River Boats

Amarillys

I'm all for the currents, really. I like the added touch of worldliness. You never see currents in games, really. I think it's awesome. So... do we get boats now?

Sarapis

HELP SHIPS.

Realistically, the rivers aren't big enough to have boats in the sense that rivers make up only a few hundred rooms, at most, out of the entire game. I do like the idea of abilities that can halt or reverse currents in room though. I don't think they're really very useful, but they'd be just a nice flavor addition to a couple classes.

I'm also considering adding in something akin to a jetstream, but in a way that let's you kind of 'ride' it if you're flying (it won't affect you if you're on the ground or in the trees) in a circle around sapience, roughly coming near each of the cities. Not sure if we will, and it sounds like I need to look at whether current speeds in rivers are too fast for now if we don't build bridges.

Amarillys

Awww, Sarapis just broke my heart... and now I want wings...

Blujixapug

Sarapis said:

I'm also considering adding in something akin to a jetstream, but in a way that let's you kind of 'ride' it if you're flying (it won't affect you if you're on the ground or in the trees) in a circle around sapience, roughly coming near each of the cities. Not sure if we will, and it sounds like I need to look at whether current speeds in rivers are too fast for now if we don't build bridges.

You should add parachutes, and a way to jump off Erymanthus and try to loosely aim yourself as you float down to the continent below.

And more sky islands.

Amarillys

SKY ISLANDS!!!!

Sarapis

Very cool stuff in terms of new areas with new kinds of...things...is in the works now in fact! Sky islands aren't quite it but I think you're going to really like it.

Kresslack

I demand a zephyr from which myself and my comrades can fly around in dropping holo bombs, large rocks, and sacks full of angry cats on unsuspecting fishermen.

Jacen

Sarapis said:

Very cool stuff in terms of new areas with new kinds of...things...is in the works now in fact! Sky islands aren't quite it but I think you're going to really like it.

Floating crystal Hashan confirmed.

Daslin

I want an airship already

Sena

Sarapis said:

We didn't add currents in order to then sell people anything. Just did it to add more 'worldiness' to the world. Might be that some of the currents are too fast now though, or that more bridges over rivers need to be built both RPly and in reality.

I think the main problems are newbies and autowalking. Avoiding rivers is hard when you don't know your way around (WALK TO tends to take you through rivers in a lot of places), and since newbies (or anyone without fluidswim) take damage when swimming, it's very difficult for a newbie to escape the river alive without waterwalking. Even I barely managed it the first time I wandered into a river (on an alt without trans survival), and I've been playing for 12-13 years. And if they do escape, it's probably far downstream where they've never been, and it can be hard to find their way back to someplace familiar (and they're right next to a river, so WALK TO is likely to walk them right back into it).

And even for non-newbies, WALK TO becomes a lot harder to use when it frequently leads you into rivers, and rivers frequently break the autowalking.

Slower currents would make the problems less severe (it wouldn't be as hard to escape from a river, you'd be less likely to be swept away while autowalking through a single river room), but the problems would still be there. Bridges wouldn't solve it either, because the bridge often won't be the shortest path to a landmark. In my opinion, the best solutions would be some sort of newbie protection and improved autowalking (either make it avoid rivers where possible, or let it recalculate the path and continue autowalking after being pulled by the current, so you can autowalk out of rivers).

Making it so the current won't drag you away while you're actively swimming (during the delay between the SWIM command and when the movement goes through) would also help a lot in escaping the river.

Addama

Yeah, that's what it was like for me before I bought waterwalking boots.

"I'm just walking to ManarAGHHGHGHBHGHGHBHGGHBHHHHH"

Nim

See those highways and roads built for convenient travel? Even amongst novices, only WIMPS use those. REAL adventurers walk through forests, jungles, deserts, and enemy cities to get where they want to go. River? Sure we can cross tha-WOAH are you thinking of using that bridge? No! No. You're an adventurer now. You swim.

Kresslack

I get how currents work, and why they were added. They've been around in some small capacity for years now, depending on the area. However, having them work even when you're using waterwalk and/or levitation doesn't really add up, as such enchantments wouldn't practically put you well enough into the river for the current to sweep you away.

Maybe just make it to where you have to have waterwalking, or at the very least levitation up. Those using mounts to forde rivers would still be somewhat susceptible to currents, but not to the degree of just trying to cross the river without aid of their mount.

Addama

That would literally make currents affect nobody except newbies.

Sarathai

Sena said:

Sarapis said:

We didn't add currents in order to then sell people anything. Just did it to add more 'worldiness' to the world. Might be that some of the currents are too fast now though, or that more bridges over rivers need to be built both RPly and in reality.

I think the main problems are newbies and autowalking. Avoiding rivers is hard when you don't know your way around (WALK TO tends to take you through rivers in a lot of places), and since newbies (or anyone without fluidswim) take damage when swimming, it's very difficult for a newbie to escape the river alive without waterwalking. Even I barely managed it the first time I wandered into a river (on an alt without trans survival), and I've been playing for 12-13 years. And if they do escape, it's probably far downstream where they've never been, and it can be hard to find their way back to someplace familiar (and they're right next to a river, so WALK TO is likely to walk them right back into it).

And even for non-newbies, WALK TO becomes a lot harder to use when it frequently leads you into rivers, and rivers frequently break the autowalking.

For what it's worth, I find myself spending a lot more time in a morph with flight when I'm using the WALK TO command because I can just fly over the top of the rivers rather than dealing with the current, and getting blown about when flying is significantly less obstructive (to the point where if I'm caught by currents because I was walking on the ground and happened to cross a river, my immediate reaction is now "screw it, I'm morphing and flying out of here"). So anybody with access to flight has it a bit easier. It makes it annoying when WALK TO requires landing and then going indoors on a river, though (somewhere around the bridge to Delos was where I first noticed it, I think), because I usually find myself washed downstream before the swim command goes through and have to go well out of my way on a circuit route to get back to where I needed to be.

