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Up Topic Development / Scenario & Object Development / Digging Reworked
- - By Sven2 [de] Date 2010-02-09 22:51
I reworked the dig system a bit to make more player-friendly. This is quite a big boost in what you can do with the shovel, so I'd like to hear what you think.

First, the Clonk reatarts digging if you lost your dig action (e.g. because you fell down a few pixels) but keep the button pressed. Imo, this is an important convenience.

More importantly, you can start digging from procedures SCALE and HANGLE. This helps in many occasions:
  • If you're stuck scale/hangling in a corner of single earth pixels, you can just dig yourself out

  • If you just walk to the end of a tunnel, you usually end up scaling the end wall (a very common newbie problem in CR). You can now just start digging into it.

  • You can dig into vertical walls while scaling them

  • You can get rid of single pixels in your way by jumping on them (either scale or hangle them) and start digging. Previously, to dig those pixels away, you would have to climb and stand on top of them, which was not always possible

  • Parent - By AlteredARMOR [ua] Date 2010-02-09 22:55
    I like how it sounds. Can't wait to try it out
    Especially the last issue - those small pixels were such an annoying thing in CR...
    Reply
    Parent - - By TheBuilder [us] Date 2010-02-09 22:56
    SWEET! this will make strip mining easier, (i also use this for making empty spaces under lakes to drain them).

    But anyway, that will be a big help, though im wondering in which directions can u dig when hangling from a perfectly flat celing.
    Reply
    Parent - - By Sven2 [de] Date 2010-02-09 23:00
    You cannot dig vertically into ceilings. It could be enabled, but I think it would be a bit too strong. It would make walling off yourself against enemies very hard.
    Parent - By ala [de] Date 2010-02-10 11:42

    >You cannot dig vertically into ceilings. It could be enabled, but I think it would be a bit too strong. It would make walling off yourself against enemies very hard.


    I'd like to try that out. In Clonk Rage undermined bases were far too strong.

    But maybe the current changes will do well enough. (unfortunately I can't test anything these days)
    Parent - By Sven2 [de] Date 2010-02-09 22:59
    Btw: Just played through Cavern in 3:56.9 using the new shovel. Used to be around 8 minutes, constantly getting stuck by throwing my shovel into a pit :)
    Parent - - By Caesar [de] Date 2010-02-11 15:07
    I wonder if stuff gets too easy then.
    Parent - By Asmageddon [pl] Date 2010-02-11 16:23
    I tested it, it does not get too easy, but without having to deal with no-digging-when-hanging and many of stuck situations its in fact a bit easier.
    Reply
    Parent - - By PeterW [de] Date 2010-02-13 15:34

    > you would have to climb and stand on top of them, which was not always possible


    Or jump on the top. Even harder now with the slow Clonk deceleration, I know. The whole concept might also kill the strange methods of doing the same thing using a flint in CR.

    On the other hand, I'm pretty uneasy with the idea. A couple of reasons:
    * There's a point where the Clonk becomes too agile. Granted, that you couldn't dig into the middle of a vertical wall isn't really essential to anything. On the other hand, it was part of what made elevators and proper planning a good idea.
    * The old restriction was intuitive and didn't need explanation. Now we need an explanation why we can use a showel, but can't use, say, a bow. And something better than "allowing bow usage would look silly because then it becomes apparant that it's actually impossible to do".

    A possible solution would be to require something like climbing tools when the Clonk wants to do this (we have something like that in the works, don't we?). The idea would be that the Clonk automatically ties himself to the wall whenever he has the tools and wants to use something that involves his hands. If we get a rope pack, I think we need to reevaluate our approach to "hanging" Clonks anyway ("Jump" / "Tumble" don't really fit that well, as the Clonk really should be able to do more in this state).
    Parent - - By Sven2 [de] Date 2010-02-14 12:09

    > * The old restriction was intuitive and didn't need explanation


    It wasn't intuitive at all. If you showed Clonk to a new player, one of the major pitfalls was the player standing at the end of a tunnel, in scaling animation, not being able to do anything.

    Actually, ideally I'd say almost every standard action should be possible while scaling and possibly even hangling; except maybe things we have to block for balance reason later on. It would uncouple movement from actions and make the game a lot more fluent. At the moment, I'm already annoyed that I can't build loam bridges while scaling. Look at this image:



    Why is it that I can build in the left situation but can't in the right? It just feels arbitrary (I might actually solve this by forcing the Clonk into a bridge animation directly from SCALE).

