Andor's Trail

Id like to introduce two movement skills, swimming and climbing, both are similar and require the same basic changes to map creation and code.

Swimming is moving in water, Climbing is moving vertically. If anyone remember Legend of Zelda III: link to the past, you could do both after finding items, though I think skills are better here. The similarity I want to point out is how they implemented changing states, which was through special locations on the map, diving areas you could enter water, and marked surface you could climb on.

I think by using a player_state of walking, climbing, swimming, we could put a map event in Tiled, to test the players skill to enter that area at that checkpoint or entry tile. You could have a slope or set of vines that needed anywhere from a Rank 1-7 in the skill to climb, or water that needed a high rating to get through.

It would be interesting and not too terrible, but imagine a slope or hill that you could not get up or down, until you raised your climbing, or an area under a bridge that had just too fast of water to get through to reach a treasure box you can see from another map...

With 7 ranks in skills, it could work pretty good and provide a nice way to break up maps.

Seems a little too complicated, as the skills would be better spent on other stuff. You would have to spend months of grinding to reach new areas, which doesn't seem quite right. Besides, we'd have to code the entire game again, make it possible to walk across lakes, impossible to get up ladders, and vines that were previously accessible; too much trouble.

However, I agree that such ideas might be useful in a side self-appointed mission. Only, I'd suggest that these skills should not be leveled up, as it would take too much time for players to level up travelling skills.

This is what I propose:
Create level one swimming skill and level one climbing skill, and add places in the wild where these skills would allow you to go to fight new bosses or get to new merchants or just grab some extraordinary equipment.

To identify which places you can swim in, and therefore avoid having to recode the entire world map again, I'd say we should put the places you can swim in in a certain shade of blue highlighted by yellow, or maybe black. Same for climbing, some places like in Prim's mountainside are mentioned to be climbable. So, there's a highlighted path in black and you do a favor for Guthubred, and so you may climb the mountainside to reach a boss.

Climbing is in-game already [vines, ladders, etc.; no skill neccassary to climb where one need climb]. So we've narrowed it to swim.. If it was, I'd like to see it [the skill] bestowed in/after quest to lead to special area to possibly finish quest. Interesting.. you suggested water and I suggested fire; Good luck to elementals

what about this?

make some of the water tiles "walkable" (*)
accessible only to characters with the new skill Swimming
you could prevent characters without the skill with a "map event" (*)

(*) - A "Tiled" function, the map creator / editor we are using.

we could have dungeons & towns "accessible only with Swimming"
and use shortcuts that non-swimming characters can't access.

i dunno, just thinking out loud.

nyktos wrote:what about this?

make some of the water tiles "walkable" (*)
accessible only to characters with the new skill Swimming
you could prevent characters without the skill with a "map event" (*)

(*) - A "Tiled" function, the map creator / editor we are using.

we could have dungeons & towns "accessible only with Swimming"
and use shortcuts that non-swimming characters can't access.

i dunno, just thinking out loud.

+1 this could be fun

I am definately a fan of the shortcut option this might provide.

Cut your time down by being able to swim across the lake or swim across the cove to the other side.

I might also convert this to a maze of sorts like going through the dark caves - you have to swim (if the skill is available) but you have to navigate the unseen coral reefs and shoals that prevent you from taking a direct path.

A new set of water monster could be introduced along this path as well.

I will also offer that just like a quest option (where you can chose sides like BWM and Prim) you should only be able to choose swimming or climbing. That could be part of a quest - also thinking out loud.

Easy to make this possible.Just drop the terrain down and add a layer of passable water tiles, so that only his head and shoulders are above the water tiles. This would be good for surface swimming.

As for deeper water swimming you would need to have a map transport tile, or tiles, take you to a new map where the player would need a new image to represent swimming. Then you could create map tiles, etc., that were representative of reefs, etc..

Once again I am missing my computer. This is just the sort of thing I would have fun working on.

I am against the water monster part of these suggestions. It is virtually impossible to fight while swimming. Just ask anyone who has ever been attacked by a shark!

lady black wrote:I am against the water monster part of these suggestions. It is virtually impossible to fight while swimming. Just ask anyone who has ever been attacked by a shark!

Then again, it is fantasy. Ask anyone attacked by a shark if they have ever fought a skeleton, or a golem, or a myriad of other creatures in this game.

If you're looking for realism, many people have killed sharks whilst swimming, it's just that most people aren't prepared when the shark attacks.

lady black wrote:I am against the water monster part of these suggestions. It is virtually impossible to fight while swimming. Just ask anyone who has ever been attacked by a shark!

Well, some experienced divers did drive off a shark by hitting it on the snout with a camera repeatedly... but then again, they were highly experienced divers... It depends on how good you are at swimming. If you swim like Michael Phelps, then you'd probably be able to kill a shark while on the move:shock: