This suggestion has major pros and some obvious cons as well, but I know that the new 1.69 pathing is a double edged sword.
On one hand we have the ability to actually bottleneck, cut off, and prevent NPCS or PCs from surrounding us and all attacking at the same time.
On the other, we have PC's who have died to the 'dance of death', where their PC is cut off by another PC or NPC's movement, making their PC automatically run around in combat to get a better spot. Sometimes this gets a player killed by AoO's, or makes them walk on traps, or on rare occasions jumps a player right into a horde of enemies and completely surrounding them. We also have some cases where the PC will simply stop attacking, leaving them flat footed and open to be crushed.
My suggestion is to give player characters and certain NPCs, the Cutscene Ghost effect. What this effect does, is allows a PC to 'override' the nwn pathing and allows them to pass through NPCs or PCs. This effect does not allow them to pass through objects or placables, only creatures. This would effectively eliminate the dance of death and I'm sure make many people happy, since almost all of us have died or nearly died because of it. It also means those of us unfortunate to suffer collision jumps into hordes of enemies, can escape without being effectively trapped.
On the other hand though, there are some problems with doing this. Obviously it allows players to surround NPCS much easier, and makes it nearly impossible for NPCS or other PCs to effectively surround a PC and block an escape by doing so. However, this effect could either be limited to quest areas if desired, or possibly disabled for DM supervised PVP, which would limit, but not eliminate any issues about surrounding a PC in PVP.
This suggestion has some major pros, but also has some big cons.
Thoughts?
I don't want that at all. The ability to block players or creatures is wonderful.
Sounds like a big bundle of potential problems for a problem that can be worked around by smart click and keyboard.
If we could get rid of this stupid pathfinding it would basically be amazing. 1.69 pathfinding is ludicrously lame.
Despite the value one can see in blocking PCs in PvP combat, the merit of removing the pathfinding seems to far outweigh it, and can prevent some rather lame situations where one is trapped.
I say remove it.
Honestly, I've been victim to being killed since I couldn't move around my allies. Regardless, that is only a minor problem - not being able to move through your two buddies can be rather annoying at times.
Nothing like being a big, tough, Garagosian Priest of Doom... if you can't even walk between a boar, and a chicken. :\
HOWEVER...
I think, instead of removing it entirely, just... decrease it somehow. Having the ability to block somebody's escape is priceless.
SO FOR IT!
Wait, is 1.69 pathfinding what is responsible for the glitch where I tripped that deadly firetrap when I told it to disarm and the DM didn't let me free-rez?
In that case, get rid of it!
But wait, trying to understand here, Box... Currently we're using 1.69 pathfinding, right? And you're suggesting we replace it with the old pathfinding and implement ghosting? or did I misread that?
As for the ghosting... I'd say quest-only areas... however, I could see this in a non-abuseable fashion for the other areas if it was somehow crafted into an activated ability that ran some sort of check allowing you to ghost or some such, most likely related to tumble. However, I've no idea how work-intensive that is. Just throwing it out there though.
I've gotten used to it. I'd really not want to see it go away, at this point.
remove the ability to push around chars like bumper cars plez
Against because PCs should not be ghosts.
Also because this would eliminate the RP moments where you get into PVP because someone was blocking the path. And who wouldn't want that?
I hate the 1.69 pathfinding, but I don't think turning everyone into ghosts is that great of an idea! Props for trying to alleviate this problem though.
It's called CutsceneGhost. It's not that much different from the (default NWN) spell Darkness applying an invisibility effect.
FWIW, NWN is the only multiplayer CRPG I've played that uses the "bumper car" collision, and I find it annoying more often than not. Imagine a crowd being able to crowd around something, rather than everybody getting bumped around until they're uniform distances apart.
If you've ever played the SoU and HotU campaigns, CutsceneGhost is used during almost all cutscenes so that characters can move with fewer pathfinding issues. How bad is that, when you can't even script a scene without your own game's pathfinding fucking up? Navigating by mouse is suicide.
