Locks and Doorways

[Heade]

Taking away avenues of conflict resolution is not good for the game until there are valid and comparable avenues of conflict resolution offered as replacement.

There are already ways to kill people inside an apartment. You can pick the lock and break in, then wait for them to get home, pickpocket their key, and do the exact same thing. The only difference is that it takes effort, and it should. We don't need to "replace" cheese that shouldn't have been there to begin with, when there are perfectly valid ways to do the same thing that just take a little effort.

[wizturbo]

The game becomes less fun when conflict is resolved, not the opposite way around.  Also you have to think about the implications for new conflicts by having locked apartments be significantly more "safe" than they are today.

If locked rooms were safer:

• People may actually store real valuables there, so breaking in could actually be worth something
• The need for clan compounds becomes less essential, and may become workplaces instead of impregnable fortresses that PC's never need to leave
• Players may not immediately logoff the moment they enter their apartment out of fear someone is about to backstab them
• The death rate of aides improves dramatically
• Less cheesy deaths, which may mean we have more players to have conflicts with...

[Greve]

To be perfectly honest, the whole idea of shadowing someone through a doorway is patently absurd; it's physically impossible, you couldn't ever do that in real life unless you were literally invisible and incorporeal. But what's the solution? If you make it impossible, you just change the shadow "meta" into 'fol self, north, re-shadow amos' and solve nothing. It would take a full redesign of the entire stealth system.

This game's stealth system is very primitive. More often than not, it leads to situations that are silly and unrealistic. I don't think it's worth trying to come up with solutions to individual aspects of it without a total rework of the whole stealth code. Without that, any possible fix would just be another strange code quirk that has no basis in realism. If the general framework of the stealth system is to remain the same, I'm not sure it's worth trying to address its fringe problems.

If I were a real Zalanthan individual walking down a corridor to my apartment, I would be able to glance over my shoulder and check with 100% certainty that nobody is following me, unless they're affected by the actual Invisibility spell. Not so in the game. Any idiot with the hide skill can completely overcome the fundamental concept of human vision because the game cannot discern between a bare hallway and a crowded city street unless a builder had the foresight to render the room no_hide, which is quite the rarity. Unless we can count on staff to go through the entirety of the game's playable grid and judge every room's stealth potential on a one-by-one basis, there's no easy solution.

Ideally, every room would have a coded hiding place for every eligible thing that could possibly be hidden behind/under/inside, but that's kind of an unrealistic expectation. As much as I would love for that to be a thing, it just isn't. As long as that's the case, the question remains: on whose side of an unrealistic mechanic should the game err?

You walk down a street that's supposed to be filled with travelers, dozens or even hundreds of people, but you can immediately spot the only other PC in the crowd and react accordingly. Innumerable times throughout the history of this game, people have taken advantage of this fact, fallen victim to it, or otherwise been affected by it. Is this fair?

You walk into a room that contains a rickety wooden chair and a bag of short bone lengths, but there's a deadly assassin hiding somewhere holding a dagger dripping with peraine. There's no possible way he could have removed himself from your field of vision, but the code let him, so he leaps out of nowhere and stabs you in the eye. Is this fair?

There's no solution that satisfies both sides of the equation. The scan skill is fashioned entirely from shit, and the hide skill is a bunch of idiotic nonsense. This discussion does not seem to have any merit until it's one of many patch notes in a full re-design of this game's stealth system, which was probably designed in the 1990s. Before that day comes, I frankly think everyone's better served sticking with what is at least familiar, if not sensible.

But until that day comes, the one thing I would suggest changing is the fact that the hide skill easily gets a bonus of ten, twenty or more points from various sources while bonuses to the scan skill are extremely limited, leading to a situation where anyone with guild_miscreant and some combination of bonuses to hide will practically always defeat even the highest possible scan skill available to any sensible combination of class, race and stats.

[Brokkr]

The topic is doorways and locks, not stealth.  To the extent stealth impacts those two things, feel free to comment on it.  To the extent it doesn't, keep your opinion to yourself and stay on topic.

