Suggestions for more low value loot?

[Weasel]

You make a lot of good points. I think the feature would only be worth adding if it was based completely on whether or not an object would go into the "Loot" category when frobbed (whatever variable specifies that), and was not dependent on materials being set up correctly for every object. I do also think it should be optional if implemented. If that implementation is not easy to do, it's probably not worth the effort.

[jaxa]

Gold / different color highlight for loot?

[Xarg]

Well this seems to have somewhat fallen to the way-side amidst the loot-glint (just kidding ) discussion, but I think once the Beginner's Contest is over, I'm going to do some experimentation with things like a valuable padlock. Already have an idea of how to do it, just involves some experimenting.

[ERH+]

That would be a good point (regarding the locks being valuable) if this wasn't a steampunk universe. I imagine while stuff like the printing press is still relatively new, basic manufacturing could be quite advanced comparitively. Maybe have some ornate, valuable handcrafted master padlocks?

Depends on equality factor in society. Hi-tech machines are for wealthy citizens and merchants, but -as someone already say it- simple peasant didn't see a gold coin in his whole life. Regarding what in real life villagers was just slaves attached to small area, and farmers before WW2 don't believe in radio (didn't get how human voice can travel several miles between cities), You can assume any dissonance portraying machine age-in- medieval.

You need mass production and many varied factories to assume that something is available to anyone, and I think TDM world is still dependent on blacksmiths. Or I'm terribly wrong?

[Xarg]

It really depends. If there was a massive market for cheap locks to the keep the average Joe hooligan away from something he didn't have any business snooping around in, then I can believe a factory would be set up to capitalise on this (think of the myriad of locked doors, and footlockers etc in the world, it's doubtful a team of blacksmiths works all day to fabricate those when they can be doing rewarding work like creating armour for guards/soldiers etc). It's all a case of supply and demand, 2 factors we have no grasp on in the universe. The majority of a padlock would be able to be mass produced by even simple steam/electric powered machinery, though you'd need a team of workers, low paid of course, to assemble them. You'd have another machine stamping out keys for them too.

[STiFU]

Don't even get me started on the frob highlight. The current system is actually pretty flawed and I have been talking to JC Denton a lot, trying to find ways to fix it using ARB-programs. Apparently it is not possible.

 

You see, the issue at hand is that luminance differences are perceived on a logarithmic scale (Weber-Fechner law) and our current frob highlight works additive. This means that you will perceive a very strong frob highlight on dark objects, whereas on bright objects you will only perceive a very subtle highlight, if at all (I actually had problems numerous times in telling whether and object was highlighted or not)... The solution to this problem would be to make the frob highlight a multiplicative factor (a constant summand on logarithmic scale) greater than 1, which is neither possible using the current material-stage approach, nor with ARB-programs as stated above. Fixing this would need code-support, which would be another possible future task... A great one too, because frobhighlight color could be made adjustable and also different for loot etc.

[Fidcal]

Note that some shaders already have a different frob highlight value to compensate. I seem to remember a bottle for one and I think there are others.

 

That said, I don't think changing shaders is the way to go with a loot highlight. It's the loot entity that defines what is loot so messing with shaders is fraught - not only now but for the future. To have alternate shaders for non-loot items that use shaders also used by loot is not a good idea imo. In addition, any mapper is free to create loot but they might not know about nor should they have to fiddle with materials for example if they want to make a special book into loot they ought to be able to just change the entity.

 

I still think it's worth waiting to see if anyone can try some simple change to the code. After all, the code already keeps testing continuously for several things regarding the frob highlight: distance, bias, frob box size and so on. When it keeps detecting that an entity should highlight it just keeps setting parm11 to 1. Perhaps one or two more lines of code there could flucuate that either 1 to 0 or even fade it up and down. Then test to see how it looks. Then decide if it's any good. I like to try the simplest fixes first. It might well be than ten minutes work is sufficiently good. Anything better might never be accomplished.