Seriously, you can bump a PC around all over the place accross the map. It is HORRIBLE and causes so many problems like having to run around 5 people because a PC side stepped in your bubble in combat, causing 10 AoO's. Even spaces that your character 'should' fit through, you often don't. Like being a halfling but needings 10 feet to pass between two PCs, it's so wrong.
Dude, if someone can remove 1.69 pathfinding...IT NEEDS TO BE DONE.
This sounds like a job for
DAEMONIC-DAZ
Oh hell yes. Remove it. Burn it. Scatter the ashes to the four winds. It's crazy, especially when you get trapped at the front of a group in a narrow corridor when you were standing at the back shooting, for example.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but without this system, you can no longer block doorways or use chokepoints in PvP. You lose the only helpful "terrain" factor available to you, aside from elevation. That may seem insignificant, but I think a less than perfect attempt at realism better than a visually absurd "ghost" effect so every just walks right through each other like MMOs. Someone mentioned cool "crowds" forming, but it isn't that cool when they just stack on top of each other.
Most significantly, this means more people can fit in front of Kingsman's. Oh noez!
Did you even read the post? You cannot walk through people... So Box claims. Keeping something so horrific around for PvP purposes it wrong on so many levels.
Plum, that's exactly what Box is saying. That you -can- walk through people. That's the whole point.
Of course, that would mean that Monsters would walk through YOU TOO. So, if Big bad BOBO decides he wants to rape your mage, there is no blocking him. He will simply step through you and crush.
If this isn't done, I'll cry. Like a little girl. Yes.
I think I like it as it is now. I like making defensive lines and doing that last stand thing. Bummer if monster's just wade through to the archers.
Haven't had too much trouble due to pathfinding yet either, I think.
Oh I misread, still worth trying!!
I'm always for immersion, the least it can look like a video-game, for me, the better. Walking through people... Doesn't help that at all. If this system is disabled, then no reason to keep the non-party thing, and some other cool features...
I don't see how the party-system would be related to this.
Anyway, the 1.69 pathfinding is probably one of the most annoying things that excist in NWN. I can't even remember how many times you've been at the back of a group and someone has moved pushing you several feet forward straight into a hoard of creatures to just die instantly because you can't move out of the group or your own allies that was standing infront of you are now blocking your escape behind you.
Remove it. And do it fast.
Quote from: FleetingHeart;157715Of course, that would mean that Monsters would walk through YOU TOO. So, if Big bad BOBO decides he wants to rape your mage, there is no blocking him. He will simply step through you and crush.
I did not bring this up because I wasn't sure of it's validity. If it is as you say, then this is an even more important reason to keep the system as-is than any of my aforementioned reasons. Formation tactics will become a thing of the past, only CRUSHING will matter because it's the only way to stop an enemy from getting off his or her attacks against weaker allies. Or manipulation of the NWN AI. To defend the "ghost" effect, convince me that AI manipulation is better than learning how to deal with a mechanical flaw of NWN that is fairly easily worked around and on rare occasions flukes out and runs you over a deadly trap (although you can always do
something to prevent these mishaps). I am being sincere, and perhaps someone may convince me, but I find it very unlikely that a such strong argument can be made.
To address plum's post, I don't think I'm far off the mark to say that the single greatest cause of player to player frustration is PvP. More rules surround PvP than any other single aspect of our server. Any major change to the way PvP functions needs to be given extremely thorough consideration. Remember, PvP is the
ONLY way another player can essentially force you to retire your character-- it really is a big deal. While you are correct, plum, that there are things to consider beyond PvP, do not so readily dismiss the significance of PvP on the server! And it certainly isn't wrong to give it so much gravity.
I suspect it would be fairly trivial to allow a player to TOGGLE via, say, voice command, whether or not they wish to ghost.
The toggle could even be limited to Quest Areas.
Unless, of course, the Ghost effect applies to all creatures in an area, rather than a specific one. Naturally this would require that NPCs do not have the ghost effect. I can think of a few cases however, in which giving NPCs the ghost effect could actually present a unique and interesting challenge. Flayers, perhaps, or flying creatures.
The little extra work involved in making it an optional effect, and applying it judiciously, would make this change -rather than a mixed bag of good and bad- into one which is overwhelmingly positive.
