Exit Colors and Climbing

[Melkor]

I've been wanting to post about this for a while just haven't gotten around to it until now. I am of the opinion that agi-tested room exits need to be identified much better. Just scanning and reading a room name and being made to guess whether it's supposed to be safe or not isn't an accurate translation of what our characters would be looking at and be able to take note of. It's just not definitive enough.

A yellow text to their color would go a long way to helping identify when terrain is treacherous. Your character is going to be able to tell very easily when a direction looks dangerous. This is going to be immediately apparent to them. Yellow text color for agi-tested directions would help to better distinguish them from green exits (safe) and red exits (certain falls). Currently, these tested rooms are green which leads one to believe they are safe and we are made to guess whether or not the room name makes them sound dangerous or not.

Additionally, I'd like to touch on climbing code. I've read elsewhere that this is all agi-based. I can see this perhaps for the test on whether you fall or not moving into an unstable room, but climbing should definitely be some combination of str and dex, if it isn't already. I'm not sure, honestly.

Optimally, I think both of these kinds of checks (falling and climbing) should be some combination of str, dex, agi, and perhaps even int. Agi is overpowered enough as it is in this codebase, and a change like this would give a broader range of characters the ability to not fall constantly. Thanks for reading. Please discuss.

[Gobbo]

1+ For yellow coded rooms. Its a real pain in the ass to fall in a hole you would've been able to see. Or down a waterfall cause you didn't realize there was no passage.

[tehkory]

Additionally, I'd like to touch on climbing code. I've read elsewhere that this is all agi-based. I can see this perhaps for the test on whether you fall or not moving into an unstable room, but climbing should definitely be some combination of str and dex, if it isn't already. I'm not sure, honestly.

Optimally, I think both of these kinds of checks (falling and climbing) should be some combination of str, dex, agi, and perhaps even int. Agi is overpowered enough as it is in this codebase, and a change like this would give a broader range of characters the ability to not fall constantly. Thanks for reading. Please discuss.

A change to strength isn't going to help with things being overpowered, truly. Strength's overpowered, too. Dexterity seems alright, but doesn't make a whole lot of sense in more than half the rooms(and makes even less sense than removing agility).

Otherwise you're pretty right, but at the same time, most of the rooms that are fall-worthy are pretty obvious so-far. But that sort of argument relies on things remaining static, which they won't. As long as you can make a risk-of-fall room without it being auto-flagged a certain color, it's purely up to the eye of the beholder as to whether it 'looked dangerous' or not. It's part of the whole 'standardization,' which is, I imagine, a word some people have come to hate by now. Until something like yellow-colored exits is guaranteed, you're guaranteeing some portion of people will be dissatisfied with the lack of obvious information/threat.

[Hawkwind]

Str should not be used at all, agility and pc weight should. The is little chance the big, hulking giant will be able to outclimb the lighter, nimble feller.

Ever seen a body builder climb? One of the funniest things ever.

[Melkor]

Which is precisely why I said it should be a combination of str, agi, and dex. You trying to say that climbing has nothing to do with strength? Cause that isn't the case. You can be strong without being a hulking body builder.

But anyway, that's just an extra thing I wanted to touch on. What I really want to see is the tested exits being yellow text in the room desc at the "Exits:" part. I think it should be fairly obvious to a character when the terrain is treacherous and not have to rely on so much guesswork.

Especially since directions got so much more complicated with the 2398473298 different directions we can now program into one room. And they don't even always point to the room they should in a proper grid pattern. Standing in a room and scanning northeast, then going north and then east doesn't always end you up in that room you scanned northeast into before.

[Gobbo]

Which is precisely why I said it should be a combination of str, agi, and dex. You trying to say that climbing has nothing to do with strength? Cause that isn't the case. You can be strong without being a hulking body builder.

But anyway, that's just an extra thing I wanted to touch on. What I really want to see is the tested exits being yellow text in the room desc at the "Exits:" part. I think it should be fairly obvious to a character when the terrain is treacherous and not have to rely on so much guesswork.

