PlaneShift

Gameplay => Wish list => Topic started by: Erisnas on January 13, 2008, 06:19:28 pm

Title: Targeting nowhere
Post by: Erisnas on January 13, 2008, 06:19:28 pm
  Over the holidays I have been wondering about this idea and its uses:  What if we were able to target spots on the ground and interact with them in certain ways?  An example of this might be you target an area and cast a spell to simulate an effect.  The spell would act just as if it were attacking something but wouldn't do any damage to anyone near.  I can really see this being useful for helping RPs since having a visual always helps.  Another use is in the future with bows you would be able to fire an arrow into the ground this way similar to if you missed your target.  I think most would find this useful to simulate RP fights where you could RP the outcome without people accidentally dieing.  I know it is possible since it would basically be a cross between the current targeting system and the mouse walk one. 
   It would, however, need to be activated by clicking something else first.  Otherwise people may have trouble telling whether they are fighting the enemy or the ground.  I imagine the easiest way to do this would be to click the option which then brings up a new cursor and wherever your next click is the system will target.  Hopefully this will allow players to perform more actions without having to do some creative strategies like they do now.  While players could still abuse it to make it seem like they are killing everything and everyone, you would have to expect that plyers would start casting/attacking random crowds of people.
Title: Re: Targeting nowhere
Post by: Suno_Regin on January 13, 2008, 06:28:54 pm
Wow...I actually like this idea. o.O
I can imagine a few possibilities opening up from that.
Title: Re: Targeting nowhere
Post by: Erisnas on January 13, 2008, 06:33:45 pm
  I think it will be accepted fairly well since what you might be able to do with it is endless.  Depending on how freelance it is will have to depend.  Hopefully the main purpose is to allow people to look like the are casting spells or attacking an object but aren't.  This would also be useful if it could be expanded that you could use skills with it as well, such as Rping digging in random areas looking for ores.
Title: Re: Targeting nowhere
Post by: bilbous on January 13, 2008, 06:52:44 pm
I am not sure why you would need to target random spot when you could just allow untargeted actions in the direction of your cursor. Naturally your cursor would need to be over the terrain and not a piece of gui but the current state of affairs where you can only do actions if they are appropriately targeted would seem a little unrealistic. Maybe magic should be like that though I do not think so but certainly you should not need a target to brandish your weapons.
Title: Re: Targeting nowhere
Post by: Velh Krome on January 13, 2008, 07:26:07 pm
Very nice idea, Erisnas!
That would have improved quite a few situations! Maybe could even help a bit to let other people know whats going on, in case of an rped fight for example, still far away. Then they could react more properly, avoiding or running to support that is.