Make the autowalker avoid crossing rivers except where it absolutely has to, or give it the ability to compensate for involuntary movement downstream with the currents, and it'd be much easier to deal with. At least when using WALK TO, anyway.

Addama

@Kresslack disagrees with my post, doesn't explain what part of it is untrue.

If all you need to avoid currents is water walking boots and/or levitation, then only those without those things will be affected.

Those people are newbies.

Ernam

Recommended: Bottomless death pits (or unshrubbed Manu) at the end of all rivers.

Sarapis

Just fyi, people under level 20 aren't affected by currents.

Kayeil

So can you change gold flakes to be found elsewhere or something? The currents are super faster, and since you took away gathering them in the wilderness the difficulty is a bit ridiculous now.

Daslin

Back when I used to pan for gold, we had to fight the current AND the injuns!

Note: I'm making a joke.

Kresslack

Sarapis said:

Just fyi, people under level 20 aren't affected by currents.

You were wondering why I disagreed? There it is.

Addama

Kresslack said:

Sarapis said:

Just fyi, people under level 20 aren't affected by currents.

You were wondering why I disagreed? There it is.

You know, it's extremely possible to be over level 20 and know nothing about waterwalking or levitation, right?

Kresslack

Waterwalking/levitation are usually some of the first things novice aides and mentors provide to novices. And even if someone chooses not to join a House, it's not that difficult to learn about with a little reading. Anyway, back to the topic at hand, now that such semantics have been cleared up.

Kakotas

Halos said:

Barrels sold in Delos.

This has Clan Aleswiller's approval. We need a way to ship th' brew somewhere anyways might as well ship a few hobbits as well... lol

I will say for newbies stuck using walk to the streams are a little OP because say is you live in cyrene and want to walk to minia you'll get caught in one and put all the way out to pash before you can walk to again. It would be kinda annoying to me especially for that all important phase where you just come out of being a newbie but aren't yet accustomed to everywhere. That's already hard even with standard geography tests but add no walk to for the meantime and it might be something some newbies have trouble with.

Tael

I like the idea of the rivers. I even think the current implementation is mostly fine.

I like that it adds dynamism to the map. For me at least, it actually succeeds in this pretty spectacularly.

But WALKTO needs to pretend they don't exist and never route through them. That would be totally fine too - WALKTO is plenty useful and giving it the slight downside that it can't route through rivers is probably fine. Giving people a minor advantage for walking manually when time is really of the essence seems like a totally reasonable tradeoff.

In the meantime, I would be shocked if the game isn't losing new players right now because WALKTO is so nonfunctional with rivers.

As a newbie, I came extremely close to dying several times when I was unknowingly routed into a river. Even once I was safe and wasn't in any danger of dying, it's made WALKTO almost completely pointless to even bother trying - virtually every route I try attempts to use a river as a shortcut, then I get washed away and get "off track" and it stops walking to where I'm going. And even if I manage to get back out of the river in a reasonable amount of time (which is not always guaranteed by any means), if I run WALKTO again after getting out, it almost always just routes me right back into the river it was trying to cross in the first place.

Admin should go into the game and try doing WALKTO a few times with routes that cross over major rivers (i.e., just about any longish route over the central continent - though plenty of routes also try to dip into the river for one or two rooms just to save walking one more room). The problem is pretty immediately apparent.

Slowing the rivers will not solve this problem. WALKTO just needs to route as though river rooms don't exist. (And maybe do something about it breaking up groups, though that's less immediately pressing than the WALKTO issue is.)

Saralynne

Sarapis said:

I'm also considering adding in something akin to a jetstream, but in a way that let's you kind of 'ride' it if you're flying (it won't affect you if you're on the ground or in the trees) in a circle around sapience, roughly coming near each of the cities. Not sure if we will, and it sounds like I need to look at whether current speeds in rivers are too fast for now if we don't build bridges.

I'd like to see the jet stream run from the icy north, to the "terra incognita" section of that beautiful worldmap, and maybe have it open up to a volcanic region that gets revealed when it erupts and drives the Chagut encampment to the northern shore.   Maybe some artefact of ancient Seleucar would surface there, or some mysterious cabal that secured the volcano and caused it to erupt with help from some otherworldly force that is seeking to sway the balance of power.  Anyways, I'm just having fun thinking about what could be down there.  Mostly, would just love an excuse to buy artefact wings, that my vibrating stick doesn't already accomplish for me, and faster.

Synbios

Idea: why not just have 'being carried away by currents/jetstream' be a learned Survival ability and have the default be like the pre-river-current system? 

DRIFT       Be like water.
Syntax: DRIFT ON/OFF
Ability description:
A careful study of the river currents allows an intrepid swimmer like you to ride the waves, allowing the water to carry you downstream.

GLIDE      Ride the wind.
Syntax: GLIDE ON/OFF
Ability description:
If you have the ability to fly, you can take advantage of the jet streams that crisscross the skies of Sapience, allowing these strong wind currents to carry you through great distances.

Would also imagine that the SURVEY skill can also detect if the direction of a river current or jet stream.

Sarapis

Easy solution is forthcoming that ensures that swimming to cross rivers whilst using autowalking (WALKTO) will be faster than river currents can affect you generally, minus a couple waterfalls that newbies randomly going between cities and Minia (or anywhere really) won't encounter.

Amarillys

Hey hey! Question! Will the rivers in the wilderness get currents? That would be awesome.

Sarapis

I don't know, will look into that. Rooms in the wilderness are done completely differently in many ways from rooms on the normal map.