[mansa]

Had a key stolen right out of my hand immediately after I locked the door.

So.  Suggestions for lock/doorways?  Heade made a suggestion in the other thread, that I think basically comes down to a flag to put on a doorway such that it can't be sneaked through...or at least shadowed through.

As I was reading the thread, it struck me that all our doors are sort of old time locks.  Must be locked/unlocked on both sides.  Rather than like a deadbolt, locked/unlocked on one side with a key, and with a handle on the other side (so no need for a key).

I will admit while we have made some strides on how our locks work, they are pretty basic.  I always liked locked doors in the Thief series.  Looking for variety of ideas on how locks might have more variety.

I'd like to have the ability to break down doors with strength or with weapons, or have the ability to upgrade the locks on the doors. 
I'd like to see more one-way locking doors, aka 'barring' the doors to prevent people from unlocking it from one side -> You can still open the door, but being able to 'unlock it' from one side is impossible.

[Hauwke]

I think the bash skill could be quite nicely used to break doors down, that would prevent it being a purely strength based check, so that smarty elf guys can still kick the handle in if they know what they are doing.

But it also lets a half giant just straight wreck the door with no skill at all. Because half giant.

That said, It does leave dwarves out of the mix a little, if it would also go off of height like bash does.

[ShaLeah]

I've seen people pop locks with a toothpick sized thing, in seconds but always with sound. I know I've also been in a room alone and looked up at someone who walked in that I didn't notice.  My cat can run out of the door in a split second, someone could definitely walk in behind me most days and I wouldn't notice.  Fantasy and fun trump realism in my opinion. 

However!

I always wanted a CHANCE to hear the lock or NOTICE the door opening.

Happens every time and directly tied to your perception skills and smarts but a ..

You notice: The soft click of a lock.
You notice: Someone opens the door.
You notice: The door closes.
You notice: The soft click of a lock.

I'd be thrilled with just that.

[Hauwke]

I've seen people pop locks with a toothpick sized thing, in seconds but always with sound. I know I've also been in a room alone and looked up at someone who walked in that I didn't notice.  My cat can run out of the door in a split second, someone could definitely walk in behind me most days and I wouldn't notice.  Fantasy and fun trump realism in my opinion. 

However!

I always wanted a CHANCE to hear the lock or NOTICE the door opening.

Happens every time and directly tied to your perception skills and smarts but a ..

You notice: The soft click of a lock.
You notice: Someone opens the door.
You notice: The door closes.
You notice: The soft click of a lock.

I'd be thrilled with just that.

My kid, 1m tall sneaks by me all the damn time. A child, not trying to sneak, because I'm just not paying attention because guess what? I'm in my own home, why would I be super on edge.

I have been wanting to say this for awhile, But couldn't think of a decent way. So I just am going to say it as best I can.

The world is populated by elves, beings with crazy levels of spatial awareness and body control in the form of super high agility. If a child can sneak past me on accident through a door that I open most of the way because I am not some super paranoid weirdo about Just sliding into my own damn home, Then an elf intending to do it absolutely could. Would it be difficult? Certainly. Is it impossible? No. It is not impossible and if you think it is, then you clearly spend your entire life crushing yourself with the door to get in your own damn house.

People absolutely are not half as perceptive as we think we are. And its a goddamn elf.

[Heade]

My cat can run out of the door in a split second, someone could definitely walk in behind me most days and I wouldn't notice.

There is a difference between a 5 pound feline and a 150 pound man with a large sack and an axe. Namely: The ability to fit between your legs without you noticing.

We're not talking about noticing so much as it being physically impossible, since people shut doors as they go through them. You might be a different story, if you go in first and have a member of your kid parade close the door for you.

