As you fall, you land on your neck!

Started by Reiloth, August 10, 2016, 12:30:41 AM

As you fall, you land on your neck!

I mean, I understand a critical fail should yield a 'bad result'. But doing 90+ stun damage (I think actually just 'all the stun you have until it knocks you out') seems possibly the most unforgiving coded critical fail beyond a disarm fail.

As with many things in the game, I wish there were aspects that weren't so binary. If, instead, a critical fail yielded a large chunk of damage/stun damage, or falling one room below (but not all the way down, say, the side of a mountain) it seems it would add more to the game.

As it stands, you basically just have to wait ten minutes as a time out.
"You will have useful work: the destruction of evil men. What work could be more useful? This is Beyond; you will find that your work is never done -- So therefore you may never know a life of peace."

~Jack Vance~

While I don't care for it, myself, there used to be a time when falling off of your mount could result in a neck snap and instant death.

Perspective.
Quote from: Dalmeth
I've come to the conclusion that relaxing is not the lack of doing anything, but doing something that comes easily to you.

Yeah, this bit of code can go die in a fire.

Quote from: Pale Horse on August 10, 2016, 12:36:07 AM
While I don't care for it, myself, there used to be a time when falling off of your mount could result in a neck snap and instant death.

Perspective.

More like progress.

I think the next step is tweaking this bit.
"You will have useful work: the destruction of evil men. What work could be more useful? This is Beyond; you will find that your work is never done -- So therefore you may never know a life of peace."

~Jack Vance~

I'm not entirely against the way it is, but I'm also not adamant against changing it either.

I'd like to see the critical fail itself do very -minor- damage in stun, because in real life...the mistake itself isn't what generally kills you.  In exchange, give a delay that makes it very hard to stop a fall of any distance.  In this way, critical failing in most places in the game sucks, but isn't very serious, but there is incentive for mediocre climbers to fear large drops.

I only say this as long as the 'attempt to stop a fall' continues to do comparative damage to what it does now.  If that changes, this idea would also change. (And I say this because the delay from a critical fail should be long enough to try and catch yourself after 4 rooms or so of falling.  The 'critical fail' stands for something that makes you lose your grip entirely and have to recover from a mistake.)
She wasn't doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together. --J.D. Salinger

In my opinion, for realisms sake keep it, that stuff is dangerous af and being only knocked out for an hour IG is the only consequences?
For playabilities sake it could do half stun half physical. Eg:

100 hp and 100 stun.

Crit fail a climb check 1 room up:
You slip and smash your head against the climbing surface!
(50 hp damage and 50 stun damage)

Crit fail a climb check 3 rooms up:
You slip and smash your head against the climbing surface!
(Instant 50 damage across the board)
You plummet to the ground below!
You plummet to the ground below! Etc

You hit the ground maybe a mantis head what with having been half healthed maybe your a badass and and have the hp to still survive the rest of the fall idk.
Maybe reduce the damage to just 1/4 of hp instead of half.

Tl;dr just an idea, that seems realistic to me as a person.

It's stupid and makes climbing gambling with your life unless you have 100% nofail climb (i.e. you're a ranger or a burglar).

Deaths from this thing usually just result in PCs randomly disappearing rather than any meaningful storyline advancement

August 10, 2016, 02:47:29 AM #7 Last Edit: August 10, 2016, 06:57:40 AM by Armaddict
QuoteIt's stupid and makes climbing gambling with your life unless you have 100% nofail climb (i.e. you're a ranger or a burglar).

This is why I think what I said works.  The crit fail is no longer that much worse than a normal climb fail unless there's a long drop beneath it, because the crit basically makes it so you don't get as much of a chance to stop that fall.
She wasn't doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together. --J.D. Salinger

Why not a crit fail in climbing result in you just losing your grip and falling, period. You find no purchase, whoops! Then decide if you're going to scramble or take the fall.

Let the height of your climbing be the real threat.

As it stands the climb code is kind of wonky and I've simply gotten used to how reliable/not reliable it can be.

I can spam-climb up all day with little threat once I've bypassed the (crit-fail insta-ko phase). Climbing down or horizontally = danger of falling. Climbing up should yield as much danger as climbing horizontally and down, imo.
A staff member sends you:
"Normally we don't see a <redacted> walk into a room full of <redacted> and start indiscriminately killing."

You send to staff:
"Welcome to Armageddon."

This really does feel like the artifact of a bygone era to me.
Former player as of 2/27/23, sending love.

I hate this bit of code, and I MOSTLY see it when I go to flee from combat in a room with a climb exit and I happen to get unlucky and the random direction is up. You can guess what happens next.
Quote from: Synthesis on August 23, 2016, 07:10:09 PM
I'm asking for evidence, not telling you all to fuck off.

No, I'm telling you to fuck off, now, because you're being a little bitch.

