Smoke bombs make me sad

[Vingdoloras]

Hello there! I have an issue with smoke bombs, not bug related, but related to how upgraded smoke bombs work.

I prefer the complete stealth play style (dont kill anyone, dont be detected at all), and smoke bombs are by far my favourite tool for getting through hard areas. I got the smoke bomb upgrade as Soon as I could, as it sounds like it would improve smoke bombs (which it does), but that completely ruined them for me. Guards that get poisoned by my smoke bomb cause an alarm and automated detection as Soon as the smoke bomb ends, no matter how far away I am. Could you please allow us to deactivate upgrades again? Is there a way to do this that I missed?

Cheers,

Vingdoloras

[Corey]

Heya,So this is something we've been talking about in the office since launching on 360. A handful of players have requested the ability to downgrade stuff. We added both text and audio descriptions of each items to indicate things like the fact that the upgraded smoke bomb is a more deadly version of the original, maybe we should have found a way to make that clearer though (or that the upgrade is permanent)In Mark of the Ninja the upgrades you buy are indeed permanent. We discussed making a patch based on the few players that brought this up that would let people downgrade or choose versions of weapons, but the problem is that on top of a major UI change (in all languages) this would mean we have to construct save files differently to keep track of what items the player loaded out, has earned, downgraded etc.... So, if we did implement this it's pretty likely that everyone's save files would be ruined. Which is definitely not something we want to do.So, while it's unfortunate that happened here, the only way to revert this at the moment is to start a new save file and not upgrade the item. If you're still early on in the game, (without spoiling anything) there's other items later on that will give you a lot more options in place of Smoke bombs and reduce the impact of this greatly.

[Vingdoloras]

I'm pretty far into the game already, but I'm managing fine without smokebombs. I just loved smoke bombs so much because of the laser blocking. But now it's basically worthless to me, which I find kind of sad. Downgrading equipment would also be useful for different playthroughs with the same save file (I will try one killing every guard unnoticed, one stealth, and maybe something else, and I don't know if any other upgrades will interfere with my intentions, like the smoke bomb).Cheers,Vingdoloras

[Snows]

I thought the upgraded smoke bomb only disabled (dizzied, if you will). Doesn't that mean they just wake up in yellow alert state afterwards if you just leave them alone?

[Vingdoloras]

I thought the upgraded smoke bomb only disabled (dizzied, if you will). Doesn't that mean they just wake up in yellow alert state afterwards if you just leave them alone?

That's what I thought, but they wake up in red alert state instead.To the devs, here's another idea:Allow us to freely refund any of the upgrades we purchase, get the points back and be able to invest them elsewhere.What does this achieve?1. When you refund an upgrade, it's like you never purchased that upgrade at all, so you won't need to change the player saves at all.2. It gives players more freedom, they have to commit less to a certain build. I can get to a certain mission using stealth stuff, then move my points around and go on a murdering spree. Now, less commitment to one playstyle can be seen in a positive and negative way, but I think, it would fit Mark of the Ninja well.In addition to that, you could just use symbols to symbolize refunding the upgrade (like a red cross, you click it to refund the upgrade) instead of adding more text that you'd have to translate to different languages.Looking forward to hearing your opinion on that.Cheers,Vingdoloras

[Corey]

That's what I thought, but they wake up in red alert state instead.To the devs, here's another idea:Allow us to freely refund any of the upgrades we purchase, get the points back and be able to invest them elsewhere.What does this achieve?1. When you refund an upgrade, it's like you never purchased that upgrade at all, so you won't need to change the player saves at all.2. It gives players more freedom, they have to commit less to a certain build. I can get to a certain mission using stealth stuff, then move my points around and go on a murdering spree. Now, less commitment to one playstyle can be seen in a positive and negative way, but I think, it would fit Mark of the Ninja well.In addition to that, you could just use symbols to symbolize refunding the upgrade (like a red cross, you click it to refund the upgrade) instead of adding more text that you'd have to translate to different languages.Looking forward to hearing your opinion on that.Cheers,Vingdoloras

We've had huge game design discussions about refunding points. It's a topic of great divide in the gaming world and it's definitely not a direction we'd go in now that the game has shipped. It has large implications on the design and pacing of the game since everything else wasn't built around that format. It also requires major UI work (in all languages), that just isn't realistic at this point. If we can find a solution that can be tastefully done we'll update this thread.

[micromikko]

I feel your pain, Vingdoloras! I wasn't aware that the guards would sound a red alert after being gassed, which makes sense really, but I still think for gameplay's sake the guards should just be left wondering. In its current form the smoke bomb is sadly nigh unusable in stealthy playthroughs.