"The Violent End of Duncan Malveine contains some novel elements: a randomized objective/clues, a collecting aspect, and guards that can switch between bow/sword at will. Of these three, the last one was probably the one that I liked the most, even though it's the most understated aspect of the mission. Why is that?"

Probably because either - people K.O. everything there is, or they ghost. In neither case, people will even make acquaintance with the guards' weapons.

BTW, I think you're ...

PunkRubberRiley, the Tom Cruise of ThiefGuild and Steam forum posters.

You are the Katy Perry of ThiefGuild and Steam forum commenters.

Malazar's Inscrutable Tower is one of the best FMs there is, in my opinion.

While I liked Catacombs of Knoss, the mission gets a bit crazy with difficulty in the second half of the second mission (just like in Legacy of Knoss). Starts of rather easy in the first mission, and gets to very hard in parts in the second mission. A bit inconsistent in terms of difficulty.

There is exactly a single mission with a (understandable) no K.O. objective in Thief 2, and that is the Masks mission.

Think about it: When you rob people of everything they have, no one cares about some knocked out guards. When you kill everyone, on the other hand, that is a big problem, as no employer or fence wants to have a bloodbath on his hands, which obviously attracts a lot of negative attention.

Ghosting objective are either VERY rare cases where they make sense (I really can't...

Yeah, that was my point, and, why I think the best missions, and best games let you play the way you want.

And, if I recall this mission correctly (it's been a while), it doesn't really force you to any specific play style. Otherwise I wouldn't have liked it, I guess. ;)

@marbleman: That is just not true. I can't count the amount of times people who like to ghost told people who knockout guards that they're doing it wrong, and the skilled way to play is ghosting.

Even FM authors: Why implement useless non-KO objectives? It makes no sense at all.

Let the player decide how he plays. That's the big plus with most immersive sims. No need to decapitate that, by forcing a certain play style onto the player.

That said, I don't really understand the discussi...

This mission is absolutely insane. Insane in terms of quality. Shows again that PukeyBrunster and Tannar belong in the top 3 of FM authors, after their near perfect The Scarlet Cascabel. I would even say that The Scarlet Cascabel is the best fan mission I ever played, and, this is of similar quality, albeit very different in terms of setting, of course. Although this is a "seasonal" fun mission, it's very thoroughly thought out, and coherent in itself.

Best mission in Thief II. Period.

One of the absolute best indeed.

That's the thing with making the missions much harder than the original missions were.

I'm pretty positive it's exactly what the level designers wanted it to be. 😉

One of my least favorite missions of the original campaign as well. This, and The Sword. I just don't like them. The architecture of Constantine's mansion, lots of noisy surfaces, hard enemies, which are placed almost unfairly in some places, and the fact that it's not a typical loot mission. Not my cup of tea.

Not that I really dislike any of the mission of the original campaign, but, this is surely the one I least like. 4/10 or 5/10, probably.

To be fair, a lot of fan missions introduce marble floorings for enhanced difficulty though.

And, this is one of them.

Good to see you're still doing your mission marathon, and also play the original missions. 🙂

And, I agree, this is one of my absolute favorites in Thief Gold, aside of the Bonehoard and Cragscleft Prison missions.

I play quite a few fan missions at the moment (I'm addicted really), but, also looking forward to play the original campaigns soon for the 4th or 5th time as well.

I can only echo what you wrote. This is a great mission, but, it sorely lacks a map (not just because the Hammerite fortress is pretty difficult to navigate, but, especially because you will probably take the armory key pretty early from a guard, and then you stumble around the fortress without knowing where the armory actually is. In my case, I probably explored 90% of the fortress, until I finally managed to find the armory, and had to backtrack to places where banners or high beams were, w...

It's not easy to navigate, but, it somehow grew on me, over the years.

Actually, now, I'm always surpised that, even though it's confusing, you will find your way in the end.