![[de]](/mwf/flags/de.png "Germany")
> "When you are swimming you most likely want to see exactly what is going on around you."
, Zapper said, but I object: If my breath is around as limited as it was in CR, my main concern is not to drown. I remember checking back to my breath-bar every second when diving for something without an Aquaclonk - It's not much different in OC at the moment.
For me, it first comes down to the decision what we want to allow players to do underwater. In CR, deep water and diving passages were an obstacle, a (rather annoying) timing problem - do we want to stay them that way?
Yes: Then we'd keep the breath low and should include an easy-to-read feedback about it, because thats basically all there is to it. "Clonks don't belong into the water", "Water is bad" is what the player takes from it. He should only do it if he can already spot those air-pockets along the diving route, because experimenting might kill his clonk. Having a firm grasp of how much breath he has left is key.
No: Then we ought give the clonk much more breath. Water becomes much more explorable, Clonks could stay a minute (or so) in there, explore some and still get back to the surface before breath runs out.
Visual feedback could be given much more subtle, as my overall breath won't run out so fast - I'm thinking of a burst of air bubbles around the clonk (and maybe a small coughing animation) when it hits 1/2, 1/4 and the last 1/10. When I see my clonk exhaling lots of bubbles, I will check back to my breath bar.
Scenario designers could design more varying tasks to do underwater, since the player doesn't have his hands full not to drown. I really loved CRs Aquaclonks for that reason.
This could be taken as far as removing breath alltogether - for "impassable obstacles" theres a ton of other stuff, and for "challenge in the water" there's agressive water animals*. Could work out as well, but I don't see any actual benefits from that.
(*Ok so not really atm but there are no scenarios relying on water as a timing obstacle either)
Once it's settled which way we want to have it, this would have to be balanced against the diving helmet.
I must say that in CR I usually did not drown because I missed timing on my breath - I drowned because I got stuck at a landscape edge and then ran out of breath :)That's why my main concern always was to see exactly what material was around my Clonk - and I wouldn't want that information obstructed by a huge blue bar around me.
But when experimenting with the musket reloading thing, I think that a (50% transparent) ring of bubbles around your Clonk might be a decent looking and not too annoying feedback.
Think of this with bubbles instead of arrows:
To the issue of what we want with water: I think that allowing diving 10 to 20 seconds is a good compromise between water-is-not-a-no-brainer and allow-better-water-exploration. Because if you are a good explorer you brought a flint or so to create an air bubble under water anyway ;)
*leaves the progress bar discussion for the other thread*> I drowned because I got stuck at a landscape edge and then ran out of breath :)
Good point. Yeah, tight controls are a must for this to work at all, regardless of what role water areas take. They have to feel as fluid and responsive as the land ones.
To avoid being weirdly stuck to a chuck of material is no fun challenge, because we more or less dump a weak spot of our engine/controls on the player. You'd actually gain advantage by displaying your vertices, carefully watching not to touch the landscape.
For me, thats just plain wrong - diving should not be a timed wire loop game, because it bears no reward on its own - except for diving passages that were designed with exactly this in mind (escape from prison block by diving through sewers or whatnot.)
So, with increasing breath we would reduce frustration if a player actually controlled his clonk against the tip of a wall by accident. Still, we need to make sure that clonks don't get stuck some way just like that. This should be reviewed with the current control sceme.
>So, with increasing breath we would reduce frustration if a player actually controlled his clonk against the tip of a wall by accident. Still, we need to make sure that clonks don't get stuck some way just like that. This should be reviewed with the current control sceme.
True, true. But I would really prefer smooth controls over "just fix by increasing breath" - if possible, that is :)
![[ie]](/mwf/flags/ie.png "Ireland")
Very good points.I'd opt for the "water is dangerous" way. I liked all these diving route considerations and carefully planning your way down. Although I acknowledge the annoyance factor.
I think what really is annoying is the way, you usually deal with water. Because diving down is no possibility (not enough air) you're always tempted to dig into the water near the spot where whatever you need is. To not let the water flow into your mine you use these u-structures to keep the water at bay. I don't think that diving itself is annoying but navigating your way back through these narrow shafts is. But I haven't sufficiently tested this with OC's control scheme.
The question I ask myself is, can we overcome the need for such entry tunnels, can we provide for a better way to conquer water? If yes, imho the main annoying factor would vanish.
I'd like to have a diving gear (old fashioned: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABPub/2007/04/06/2003655463.jpg) to enable the clonk to perform any task underwater; walking, digging and everything else you might want (shooting harpoons or so). My first idea was that you also need a pump (+ energy of course) to supply your clonk with air. When your energy fails, you're left with the regular breath time to save your clonk. This needs thorough testing though. The more I think about this, the more I feel that this could prove too complicated and risky to be better than the "u-entry system".
Which leads me to another thought. To discourage the u-entries and encourage the player to build a diving gear, at first we need to come up with some ideas about why the player should even dive. Except for the Pearl Diving scenario there was never a real purpose of going underwater (maybe sometimes because you lost something that fell into water...). It was especially dumb to do so since your clonk might die from drowning or shark attacks. We can't just dump dangerous creatures and other obstacles into the ocean without also saying why the player should take the risk.
As long as we don't have such motivational factors, I'd say its enough to give the clonk enough breath to stay underwater for, say, a minute. I don't want to construct several buildings, farm items and make me some gear to just recover a stupid gold nugget I accidentally placed on a slope. That's annoying and I'd rather just use a tunnel to get as near as possible and try to snatch it up.