Especially since directions got so much more complicated with the 2398473298 different directions we can now program into one room. And they don't even always point to the room they should in a proper grid pattern. Standing in a room and scanning northeast, then going north and then east doesn't always end you up in that room you scanned northeast into before.

Omg I hate this. The area just outside Utterby is a snarfagling nightmare. All the diagonal directions that just dont match up with the grid. I mean you can't even follow the river out to the north gatehouse because you get stuck in a dead end.

This sort of shit happens all over the map and I've gotten lost a million times. Too many pockets and dead ends that shouldn't be there.

[Mithrandur]

Which is precisely why I said it should be a combination of str, agi, and dex. You trying to say that climbing has nothing to do with strength? Cause that isn't the case. You can be strong without being a hulking body builder.

But anyway, that's just an extra thing I wanted to touch on. What I really want to see is the tested exits being yellow text in the room desc at the "Exits:" part. I think it should be fairly obvious to a character when the terrain is treacherous and not have to rely on so much guesswork.

Especially since directions got so much more complicated with the 2398473298 different directions we can now program into one room. And they don't even always point to the room they should in a proper grid pattern. Standing in a room and scanning northeast, then going north and then east doesn't always end you up in that room you scanned northeast into before.

Agreed. You can be as lithe and nimble and sure-footed as you want, but without the strength to support your body weight with your arms to some degree, you won't make for a decent climber.

*edited to add*

As for the grid, I honestly see no problem with the grid the way it's designed. Rooms were NEVER on a perfect 1x1 grid for movement. East then north did not always get you into the same room as North and East. Some rooms can be considered to have different sizes or distances between them, this includes wilderness rooms.

[Melkor]

As for the grid, I honestly see no problem with the grid the way it's designed. Rooms were NEVER on a perfect 1x1 grid for movement. East then north did not always get you into the same room as North and East. Some rooms can be considered to have different sizes or distances between them, this includes wilderness rooms.

Yeah, I'm aware, and I don't think it should be a perfect grid either. I'm just pointing out how much more complicated pathing and knowing where you are has become with all the extra directions.

[Jarlhen]

The room layout is really quite confusing in my experience. I can't even make heads or tails of the "safe" area surrounding Utterby.

[Icarus]

What is this "safe" area of Mirkwood you speak of?

[Jarlhen]

The one with fewer wargs I think it's the river that messes me up. You expect the river to follow a pretty simplistic pattern. But in this case it seems counter-intuitive for some reason. I can't put my finger on it exactly, but something is making it difficult for me to get my bearings.

Could also be that some rooms have only a few exits while some have many even though they are in what you would expect to be similar positions. So you might have a room with 8 exits, you go ne, then you get to a room with only 4 exits. There's no river in the room, no mountains, nothing like that. It's somewhere in the description that it's forest that's blocking you. So you go west and northeast and you're in a different room just north of the room in which you couldn't go north. So while it may make perfect sense description-wise my brain isn't computing. It's not necessarily a bad thing, I imagine it's planned! And in some ways it makes sense. But I can't wrap my head around it. I'm not getting a feel for how the area is laid out. Normally I'd get a mental map of things, but here I'm getting nothing.

I say we burn the whole forest down, alter the river and make a nice Pelennor-like wilderness.

[Melkor]

Code: Select all

<****** / ^^^^^^ / ||||||> eval rope
It is a long length of coiled nettle rope 


You recognise that you could wear this item in the following locations:
  Shoulder

You would guess that this item weighs less than a pound. 



<****** / ^^^^^^ / ||||||> l rope
   Thick and sturdily made, this rope is composed of nettle fibers which have been woven and stranded together to form a sturdy rope of perhaps twenty-five feet in length. While cheap to make and perhaps unappealing to look at, this coiled rope is none the less sufficient for near any task required of it. 

Wanted to add this. Carrying a rope on old SOI was advantageous because holding it in your hands added to your climb skill. This iteration of SOI has no climb skill, so the rope doesn't do anything. What can we do to fix this?