Quote from: Dunetrade55 on August 10, 2016, 09:19:59 AM
I hate this bit of code, and I MOSTLY see it when I go to flee from combat in a room with a climb exit and I happen to get unlucky and the random direction is up. You can guess what happens next.

Thank goodness they fixed the bug where even if you succeeded your climb check you'd fall.

Next step is to devalue the hell out of climb-check exits so that you never choose those on a flee if any other exit is available, unless you manually type in the direction, i.e. >flee e

Pls.

Quote from: Majikal on August 10, 2016, 06:06:15 AM
Why not a crit fail in climbing result in you just losing your grip and falling, period. You find no purchase, whoops! Then decide if you're going to scramble or take the fall.

Let the height of your climbing be the real threat.

As it stands the climb code is kind of wonky and I've simply gotten used to how reliable/not reliable it can be.


I can spam-climb up all day with little threat once I've bypassed the (crit-fail insta-ko phase). Climbing down or horizontally = danger of falling. Climbing up should yield as much danger as climbing horizontally and down, imo.

All of this. Falling is already pretty damaging. Having the absurd code for crit-failing just makes me and lots of other PCs rarely if ever use climb unless they're certain guilds. I've gotten used to it over the years, but that doesn't make it any less absurd. It just means we get newer players who aren't used to the code ending up with characters who die in a frustrating fashion.

Upon request, we've changed it to this:

> As you fall, you drop the meat in the dust!
Quote from: Decameron on September 16, 2010, 04:47:50 PM
Character: "I've been working on building a new barracks for some tim-"
NPC: "Yeah, that fell through, sucks but YOUR HOUSE IS ON FIREEE!! FIRE-KANKS!!"

Quote from: Talia on August 10, 2016, 12:32:27 PM
Upon request, we've changed it to this:

> As you fall, you drop the meat in the dust!

This was funnier to me than it should have been.
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My phone now autocorrects "damn" to Dman.
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The young daughter has been filled.

Quote from: Majikal on August 10, 2016, 06:06:15 AM
Why not a crit fail in climbing result in you just losing your grip and falling, period. You find no purchase, whoops! Then decide if you're going to scramble or take the fall.

Let the height of your climbing be the real threat.

As it stands the climb code is kind of wonky and I've simply gotten used to how reliable/not reliable it can be.

I can spam-climb up all day with little threat once I've bypassed the (crit-fail insta-ko phase). Climbing down or horizontally = danger of falling. Climbing up should yield as much danger as climbing horizontally and down, imo.

What would the threat be from climbing up from a normal room be then?

I want to be able to jump of a building without taking damage until I hit the bottom. For certain reasons. As it is, I -think- you'll take damage all the way down, but I wish there were a way around this, perhaps saving up all of the !damnage! until the end.
Quote from: Miradus on January 26, 2017, 11:36:32 AM
I'm just looking for a general consensus. Or Moe's opinion. Either one generally can be accepted as canon.

Quote from: Brokkr on August 10, 2016, 01:32:41 PM
Quote from: Majikal on August 10, 2016, 06:06:15 AM
Why not a crit fail in climbing result in you just losing your grip and falling, period. You find no purchase, whoops! Then decide if you're going to scramble or take the fall.

Let the height of your climbing be the real threat.

As it stands the climb code is kind of wonky and I've simply gotten used to how reliable/not reliable it can be.

I can spam-climb up all day with little threat once I've bypassed the (crit-fail insta-ko phase). Climbing down or horizontally = danger of falling. Climbing up should yield as much danger as climbing horizontally and down, imo.

What would the threat be from climbing up from a normal room be then?

This is true, it would wipe out the threat of climbing up from a one room drop. Which I also dislike.  >:(

I'm not sure what a good balance would be, I just wish it was also possible to fall while climbing upwards. Maybe the fall on your neck thing for ground floor crit fails, and some sort of scramble for purchase/let go of the wall fail for climbing up in fall rooms?
A staff member sends you:
"Normally we don't see a <redacted> walk into a room full of <redacted> and start indiscriminately killing."

You send to staff:
"Welcome to Armageddon."

Quote from: Brokkr on August 10, 2016, 01:32:41 PM
Quote from: Majikal on August 10, 2016, 06:06:15 AM
Why not a crit fail in climbing result in you just losing your grip and falling, period. You find no purchase, whoops! Then decide if you're going to scramble or take the fall.

Let the height of your climbing be the real threat.

As it stands the climb code is kind of wonky and I've simply gotten used to how reliable/not reliable it can be.

I can spam-climb up all day with little threat once I've bypassed the (crit-fail insta-ko phase). Climbing down or horizontally = danger of falling. Climbing up should yield as much danger as climbing horizontally and down, imo.

What would the threat be from climbing up from a normal room be then?

