and only half of the game. I think I suck at stealth, bros

Remember that you have a compass, use it. Even the lore-accurate dogshit maps of Thief become useful once you apply the compass. You can also take notes on your maps. You can shoot an arrow into the ground or wood to leave yourself a reminder. Get into the habit of looking up in every new room, there might be a wood beam to climb. The second half of Dark Project gets significantly easier and faster.

every mission is taking me 4 hours lmao

did you get to Thieves Guild yet? that's when you'll really regret playing Gold instead of TDP

I'm in The Lost City.

this sounds like you either don't understand some of the mechanics or overthink them

oh

hi, anon

i dont really know what you mean

35 hours

My nigga I could beat the entire trilogy + black parade in that time what the fuck are you smoking there

I'm playing on expert not normal, don't know if matters.

honestly it doesn't matter, you should play the game as you are because i imagine completing a level feels rewarding. i also missed that you're savescumming on expert so you might just be farming a perfect run. you're having more fun than the majority of this board is, at least.

i imagine completing a level feels rewarding

that true

Fucking how? 35 hours is enough to play through the whole game and The Black Parade and a couple other FMs.

Do you know all of these?

Blackjack on unaware guards is an instant knockout.

Amount of sound being produced depends on the surface you're moving across.

Holding shift will allow you to move slowly to reduce noise.

Carpets are almost always silent surfaces and you can even jump on them and produce no noise.

You should keybind your lockpicks to open things faster.

Water arrows can douse flames to produce more shadows. Holy water can be used to temporarily enable water arrows to kill undead. >Moss arrows can make a surface completely silent.

You can throw items or use broadhead / noisemaker arrows to draw enemies away. >Garrett can lean around corners in a left or right direction.

Staying crouched reduces visibility further. >Rope arrows let you climb anywhere you've landed the arrow on a wooden or grass surface. >Enemies affected by flash bombs can be instantly knocked out.

Garrett can mantle surfaces by holding down the jump button.

Based. The zombie missions are shit and antithetical to everything that makes Thief good.

nu/v/ will unironically defend thieves guild

I've never seen it defended before. Most people shill the Dark Project experience more now

taking longer than average to beat missions

feel like you're in over your head

doing it anyway and having a good time

All that matters, anon. Keep it up.

its not that bad
people who hate it are literal babies with no directional awareness

I personally prefer the fantasy aspects of DP, I like bonehoard and its ilk. Its like the change from quake 1 (shoggoths, ghosts, animated armor, etc) to quake 2 (strogg). TMA is still kino dont get me wrong, you can tell how much looking glass learned from SS2

join us, join us, join us now!

zombies bad

robots good!

I have heard...a malfunction...

It's better than the fucking mages tower

expert has more objectives so it'll take longer

Blackjack on unaware guards is an instant knockout

What's to stop you from unga bungaing all the guards and ignoring the stealth aspect entirely?

Ahhhh
youtube.com/watch?v=EfsvylX1pA4

How long does it take you to beat a level? It took me like 3 hours to beat The Lost City.

Nothing, that's literally how you're supposed to play

Nothing, I did that on my expert playthroughs where possible
Much harder in 2
However Gold and Black Parade also have faster diagonal strafe and bhopping for almost limitless acceleration, so you can cranially devastate taffers with style

Usually expert (sometimes hard as well) difficulty prohibits killing of humans and causes an instant game over if you do. If you use the blackjack in direct combat it almost always kills a guard. There are also some objectives to tail people without alerting them on any difficulty which will also result in game overs. If it's normal difficulty or you're fighting against monsters, robots or pagans you can go full unga bunga.

Nothing, the blackjack is compeltely broken in the original games and that's not even taking into account the endless exploits and ways to cheese the AI. Gas arrows should have been the only option to neutralize an enemy without killing them, that way devs could have properly balanced the missions and sneaking wouldnt feel like an afterthought

As you say it's level dependent. I can clear Bafford's Manor and Into the Maw of Madness in minutes even on expert difficulty. Mage Towers can take hours

Vine grow and twine green and curl chokes and bind
Leaves unfurled thornsie spine tumble wall wreath and
Bine cover all leafsie mine call the vine call the
Green bringsie forth world be seen!

