Climb / Hide changes -- Discussion Thread

[nessalin]

http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,49825.msg907531.html#msg907531

[Delirium]

Nice changes for realism.... now maybe make climb/hide a little less binary? Especially climb. Falling on your neck feels like a stunt out of a vaudeville act not a post apoc RPI.

I appreciate these checks were probably easier to implement, but I would have rather seen the way climb/hide work improved before taking away the "features" that made it a little more believable (now we aren't going to see people perching 'at the edge" of cliffs and shooting down, because there's just no coded way to do so, even though it's a perfectly viable tactic in real life... because if you fail your check you'll topple forward a'la comedy central and fall down the cliff, which is just goofy as all get-out).

The cliff-top problem could probably be solved by making all "edge of cliff" rooms able to be walked in/out of, with the climb happening on the up/down.

That doesn't solve the problem for the pits, though.

[AdamBlue]

>Look
You are currently climbing in a fall room.
>inv
You have a bow, a quiver, and a rope.
>look down
Three rooms below, you see a jerk.
>use rope
You fail to find a secure place to tie yourself down.
>use rope
You find a place to secure you.
>up
You must first untie yourself to move in that direction.
>north
You must first untie yourself to move in that direction.
>down
You slowly lower yourself down the cliff using the rope.
>look down
The jerk is two rooms away.
>hold bow
>get arrow quiver
>wield arrow
>shoot jerk down
>look down
The jerk is dead.
>up
Not with full hands.
>remove bow
>up
You slowly climb up the rope...
>use rope
You unlash the rope, and resume climbing.
>up
You carefully climb up.

[Fujikoma]

What? No going down there for the fat loot?

Also, do ropes really work like that IG? Here I've been doing it wrong all along.

[Nyr]

I'm pretty sure this was only meant to address some situations where the code wasn't working as intended; there were some bugs here.  Had this gone in a couple weeks ago, it would have pre-empted a granted resurrection request.

Expanding use-cases/functionality/creating new code for climb has not really been in discussion; there is still at least one other bug that Nessalin and I were just discussing.

[Nyr]

Also, do ropes really work like that IG? Here I've been doing it wrong all along.

They don't--the idea suggested by AdamBlue would be pretty neat, though a long ways off in terms of what the code is right now!

[Fujikoma]

Also, do ropes really work like that IG? Here I've been doing it wrong all along.

They don't--the idea suggested by AdamBlue would be pretty neat, though a long ways off in terms of what the code is right now!

Ah well, it'd be pretty neat.

[James de Monet]

What, no more "Somone's eyes roll back in their head as they collapse to the ground," or whatever the message was?  Heh.  Good stuff.  That was hard to RP around.


http://youtu.be/Xo21CkoxEmA

[Inks]

Good changes overall but why couldn't someone use a loaded crossbow or throw something down while climbing?

[Delirium]

Good changes overall but why couldn't someone use a loaded crossbow or throw something down while climbing?

You get a climb check to see if you succeed in doing so without falling.

No idea how hard/easy that climb check is, though.

I still wish there was a way to use the advantage of terrain (shooting down at people from cliffs, though they could shoot up at you w/ a negative as well).. stuff like that.

[Majikal]

Good changes overall but why couldn't someone use a loaded crossbow or throw something down while climbing?

You get a climb check to see if you succeed in doing so without falling.

No idea how hard/easy that climb check is, though.

I still wish there was a way to use the advantage of terrain (shooting down at people from cliffs, though they could shoot up at you w/ a negative as well).. stuff like that.

Who says there's not a bonus for shooting down and a penalty for shooting up?

But hells yeah on these changes.

[Inks]

Oh it is a climb check. THIS IS AWESOME THEN.

[Delirium]

If there is, great, I didn't see mention of it.

I'm just grouchy because I've had some really cool scenes where people roleplayed being on the edge of a cliff or pit and shooting down, and in those kinds of situations you really wouldn't just slip and fall unless it was some sort of freak accident or you were dumb enough to lean over too far.