[Heade]

To be perfectly honest, the whole idea of shadowing someone through a doorway is patently absurd; it's physically impossible, you couldn't ever do that in real life unless you were literally invisible and incorporeal. But what's the solution? If you make it impossible, you just change the shadow "meta" into 'fol self, north, re-shadow amos' and solve nothing. It would take a full redesign of the entire stealth system.

It wouldn't take a redesign of the entire stealth system, because I'm suggesting a flag that can be placed on doorways that would prevent sneaking/shadowing through them.

But you did bring up a good point. I originally only said "shadow", but it should probably apply to sneak as well, since the number of circumstances in which sneak could be appropriately applied to an apartment doorway would be pretty slim anyhow. Either they're inside in an open room, where they will obviously see you open the door and enter, or they aren't, and sneaking would be superfluous anyhow. If it wasn't made to affect both shadowing and sneaking, you're right, people would just abuse the system to sneak in instead, once they shadowed you to the door.

I think that change, paired with the idea someone else suggested about being able to bar the door while you're inside would be a great change. It would make it so that burglars didn't specifically focus on robbing people at 5-6am when there are only 5 people on the server.

If the "bashing doors" thing was added, that could counter a barred door, with the downside that it causes a lot of noise, and so could get you crim flagged.

[Alesan]

The argument for shadowing through a doorway doesn't even allow for paranoid individuals to purposely only open a door wide enough for themselves alone to slip through. In a world like Zalanthas, where death is seemingly around every corner, wouldn't you naturally take a little more care in your surroundings than just opening your door full wide, strolling in, and giving enough space for someone to breeze right through?

At the very least, shadowing should occasionally fail just for that reason alone. But you who are advocating for shadowing to be a fully possible thing are asserting that everyone leaves enough space for your sneaky murderer to slip through.

[Brokkr]

Locking this for now.  Maybe I will reopen it tomorrow.

On topic mean on topic.  Not arguing tangents, FFS.

[Brokkr]

Re-opening.  Stay on topic.  Think of this less as shooting the shit with friends and more as a business meeting.  I am looking for feedback/ideas on specific topics.  I am not looking for feedback on stealth generally.

[kahuna]

I would like to mention one thing: This is a low-technology setting for the most part. Locks made of bone/chitin/anything-else-not-metal would be quite easy to just break with a crowbar. I think the pbase has been relatively unanimously in favor of strong characters being able to bull down flimsy doors. Might help with some of the situations mentioned in this thread. Of course some doors could be immune to this, such as city gates that are reinforced or that have security bars across them.

[Alesan]

I am in favor of disallowing sneaking AND shadowing through small doorways AND giving most commoner-accessible apartments a barrable from the inside lock.


Addendum: Yes, certainly make them breakable, as long as it is VERY audible and/or possible crimflaggable.

[Brokkr]

How do doors that are bashed in get fixed?  How does the world respond to such actions?

[kahuna]

How do doors that are bashed in get fixed?  How does the world respond to such actions?

Above my paygrade! I'm just in favor of adding realistic counter measures to things that people see as unrealistic.

[RogueGunslinger]

Just dont break the door or lock when its bashed. Unrealistic sure, but playability trumps. And auto crimflag non militia and give echoes to adjacant rooms for noise. After a door is bashed give it temporary sdesc in the rooms that shows its ajar until it is closed again.

Seems like a lot of coding though.

[mansa]

I think it would be interesting if you could rent an apartment AND be able to pay extra to have different types of locks on the door.

Here's examples of things you could potentially have as options:

a) easy lock (0~20%)  (included for Free)
b) medium lock (21~50%) (extra 100 per month)
c) complex lock (51 ~ 80%) (extra 500 per month)
d) profession lock (81% higher) (extra 1000 per month)
e) one-way lock (cannot lock from the inside, only from the outside, aka the warehouse lock.  You wouldn't have a quit safe room in these types of locks.) included for free!
f) double-sided lock (locks on both sides (extra 100 per month)
g) barred door (not pickable, but able to be bashed by strength check) (extra 500 per month)
h) double-barred door (not pickable, strength check to be dwarf/giant) (extra 1000 per month)

Each time you renew your apartment you can upgrade/downgrade/fix your door if it's broken, or you can release early and rent it again to get a new door installed.



