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Suggestion: How about a Tightrope Arrow


NeonsStyle

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Was thinking aboput this, using the Rope Arrow to make a new Tight rope arrow. Can only be fired into a specific item (like in Shadow of Tomb Raiders rope coiled around a log) Fire into that and it makes a tight rope the player can use to cross a void. It would have to have a balancing mechanic not too intense, but still a bit of a challenge. It has to be a special use item, otherwise players could use it to get to places they shouldn't. 

There's a few ways you could do it. Easiest is a script to spawn in a narrow invisible walkway where the rope is and have the rope horizontal. A better would be to have a springy rope
the player walks on, and has to balance on. The reason is on my Venice map I'm still working on, the player will have to do a fair bit of high level crossing of canals, n a tight rope would be
the perfect way to do it, so I don't have to use Assassin Creed 2 gantry type arrangement. 

Thoughts?

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Clever idea. How does it attach on the player's side? I can see how it sticks into the other side, just like a regular rope arrow. But what happens to the 'end' of the rope near the player? Does it magically attach to something?

Maybe you have to be standing next to some sort of attachment object, and then the end of the rope attaches to it once the arrow is shot.

Or maybe after you shoot the Tight Rope arrow, the end is 'attached' to you, and you have to walk over to the attachment object and interact with it to make it stick. 

Also, I think the rope will have to sag a bit or it may look cheesy?

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I think it would be a good thing if it could be implemented in some mission, to be able to use the ropearrow as in TombRaider, not only to cross a greater distance, but also to attract objects, for example a box that cannot otherwise be reached.-

I have also thought at times, to use the normal arrows as in the old game of Turok. There you could shoot these at a wall and use them to climb to it. I think this would be even easier to achieve.

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Best way to make it work is use a pole with a coil of rope on the players side, that it attaches to. Similar to Shadow of Tomb Raider as the image below;  to her right. 
You'd fire the arrow at a marked point (such as pole with rope coil on it) then attatch your end to similar pole. 
https://cdn.gamer-network.net/2018/usgamer/shadow-of-tomb-raider-blood-maze-1.jpg

 

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Some time ago I had the idea of a grapling hook, possibly via a bow or Crossbow, because I find the rope arrow unrealistic (the arrow can't take the weight of your whole body, but maybe I'm wrong). A grapling hook also is another form of attachment and is not limited to wood.

If it also has a hook on the other side, you could tighten it, I guess. But maybe this is technically difficult to create.

Png

Edited by datiswous
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Certainly a ropearrow is not too realistic, but the realism in video games anyway is relative, starting with the necessary strength that poor Garret has to have, moving fluently with a sack full of ingots, lions and vases of gold, apart from the jewels and paintings and all his tools. Well, there's an exception in a mission where this is considering, in Air Pocket, when the player drowns when picking up a gold lingot, because with this he can't swim.

Or other inconsistencies, such as candles and torches lit in catacombs and caves, closed for centuries, things like this, which makes the realism of ropearrows irrelevant.

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3 hours ago, datiswous said:

Some time ago I had the idea of a grapling hook, possibly via a bow or Crossbow, because I find the rope arrow unrealistic (the arrow can't take the weight of your whole body, but maybe I'm wrong). A grapling hook also is another form of attachment and is not limited to wood.

If it also has a hook on the other side, you could tighten it, I guess. But maybe this is technically difficult to create.

Png

If you use a barbed arrow, that unfolds its barbs through traction, and it penetrates the wood deep enough, I could imagine that it might support the weight of a human (if the person is not too heavy), but I agree, in general the rope arrow is rather unrealistic. I think the main reason for its use are technical issues (and in case of TDM tradition from the Thief games). A grappling hook would require the rope to be pre-attached, which makes the flying behaviour more difficult to realistically depict. Also, the physics to determine if it actually holds is more complicated and it is more limited (you need a proper ledge and cannot simply use a surface).

Regarding the tightrope arrow, a way I could imagine, that may require less scripting, would be to have the coil as a frobable object. When it is frobbed, it activates a damage response on the target and when it is damaged with a broadhead arrow, a line between the coil and the target is spawned or teleported in or maybe even simply unhidden. This would create the image (at least in my head) that you attach the rope of the coil on a broadhead arrow (by frobbing it), that you then shoot at the target. You may not see the rope uncoiling this way, but personally, I could live with that. I would also use a timer for the damage response, to avoid the case in which a player frobs the coil and later on shoots the target from a different position. Using broadheads would avoid to waste precious rope arrows if you miss (and make the broadheads more valuable). Another problem that just came to my mind would be that (if I remember correctly) the damage response cannot distinguish between projectiles, so it would also react to being hit by e.g. fire arrows. But I believe that it is possible via script to check which weapon is equipped. That way, the damage response could only be activated if the desired arrow type is eqipped.