 

Of course, I could be completely wrong. The code might not be able to do what I suggest at all.

[grayman]

Of course, I could be completely wrong. The code might not be able to do what I suggest at all.

 

The frob highlight code already has the ability to fade the frob in and out. It does this when the item is initially frobbed (fade in for 100ms) and when it's no longer frobbed (fade out for 100ms).

 

Making it pulse while frobbed should be simple.

 

But this only gives us a "pulsing frob highlight" effect. It doesn't adjust the color or deal with the different perception of the effect on dark or light objects.

[STiFU]

Note that some shaders already have a different frob highlight value to compensate. I seem to remember a bottle for one and I think there are others.

But it is still not independent of the lighting of a scene. Even if the frobhighlight-summand was perfectly adjusted to the mean-luminance of the texture of an object, a lightsource could raise the luminance so much, that the highlight is not visible again. A multiplicative factor really is the only way to fix this issue, which you can only be done by omitting the shader approach¹. This also has the major advantages of adjustable highlight colors for loot and junk objects.

 

To be honest, the frob highlight was a splinter in my eye from day one of the mod (Thief's Den). I had trouble with it quite frequently but was lacking the knowledge where the troubles came from.

 

____________

¹ Well actually, there is a way to make it possible with shader by altering the modulate shader stage in the code. If we would allow values greater than 1, we could perfectly do it. However, we would also have to implement a saturation function for the modulate stage then, to ensure there's no overflow. And this reduces performance!

[Springheel]

Making it pulse while frobbed should be simple.

 

I could swear this was implemented in a testmap once already.

[grayman]

I could swear this was implemented in a testmap once already.

 

If so, it was done outside the frob highlighting code, because there's nothing in there that handles this.

[nbohr1more]

Yes, since frob highlight is due to a conditional in the material shader, mappers can simply make a custom blend that detects the same parm as frob. I'll try to get some examples posted in the wiki when I get the time to experiment.

[Outlooker]

If I may add a few thoughts:

 

Tobacco stuff can be small and valuable. There are very expensive cigars, worth their weight in gold.

 

Small,less valuable  loot could be realistically added in a hoard - like a butler or maid, stealing a little a time from the nobs over the years, amassing smaller valuables in a hiding-place (like under their bed).

 

After a bad harvest, ordinary, yet energy-dense food could have higher value than usual - like cheese.

 

Perfume, while small,could be everything from almost worthless to very costly.

 

Even in a medieval setting , non-material things could have value: trading/market information, like  knowledge a maid gets by overhearing a conversation dealing with the business of her employers and mentioning that in a letter or diary (pricing info, intent to buy lots of merchandise or land...).

 

Certain medicines can be insanely expensive, yet even be obtained/desired by common people (think of Chinese medicine stuff, like rhinoceros horn, special herbs, hell, even "make love long" pills/herbs would be as sought after and expensive as they are today (let's say viagra costs 10$ a pill, containing 50mg, this stuff would cost 200.000$/kg in bulk - much more than gold);even good, ordinary sleeping pills are sought after by many, could be relatively common yet quite value-dense).

 

Foremen / master workers could have a pocket watch - not the golden, exquisite type the rich carry, much simpler, yet definitely valuable.

 

Certain types of clothing were also extraordinary expensive in past times - satin scarfs/stockings, lace ...

[Fidcal]

Some good ideas there Outlooker. Some fall into the grey area of gameplay issues though such as how we perceive our player character and how we perceive the object itself particularly because loot is not identified except by its icon. So, a bottle of liniment might just look like an unidentifiable bottle. A perfume bottle might be shaped to be identifiable I guess and it would help if placed in say, a lady's bedroom on a dresser with mirror, cosmetics, etc. (I think we already do have one actually.) Similarly, cigars or tobacco would need to be clearly identifiable. Static clothing worth 2G would probably 'seem' too bulky to be worth it (compared to a watch of the same value) whereas a very expensive 'golden, bejewelled jacket' belonging to a prince might work but then it would be so rare it would be a mission objective in its own right and not loot. But yes, otherwise, good ideas but each would need to be judged on its own merits to see if it can be made to work.

