Simple LOS change

[Adriax]

Ok, I've read some previous suggestions on this topic and figured I'd toss this up. A relatively simple way to add LOS into the game. It also paves the way for a more complex system later (a full heightmap would be nice).

Pure code wise this would require a 1 byte addition to character, terrain, and building information and a LOS function called by the sight and ranged combat functions.
Gameplay wise adding three new game buildings (murderhole wall sections for wood and brick walls, and a lookout tower) and a new interaction on trees.


So down to business.
Walls (except murderhole wall sections), houses, cliffs, and the larger trees (pine, willow, oak, maybe more) block LOS.
Highground is provided by cliff edges, climbing trees, and the new lookout tower building.
A character can only be seen/shot by another if there is unblocked LOS between them or if one of them is considered on highground.

Murderhole wall sections- Made identical to normal wall sections, these just have a set of slits in them allowing sight through them.
Lookout tower- Large investment in wood, probably a bit of metal too. Has interactions for manning the tower, taking cover, and accessing tower storage. Tower storage only holds ranged weapons, ammo, and quivers. Manning the tower provides a defensive bonus and highground. Taking cover provides a massive defense boost, but the character cannot attack from it.
Climbing trees- Starter skill or atleast a low cost one. Character occupies the tree square, gains highground, and is immune to attacks from most animals (bears can blimb trees). Provides a small defense bonus. Exiting the tree puts them back down in the square they started at. Could add a small chance of finding birds eggs, a cheap curiosity and possible substitute for chicken eggs in cooking.

Just figured I'd toss this out.

[MagicManICT]

While LOS may be easy in implementation, it's a bear on the players, especially when you throw in things like network latency and server hang-ups. Your ideas seem pretty sold in idea, but some of them aren't practical with the current state of the game. Toss in some of the other siege ideas, and there might be some workable things here.

Just to note, I have played a couple of MMORPGs with LOS calculations. It's annoying at times because the client often time says one thing, the server sees another. It makes for some interesting combat.

If you're concerned about archers hitting people behind walls... well, they did this all the time in medieval sieges. It's called ballistics. Experienced archers can land an arrow in a 5 ft circle behind a high wall at near max range. The problem is that this puts the archer within range of other archers stationed on walls and turrets.

[Adriax]

Lobbing over walls was perfectly possible yes, but said medieval archer lacked actual sight to the target location. They could hit the piece of ground they wanted, but they were still pretty much shooting blind because they didn't know if a target would actually be there or not.

So really it's a game balance issue. Do you let people see through walls just so archers can lob over walls, or do you make it so walls actually protect people instead of just hamper movement?
A future update could include area targeting for archers, so if you knew where someone was standing you could volley an area and hope you hit.

[ImAwesome]

so no slings over walls? finally a reason to actually use a bow. sling gets its power from centrifugal force, hurling a stone into the air and letting it fall on someone would hurt but wouldn't do any damage unless it was a big stone, and for that you're talking seige engines. I don't think trees should block los because of the fact that animals get stuck on them when you're trying to lure them to river to box them in...but walls and buildings definitely should!

how did I miss this thread before?

[DDDsDD999]

The game already has a pathfinding system, when you force summon someone without a HF it checks if it's possible for you to reach that tile so you can't ofrce summon into a wall. Most of the ideas in the ops post are pretty good though.

[hazzor]

it would be nice if it weren't possible to night vision your way through everything, this seems like a relevant area for discussion since it's talking about what you can see, would ender's client not just include an option to disable LOS too though? night vision is just one of those things that grinds on me, the game loses sense of time and mining doesn't feel like mining since you can see everything ahead of time, more on topic, I would really enjoy some form of LOS, palisades and Bwalls should feel private in my opinion, but perhaps in order to not make it feel like you were inside an enormous wooden biosphere, explored area should remain visible, but inactive (seems obvious, but I just thought i'd say)

[Kaios]

I said it before somewhere but I still think walls should have a "fog of war" effect rather than completely restricting line of sight on every object. At least this way you won't be inside your walls farming and all of the sudden get sniped from off-screen.

Of course this would work both ways though meaning you wouldn't be able to see outside your walls unless a guard tower type feature was implemented.

[Noomer]

Good ideas, but I don't see Jorb and Loftar actually making an update for HnH anytime soon.