So, I think the brainstorming should start somewhere else. Take a step back and consider what might be the benefits of diving. As soon as we have that (it is not necessary though, to do this, we can just not include any interesting underwater stuff into OC and it's fine), we can start designing the deep-sea environment and make it a thrilling and dangerous one.
Any ideas from me? Well, stuff like precious materials (but you always have the u-entry option unless the stuff isn't floating in mid-water), underwater farming with extraordinary results, constructing anchor-like basements for swimming platforms or supports for bridges or similar, a deep-sea tidal power plant. All this needs more thought put into and I guess designing all this could prove to be a similar big task as the regular, dry settlement. ;)
> I'd like to have a diving gear [...] to enable the clonk to perform any task underwater; [...]
Actually, I was under the impression that this was exactly what the diving helmet does. Guess I was wrong?
> I don't want to construct several buildings, farm items and make me some gear to just recover a stupid gold nugget
Yeah, it's not really an alternative. This might be fun in special scenarios - where the diving itself is the point, integral to some bigger settlement plan and proves some interesting challanges (You listed a few possible at the end of your posting). But if diving is only meant to be a way to get around the map, it's about mobility, and the suit becomes the remedy to fake difficulty we introduced ourselves (And, depending on how complicated it is, not even a good one).
> we need to come up with some ideas about why the player should even dive
Not sure about that one. The way Clonk works is that if something is possible, someone will make an interesting scenarioen for it sooner or later.
> As long as we don't have such motivational factors, I'd say its enough to give the clonk enough breath to stay underwater for, say, a minute. I don't want to construct several buildings, farm items and make me some gear to just recover a stupid gold nugget I accidentally placed on a slope. That's annoying and I'd rather just use a tunnel to get as near as possible and try to snatch it up.
That's my personal view of things as well. I'd do this as a fist step - It adds to the mobility of clonks and rids us of "aw I dropped my shovel into that lake, whelp better build a new one" situatons. The real purpose of diving gear would then come in later and seperately with the introduction of some greater underwater concept (Or player extensions, who knows).
> The way Clonk works is that if something is possible, someone will make an interesting scenarioen for it sooner or later.
Indeed. But the crucial factor is 'something is possible'. As I said, if we just dump underwater dangers (like sharks or the electric fish I proposed) without also providing developers with tools to enrich the sea and to reward players, I guess we'll end up with the same situation than in CR: A big sea with some sharks in it, nothing special in particular.
Yeah, of course - but I think content is actually a secondary factor. Even if we put in underwater Clam farms, harpoons for hunting fish, motor-propeled diving scooters - all of this won't be any fun to do as long as the game mechanics shout "DON'T GO INTO THE WATER" by making me drown (or having to fear drowning every second). That's what I meant with "possible".
Personally, I'd say instead of making water safe (and thus not considerably different from land), make it dangerous and benefiting. Taking the high risk of drowning every second vs. secure work on land with less outcome!
Well, it's already going into the details here: Where exactly do we want that "high risk" to come from, now? You stated different approaches (or I got you wrong in one of those last posts):- "Drowning every second", giving the clonk only 15 seconds of breath as it is now, making it necessary to calculate every keypress underwater beforehand? Keep in mind that underwater is not only about rewards.
- Or rather by seperating "moving in water" from "working in water" by providing dangerous content, like needing a running power supply to pump air into my deep-sea-mining-clonks' suit? Like that I need to build air-cable-extensions if I want to venture down really deep, or else it might rip? By introducing direct dangers into the water, that the player - but most and moreover, the scenario designer - can avoid or ignore as long as he just wants to move around (currents, sharks, blowfish, mines..)?
Personally, I think by making every clonk weak in every water, thus declaring water als "dangerous" in general, is the wrong idea here, because water is not "rewarding" or "benefiting" in general. By making the clonk "weak" in water, I also have to take those risks when I want to pick up that shovel that I dropped in the lake, even if it's complete free of monsters. Heck, I even have to take it in the tutorial, where I can only explore a better puddle of water while trying to pick up swimming controls, because any deeper and the player might actually kill himself while figuring it all out.
Thus, I don't want to scare the player of the water itself, I want him to take his chances with what's (going to be) in there. Summed up, I'd want to balance it like this: Diving is not a problem, breath-wise. I think it shouldn't be, because its still more a basic control mechainc of the game. Staying in the ocean, working there, however will confront me with new challenges - and as they consume more time, I'd need to think about a way to manage my breath as well.
I see where you're getting at. Yes, there is no real need to further obstruct the occasional dive.
agreed as well. I also like the idea of constructing bridge pylons(=Pfeiler) underwater for long bridges and similar tasks. But that's after we have a release with dry settlement etc. :)
![[at]](/mwf/flags/at.png "Austria")
>Yeah, it's not really an alternative. This might be fun in special scenarios - where the diving itself is the point, integral to some bigger settlement plan and proves some interesting challanges
I remember building that. So much fun.
I definitively want to be able to do something like that. And if I have to build a diving-suit for it. That enables me to build and walk underwater.
When I first started reading your post, I thought you wanted a way to communicate the breath left etc. better to the player. This sprung an interesting idea: A circle around the clonk, that displays your "range" as in "how far can I go with the breath left". It'd just be a circle with radius X, where X gets smaller as the breath goes away.The problem with this is, of course, the landscape form. I'd say the circle-size also depends on the speed the clonk moves at. Just taking the swim-physical would lead to even worse results in terms of correctness, I guess.
Just an idea. Only relevant for "dangerous" water ofc.
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