Re: CF: ideas for next experiments

[Mark Wedel <mwedel@scruznet.com>]

David Andrew Michael Noelle wrote:
> 
>     I'm wrapping up my current experiments and considering some new ones.
> Tell me what you think of these ideas:
> 
> - boomerang
<snip>
>     Prime candidates: mjoellnir, magical throwing axes and hammers
>     Reason to carry three mjoellnirs: juggle them.  Throw all three, and
> stand still, waiting for them to return.  Each one inserts itself back onto
> the top of your inventory, where you can just click to throw it again.
> Repeat.  Throwing skill becomes an effective mid-level attack.

 Objects that return are an interesting idea..  However, there are other
complications.

 Suppose you throw the hammer, and some other monster steps in behind the path. 
When it returns, that monster is now in the way.  Does it hit that monster, or
bypass it?

 Also, what happens if the player moves after he throws it?  I guess the point I
am trying to make here is that I can see these boomerang type objects flying all
over the place.

 Just a note - you can not predict where the hammer will show up in the players
inventory.  One issue when the client/server split happened is that  the order
of the inventory (as both what the client and server think it is) will not be
consistent (enforcing consistently would have made things more difficult, as now
when the player picked some up, the client would have to say to insert it before
the other object or whatever).  One reason the mark command came around is
simply because of this - before some actions (like weapon improvement scrolls)
would take the first weapon in the players inventory.  If the player doesn't
know what the order of the inventory in, taking the top object would not work
well.

 anyways, that is some history.  The main point I was making here is that when
the object returns, where the object will show up in the players inventory can
not easily be determined.  In theory, you could add some flags or whatever which
says 'put this on top', but I can think of a few reasons that is not ideal.

> 
> - per-type damage (major change)
>     This would require a major change, but since a major object rewrite is
> in the works now, this seems like a good time to suggest it.  We would have
> a lot more flexibility if instead of one amount of damage that comes equally
> from an array of attacktypes, each type in an attack had a seperate amount
> of damage. Instead of taking damage only from whichever type does the most
> damage with the given base amount, you would take damage from each type
> you're not immune to that has a non-zero amount.
>     This would allow things like darts of lethal poison that do 2 points of
> physical damage and 32 points of poison damage.  A flametongue sword would
> do 8 points of physical damage, and an additional 8 of fire damage.  Against
> a physical-immune, fire-vulnerable creature, it would do 0 physical damage
> and 16 fire damage, for the same result.
>     This would turn attacks into an array of 18 integers instead of one
> integer for damage and one for the attacktype bitmask, but I think the
> increased flexibility would make it worthwhile.

 Having that number of damages to deal with really seems excessive.  I am also
not sure if it makes total sense - if you get hit by an arrow, it does some
amount of damage.

 What you really seem to be looking at/describing is special effects damage.
(poisoning, arrow bursting into fire, etc).  I would instead suggest that adding
a hidden inventory to the weapon and apply/inserting the weapons inventory into
the creature an easier and potentially more flexible way of dealing with it.

 For example, you could have arrows of fireball, which contain a small fireball
object.  When the arrow hits, it bursts into a fireball.  Or javelins of
lightning (to take AD&D)

> 
> - seperate hitback
>     If there was a hitback achetype, a "force" object with attack stats,
> that could be used for hitback instead of normal attack damage.  This would
> allow things like Flame Shield, which would protect from cold and do fire
> damage to anyone who hits you, without applying your weapon damage as well.
> If there is no hitback object present, but the hitback flag is set, the
> creature's normal attack would be used, as it is currently.

 This seems reasonable, and should not be that hard to implement.  Costs some
CPU cycles, as anytime an object with hitback is hit, its inventory needs to be
examined for that hitback object.  But probably not a big deal.

> 
> - protection from magic
>     Attacktype: magic indicates that an attack is magical, unless it's the
> only attacktype present, in which case it means that the attack is raw
> magic, such as magic bullets, speedballs, or my new raw magic spells.
> Either way, immunity to magic means you're immune to the whole attack.
> Shouldn't protection from magic similarly protect from the whole attack?  As
> it stands now, protection from magic only protects from raw magic attacks,
> which aren't really all that common.

 Probably so.  Not a big change for that.


>     One other concern is that players could set a teleport marker when they
> pick up some treasure, wait for the map to reset, then create the portal and
> just step through, into the newly restocked treasure chamber.  Or Recall out
> of the treasure room, wait for reset, and Return back in.
>     The first solution that comes to mind is to simply disallow inter-map
> portals if either one is surrounded by anti-magic fields, and to not mark a
> Recall location for Return if that location is surrounded by anti-magic.
> Most treasure rooms already are, to prevent Dimension Door.
>     Another method that I like less, but is easier to implement, is to set a
> short time limit on both Portal and Return, or to make them only work until
> the map resets.

 The 'surrounded by magic' would be a suspect method at best.  There are at
least a few treasure chambers out there that you get to by some final exit to a
final map.  On this final map with the treasure, no anti magic spaces are
around, because all the protections are to get to the map itself.  It also
doesn't work uf there was a gate/door that originally protect the area but  has
since been removed for the player to get to the treasure room.

 Not being able to teleport to maps that are reset fixes that possible problem. 
I wonder if the spells would still be useful enough for there to still be much
interest.
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