Storm black and blow swirly gust strain winds flow
Pushing dust storm clouds grow darksie clouds
Lightning throw misty shroud freezie snow call the
Storm call the gray bringsie forth world's old way!

Flame burning heat fences charred blazie sheet black
And tar manflesh meat melting gears dance and leap
Manfool's fear come to reap call the fire call the red
Bringsie forth past not dead!

Tide rise and fall river flood rain and squall
Churning mud dam break all sea waves wash swampy
Squall sewer slosh drain pipes stall call the wave
Call the blue bringsie forth world anew!

Stone grind and quake shatter tile call and shake
Break apile chip and flake darry soil windows break
Earthy toil wall unmake call earth call the brown
Bringsie forth world thrown down!

Night smother light black brick lamp done with bright
Dew and damp smother tight dark and hide foolsie sight
Stay inside fear the night call the dark call the
Black bringsie forth I call it back!

what if the blackjack had durability? so you could only knockout like 5 ppl before it broke and you had to find/buy another one

You DID bury Sheriff Truart after finding his body, right, Taffer?

Mission X (a FM very popular some years ago) had a poisoned dagger that worked like that. I thought it was a great idea but it never caught on.

My first time all the levels took me ages. I spent two months beating Thief Gold. Personally that's because as much as I've enjoyed stealth focused games, they're not my favorite and I have to be in a particular mood to continue them. So I'd play half a level for two hours then move on for a week before continuing.

Great game by the way. I didn't care for Thief 2 but I liked all the supernatural shit in the first one they dropped hard for the second.

this is why knocking out enemies in the older hitman would only last 7 minutes

OP here, sorry I had abandonded the thread a bit
yeah i know about all of those
i think my problem is a combination of save scumming for a perfect run + first playthrough on expert + zoomie zoom zoomer

that's pretty normal then

If you guys like thief, try Neon Struct. Extremely fun levels, and has chill hub like levels in between the main mission ones. Sadly not many people bought it, but it's a true hidden gem. I'm also making my own fps stealth game that'll be out in a few months but it involves stealthing from 15 ft tall monsters

thief 3

garrett is a broke ass bitch who can barely afford to rent a small apartment

What was his problem?

wtf is wrong with him?

Does he live in Canada or something? How can I go steal a dozen kilos of gold and not be set for life?

Just keep the thievery to the video games, okay? Stealing in real life is awful, just don't do it.. please

Giving guards vocalizations was a key aspect of Thief's feedback, and the robots talk. On top of that, robots have "normal" patrol routes and aren't shitty run around the obstacles like zombies, or present in such large numbers that they clog up shitty little hallways (except one level) and then rip through your resources as you try to kill them all. The zombies are just shit. Thief isn't a combat game and they're a combat enemy. They don't play into the stealth gameplay at all.

Only faggots get mad about knocking out guards and think expert mode should be balanced around ghosting. If level designers want to add some guards you can't knock out, they just give them metal helmets.

I can't believe someone is willing to defend Thief zombies

That's far from the oddest defense of something that's dogshit that you'll see on Anon Babble.

once again a zombie complainer who didn't take the time to understand basic things about zombies in Thief. They have all the same vocalizations as other NPCs and plenty of normal patrol routes. They're really not that different to guards, but because they're presented as 'zombies' people lose their fuckin minds

They have all the same vocalizations

I knew you'd be enough of an absolute fucking retard to read my post, think all that I meant was "they have sounds that tell you about alert states" and then rush to your keyboard to type up a post talking about common knowledge like it's enlightening anyone. Retards typically do that.

but because they're presented as 'zombies' people lose their fuckin minds

No, they're just shit. Them moaning differently during searching behavior doesn't make them not shit.

