More realistic equipment system?

[RunningMountain]

I was thinking for the past couple hours, I think the equipment system needs a few additions.

-Being able to wear more then one thing on the same slot.
ex:
<worn on head> a padded skullcap
So let's say you have a great-helmet now coded as a 5 and the skullcap is a 2, so the great-helmet will fit over it.
wear helmet
You place the great-helmet on your head over a padded skullcap.
eq
<worn on head> a great-helmet
<worn on head> a padded skullcap

This would work well for people who want to wear more then one necklace, or for those weaker mercenaries that want to wear light armor.

ex:
<worn on body> a light, sleeveless vest of black leather

Now this would have 2 numerical outputs, one for the armor-fit code and one to define that the armor doesn't have sleeves.  This way someone could actually wear "suites" of armor that fit together in pieces and change their sdesc once all the pieces are collected such as someone who is wearing full silt-horror plate armor, even without a helmet it would be an imposing sight, so once a certain amount of armor is collected and worn they would become.

The figure wearing a set of silt-horror plated armor.

Don't know about you but that is kind of intimidating, as well it should be on Zalanthas where heavy armor is rare.

The code would also take into consideration wearing certain things too big to be worn over other things.

<worn on body> a breastplate of bone
let's say you try to wear another breastplate

It won't fit over it.

Alright, now that's out of the way, here's another idea I had for hands, forearms, arms, and feet. Basically the slots that require the "pair" items.  I've also had a certain dislike for those items, because everyone is matched up, what if I want to play a PC that only wears one glove on his swordarm hand? I can't do it.  Or a PC that only wears one sleeve of studded bone, not a pair. Well, here's an idea to fix that.

My guess is this would require some effort on the coders part, I'm not really that sure as my knowledge of C and coding is limited.

So now let's say you have the normal pair of leather gloves, with the new code you could then separate them like this.

Separate gloves
You separate the gloves.
inv
You are carrying:
a right leather glove
a left leather glove

wear left
You pull the glove over your left hand.

<worn on left hand> a left leather glove

Combine right left
You combine the gloves and make them a pair.

A pair of leather gloves.

wear gloves

You pull the gloves onto each hand.
<worn on both hands> a pair of leather gloves

So I think you get the idea, this could be applied to all sorts of items like this, and would make it far more realistic but looting, I once had a half-giant say he liked the boots of our latest victim in the wastes, wel I liked the boots too, and ICly we said well I'll take one boot you take one boot, unfortunately the code wouldn't allow it.  So what do you guys think of a newer system like the above? Like the first one? Hate the second?  

I know it will take some time to code, but it would be worth it I think, considering the amount of roleplay that would come about from having such a flexible eq system.  Personally I'd rather be able to customize my PC to wear what he wants rather then have 10 finger slots for rings.

-RM

[Oxidised Lizard]

I like most of these ideas.

[Tamarin]

I like, and I can't see a reason why not to do this.  The more realistic, the better.

[moab]

I would also suggest a new slot <over body> that would cover everything from neck to, shoulders, arms, legs.

If I have a heavy robe on that covers everything to my ankles, you shouldn't be able to see my arms, my legs.

Additionally lower leg / upper leg lower arm / upper arm for armor points and different types of jewlery, though sleeves of armor or clothing would cover these slots, perhaps and perhaps be worn over / under the other?


I think layering is important - and additional slots for more realistic armor locations is good - but don't know how it wold f*ck with the combat system.

[Nao]

only problem I see here except for the coding (got no idea about that one) is the spam when you look at someone. the objects work over soemthing would have to cover up the stuff underneath, unless you want to see a page of objects every time you look at someone.

[Agent_137]

as nao said, it would also need to realistically cover what's below it.

And i'd love to see this system in place eventaully, though it definitely would take quite a bit of work, I imagine.

Keep in mind that all work done is voluntary, so some coder would have to see this idea and get excited about it.

be sure and idea this in game, and perhaps email the more extensive explanation to the mud account.

I always fear seeing good ideas on these forums fading away into nothing because the right immortal didn't see it.

[Larrath]

First of all, this sounds like a complete coding nightmare.

Past this, this could also have a serious affect on game balance - heavy chestplates will become worthless because they offer 5 AC for 1,000 'sids while someone could get 3 AC by wearing two thick leather vests who, together, cost 200 'sids.  Then there is the problem of things getting dusty and bloodied, and the whole damage reduction.
Also, full heavy armor in Zalanthas isn't rare on Zalanthas because it's expensive - it's rare because it's extremely unpractical for the vast majority of the people living there.  It's ridiculously heavy and bulky and hard to move in and make you tire very fast and lose a lot of liquids...and for the real threats out there, like the silt horrors and the mekillots, heavy armor means a shorter hunt since they'll tear right through it no matter what it is.

About the gloves and the boots, I don't think I like this.  You can't realistically split a pair of boots between two people - they'd probably walk uneven and look absolutely ridiclous.  Also, we don't need no bards walking around with a single glove.  Screw that.

I would like some adjustments to be made to the About Body wear slot so it will cover the shoulders, but beyond this I think that things like thobes and stormcloaks would be better with a special "cover_all_body" flag.  You know someone is going to end up wearing a thobe over their duster otherwise.

Thighs and biceps wear slots also sound great, but they'd either need a whole bunch of new crap made for them, or a whole bunch of existing items would have to be adjusted and probably re-balanced, and that takes a while too.

