Haven 2.0: "Hafen"

[Potjeh]

I'm saying walls should stop arrows, Bob Dole.

As for firing in a big arc, that's nowhere near as accurate as direct fire, which is why it was usually done with massed archers.

[ArvinJA]

No way to subclass stuff instead of adding boolean flags to all objects?

That doesn't really change the fundamental problem, though. I'm not talking about the computational overhead of having many variables in storage or otherwise about data structures, but about the administrative overhead of maintaining the information.

Ah sorry, should have been obvious from your post, read it sloppily. Anyway, I don't see why it would be that bad, given that arrow-blocking objects would only have one responsibility, you could probably add the arrow check at the place in your code where it makes sense to do so, and then add the items you want to be arrow-blocking as arrow-blocking and then forget about the whole thing. I see your point if it had been some general traversal thing, but since it's only for arrows I don't see how it could yield many unintended consequences.

[loftar]

Anyway, I don't see why it would be that bad, given that...

It's not that it is that bad, indeed; adding only this thing wouldn't be so horribly bad, but if we make a practice of implementing things like that, it would be hopeless before long, so therefore I can't allow setting the precedent. It's like it is with hacks and sloppy coding in general. :)

Is there any reason (other than minor aesthetics gain) why any solid object should be permeable to arrows?

Well, I think it would be slightly retarded if you cannot shoot over walls, accuracy or no. I don't really know which is best, to be honest, which is why it has been kept as it is in Haven thus far, but that's not to say that I'm at all closed to the option.

[MagicManICT]

Essentially, no one is going to view stats and stat decay as just some temporary resource. You want them to detach themselves in a manner that is inconsistent with reality. As you said, it'd require a change in mentality and that isn't going to happen. Why bother considering alternatives that would require you to rewrite reality?

I think the bigger thing is that people are willing to do so (have a change in mentality), but almost never in the same game. I think it's been proven time and again when major changes occur, the player base falters. Quite a few companies have had to revamp games because after a period of time something wasn't working as expected, the power curve got out of hand, etc. SOE was the biggest example with Star Wars. Even Blizzard has ran into this with a few of their expansions. It wasn't as large an impact, but it was still an impact.

It could prove to be an interesting game mechanic, but I don't think we'll find out here. I don't think it will ever work in an MMORPG where people can take breaks of a year or more from a game and expect to come back at least where they left off, even if they are no longer the big fish in the pond.

[painhertz]

Anyway, I don't see why it would be that bad, given that...

It's not that it is that bad, indeed; adding only this thing wouldn't be so horribly bad, but if we make a practice of implementing things like that, it would be hopeless before long, so therefore I can't allow setting the precedent. It's like it is with hacks and sloppy coding in general.

Is there any reason (other than minor aesthetics gain) why any solid object should be permeable to arrows?

Well, I think it would be slightly retarded if you cannot shoot over walls, accuracy or no. I don't really know which is best, to be honest, which is why it has been kept as it is in Haven thus far, but that's not to say that I'm at all closed to the option.

If shooting "over" walls (Using ballistics) introduce a 25% miss penalty that isn't in effect when shooting directly at someone with no intervening wall/terrain. Problem solved.

And if it isn't too much of a bitch to code, have the penalty drop by 1% per extrateam member/archer shooting to show the effect of barrage fire.

[Potjeh]

Shooting over stuff should be a separate combat move, and it should have fairly low accuracy so it's only useful in numbers.

[painhertz]

Shooting over stuff should be a separate combat move, and it should have fairly low accuracy so it's only useful in numbers.

That's pretty much what I said in the post preceding yours? lol

[ArvinJA]

Both of you still going on about it after loftar has pretty much said it's yet another item on the Nice To Have List, that won't get implemented due it then becoming one more thing to keep track of.

[painhertz]

Both of you still going on about it after loftar has pretty much said it's yet another item on the Nice To Have List, that won't get implemented due it then becoming one more thing to keep track of.

I was just describing what I saw as a possible fix, personally i suspend disbelief and just assume the arrows are arcing over. lol

[loftar]

Both of you still going on about it after loftar has pretty much said it's yet another item on the Nice To Have List, that won't get implemented due it then becoming one more thing to keep track of.

Well, I think that's a bit of a different thing, though. What they are arguing is whether arrows should be able to go through objects at all or not, not whether they should be able to go through only some objects.