    Concerning "climbing tools": That would be a balance consideration we might add to some scenarios to prevent Clonk from being too agile. I could imagine a rule for this. But by default, unless it actually proves to be a problem, I would like to keep controls as simple and powerful as possible.
    Attachment: loam_conditions.png - Loam building blocked for no reason (82k)
    Parent - By Randrian [de] Date 2010-02-14 13:06
    Well, in this picture the clonk actually touches the ground when scaling, so it seems, logical, that a normal being can start action there. But when the clonk scales and doesn't have contact to ground, noone would expect the clonk being able to do actions there.
    So I think we should generally make a distinction between the two cases scaling, but near/one the ground with the feet and scaling with the feet far away from the ground.
    Reply
    Parent - - By Newton [de] Date 2010-02-14 13:21

    >At the moment, I'm already annoyed that I can't build loam bridges while scaling.


    This could lead to interesting situations in races. The leading player could more easily ward himself off against the followers.
    Parent - By Asmageddon [pl] Date 2010-02-14 14:55
    Currently he usually can dig into wall, and then build loam bridge. I dont think it would make it uch easier. Also this would not stop followers too much, as they could(usually) just dig into wall. I think it is quite good idea, that would make OC more newbie-friendly.
    Reply
    Parent - - By PeterW [de] Date 2010-02-14 13:23

    > It wasn't intuitive at all. If you showed Clonk to a new player, one of the major pitfalls was the player standing at the end of a tunnel, in scaling animation, not being able to do anything.


    That's obviously because the player didn't realize what the Clonk was doing. You could equally say the problem is that the Clonk starts scaling too fast and should probably just let go once the appropriate key isn't pressed anymore.

    Alternatively, we could have the Clonk just go into the appropriate action (like using the bow) without any precautions. This would make it work in your cases - but in case you're really hanging on a large wall, you'd start falling down. Depending on how we implement it, digging into the wall might actually still be possible by iterating this a few times.
    Parent - By Caesar [de] Date 2010-02-14 13:51

    >but in case you're really hanging on a large wall, you'd start falling down.


    I think it should only switch to an action when the clonk can stand where he is. That would result in less "Ooops, now I fell into lava and I don't really know why."-situations
    Parent - - By Sven2 [de] Date 2010-02-14 16:21
    I'm just setting the action for the loam bridge now, which effectively allows you to build when scaling "on the ground" only.

    It would be trivial to allow bridge during scaling even when not close to the ground by starting the bridge in ControlUseStart, so you immediately have some ground to stand on for the bridge activity.

    > Depending on how we implement it, digging into the wall might actually still be possible by iterating this a few times.


    That's how it used to be when I just allowed dig start during scale. I actually spent some time making fluent digging into the wall possible. I don't get why you would want it any other way. It's just frustrating when you know you *could* dig in there, but you need to press a zillion buttons for it to work.
    Parent - - By PeterW [de] Date 2010-02-14 23:18 Edited 2010-02-14 23:23
    Like I said, I'm not strictly against your idea, merely uneasy. I just started the discussion because I felt that we should at least have one before making such a change. Working into a wall step by step would be nothing but frustrating, yes - even irritating if you happen to only fall a few pixels. It's trial-and-error for any action we might use it for, and it should be avoided.

    Still, the more refined way "check first whether we can get into a stand immediatly" would also fix the situation you described. Or "just let go when the button's released" (was that ever tried? It seems pretty JnR-ish). So it's down to the question whether digging into vertical walls is a good idea. Or ceilings, for that matter - I guess "Hangle" will get the same treatment? Do we have some kind of limit? The angle restrictions of digging don't realy apply directly, as you're able to work yourself into the ceiling anyway if I'm not mistaken.

    And we must remember that sooner or later we will have to address the arms race between attackers and defenders. CR-style castles would already be laughably insecure if you could build loam bridges while scaling. Loam bridges become useless as a quick defensive tool in the field if you can just dig through them. So we should at least be somewhat cautious not to make future developments harder just because it makes a lot of sense in the current high-velocity race-type scenarios.
    Parent - By Zapper [de] Date 2010-02-15 19:40

    >Loam bridges become useless as a quick defensive tool in the field if you can just dig through them. So we should at least be somewhat cautious not to make future developments harder just because it makes a lot of sense in the current high-velocity race-type scenarios.


    Don't forget that in melees the enemy doesn't necessarily have a shovel. I think we already made loam much more powerful in melees :)
    Up Topic Development / Scenario & Object Development / Digging Reworked

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