So I feel limited by the code instead of like it enables me to roleplay stuff.

So I'm shaking my cane.

[Delirium]

I'm going to refer you to the "life is dangerous, suck it up noob" part of the docs and retreat to my jaded old vet cave.

This is the takeaway I really want people to be focusing on, this is what gets me grumpy:

"I feel limited by the code instead of like it enables me to roleplay stuff."

[Synthesis]

"I feel limited by the code instead of like it enables me to roleplay stuff."

I dunno.

"Tying off" into some primitive rope system without things like titanium/steel carabiners, pulleys, scarabs, figure-8s, MPDs, anchor bolts, etc. etc., in order to then flip around and shoot downward at something seems pretty far-fetched.

Climbing with ropes is really fucking complicated and pretty dangerous even with modern equipment.  I think the code allows us to get away with a whole lot more than we really ought to be getting away with, already, if you want my honest opinion about it.

[Delirium]

The tying off suggestion was frankly silly and I'm not the one that posted that.

I just wanna be able to look over the edge of cliffs or down into pits, and throw things or shoot things in both directions. You should be able to do that without risking life and limb.

I don't think that's unrealistic or too much to ask.

>look up
[near]
Nothing
[far]
A desert elf is crouched here.

>shoot elf up

>look down
[near]
A rantarri prowls around in a pit here!

>throw knife rantarri down
You steady yourself and take aim...

>A rantarri tries to climb, but slips.


Edit: basically, what frustrates me is that mundanes already have a lot of limitations that they shouldn't have due to code limitations.

Mages have so much flexibility as to what they can accomplish, and mundanes can't even peek over the edge of a pit / cliff without the very real risk of taking a swandive to the ground below. And now they can't even do anything if they do mange to get to the edge of that pit / cliff, without repeatedly risking another swandive.

It removes a very realistic strategic option from the mundane skillset and places it firmly in the hands of certain mages.

[AdamBlue]

How is it silly?
I'm literally insisting abseiling, what's wrong with abseiling?
Of course, it would be a bit more complicated then tying a rope to a tree and tying a rope around your waist, but it's by no means something silly.

[Delirium]

Somebody better tell that guy he needs to make a climb check before he can get close enough to see how far the drop really is!

[Delirium]

You see, the guy on top has a frowny face because he's totally falling because he failed his climb check.

[BadSkeelz]

Climbing was already lame and falls already fatal enough that cliffs have a 2 room "Nope" limit around them in my mind, anyway.

[Delirium]

Climbing was already lame and falls already fatal enough that cliffs have a 2 room "Nope" limit around them in my mind, anyway.

That's what I want to see fixed. Instead we get "feature" fixes that make it even harder to work around that part of the code.

I appreciate the effort, I do. But I really want to point out that sometimes features are okay, because the entire way we handle climb needs to be revisited first.

At the least, the tops of cliffs should be non-climb rooms because no one is stupid enough to fall over a ledge. That doesn't even require a code change.

[seidhr]

At the least, the tops of cliffs should be non-climb rooms because no one is stupid enough to fall over a ledge. That doesn't even require a code change.

Actually, that would require a code change, because you could simply go "down" and you've now traversed down the cliff without having a climb check, the way the code works currently - assuming it's a one room drop.  And for longer drops you're now facing N-1 climb checks.

[Fujikoma]

As far as that guy peering over the ledge? I have nightmares about things like that, starting from some five to seven feet up, depending on the terrain below. I, myself, would fail the shit out of that "peek over the edge" check, especially if a sudden, soft breeze tickled the back of my neck. But that's just me, I can't speak for everyone.

[Inks]

I liked what Delirium said. You shoot be able to at least throw and shoot 1 handed crossbows without climb checks.

[Fujikoma]

Yeah, a lot of people stick to bows, I guess because they don't percieve a coded or situational advantage from crossbows, but I could be way off. Such a buff to crossbows may make them a little more popular, resulting in more requests for mastercrafts and the like.

Should be a bayonetted crossbow... I mean um, time to get to work!