Make a crit fail appear as a success, and cause the character to drop then? You still fall as if you had done so from a one room distance, but not with the insane amounts of stun damage it currently does. You simply fall a bit. If you crit fail while way up somewhere, things become much more dangerous, but climbing up that high should be that dangerous.
Quote
You take the last bite of your scooby snack.
This tastes like ordinary meat.
There is nothing left now.

It's harder to balance than I expected at a glance, I've actually started thinking about this pretty hard now. Cause I want all the falls to be dangerous as Brokkr said and I want long falls to be deadly as they should be.

You climb up.
You climb up.
you fall and land on your neck! (-100 stun) However you don't codedly fall unless KO.

I think I would like something more like:

You climb up.
You climb up.
You try to climb up, but slip. (fail)
You try to climb up, but lose your footing. (crit fail) (take damage equivalent to 'scrambling for purchase but finding nothing')
You plummet. (get ready for the pain, or scramble for purchase)

But how would you balance the dangers of the short climbs? Being able to spam up from a one-room climb would be kind of lame, so maybe keep the current feature around for that? Maybe swap it to instant one-room fall damage? I suppose I'm in favor of making climb more dangerous, especially for the ill-prepared.
A staff member sends you:
"Normally we don't see a <redacted> walk into a room full of <redacted> and start indiscriminately killing."

You send to staff:
"Welcome to Armageddon."

If climbdirection == up
  critfail == -50 hp, -100 stun, -50 dkp, no fall

if climbdirection!=up
  critfail == -10 hp, -10 stun, hilarity and notice to the room that you are a noob, playerstatus == freefallin'.


Frankly, critfailing on an up-climb of one room isn't generally disastrous.  Even just adding a wider range of possible damage values would help with this, allowing for big mistakes and small mistakes.
She wasn't doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together. --J.D. Salinger

Quote from: Armaddict on August 10, 2016, 02:46:41 PM
If climbdirection == up
  critfail == -50 hp, -100 stun, -50 dkp, no fall

if climbdirection!=up
  critfail == -10 hp, -10 stun, hilarity and notice to the room that you are a noob, playerstatus == freefallin'.


Frankly, critfailing on an up-climb of one room isn't generally disastrous.  Even just adding a wider range of possible damage values would help with this, allowing for big mistakes and small mistakes.

I think more this than anything. A wider range of damage/stun for critfail would be nice. I've had my first attempt climbing up from a 'ground floor' room yield a necksnap, and then waiting 10 minutes to wake up, rinse and repeat.
"You will have useful work: the destruction of evil men. What work could be more useful? This is Beyond; you will find that your work is never done -- So therefore you may never know a life of peace."

~Jack Vance~

August 10, 2016, 05:49:02 PM #22 Last Edit: August 10, 2016, 07:22:54 PM by Case
I have some permanent injuries from falling about 13 ft on a rock wall, as Badskeelz can attest - he got to deal with me when it blew up as sciatica suddenly. Any fall over your own height is a serious fall. On the fall I did this, I still completed the climb.

You shouldn't be able to land on your neck unless you tumble and roll.

I think it should come down to weight/height vs the type of climb it is. Some climbs are safe or easy to test or recover from, some are definitely not. If you're taller, you can handle short height climbs much more easier. I can take falls about 2 or 3 m / 7-10ft off the ground without issue, but these would injure my much shorter climbing partner. The more you weigh, the harder it is to climb and the far worse a fall is.

Guess it depends how high one room up is meant to be.

I guess it's different for everyone. I've leapt from heights above one story, but never quite two, with little issue, but I rolled, have been trained to roll properly, and it's different leaping from falling. I've had a few bad falls, tumbling down rocky hillsides and the like (hint: it's not up to you when you stop after a certain point, it's when getting enmeshed in concertina wire becomes a relieving experience), had a ledge give out on me about fifteen feet up and just splat right on my back (flopped, I guess a sort-of breakfall?). Once I was able to breathe again I just started laughing. It IS quite surprising to me I wasn't injured, that, I know of, permanently.
Quote from: Synthesis on August 23, 2016, 07:10:09 PM
I'm asking for evidence, not telling you all to fuck off.

No, I'm telling you to fuck off, now, because you're being a little bitch.

Quote from: Dunetrade55 on August 10, 2016, 06:30:17 PM
I guess it's different for everyone. I've leapt from heights above one story, but never quite two, with little issue, but I rolled, have been trained to roll properly, and it's different leaping from falling. I've had a few bad falls, tumbling down rocky hillsides and the like (hint: it's not up to you when you stop after a certain point, it's when getting enmeshed in concertina wire becomes a relieving experience), had a ledge give out on me about fifteen feet up and just splat right on my back (flopped, I guess a sort-of breakfall?). Once I was able to breathe again I just started laughing. It IS quite surprising to me I wasn't injured, that, I know of, permanently.
Oh I meant 2 or 3 m up, not ft. I'm a britisher. I'll edit.