 

Currently we have no modeller to do this work though but keep the ideas coming..

[pusianka]

So... Me thinking in terms of identifing loot, that Thief DS had a good idea with making a sparkle emitter on every object that Garreth precieves as valuable...

[ERH+]

It will be better idea to give a photos/ sketches of desired objects (it work also with characters you want to hit). It is more convincing than any game mechanic. If you can obtain a map, there is no reason why you can't get other help to scroll under "M" key.

[STiFU]

Well you can do that of course in the briefings and additionally you can also put images of objectives on the map, but we are talking about random loot here. You can't put any coin, purse, spice etc. on a map...

[ERH+]

One thing I miss from Thief is elemental crystals -at least in T3 they was emitting a low sound... What if smell itself of spices will be presented in form of very gentle sound?

And if G. had a light-gem, he can have any other sort of detector. (yes yes team don't wish to add any new stuff -it's just brain storming)

[Baddcog]

Some good ideas there Outlooker. Some fall into the grey area of gameplay issues though such as how we perceive our player character and how we perceive the object itself particularly because loot is not identified except by its icon. So, a bottle of liniment might just look like an unidentifiable bottle. A perfume bottle might be shaped to be identifiable I guess and it would help if placed in say, a lady's bedroom on a dresser with mirror, cosmetics, etc. (I think we already do have one actually.) Similarly, cigars or tobacco would need to be clearly identifiable. Static clothing worth 2G would probably 'seem' too bulky to be worth it (compared to a watch of the same value) whereas a very expensive 'golden, bejewelled jacket' belonging to a prince might work but then it would be so rare it would be a mission objective in its own right and not loot. But yes, otherwise, good ideas but each would need to be judged on its own merits to see if it can be made to work.

 

Currently we have no modeller to do this work though but keep the ideas coming..

 

I think this describes the issue well. This isn't morrowind. The objective isn't to loot every single item you can find so you can buy that armor upgrade you need to survive.

 

We could (any mapper) make every single item have some value. But the point of the game is really about larger objectives, and the loot is always more of a side objective. grab random loot. It's nice to keep that all recognizable, even if a bit boring. That's why most of it simply being gold/gem items works well.

 

G2.0 a master thief not a common hoodlum.

 

While I don't mind having more variety I don't think we need to create everyday loot items. Maybe a tobacco pouch (but it would need an obvious gold/jewel crest on it - in which case it's the jewels and gold that make it valuable). Perfume bottle, yeah it's fancy, even has some gold on it. But it has never been used as loot before, so most players would probably skip over it and not even try to grab it. It wouldn't break old maps but it would be confusing.

 

I really think the best thing is for authors to not put thousands of dollars of gold items in a map. Use them more sparingly and appropriately.

[Outlooker]

IIRC the value system seems sometimes rather skewed to me, anyway:

 

Some say, a peasant would never see a single highly valuable gold coin in his entire life;

on the other hand, in DM and T1/T2/T3/FMs I have seen pricing information in taverns that list ordinary beverages and tavern rooms for rent in the couple-of-gold-range.

 

So, there has always been some weird inconsistency with pricing, valuing a huge insanely rare main loot gem at, say 2000 gold, and coin purses on guards full of 50 gold or the pricing of a decent meal at a tavern at 4 gold.

 

"Gold" as such has by no means to be 100% gold - it was/would be not unusual to reduce the actual gold content of coins over time, as a means to help public finances. It was a very common thing in history - "old" gold coins, like the oldest francs, were 100% gold and immensely valuable; over the centuries, copper content of newly issued francs went very near or to 100%.

So currency "gold coins" and actual gold could be hugely different priced, say stealing a relatively small 100% gold bar could be well worth like 10.000 in "gold" currency.