"To defend the "ghost" effect, convince me that AI manipulation is better than learning how to deal with a mechanical flaw of NWN that is fairly easily worked around and on rare occasions flukes out and runs you over a deadly trap (although you can always do something to prevent these mishaps). "
It is NOT that rare, it happens quiet often, and the thing it.. there is NOTHING you can do to prevent it. It just happens. Yes I know all about PvP so you do not need to tell me about how it works and if the AI decides to wtfpwn your mages/archer they often do it anyways reguardless of trying to 'tacticly' block them in.
I am also sure with some effort, since it seems the playerbase overwhelmingly supports this atleast on a trial basis, it could be worked on further to make it even better.
You absolutely can prevent them, at least 95% of the time. The times you can't, well shit just happens. Clearly, the status quo isn't perfect, but the alternative has many concerns that may make the situation very different in a largely negative way.
For traps: Use WASD keys. Click constantly around traps, or click very slowly. Change camera angles. Never initiate combat near traps, and if combat occurs anyways, take a few steps backwards between swings. Book it as fast as you can at the sight of an enemy to more friendly ground if you can. Friends in the way who don't see the charging manticore so you can't go back? Pretty realistic, however unfortunate.
For combat: Keep a finger on the D key (it should be there or close anyways) to prevent chasing. My favorite tactic- change Spacebar to Walk, and use it frequently in combat to move past enemies so more people can gang up on them (or use shift-click, but you would probably correctly mention that it can be much more challenging). Talk to your group to prevent overcrowding. Cycle frontliners. If you see a catastrophe waiting to happen then do not jump in with them. If your character is an 8 Int or 8 Wis combat junkie barbarian then maybe you should be getting into these situations! I'm sure there are other tricks and tips too.
But you know all these things. I'm not trying to patronize you plum, but I think you may be looking at very frustrating incidents and thinking that this is just the solution to the problems. My argument is merely that it isn't worth the cost of losing the ability to block, and could comes with a fresh can of worms.
As for optional "ghosting"... that seems very reasonable. It also let's everyone get used to having the ability and see if the potential problems are indeed problems.
Whether or not this happens, I have a feeling toggleable ghosting isn't going to happen. It will be one or the other. Interesting idea though!
D'oh! I'd be interested in hearing what was wrong with my idea, if there's an explanation available.
The only problem with optional ghosting tenk, Is that the PVP issues still remain, even if the npc ones may not.
A player being surrounded by other players who hasn't toggled 'ghosting' on, could simply do so and then run away.
One thing I would like to point out is there is no visual difference, between a pc with this effect on, than one not. There is no effect associated with it, so PCs do not become transparent or somesuch. So it would be impossible to know who has this mode enabled. Really, this suggestion can only go one way or the other. Either every PC gets it or none do.
Another thing that is important to point out, is that enabling this effect would for nearly all intents and purposes, make combat behave almost exactly like it did pre 1.69. I would need to do some more controlled tests to confirm this, but I am fairly certain the AI would not simply walk through a PC, but slightly around them, as they used to do pre-1.69. If anyone remembers that, it was easy enough to engage them and distract them from crushing your mages and archers back then, it won't be much of an issue now.
As for "I think walking through people ruins immersion" in arguement of this point, I submit to you the following question : How is walking remotely near another PC and having them 'bumped' a fair distance away, sometimes even up or down ledges or through walls, better for immersion?
There are a large host of bugs and annoyances that this suggestion would fix. The main issue of negativity, and in my opinion the only really negative factor of any distinct note - Is the PVP issue. The other issues of AI and such would be as they were pre 1.69, in fact, you could almost always escape pvp by 'running past' your surrounding foes in 1.68< anyways.
As I said earlier in my post, I will be doing some testing later to see the extent of the 'running through' by AI, but I am fairly positive it is not as much of an issue as some people think.
Another vote for it!
