Alternative adverse effects

[PadTheMad]

Most RPGs nowadays have adverse effects attributed to certain spells / weapon attacks etc. Dungeon Master only has one that it notifies players of - Poisoned. How easy would it be to attribute certain attacks / spells to inflict new adverse effects such as Burned / On Fire, Frozen, Cursed, Slow, Fast etc.?

The effects could be customisable with example options being: The name of the adverse effect, what attribute it affects (Health, Stamina, Mana, Dexterity, Luck, Movement etc), the rate at which it is affected (positive and negative values along with an option to reduce it to zero), bitmap in status screen, actions enabled or disabled, colour overlay (an RGB value which is placed over the creature bitmap or player viewport to differentiate between effects), the duration of the effect and the required spell to cure the effect.

An example would be a 'Freeze' attribute which reduces the movement rate to 0, disabling all actions, with a light blue overlay, for an indefinate amount of time.

Im not quite sure how the current poison mechanics actually work, so maybe this could not be implemented easily. However, you don't know if you don't ask

Oh and nice work of late on V0.35 GG!

[Adamo]

"cursed" and "broken" - these effect are already implemented in DM/CSB and used for some items. When character uses cursed item, it halves his luck (hidden value), or suppose to do it - I`m not sure, if it`s used in the game, but the possibility is implemented.
Broken function is not used at all. It might be used for some weapons/armors , wchich would become broken by wear/waste.
I dont know, what you mean about fire/frozen features.

[beowuuf]

Note CSBwin now has the ability to create more adverse affects, though mostly through clever DSA usage - Conflux is filled with these pitfalls

I think the ability to remotely target a damage tile would be a good idea, then you could have, combined with the new spellcasting system, can trigger mana drains, etc. Maybe have a spell that keeps draining mana for a while, as a relay re-triggers the damage tile, etc

[Adamo]

If you think about the "lava effect" for example, as it is in good old Doom (when you`re walking on the special-marked tiles, say marked with a "lava" floor graphic, your health decreases smoothly - 1 health point in each 1/6 of second, etc.). So in these dangerous areas you have to move faster... That would be very good feature.
But is it possible? We have to ask PaulS for a new filter in CSBwin - let`s say "Party drain filter", or GG for a drain-tiles feature in RTC v0.35. I doubt if you could do it now by DSA-ing...
About areas, wchich SLOWS the party movement, you might simulate it using teleports with some kind of a delay... or maybe I`m wrong.

[beowuuf]

A filter is to allow you to interract with behaviours in the engine. You would use a normal DSA which would drain the charatcer's stats using &char@ and &char! calls. It is very, very doable just now in CSBwin

For RTC, yes with a remotely called tile that would be possible for damage (again, relay system so you could have the continuous call so you need to move fast) but the slow thing...hmm....interesting

Be nice to also have a teleport call that could just teleport the party, wherever they are, and move them to a specific square Cause you could keep calling it five or eight times, as you say to pin them in place

[George Gilbert]

If you think about the "lava effect" for example, as it is in good old Doom (when you`re walking on the special-marked tiles, say marked with a "lava" floor graphic, your health decreases smoothly - 1 health point in each 1/6 of second, etc.). So in these dangerous areas you have to move faster... That would be very good feature.
But is it possible? We have to ask PaulS for a new filter in CSBwin - let`s say "Party drain filter", or GG for a drain-tiles feature in RTC v0.35.

Damage tiles have been in RTC for a while now. Have a look at TheZoo - there's a button there that when you press it heals the party by toggling on then immediately off a damage tile with a negative strength. [Note that these damage tiles also take a parameter of the type of damage - health, stamina or mana].

To simulate the lava, all you have to do is have an area full of these damage tiles each with a strength of 1 and a relay which repeatedly toggles them all (and then you can even control the rate of damage as well as the amount per "hit").

A "slow" area can also already be done with V0.34 by using teleporters to teleport the party to the tile they came from (this would mean they can't move anywhere) and then periodically toggling off the teleporters for a fraction of a second. The ratio between how long the teleporters are on to off would give you control over the degree to which they're slowed.

For example, if you repeatedly toggled the teleporters on for 1/6 of a second then off for 1/6 of a second then the party would only be able to advance 50% of the time slowing the party by a factor of 2.

The existing (V0.34) engine is very powerful already, you just need to be a bit creative in putting together the relays / triggers etc to get what you need.

[Gambit37]

Yep, I agree with GG: Investigate the available mechanisms in more detail, you can do a ton of stuff that at first glance seems impossible, but infact is quite simple with creative use of relays and the like.

I already have hot coals in my test dungeon, as well as a fountain that you can draw water from and then use to douse the coals so you can walk over them. All done using basic mechanims.

Get creative!

[Adamo]

GG said

A "slow" area can also already be done with V0.34 by using teleporters to teleport the party to the tile they came from (this would mean they can't move anywhere) and then periodically toggling off the teleporters for a fraction of a second. The ratio between how long the teleporters are on to off would give you control over the degree to which they're slowed.

I believe it would be possible in corridors, because only in corridors you can teleport party to the tile, wchich they come from (previous tile). What about open spaces, or if you want to turn and go back in the corridor? (I mean when you go to the Y tile from X, it teleports you back to X. But what if you came from Z tile to Y and it teleports you to X again, wchich wasn`t your previous tile?).
Unless you put 4 teleporters on each tile (I`m talking now about open spaces), each enabled by the direction you come from (while the rest 3 stays disabled). (Ex: when you`re coming to Y tile from North, it teleports back you to North, when coming from south, it teleports back you to south, etc.). But is it possible in RTC to enable ONLY one of 4 teleporters, depending from a direction you come from?

Sorry, if I`m ignorant here, but I use CSBuild now and don`t know much about telepoting system in RTC.

[beowuuf]

You can have multiple teleporters on a tile in RTC that are individually targetted (you don't target a tile like in DM)

[George Gilbert]

Although all the above applies to "areas" which the party moves slowly / quickly, it doesn't cover the general case of slowing down / speeding up the party movement rate.

I've therefore added two new actions for V0.35 ACTION_SPEED_PARTY and ACTION_SLOW_PARTY which alter the movement rate (in exactly the same way as carryied load does). As with other actions, these can be applied to items, spells, monsters and dungeon triggers.

For example, you could create a glue monster that attacked and slowed down your movement rate, or create a new spell that allowed you to speed up your party countering the effects of carrying a heavy load to give you a normal movement rate (for a short while until the spell ran out).

[beowuuf]

Cool!

[Gambit37]

Getting ever closer to re-creating DM2!!!