 

Realistically, loot pricing should be more believable: When a stack of coins, found with gambling guards, is worth 10 gold, then a hugely valuable main loot item like a sceptre should be at least in the 100.000-Range, otherwise you would be no master but more of a petty thief.

 

Smaller valuables amassed, say in the 500-5000 gold range, would be sufficient to "pay the rent" (and some luxuries) for a considerable time, like G.s troubles typically were;

stealing the biggest diamond in existence and registering it as just 5000 gold loot however would be pretty lame.

 

Maybe the most easy and elegant way to deal with the issue is to really increase the "gold" currency worth of main/special loot items. You can't frob and pocket a grand piano (albeit impressively valuable), but huge gems/gold bars/artwork certainly can be - going with value descriptions in the 10s and 100s of thousands.

Edited April 8, 2012 by Outlooker

[Melan]

The "peasants would never see gold coins" is an exaggeration based on the Monty Python peasants stereotype. It is true that poor commoners would not use coins much, especially not outside the cities: they would barter for the goods they could not produce themselves. I give you a hen and these jars of honey, you give me a brand new iron pot. They might still have money as savings or for paying their taxes and levies, though. In the cities, people use a lot more cash; copper for everyday needs, silver for buying stuff and gold somewhat more rarely. Master thieves, of course, have lots of gold, but spend them irresponsibly so they are always down on their luck.

[grayman]

Master thieves, of course, have lots of gold, but spend them irresponsibly so they are always down on their luck.

 

And thank goodness for that, else we'd have no missions to play.

[Fidcal]

It's the useage really 1G might be a month's income to a peasant but he'd rarely see or use a 1G coin. He might get fifty 0.005 coins a week or even be paid daily 0.001. Even if he saved ten of those a month that's only 0.5 in nearly a year and most likely they'd be say five 0.1 coins.

 

The problem with realism is that if it is truly scaled so a scepter is worth 100,000 then the loot objective becomes a one-shot and why bother with anything else at 5, 10, and 20? Again, it's bending realism to make the gameplay. Just don't think too deeply about it.

[Melan]

There is some rationality to it - you can spend coins, you can sell a set of golden candlesticks, but that stolen painting? Good luck getting market value for that with the watch out on the prowl, and an angry lord hiring assassins to "get it back at all costs".

[Outlooker]

The problem with realism is that if it is truly scaled so a scepter is worth 100,000 then the loot objective becomes a one-shot and why bother with anything else at 5, 10, and 20? Again, it's bending realism to make the gameplay. Just don't think too deeply about it.

 

Realistically, anything worth much and being easily carried would be stolen, even by a master thief after a prize sceptre.If one combs through a mansion or castle to get all keys/information/distraction/whatever to open the vault with the one main target loot, anyone would also take the occasional gold ring or coin purse along the way - even if those smaller things sum up only to about 5% of the main target loot value.The thief would never be absolutely sure to succeed in getting his prize - so easy to get little stuff would also be sought for, especially because it's instant cash/easily fenced loot - you can't directly pay for your daily needs directly with the dukes priced fist-size family heirloom diamond.I for my part feel a loot target objective is never quite really necessary - just information, how much you have, and in the debriefing your overall result.A loot hunt is not less stupid than a key hunt.If you want to feel like a master thief in action, you are after your main target and you take any other loot you can get on the way there. That's it.If I have already done and found I was capable to, I find it immersion breaking to go through all the map again to find this last loot piece in the form of ring hidden in the loo just to get the last needed 1% to check a loot objective. In reality, if I had most of it/almost everything there is/I came for I wanted to get the hell out of there. If you have the vaults content (150,000) in your sack and another, say 5000 gold in other valuables, no sane person would stay back and stubbornly search for the last single needed gold coin to be "perfect".But if some people really like the loot hunt for 100% they can do it anyway, because loot finding results are always displayed.