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2 hours ago, Destined said:

A grappling hook would require the rope to be pre-attached, which makes the flying behaviour more difficult to realistically depict. Also, the physics to determine if it actually holds is more complicated and it is more limited (you need a proper ledge and cannot simply use a surface).

Depending on leveldesign, there could be more possibilities to mount. It is not surface limited. It can attach to every strong material it can get grip on, metal, stone, wood, you can even shoot it through an open window, it also makes more noice, so you have to be more careful where to use it. But yeah, technically it's an entirally different thing, so I can see this being hard to implement.

2 hours ago, Zerg Rush said:

Certainly a ropearrow is not too realistic, but the realism in video games anyway is relative (...)

True, but that is where the idea is coming from. I recently saw a video where they stated the torches were probably not used statuary in mideavel times, because they only burn for a short time and then they have to be relid.

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3 hours ago, Destined said:

If you use a barbed arrow, that unfolds its barbs through traction, and it penetrates the wood deep enough, I could imagine that it might support the weight of a human (if the person is not too heavy), but I agree, in general the rope arrow is rather unrealistic.

I don't really think this should be a point of concern in the magical world of TDM, otherwise would somebody please explain to me how a water arrow is supposed to work ;)? Not to speak about vine or moss arrows...

Edited by wesp5
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What if you allowed attaching the end of a second rope arrow to the rope of a first arrow you shot?  The steps would be like:

  1. Shoot rope arrow. The rope unfurls vertically.
  2. With another rope arrow nocked, an option (use key?) would be to attach it to the rope in 1.
  3. Shoot second rope arrow.
  4. The rope pulls taut between the two rope arrows.

So you'd always need two rope arrows to make a tight rope.  You could retrieve one rope arrow, but the other would have to be left on the "other side", unless you could get to it some other way.

Edit: Or, allow attachment in step 2. to just a regular broadhead you shot into something...

Edited by Sneaker
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6 hours ago, wesp5 said:

I don't really think this should be a point of concern in the magical world of TDM, otherwise would somebody please explain to me how a water arrow is supposed to work ;)? Not to speak about vine or moss arrows...

Vine and moss arrows are certainly less realistic, but water arrow works, even better, if there a filled with ammonia or instead of water. Before fire extinguishers existed, glass balls were used, filled with ammonia, chlorid, or other substances, which were thrown into the fire. Being a good system, it is still used even today.

Today they use this system 

https://www.elidefire.com

 

Edited by Zerg Rush
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7 hours ago, Zerg Rush said:

Before fire extinguishers existed, glass balls were used, filled with ammonia, chlorid, or other substances, which were thrown into the fire. Being a good system, it is still used even today.

This is interesting. Personally, I would not use ammonia, if I hoped to use whatever is left after the fire, because it is quite aggressive, but I think I can understand why it is more effective. And as a thief in TDM you would not care for some caustic marks. In fact, this may even make the water arrows function as a weaker gas arrow as well (it would most likely not knock out guards, but the stench would definitely irritate and maye for a short while incapacitate them)

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9 hours ago, Zerg Rush said:

Vine and moss arrows are certainly less realistic, but water arrow works, even better, if there a filled with ammonia or instead of water.

Very interesting! Still there is no plastic in the world of TDM and the water arrows don't look like they are made out of glass to me. Also with this approach I can't see the Holy Water system working, but I disliked this from the start anyway, mostly of course because of the timer...

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6 hours ago, wesp5 said:

Very interesting! Still there is no plastic in the world of TDM and the water arrows don't look like they are made out of glass to me. Also with this approach I can't see the Holy Water system working, but I disliked this from the start anyway, mostly of course because of the timer...

No, platic no, but they also can be made of  bladders of animals or oiled paper (PS, gasarrows, if you have, also great for extinct torches and fireplaces, better than waterarrows). And yes, the holy water does not convince me much either, apart from not being too efficient, many times it takes several shots to eliminate a skeleton or zombie. There should be other alternatives, apart from mines or firearrows, or some modification of the use of holy water (combine with gasarrows?)

Edited by Zerg Rush

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7 minutes ago, Zerg Rush said:

There should be other alternatives, apart from mines or firearrows, or some modification of the use of holy water (combine with gasarrows?)

For my Unofficial Patch I turned the Holy Water bottles into throwables which makes much more sense. I increased their damage to correct for the missing multiple uses of the water arrows and it works quite nicely except for missions with many supernaturals in which case the timer on the water arrow would prove a similar problem though...

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3 hours ago, Zerg Rush said:

If there a lot, then it's better they can't see you, it make sense to eliminate them, when there are one or two sepertae..

Yes. I never really had problems finishing any mission even with my throwable solution, but sometimes it might have been harder ;).