thief was never good

try thief gold

autistically spend over an hour on the first mission, checking out every nook and cranny, minimizing guard fatalities and knockouts, treating getting spotted by a guard as a game over, and taking forever to avoid guards

I don't think this series is for me.

luckily FM authors don't agree with you and we get kino like Black Parade

when you can have an item that completely trivializes stealth and has no downsides, you have a problem with balance. And I don't even like ghosting, if you get caught you should be able to play on and use the myriad other tools the game provides you to escape and try again, not just dance around the enemy while randomly swinging your black until he gets knocked out

luckily FM authors don't agree with you and we get kino like Black Parade

Rooftops style levels are still the most popular.

and we get kino like Black Parade

The few zombie levels in it were the worst part.

can’t blackjack something

wtf this is gay and stupid

not just dance around the enemy while randomly swinging your black until he gets knocked out

That's a problem with enemies being able to be knocked out if you're fighting them in a dark area, not a problem with the blackjack. The downside is supposed to be you need to remain undetected and then get close behind them.

minimizing guard fatalities

just play expert

Have you tried not being seen?

Zombies will NEVER create this level of kino. They're shit that only dumb disgusting plebs enjoy because they think any variety for the sake of it is good.

Any of you tried The Dark Mod?
I always go back to that when I want my Thief fix

idk man first time in bonehoard i got chased by like 10 zombies into the room with the fire arrow trap, climbed a ladder and watched them all get blown up and it felt pretty kino to me

some dumb enemies killed themselves

anywhere near the level of kino of that pic

Not even close. People complain about the blackjack being too one note but zombies are worse because in Thief 1 (the game they're everywhere in) you just jump around them as super speed unless they're physically blocking a doorway or something.

your best argument against zombies is a meme monty python skit? you're not the brightest taffer are you?

They're boring and stupid. They provide no entertainment value, no worldbuilding or lore via conversations, and no stealth gameplay because you literally just jump around them and they can't do anything. The only argument for them is "I'm such a fucking retard, holy shit. I love when this stealth game isn't a stealth game". There's a reason they got rid of that shit in Thief 2, and it's because they were no longer trying to salvage their Dark Camelot idea and knew they were making a proper stealth game. You can do supernatural stuff and you can do scary stuff, but the zombies and the missions they happen in suck.

fuck thieves guild

it’s a stealth game

sometimes it isn’t though and i like that

sometimes it isn’t

Yeah and it was shit. That's why they got rid of it entirely.

a pretty long time because I played most of them iron man, only one I relented on was strange bedfellows, that was my limit. While it was definitely a disgusting waste of time I really, really savor when a game allows me to go through a level, beginning, middle, climax in one go and it's a roughly realistic goal to accomplish. the thrill of exfiltrating and getting that mission complete fanfare is unparalleled.

because they listened to games journalists, the dumbest people on the fucking planet

I only came to hate that map when I got to the end of it and couldn't finish it cause I didn't have enough loot. Turned out the piece I was missing was at the base of a fire pit behind a secret brick. Then I hated thieves guild

I wish someone would make a thief like game that's just the adventure component with opportunistic stealth as a way to get by various monsters. that would honestly be endgame for me.

the group of MIT nerds that genuinely cared about video games changed Thief 2 to be better because of game journalists

That's an impressively stupid attempt at deflecting, even for a zombiefag. It had nothing to do with journalists. Stop reaching to try to paint this as them casualizing the game instead of making an objective improvement.

feels like every mission is taking me 4 hours lmao

it's a slow paced game, bro. That's how it is until you learn every loot location and every guard patrol route.

yes i am saying a struggling company would dumb down their game to garner more commercial success, does that bother you?

does that bother you?