Toggling that on and off gives players an another dimension of control over the game engine. At this point in time, I don't know what the implications to that are, but I have a feeling there are some. If people can remember my definitions of commoner, adventurer, and gamer, I'll say I'm not worried about the first two groups really. It's the last group that feels no hesitation in laming something like this as much as physically possible. That puts me in a bad mood trying to figure out how to catch the abusers of the new mechanic as well as figuring out apt consequences and punishments.
10 bucks says you can easily push people through locked gates and other placeables with this (a lot easier than the other methods that are available too). Are there more things? I don't know.
I dunno, i like being able to block stuff that wants to run away.
The few times i've been poped up a tower i couldn't come down from aren't that much of a big deal.
And when i've been surrounded by hostiles with my party blocking my retreat, i thought it was rather fun yelling 'move! move!' before fuguing.
DAEMONIC-DAZ
is here.
Could it possible to only toggle the ghosting effect with a onhit variable or something along the lines of that? Then when a PC is attacked in PvP or by NPC's, we do not have the liability of some lamer that just toggles ghosting and run away.
Then once the combat is finished, the ghosting effect will be untoggled. Kind of like the way you cant rest in combat untill a few seconds after.
Since I'm in a lazy mood, I'll just c/p from a conversation with DAEMONIC-DAZ about his above post in IRC.
[16:16] You could tie that into an NPC's events
[16:17] but for PVP, I'm sure strife would give you an earful about the cpu hit for the on hit property being used like that
[16:17] This really is one of those things where it would either need to be constant for the entire module, or for certain areas such as QAs
[16:18] a toggle just really isn't viable tbh
[16:19] because if people can have it on/off, it just presents a whole host of potentially unfair situations. Best to keep the ground even and give it to everyone or no one imo
Has this been implemented yet?
If this stops players from blocking other player's escape, then i'm against it, same if applies to PCs and NPCs.
Magon once died in 1 round. He recived 2 criticals from 5 AoOs because of 1.69 pathfinding. while annoyng, once used to this things, smart clicks of mouse and keyboard effectievly fix the problem. Mostly is about using the cntrl key and not chargin into battle mindlessly.
I am against this.
Bump.
Having actually played since making this suggestions, I definitely find myself wanting this. I was in the sewers with two other people, and I couldn't even get around those two people to attack a target before it died.
'Smart clicking' can get you into position, but your allies' 'battle shuffle' will just shove you back out of position.
Please implement this.
All for it, still.
Even if not permanent, I would suggest maybe we change for like a couple days, maybe even a week - Just to see how it goes.
It can't hurt to try, and if people like it, we can keep it.
If not, then whatever lol.
The PvP argument is rather moot: I imagine running through a group of people without emotes or anything is god-gaming/metagaming and illegal anyway.
It's a huge bug that affects play daily. I'd rather see it fixed.
I'm with Big Mitch and Raging Goblin on this.
Against.
Ghost form does not equal what was there prior to 1.69 ... If you all want to die horribly because 20 Nightrisers are stacked upon eachother or if the boss/mage/frail but dangerous creatures are hidden under the swarm and cant be targeted... Same goes for PC mages who could be protected by just stacking PCs/Summons over them.
I tried it. It feels worst and will make any invasion with lots of NPCs a slaughterhouse (which we have lots of those).
It's not good.
Also against it. Most of the reasons have been mentioned and Mort's are the most serious of those.
Quote from: Mort;162835Against.
Ghost form does not equal what was there prior to 1.69 ... If you all want to die horribly because 20 Nightrisers are stacked upon eachother or if the boss/mage/frail but dangerous creatures are hidden under the swarm and cant be targeted... Same goes for PC mages who could be protected by just stacking PCs/Summons over them.
I tried it. It feels worst and will make any invasion with lots of NPCs a slaughterhouse (which we have lots of those).
It's not good.
I'd like to point out this suggestion was for PCs only, as implementing this for NPCS would be a nightmare for the above and more reasons, and also cause an increase in lag.
Even so, what Nut said is important. That PCs can block creatures allows a wizard not to have to be invisible the whole time.
It also allows you to cover your allies in a quick retreat.
I think your problem is, box, you want to fight in the frontline all the time. In narrow corridors sometimes it isn't posible. Get a crossbow.