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3 hours ago, wesp5 said:

Yes. I never really had problems finishing any mission even with my throwable solution, but sometimes it might have been harder ;).

This is the meaning of a stealth game and what distinguishes it from other FPS, where it is about shooting everything that moves. Although he has many tools and weapons, Garret is not cut out for direct fighting, which usually goes wrong if tried. Even with normal guards, the normal arrows and the sword I use more as tools than for weapons, the normal arrows mainly to distract, shooting them near a guard against a wall or shoot a vase in some window, to lower it for example, apart for remove a spider.
That is why I asked before, if it can not also be used to climb as it was possible in the old game Turok, where you could climb walls, shooting several arrows in it and use the arrows later as a ladder.

Anyway, it doesn't make much sense to put in the tasks Don't kill anyone and still have 10 or 15 arrows in the repository.

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10 hours ago, Zerg Rush said:

This is the meaning of a stealth game and what distinguishes it from other FPS, where it is about shooting everything that moves.

Yep, I never kill anyone unless the mission demands it. Once I pull my sword I am more or less dead anyway, long lives the blackjack!

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Yes, except with the Robot Guards, like in HH Anomaly, the Sword used like the Blackjack, is usefull, but not for fight, maybe against Spiders, with all other it's better you had saved the game before.

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I've played around with a throw-hook in the past. It basically consisted out of a hook with a rope attached to it. The issue was the physics. IdTech4's physics calculations are pretty rudimentary and not very stable. If an object with an ragdoll (like the rope) attached to it becomes too fast, the attachment gets interrupted (the console literally stated: "Too fast, letting go" :D) Iirc the limit was about 128 doom units per second. An arrow is way faster. The problem is of course that if the hook is too slow, you cannot throw it very far, unless you manually keep the speed high via scripting to bypass that, which would look unrealistic, though. Maybe there have been tweaks made to the physics engine that lessen these issues, as it's been years when I was working on this.

 

In difference to that approach an tightrope arrow doesn't need to be that dynamic. However, a proper animation would be needed unless you want the arrow to magically appear once the arrow has hit its target. Another issue is, that in difference to the current rope arrow, that chooses the length of the rope out of four possibilites depending on the space available, a tightrope arrow would have to relatively exactly fit the length between two points, which could become hard to achieve.

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1 hour ago, Obsttorte said:

I've played around with a throw-hook in the past. It basically consisted out of a hook with a rope attached to it. The issue was the physics. IdTech4's physics calculations are pretty rudimentary and not very stable. If an object with an ragdoll (like the rope) attached to it becomes too fast, the attachment gets interrupted (the console literally stated: "Too fast, letting go" :D) Iirc the limit was about 128 doom units per second. An arrow is way faster. The problem is of course that if the hook is too slow, you cannot throw it very far, unless you manually keep the speed high via scripting to bypass that, which would look unrealistic, though. Maybe there have been tweaks made to the physics engine that lessen these issues, as it's been years when I was working on this.

 

In difference to that approach an tightrope arrow doesn't need to be that dynamic. However, a proper animation would be needed unless you want the arrow to magically appear once the arrow has hit its target. Another issue is, that in difference to the current rope arrow, that chooses the length of the rope out of four possibilites depending on the space available, a tightrope arrow would have to relatively exactly fit the length between two points, which could become hard to achieve.

I think that this will also have other complications regarding the creation of maps, since with the possibilities of these tools the danger of leaving the map is much greater

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  • 5 months later...

Necro to say: if you don't mind leaping out of traditional steampunk into a more high fantasy aesthetic, one could have a magic rock or some such that when thrown creates a walkable beam of hard-light connecting the spot where the player is standing to the point it landed. 

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6 hours ago, ChronA said:

Necro to say: if you don't mind leaping out of traditional steampunk into a more high fantasy aesthetic, one could have a magic rock or some such that when thrown creates a walkable beam of hard-light connecting the spot where the player is standing to the point it landed. 

An interesting idea, although, despite the Steampunk aesthetic, TDM is not incompatible with magic items, as there were already in the different missions. Magical bridges and gates we have already seen it in Scroll of Remembrance, Accountant, Thomas Porter series  and others. 

I think that a stone or magic object in this regard can be, therefore, very good to be part of a mission

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  • 2 months later...

A grappling hood idea would work just as well. Or you the player could just carry a coil of rope with grappling good. Or you could be really get meme and give him a whip and use it ala Indie in Raiders of the Lost Art and swing across gaps. That'd be useful, it would just need a mapper to equip it to the player, and provide an attatchment point. Then the game mechanic would have to take over. I prefer the tightrope though because of the balance mechanism. Some of those apartments in Venice are 3 to 4 stories high n would be  little ticklish for a nooby to cross. :)

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