The only thing that bothers me is how ignorant you are. You're lying and making things up because you want to pretend to be a smart hardcore gamer. The reality is that you're just a fucking idiot. There is a wealth of material including firsthand interviews where LGS employees talk about all their creative decisions. Instead of reading or watching any of it, you just made shit up because in your tiny little brain you want to pretend that the shitty thing you like could only possibly be hated by gay casual journalists.

dumb down

Getting ridding of the non-stealth levels in a stealth game isn't dumbing it down. Zombiefags are dumb.

wealth of material

post 3 quotes or you're making shit up

Part of it is ludonarrative dissonance, but logically his fences take a cut of the total value, probably quite a hefty chunk of it. Garrett and other thieves having to go through fences is also exactly why Truart targets them in TMA, they don't have the connections and business front to be able to resell this stuff themselves, so they don't really have any other option

it was a stealth/adventure game once, rigid genrefags litterally can’t comprehend this

blatantly lie about something and make up headcanon

pretend that you're a hardcore gamer and not just a fucking retard

get mad that other people actually know about the company's history and why they did the things they did

If you'd have just asked I'd have linked stuff, but you made shit up and now you're mad about it. Stay ignorant and stay stupid.

it was a stealth/adventure game once

Until they started prototyping and realized the melee combat was terrible. The sword combat being bad is one of the reasons they admitted the zombie levels were bad. If you don't know anything about Thief's development, you should really stop trying to sound like any kind of authority on the topic. It's clear you have no idea what you're talking about outside of the most basic surface level shit like it started out as a dark fantasy adventure idea.

so you have no proof, got it

Bros... I kind of liked Mage Towers...
It has comfy ambients and I liked the atmosphere
youtube.com/watch?v=jumq5UXoooU&list=PLNtTry5MgUy5TYBxv0bkK0uaCByOL2nW4&index=25

I do, and no amount of you getting mad will change what actually happened at LGS.

I prefer Thief 3 not because of the graphics, but they brought all the voice cast, and the guards sound more alive than ever previously.

i want an interview from every looking glass dev that says they all unanimously hate bonehoard.

bodies discovered

having knock outs at all

not playing expert

Nothing to brag about since you couldn't even ghost it properly. If that's your first playthrough then it's whatever, not bad. But making the game hard is avoidance in general. That is actually a good time for Thieves guild though, some people have issues navigating it. I don't hate Thieves Guild by the way. I was oblivious to the hatred it had online and i still play it in ALL of my playthroughs.

Hello, i'm John Lookingglass and I HATE bonehoard!

I find it interesting there is a rift with Thief fans over "supernatural tombs good" and "no, life of party and mecha good". And then there's thief 3 and 4 fans which must suck to be.

the former likes both though. personally i prefer the latter and i wish they improved the adventure/tomb raid aspects in 2 instead of abandoning them entirely.

I'm a 2 and 3 fan over TDP. I dislike the supernatural spooky levels/tomb robbing stuff. Albeit Deadly Shadows had a very cool one off level for that, so it was more tolerable there. The more moments spent robbing nobles in The City, the better. It just feels too disconnected to me. Bonehoard just pulled me out of the experience completely.

One FM I liked had a neat trick to help fix the blackjack which I didn't find annoying. You had an optional objective to not KO more than 2 guards, for the sake of Garrett's ego. If you blackjacked any more, you'd get a failure red X on the mission screen, but nothing else would happen. Seems dumb but it worked for me, it stopped my habit of going out of the way to blackjack guards because it seemed like a waste

Thief 1 is more like fantasy Tomb Raider. You will enjoy Thief 2 since most missions, apart from two or three involve only heists. There are still some supernatural elements but nothing like haunted cities with roaming zombies.

What I liked about T2 was that you could actually think about what you were going to do and plan your approach. Obviously unexpected stuff would still happen but it felt more immersive to be thinking like a thief and doing stuff intentionally. As you replayed you'd come up with even more ideas and enjoy the levels even more.
In T1 you mostly felt lost as fuck which is cool for exploring but a very silly mindset for a thief to be in. Only on replaying did I really feel like I had any strategy, but even then, there's so many instances of "THAT level" in the game that I found it harder to enjoy replays. I will give T1 credit for having more interesting enemies though, and I liked the supernatural setting.