As this appears to me as much easier to realize than turning the cursor into a 3d-object within the world I am for seconding Erisnas' suggestion!
Title: Re: Targeting nowhere
Post by: ThomPhoenix on January 13, 2008, 07:43:17 pm
As this appears to me as much easier to realize than turning the cursor into a 3d-object within the world.
Eh, what?
Title: Re: Targeting nowhere
Post by: Velh Krome on January 13, 2008, 07:52:41 pm
Well.. that 3d-thingie-way is how I think Bilbous meant it, no? A way I dont think would be easy to implement.
Title: Re: Targeting nowhere
Post by: bilbous on January 13, 2008, 08:28:09 pm
I didn't mean for the cursor to appear in the world just that it would be used to indicate the direction for the actions focus, so that you could hover the cursor over somebody to brandish your weapon at them or send a burst of flame in their face without it actually being an attack or causing any damage. The reason I excepted the gui is to prevent accidental actions while trying to use whichever part of the gui, inventory, options, skills or what have you.
Title: Re: Targeting nowhere
Post by: Caarrie on January 13, 2008, 08:31:20 pm
this might be a good idea, but there are so many bugs with magic right now, that coding a way to use magic at any time without it affecting you or the target would take a lot of time and effort. If you would like a devs opinion on this and it to put ingame someday put a feature request on the tracker, but i bet this will not be added for years if ever.
Title: Re: Targeting nowhere
Post by: Velh Krome on January 13, 2008, 09:07:42 pm
Sorry if I should appear to be a bit persistent here:
It once was possible to target the "Crystal" (sky), it also is possible to "Examine" the ground (at least I am sure for the one at the plaza).
Now, as it seems to me there is already something like trigger-points, more or less randomly spread though. Maybe something quite similar as the thing described by Kerol in the Reactive Landscape-thread (http://hydlaa.com/smf/index.php?topic=31069.msg358297#msg358297) (hex-fields) could be used for that. With chars having a special attribute, and objects another one, the "spell" would only need to check what attribute the target has, for damage or not.
But maybe I am just thinking too elementary without having much of a clue of the code-stuff.
Title: Re: Targeting nowhere
Post by: Caarrie on January 13, 2008, 09:12:02 pm
action locations are set by devs, so that you can view and get more info on things, this has nothing to do with this request unless you want devs to add these to each and every object so that you can *look* at them.
Title: Re: Targeting nowhere
Post by: Under the moon on January 13, 2008, 09:34:06 pm
Select item. /place item, or the correct mouse click would be the immediate use I could see for this as well. One could actually put things on a table -without- having to jump up on said table. :)
Title: Re: Targeting nowhere
Post by: ThomPhoenix on January 13, 2008, 09:43:53 pm
One could actually put things on a table -without- having to jump up on said table. :)
That will already be possible, next release :)
Title: Re: Targeting nowhere
Post by: Velh Krome on January 13, 2008, 09:50:28 pm
One could actually put things on a table -without- having to jump up on said table. :)
That will already be possible, next release :)
Hm? I tried that out few days ago, with two friends, and we were amazed that it already works now. However, we stood next to a bench and placed items ON it. We came to the conclusion there must be sort of a height-check - nope, no hallucinogens were involved, at least not for me;)
Title: Re: Targeting nowhere
Post by: Zwenze on January 14, 2008, 03:49:14 am
We even pinned slags and swords to a wall and it worked well. Placing a beer on a table works now without jumping on the table, but the result is a bit unpredictable. The view seems to play a great role there.
Title: Re: Targeting nowhere
Post by: Erisnas on January 14, 2008, 03:52:20 am
  Well one reason that this came to mind is that people are always wanting new animations or emotes.  I figured if this could be implemented it would allow for nearly any animation to be used at most times without having to create a new set of emotes entirely.  An example is if you could use the death animation as a sleep emote or for being knocked out.  It would greatly add a diverse new range of actions for players to use since it would make use of all the animation already in-game.
Title: Re: Targeting nowhere
Post by: Vornne on January 15, 2008, 11:15:49 am
With item placement, as Thom said, with svn trunk it drops exactly where you aim, with exactly the same orientation as the player, if it is not too far away from your character.

As for the animations, emotes can be linked to any of the existing animations already, it just needs entering in the server's emotes.xml file. I just tested it, by setting '/bow' to the 'swim' animation, '/charge' to 'fight' and '/drunk' to 'death' ;D it worked fine the first time, I did it once, and he stayed down until I moved forwards, but then I did it twice without moving, and he would not get up but stayed on the floor... guess he was too drunk by then to do anything but roll.

I guess I found an unofficial bug...
Title: Re: Targeting nowhere
Post by: Lanarel on January 15, 2008, 08:44:04 pm
Or you misused the wrong animation. In the animation file (is that .cal3d?)., there is a setting that tells whether the animation should go back to the beginning after it finishes. This allows mining and fighting to loop. Of course you do not want that for death, so for the die animation this is set so it does stay at the final frame. Possibly that is the reason. (It was the reason dwarves stood up after dying a while ago).
Title: Re: Targeting nowhere
Post by: LigH on January 16, 2008, 04:19:54 pm
Baked apple:
Code: [Select]
/target Apple
/cast Flame Burst
\\o//