Esteemed Colleagues,
We are excited to release Update 4 to you today! The team has been working hard to increase the dynamism of gameplay and provide new challenges and opportunities in each match. There’s a ton of stuff to talk about, but let’s focus on some key areas:
First up, the Constable’s Guild has improved its training regimen. All guards react more sharply to disturbances and investigate the area more thoroughly when alerted. When KO’d, the Constables will wake with a higher level of alertness and reactivity than before. They stay alert longer too - when recovering from an investigation. These behaviors are responsive to difficulty; on Novice, they calm down a little sooner and stay KO’d longer, but on Master Thief they are more aggressive and don’t stay down as long.
Speaking of difficulties, we’ve also updated the timer to be responsive to difficulty settings. On Novice, we have extended the total match time plus exit time to be much more forgiving and allow Thieves more time to explore and experiment. On Thief difficulty the timer is about the same however the exit timer has been slightly increased . For Master Thieves, we’ve upped the challenge by reducing the exit timer to 4 minutes. When playing for the highest stakes, it will be critical to plan an exit before snapping up the Mission loot.
Players will now have access to Slithertaps and Car Horns. Slithertaps are interactable valves in the world that produce a short burst of Slithersap, with all the benefits thereof. Have a Constable in hot pursuit? Lure them past a Slithertap and activate it to cool them down. Need to lure any member of the guard force off their post? Try jumping on a car to produce a loud honk! Need a quick way to bypass a lock and willing to deal with loud noises? Break the glass of the display case or a nearby unbarred window by throwing a bottle at it. But be judicious with these shortcuts – guards react strongly to the sound of breaking glass.
We’ve also rebalanced the Ledger so that we could add more customization options to the Thieves, including some different outfits, more accessories, some oft-requested combinations of the accessories, and a magnificent new calling card. Check out the Black Market to see all the new choices!
Dive back in to try your hand against these new changes and challenges! We’re still watching, listening, and planning our next steps - so keep sending us notes on discord or leaving us reviews!
See you in the shadows,
~ The Thick As Thieves Team
Changelist
Pickpocket Fairy ammunition increased from 2 to 3
Added Slithertaps
Added alarms on stationary vehicles
Added breakable glass panes
Added difficulty-based game and exit timers
Novice allows much more match and more exit time, and Master Thief allows less
Added a bunch of new cosmetic items to the Black Market
Re-tuned the cost of items in the Black Market
Already purchased items will not be affected
Fixed an issue where Reset to Defaults incorrectly displayed Space as an input
Fixed an issue where some specialized keys would display in large overlapping text.
There are some new icons, and still-missing icons should use an appropriate font for the space.
Fixed a few more keybinds that didn’t work correctly as certain commands, such as left-alt and enter
Fixed a few places where collectible items would spawn inside of assets in Elway Manor
Improved guard VO to better distinguish between visual detections and sound investigations, and added new "vigilant" state VO to communicate their heightened alertness.
Improved Gramophone music playback with better playlist randomization, additional tracks and styles, rebalanced volume levels, and disabled auto-shutdown in the Thief's Den so players can choose their own background music.
Improved environmental audio responsiveness, allowing player tools and interactive objects to react more dynamically to environment acoustics, reflections, and reverb.
Adjusted AI Sound Stim object audio ranges to better align with AI detection behavior and player expectations.
Added new sound effect suites for interactive and breakable objects, including unique glass break and shard impacts, truck interactions and alarms, and Slither Sap pipe audio.
Known Issues
Contract 12, the Contract of Oberon, does not show on map or compass
Many of the new cosmetic items do not yet have localization into other languages