Knows he is halfway through the game

Fuck off you E-celeb viewing faggot.

this actually is the best stealth game ive ever played

you can google how many levels the game has, you don't need to watch a gameplay

My first play through of Thief I probably spent like 4 hours lost in the Thieves' Guild. Now I am an adult I know how to use the compass and read the maps properly so it's super easy to navigate, but I remember almost dropping the game because the thieves' guild frustrated me so much.

People who prefer Thief 3 only exist because of nostalgia over playing it as their first stealth game or imsim on Xbox. It is completely inferior to the first two games in terms of gameplay, which is the only thing that matters.

Thi4f will have its own nostalgia babby resurgence at some point. It was one of the few titles that launched alongside the PS4 (even if it was multiplat) so a bunch of kids probably got it and have positive memories associated with it. Give it a few more years and there'll be nostalgia faggots here telling everyone Thi4f is underrated and actually good.

First person fantasy D&D thief game > catburglary simulator

People who prefer Thief 3 only exist because of nostalgia over playing it as their first stealth game or imsim on Xbox

Yeah that's probably a decent contingent but it always sounded to me like even OG fans at least appreciated the hell out of The Cradle levels. I never heard anyone talk about anything but that though.

just go play fantasy games faggot, the stealth genre is 99% watch dogs stealth, something like thief still stands out 30 years later

I think you misunderstood. Thief The Dark Project is the first person fantasy D&D thief game in question. Thief 2 is the catburglary simulator.

ahaha
zoomie piece of shiet
go back to fartnite or whatever it is that you plaay
fuck off shit stain
tell your mum I said hi btw

Thief fans here fight hard here to make their threads reach bump limit. And I respect that.

I really want to thank the anon who suggested Scarlet Cascabel
It's so fucking good thank you

thief dark project

a lynchian masterpiece, one of the greatest pieces of visual media ever made, surreal, horror, ethereal, oppressive atmosphere.

thief the metal age

all lynch influences are removed, atmosphere is completely changed for the worse, very few gameplay changes, levels are alot more forgettable, but overall, a good game.

Isn't this basically any horror game

3-4 hours was the case for me during some Black Parade missions, really exploring every nook and cranny to find more loot takes a lot of time in Thief.

I hate that I can't murder anyone on Expert. Not saying that's a flaw, game is called Thief, not Assassin after all, but I love murderhoboing in stealth games

i like the guerilla warfare playstyle in stealth games. really MGSV is the only game you can ever be rewarded for this and sadly it’s dogshit most of the time

what horror games have imsim elements? there’s amnesia but omly kind of and it definitely loses on the

various monsters

point

I hate that I can't murder anyone on Expert

I understand your pain.

I dont. I always blackjack everything in sight so I can explore in peace.
To be fair I regret it sometimes, fms with forced ghosting are often an interesting challenge. But I love my blackjack.

I’ll crucified for having not played this but doesn’t System Shock 2 almost fit the bill?

You are welcome.
From same author, Morbid Curiosity is less kino but still solidly good.

Sometimes I go back to Black Parade, I pick one mission, and I autistically explore every nooks and crannies of it yeah. Last one was the mage academy one, I plan to replay the keeper one next.

Good morning taffer saars
Recently played FMs report:
Heart and Soul - fucking awful, the first FM ever I dropped like a sack of shit without finishing. I've never seen a level with such obnoxious design, just a trillion identical rooms made as hard to navigate as possible. What the hell is even the point of a giant maze at the center with power stations connecting to some crystal?
The sound of a Burrick in a Room - it's okay, I stopped expecting good things from skacky so the midness didn't shock me. Opening being a remake of Thieves Guild was pretty funny.
Condemned Catalogue - awesome, beautifully designed mission with unique visuals and atmosphere (imagine if Mage Towers wasn't gay). Every secret felt purposeful and logically placed.
Morning Light - great mission that ended right after I started getting into it.
Tomb of Saint Tennor - the author might have a small penis, I've never seen a mission with so many pointlessly giant rooms everywhere. The second mission just kept fucking going with its godzilla sized rooms and cartoony puzzle rooms that did not feel like Thief at all. Overall its fine, if you like Bonehoard its a juicier version of it