I'm still thinking about different ways to have one-way doors and locks - I've seen doors that cannot be opened from the other side and that is interesting for sure, but I'm not sure if apartments/warehouses would have that as an option.

[kahuna]

Just dont break the door or lock when its bashed. Unrealistic sure, but playability trumps. And auto crimflag non militia and give echoes to adjacant rooms for noise. After a door is bashed give it temporary sdesc in the rooms that shows its ajar until it is closed again.

Seems like a lot of coding though.

I would be fine with just bashing the door opening/unlocking it simultaneously. Crimflags are all good. We can suspend our disbelief for a thousand other things why not this as well?

Some examples of those things:
-You can smoke tubes/pipes without an actual flame item. Everybody just emotes it anyway.
-We skin corpses in mere seconds. Dressing a carcass would take hours. We ignore this simple fact for playability purposes?
-Magick/spells are some crazy stuff but it leaves no mark on the environment? Obviously there would be evidence of flames erupting around a person, or any other of the hundreds spells that would leave investigating it possible.
-Mining literal shards of glass/obsidian with zero danger to the person involved. This would be a high risk act yet the game treats it like minecraft.
-Wagons are treated like some grand thing because of code reasons, yet the relative simplicity of a wheel and axle wouldn't be that hard for crafters that are making masterpieces with their master woodworking skills? Wagons should be more commonplace but just aren't for some inexplicable reason?

So just a few examples of things off the top of my head, I am sure there are plenty more we could come up with and we're worried about how breaking a door will affect the game world?

[Bogre]

I think shadowing through a doorway is kind of unrealistic. However, -sneaking- through a doorway isn't.

If you shadow through a doorway, it's hard to mentally explain how the person you followed a second behind it didn't notice you.

But if you unlatch, or if it's standing open and you enter, it's imaginable that you ghosted in when they weren't looking or were at a table or in another room (those that have it). Compromising a bit between realism/playability.

[Vex]

How do doors that are bashed in get fixed?  How does the world respond to such actions?

The same way locks are instantly changed when a lease is released, and re-subbed.

Rather than bash SHATTERING THE DOOR into a MILLION PIECES, it simply forced a non-metallic lock to bend enough to pop open. You can, at least on some of the older models, do the same to camper trailers, various makes of screen AND security doors (Bar-like screen doors), due in large part to mediocre engineering, and those are made of metal, quite often steel.

A half-giant BASHES the door, forcing the lock to pop open.

The door is now open to be rushed into, and can be closed and re-locked as per normal, due to the relative flexibility of bone/chitin.

It's a 'bit' flimsy on realism, yes, but is no less plausible than unbreakable obsidian swords AND avoids a code heavy investment of a complete re-work of the lock mechanics, as well as the troublesome advent of 'door repair' skill that is likely more work than reward.

A "bash proof" door, such as a large gate or high end engineering (entrances to various non-estate noble properties, ie tor and oash barracks), would simply have locks made of  thick, reinforced granite and other materials. As is said, it is a low-tech environment and, I would think, the locks are similar in many cases to medieval and prior locks, which are less delicate metal key goes in refined, fine-toothed metal slot, and more hand-size key goes into bulky, usually wooden lock with very basic mechanics.

This is why, imo, an exterior lock/key that requires key/pick (or bash) to unlock/lock when entering/departing, with a heavy door bar from within (no key required, it is simply one or more heavy bars laid across the door to resist entrance, even if key/picks are used from the exterior by would-be assailants) is the best case for Zalanthas.

Editing it add: BASH DOOR should, imo, be 100% crimflag and potentially give alerts to Templars, and give alerts to Templars even if its an AoD member doing it, as it is essentially breaking and entering and potential destruction to House owned property, so they aren't doing it for funsies all the time.