Anyway, back to the main idea - in theory, this idea is theoretically great.  However, I can't imagine it happening without creating a huge mess.

[Jherlen]

Larrath summed up my thoughts pretty well. Especially about the one glove thing.

[SpyGuy]

I simply dislike this idea in the extreme.  To me it serves no purpose of benefiting the game world and would only distract alot of time from necessary projects.  We already have 2 necklace locations, if you want to wear more you can always take it virtual as you can with any other object.  If you want to wear light armor, find light armor to wear.  Plenty of sandcloth and leather gear exists in game, people don't need twelve sets of light armor worn under their heavy stuff.  Realism is important to an extent but just take it virtual, I have never assumed any character I've had that wears heavy armor wears it without at least an undershirt and simple leggings underneath, chitin chafes of course.  I'd prefer to focus coder's time on things that will benefit the game world and not focus it on adding new item locations slots that would require a large overhaul of the entire system.

[IntuitiveApathy]

I don't understand the rationale behind the layering.  Is there not enough variety in armour items already to achieve what you want by just selecting the greathelm that has the leather padding inside, or the sandcloth sleeves with the leather patches on the elbows?

I do like the mismatching for other items (I've never understood why only wrist items were like this), but I agree with the sentiment that it'd be a hell of a lot of work for relatively little reward - I think most people would tend to pair up items anyway, and there's many many many items (boots, gloves, sleeves, leggings) that would need to be altered..

[Delirium]

Once I had three neck-wear items that it was perfectly possible for my character to wear all together, and removing one of them to wear the other that they were given resulted in some IC repercussions for my character, by way of another thinking that they were jilting their offer of friendship, pretty much.  

Code limitations irk me sometimes.

I would rather see extra wear-locs for the throat/neck and face area than I would a whole revamp of the system, though.  

I've also long, long wished that cloaks or anything worn 'about' covered shoulder tattoos.

[Hexxaex]

Yeah, it would be nice to be able to wear a bracelet on your wrist when you already have an armguard or bracer on.  Maybe an "about wrist" or "around wrist" wear location should be implemented just for the purpose of jewelry.

[jcarter]

I don't like the idea, except for smaller scale things, such as letting me wear a sandcloth shirt underneath my braxat-hide vest.

[Maybe42or54]

I wouldn't mind another necklace spot, but I don't think any of it would benefit the game world.

Except the cover all body thing.

It is called a bracer for a reason. It covers the wrists.
You can't be a pimp in arm and wear every piece of ice you happen to have at the time. I think it is fine now.

I wouldn't mind a cloak or an article of outer garb that hides the entire MDesc when worn, though.

[Dalmeth]

I don't think layering items would be a coding nightmare, you would just add an attribute to each wearable item and modify the wear command a bit.  However, I do not think layering armor would work in the current system, no matter how much customization would spice things up.  To put it simply, all of the current armor is made to stand alone, and it achieves a simblance of balance that way.  To make layering armor, you would need to create a series of armor components used for exactly that purpose.  Personally, I find a leather shirt with a wooden breastplate to be a pretty cool bit of armor, but I could do without it.

Now, certain bits shouldn't be stackable, namely, jewelry, as it generally is worn over other items.  Along the ankles and wrists, rigid armor should prevent wearing jewelry.

[jstorrie]

I would rather just see a few extra wear locs, including (but not limited to)

over body (as mentioned above);
a few more neck locs, for wearing a few necklaces and a piece of neck armour at the same time;
one more '>sheathe back' location (this one really irks me when it comes up - try dealing with a shield, a spear, and a bow at the same time - or even worse, sparring gear!)
at least one more face location - a nosering and an eyepatch at the same time?

[Dalmeth]

I think the best parts of this discussion have been adding the ability to wear clothes under some of the more bulky sort of armor (some of that stuff would be quite uncomfortable to wear by itself), another back location for sheathing, and a few more wear locs specifically for jewelry.

[RunningMountain]

I'm glad people are taking the time to open their mind.  Some more discussion on this should take place I think.  I don't feel that a "coding nightmare" should be a huge reason to say 'no' to a new eq system because Arm has some of the best coders around.  

Now maybe someone else can think up a hybrid, reconstructed proposal that is a bit more reasonable then mine original one.  I think that revamping and evolution of something is the best way to get to the finest system.

-RM

[Maybe42or54]

No, just RP you are wearing something beneath that silt horror chainmail.
I'll go along with it.

Besides. Having two things worn in the same place is probably going to hide one, making it more of a RP thing anyway.

Most of the time it will be ridiculous, but I could see a few people using it the way it was meant to.


I'll just shake my head and gree with Jstorrie.

[jhunter]

Another "sheath back" location would be great.

[Maybe42or54]

I'd actually prefer that you sheathe things on your shoulders.
Just makes more sense to me.
You tie them to your shoulder and they can be tied to your backpack also and then you reach up to your shoulder to grab them.


I'd get rid of back sheathe and add shoulder sheathes.

[RunningMountain]

If you want to talk about new sheath locations make a new thread please.

[jstorrie]

Sheath locations are exactly on-topic here, since we're discussing improvements to the equipment system, bro.

[jhunter]

Sheath locations are exactly on-topic here, since we're discussing improvements to the equipment system, bro.

[RunningMountain]

Right but the purpose of the thread was to discuss idea's to improve the eq code, it's pointless to voice an idea for extra wear locations that can be done by using the idea command in game.

-Rm