Really liked Condemned Catalogue. The author has a good eye for interesting Thief aesthetics.

no and not really. most modern horror games lack a fight or flight mechanic. it's either a shooting gallery or you're playing very basic binary hide n seek. old horror games and the rare ocassion of a modern one like re2make do have a fight or flight mechanic as part of the base game(which I'm a big fan of) but it's just not the same. very rigid, not really that comparable to a more open ended game like tdp.

thoughts on doaal and dirkbogan's missions?

I thought it was a super cool place and couldn't believe players hated it, but I guess I see their point.

Ascend the Dim Valley is the only mission I rated 5 stars so far

oh right i remember seeing your post about endless rain some time ago, considering how you feel about skacky's missions, augustine's revenge will either be your worst nightmare or a masterpiece, but it's my second favorite FM after dim valley, with mystery man by doaal coming third (both mystery man and augustine are for T1 and iirc were missing from your list)

Oh yeah MM is amazing, it was one of the first FMs I played and the quality was mindblowing. Never tried Augustine, will download it later

NORMAL

in a THIEF game

Never post in a thief thread again you taffer.

For someone (me) who hasn't played Thef in years Black Parade is fucking brutal. The very first house is full of narrow hallways and marble floors. I want to play sneaky and savescumming is simply not fun.

I assume BP is aimed mostly at veterans and I should play something else instead. Like some chill and cozy FMs.

Are there any FMs with fuckhuge interiors that AREN'T tombs? It's bizarre to me the catacombs are superbowl tier stadiums in comparison to their chinese coffin apartments

They're pretty flawed but I also loved the ambience and atmosphere, I can't bring myself to hate them despite knowing they're kinda shit.
Still prefer MT over Strange Bedfellows

savescumming prob doesn't help, i also can get lost at time, just got the earth talisman

Just walk away.

Hammerite cathedrals maybe. First mission of Knoss, Rogues Lair is a pretty fun one, second half of Scarlet Cascabel. Generally huge interiors just make no sense, most players prefer interconnected swiss cheese rooms that allow you to slither around like and stay concealed.

T2>T3>T1

That, and I imagine subtractive geometry (like Dromed use) don’t lend itself naturally to big, open spaces (which was probably seen as a plus back in 98).

you got the arrow signs backwards

If skacky and the team made The Black Parade esque expansion for Thief 2 incorporating ideas from Thief 2 gold, that'd be fun

just got the earth talisman

Are you me? I just finished the Mage's Tower last night. That switch to open the secret room in the Library is bullshit I must've walked past it 5 times before looking it up online

Also forgot, Scholar's Hand. Huge fortress with spacious hallways.

Protip: if you get lost, activate Batman vision aka crank the brightness to the max by pressing +. It makes a lot of things more visible, for example the outline of that secret door in the library becomes very clear.

Was this campaign any good?

this is why knocking out enemies in the older hitman would only last 7 minutes

Hitman had a third-person view that let you peak corners for free and an accurate map of the entire level that gave you every guard's position in real time (at least up until Blood Money). In Thief your spatial awareness is restricted by the viewpoint and darkness plus you can't rely on disguises to help mitigate guards' detection ranges yes, contrary to popular belief disguises helped even in Hitman 2. Allowing players in Thief to dispatch enemies at close range is an absolute necessity so the game doesn't feel completely unfair when you have to retrace levels again and again and deal with random deviations in guard patrols.

it’s cool you can buy tips in this game. really underrated feature IMO even if restarting after read completely invalidates it (fuck you if you do this)

Please be warned: A misguided soul. All should hear the words of Karras. The words of Karras.

