Thief cuts XP system in response to fan feedback

You may have noticed XP popups for murders in Thief gameplay demos and wondered, "What's up with that?" Why, you may even have posted a comment on this Internet about them! Developer Eidos Montreal has kept an eye on the discontent, and pulled the experience system entirely. Now players will be more reliant upon stealing, which is kind of the point of a Thief game.

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You may have noticed XP popups for murders in Thief gameplay demos and wondered, "What's up with that?" Why, you may even have posted a comment on this Internet about them! Developer Eidos Montreal has kept an eye on the discontent, and pulled the experience system entirely. Now players will be more reliant upon stealing, which is kind of the point of a Thief game.

"At first, we wanted to outline the progression of the player with XP, but it was reducing our motivation to steal," game director Nic Cantin explained in a blog post. "The main goal of a thief should be to gain loot. Garrett is already the Master Thief, so we saw no need to have XP as a core mechanic."

He added, "The E3 reaction was right, rewarding killing like that was wrong for a Master Thief."

With XP gone, Garrett will rely upon swiping money and treasure to buy new tools, whether they're to help his sneaking or a little more hostile. Though supposedly you can play through without buying anything, if you fancy a challenge.

"Fans might be surprised how often the devs go to the forum to see how things are perceived in the 'real world,'" Contin said. "This feedback is extremely valuable to us, so as you can imagine, the consistent reaction to the XP system was something that indicated we needed to revisit some design decisions."

Thief is due February 25, 2014, on PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, and PS3.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    October 17, 2013 6:00 AM

    Alice O'Connor posted a new article, Thief cuts XP system in response to fan feedback.

    You may have noticed XP popups for murders in Thief gameplay demos and wondered, "What's up with that?" Why, you may even have posted a comment on this Internet about them! Developer Eidos Montreal has kept an eye on the discontent, and pulled the experience system entirely. Now players will be more reliant upon stealing, which is kind of the point of a Thief game.

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      October 17, 2013 6:43 AM

      I imagine there were other factors, but its good that they listened.

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        October 17, 2013 7:04 AM

        I'm sure a lot of people were already up in arms against that decision internally. Otherwise they wouldn't have revert it so easily.

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      October 17, 2013 6:47 AM

      Too bad they can't reverse all the other stupid ass choices and make it more like Thief instead of Thi4f.

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      October 17, 2013 6:55 AM

      [deleted]

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        October 17, 2013 9:31 AM

        I agree, it does seem like a pretty good idea. Last I had heard, in this Thief's case I believe they said that XP wasn't used for upgrade or experience points. It was simply to tell how good you were. Like the points in the original Super Mario Brothers.

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      October 17, 2013 7:12 AM

      I'm gonna remain cautiously optimistic. People were complaining about DX:HR before release too, but then it ended up being fucking amazing.

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        October 17, 2013 7:23 AM

        [deleted]

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          October 17, 2013 7:39 AM

          i remember some people treading cautiously thanks to the travesty that was DX: Invisible War.

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          October 17, 2013 7:41 AM

          [deleted]

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            October 17, 2013 8:07 AM

            Yup, this was going on a lot.

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            October 17, 2013 7:00 PM

            And after all my complaints, I left the "Highlight Objects" on. It kept me from trying to pick up Soda Cans.

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          October 17, 2013 7:58 AM

          I remember never asking for this.

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          October 17, 2013 9:53 AM

          I remember not finishing the game because I was upgraded in a way that didn't help at all in boss fights.

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            October 17, 2013 12:30 PM

            [deleted]

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            October 17, 2013 7:09 PM

            throw a few fucking grenades at the bosses and they die. jesus how horrible at fps are you people?

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              October 17, 2013 7:54 PM

              My issue was I foolishly believed I could find a non-lethal, stealthy approach to defeating the bosses, and I died over and over again before I figured out I couldn't. And the boss fight is the first actual fight I got into, so it was a rude awakening.

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          October 17, 2013 11:58 AM

          There was plenty. Look around on the TTLG forums and you'll still see complaining.

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        October 17, 2013 11:59 AM

        That's where I'm at, too.

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        October 17, 2013 6:30 PM

        Still found the regenerative health and energy annoying.

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      October 17, 2013 7:22 AM

      [deleted]

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      October 17, 2013 7:47 PM

      It's not a good sign that they can just unbolt a major gameplay element IMO. It must be a very loose design.

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