I would, also, not allow BASH skill to be raised, when engaging in door bashing, to avoid suspect behaviors.

[Brokkr]

Well, if you have a barred door, unless it is a very flimsy bar, I am not sure how you would expect anyone to "bash" it open anyways.  Unless they are a half giant.  I get the locks.

Now, if it is barred...how does Nenyuk get in? And if they can get in, what is to keep a thief from replicating that?

[Vex]

Well, if you have a barred door, unless it is a very flimsy bar, I am not sure how you would expect anyone to "bash" it open anyways.  Unless they are a half giant.  I get the locks.

Now, if it is barred...how does Nenyuk get in? And if they can get in, what is to keep a thief from replicating that?

This is the idea, it would be next to impossible to get in when barred, short of uninstalling the door or assaulting it with titanic force. A player could log out with some confidence that, whilst their character is at home and in their bed, their bed, dresser, table and three bags of obsidian slag, won't disappear and leave them in a situation where they grasp for how to respond.

You don't burglar a house with people in it unless you're brazen, you wait for them to depart. If they've departed, the door is secured only with it's limited value lock, and thus, open to invasion. Invade to plunder, invade to lie in wait for an ambush, invade to nap on their comfy couch, whatever the case, learning the basic routine of people should play into the role of a rogue, be they thief, murderer, pervert, or all.

For violent home invasions, you would required SIGNIFICANT strength to break a door-bar, and an advanced knowledge of how to throw your weight, as represented by STRENGTH and the BASH skill. It would be loud, potentially with adjacent room echos, especially INTO the WHOLE apartment being assailed, and cause the landlords to alert the authorities, but should still be possible for those brazen enough to risk it.

If the person isn't at home or logged out, the door is only secured by lock and would be easier to bash open, but have no less noise/echos/alerts involved.

When door is simply locked (player active and out of their home), access would be more or less unchanged, except with the advent of violent access (BASH) as an alternative to finesse (lock picking). Kicking open a door held by a bone or chitin latch would not be done casually (BASH skill requirement), but wouldn't necessarily require herculean strength (celf infiltrator using that BASH skill). No damage on fail.

When door is barred from within (player at home or logged out at home), access would be restricted to violent access of a much higher check for success than otherwise. Potentially with a chance to inflict damage on fail, in proportion to applied force, based upon your BASH skill. Higher = better chance of success, and reduced damage on fail.

Nenyuk gets in, in the same way they change locks instantly: Magickal ninja locksmiths. If we can hand wave this, we can hand wave how they unbar apartments for new renters. It's a trivial thing, and not a detail I would sweat over, especially if BASH vs DOOR may become a player option for PvP RP situations, ie hostage situations, etcs, where waiting on staff animations of nenyuk may not be practical to begin with.

Tbh, the code changes required to account for EVERY aspect of doors, locks, and applications of various forces, would be impractical, at least imo. With the skills already in game and, I presume, some additional hooks in their code, barring of doors, bashing of doors, and general improvement in both dynamic gameplay and player satisfaction can be achieved, at a much, much reduced time/work investment.

It is like, I suppose, advanced rock, paper scissors, weighted towards player satisfaction, at the cost of requiring a little more thought and effort from everyone involved.

Edited to reassert that it would, as well, eliminate the constant problems, associated with apartment murders: Door bars could be unlocked or locked from within by anyone, without a key. It not only eliminates apartments being 100% sure murder rooms, but opens significant inroads to betrayal via seduction and other social means.

[mansa]

Tbh, the code changes required to account for EVERY aspect of doors, locks, and applications of various forces, would be impractical, at least imo. With the skills already in game and, I presume, some additional hooks in their code, barring of doors, bashing of doors, and general improvement in both dynamic gameplay and player satisfaction can be achieved, at a much, much reduced time/work investment.

Don't sell your ideas short.  There is what, maybe 200 doors in the game?
Someone might like this as a project, and run with it.  Krath, Shabago did the whole armours system and that was ..what..  3000+ items?