Thief isn't a combat game and they're a combat enemy. They don't play into the stealth gameplay at all.

Thief is more of a "D&D Rogue simulator" than anything, so yeah combat was always intended as part of the game. Why do you think LGS gave Garrett a full sword fighting & parrying system, broadhead arrows that could headshot, and populated almost every level in Gold especially the Trickster levels with at least a few monsters that were hard if not impossible to stealth kill if they didn't want the player to do any fighting? Remember that they had come from developing Ultima Underworld, where combat was always an option but often there were better alternatives; Thief is just an extension of that ethos.

I do agree that in practice the fighting just doesn't work very well compared to pure stealth, mostly due to the jankiness of the Dark engine, and that they were wise to tone down on the forced combat sections for T2. Shame Irrational used this technology for the more combat-heavy System Shock 2, one of the least satisfying-feeling "shooters" I've ever completed.

Why do you think LGS gave Garrett a full sword fighting & parrying system

Sword system was created for Dark Camelot which was intended to be a standard action game. But it ended up so shit that the idea had to scraped. Eventually Dark Camelot became Thief, and their reason for the sword was "eh, its good enough for a stealth game".

never beat thief gold

start to play

spend hours on every level, fully immersed, having a blast

reach mages tower

drop the game

I've done this 4 or 5 times already. I am completely satisfied after playing Bonehoard, The Sword, and the Haunted Cathedral. I have no more desire to play after that point and I dont have any negative opinions on the game. Thief Gold is like ordering a 5-course meal but getting full eating appetizers

yeah Thief Gold adds bad missions and messes up the pacing of the story. I'm not surprised you never finished it. Try playing The Dark Project next time

Or he could just use the end level cheat and move on instead of being a faggot and playing the inferior version for no reason

I knew exactly where the door was, it was the bloody book I couldn't see

I await the day when Karras will reveal his plan in full. Great will be that day. All his children will rejoice and live in Paradise. The Builder will join us on that day. They will weep tears of joy... when He sees... the shining Paradise... that Karras has made

clunk clunk clunk clunk

youtube.com/watch?v=v6ng_bGozSo

inferior version

IIRC, outside of the possible softlock, theres people who actually prefer the original version of Lost City over the Gold version.

Opera level alone is good enough for me to prefer Gold

yeah Thief Gold adds bad missions

Bonehoard is a bad mission, all of that dungeon crawling stuff and focus on spooky enemies is not good. And that has everything to do with it not being a stealth game at that point.

Actual Thief game > leftover mess of incoherent ideas based on Levine's jewish subversion script

Levine is a subversive kike but he didn't contribute much to the final version of Thief 1

Why do we not get to keep gold across missions? I feel like as a thief I should be hoarding gold and not spend all my money after every mission

so yeah combat was always intended as part of the game.

And they realized it sucked which is why they toned it down in 2.

When you hoard gold, you don't spend it. It's bad for the economy.

The only good level Gold added was the opera house.

Too-narrative driven, with too many cutscenes for my taste, but people seems to like it.

Mage's Tower is good, though.

I know, and his "Arthur bad, African witch good" idea is exactly what I was referring to. He even outright said he was trying to be subversive with the story in an interview. Anyways, him getting off the project (because he's a greedy jew and didn't like working on a passion project like the rest of LGS but instead wanted to make money) and the series then moving away from his ideas is the best thing that could have happened.

I like everything in Mage Towers but the towers themselves.

Any other games like Thief with a focus on highly immersive and detailed levels with an emphasis on exploration and open-ended design? Not many games give me the same feeling

Any other games like Thief

No

Only Dishonored with self-imposed restrictions.

some levels in Hedon

Hitman WoA

System Shock 1, Deus Ex, Ultima Underworld, Arx Fatalis, Prey, Cruelty Squad, BoTW/ToTK

Nothing that has a similar structure and aesthetic to Thief along with the movement options you have. That's what really makes Thief for me.

Deus Ex is the only one here that comes even close to the feeling of exploring a level like this.