Crystal Arrows

[Darkness_Falls]

LOL, you don't have to put the fire out before you can take a fire arrow from a fireplace? Hmm, I think I always just assumed you had to douse the fire with a water arrow. *My bad*

 

And yes Springheel makes a good point. Finding elemental crystals in the areas that matched their properties was a lot better/funner than just having random crystal arrows anywhere and everywhere without rhyme or reason. I get sick of games that have power-ups everywhere convenient they can think of, without thought of 'why is this power-up actually here'?

[sparhawk]

What I meant was, that the fire went out because I took the fire arrow from it. but this is not neccessarily so I think most fires are indpendent from it.

 

Actually it is not more fun (don't know about that), but it is more logical for the player. I wouldn't expect a fire arrow in a swimming pool. And if I'm in a sleeping room with a fireplace, it might be a good place to put a fire arrow in, but why would a person, who is supposed to live there, have a fire arrow lying around on the locker?

[oDDity]

To keep it safe from thieves.

[Domarius]

I like all of oDDity's concepts.

 

Re: the noise arrow, its been debated and documented. They are more useful than just throwing an object.

[Ishtvan]

I like all of the concepts, but have some criticism:

 

Gas Arrow:

There was an earlier design for the gas arrow (by GIMG I think) that had the same concept, but instead of a sphere at the end it had a cyllinder with vents for the gas. Qualitatively, I like the cyllinder more than the sphere. It seems more sleek and aerodynamic. The sphere looks kind've awkward on the end of the arrow.

 

Fire Arrow:

-Nevermind, I was gonna say if it's scientific, it should have some kind of impact trigger on the front, but then I realised that I can just tell myself it's got an internal, acceleration-based trigger, and that way people who want it to be magic can be happy too.

[Springheel]

It simply isn't going to seem as reasonable for these specialty arrows to be lying around. In an armoury, perhaps (though why do soldiers need water arrows?). But think of all the other environments where you regularly find crystal arrows. On city streets, in fountains, inside cave complexes, in mansion kitchens, in rooftops, etc. It would look very contrived to find mechanical arrows lying around in these places.

 

Is there some way to get around this problem? Could we say that these arrow designs are powered by crystals (or some other limited resource)? Or is there some other way we can make it plausible to place the arrows in accessible locations?

 

What if the arrow heads were screwed on, and the thief carried a bunch of heads with him. If he finds the right materials on the map he simply puts them in the head and screws it on. Gamewise, it would work just like finding a crystal. The trick is thinking of what 'map materials' he could find that would be about as rare as crystals, but could be placed in versatile places without looking contrived.

[New Horizon]

I'm with Spring on this. The concepts are great...but I would leave Fire, Water, Moss and Gas as crystals. I don't see why crystal arrows couldn't be made less generic. If we're really worried about style and originality...just make each type of crystal a unique shape, and employ the particle effects we were speaking of ages ago to give them some character and make them more than just a reskinned version of the same crystal. For example....

 

The moss arrow:

 

Pea Green, glowly slightly. Little bits of moss slightly trailing back onto the shaft of the arrow. Very organic looking...not metal parts on the arrow. Crystal held in place by some kind of netting perhaps...not sure exactly how to describe it.

 

Fire Arrow:

 

Glowing somewhat brightly. Player can hear an almost inaudible smoldering sound....like coals just before a fire sputters out. A very subtle heat effect is noticable and occasionally a small flame will flicker from the tip. The crystal is held in place by a metal claw on the end of the shaft.

 

Water Arrow:

 

Nothing too fancy. Perhaps just some stylish metal pieces on the end of the shaft to hold it in place.

 

Gas Arrow:

 

Again, very subtle. Small whisps of gas appear, almost as if the crystal is evaporating.

 

This allows for much easier placement of the elemental crystals.

 

Noisemaker is fair game. It can definately be mechanical.

[Domarius]

Ah yeah good point.

 

I always told myself that the reason you found fire crystals in fire, and water crystals in water, etc. were because they were a naturally ocourring element in this magical world of thief.

 

Something worth debating a little.

[Ishtvan]

I don't see why we have to exactly copy the mechanism of finding elemental crystals. It was cool at first, but got pretty boring even in the originals. It was like "Look, there's 5 latrine pits... I bet one of them will have a nonsensical water crystal sitting in it."

 

Lets assume that it grew spontaneously from the toilet water. If they were so valuable that you had to pay 25 gold or something for a water arrow, why would someone just let one sit in the toilet and shit on it every day? I don't recall any dialogue that mentioned having to harvest crystals or anything like that. It all seemed rather contrived and detached from the setting.

 

The only plus I see is that it encourages exploring places and gives you something other than loot to look for. Personally I wouldn't mind that mechanic was gone, but I guess a lot of people feel differently.

[Domarius]

Yeah that's a good point too. I'm swayed back to oDDity's designs again.

 

If we wanted to encourage exploration using these items, a system could be made where collect ingredients and make your own arrows, but that's getting too RPG-ish and definetly someone else could do it as a mod for our mod.

[sparhawk]

I don't see a problem for this. It also has the advantage that arrows can be made of different ingridients, so the player can choose which arrows he needs. So he can combine some wood, watercrystal and a metal box to a water arrow, but instead of using a water crystal he uses some moss and he gets a moss arrow. The supply would still be limited this way, but the player has more choice what he prefers. We just have to make sure that arrow materials will overlap for all arrows, so that it really is a choice which ones should be made. I don't have a problem with this being an element of RPG also and I guess this would be appreciated by players as well.

[oDDity]

Well, if the player can make his own from ingredients, them the realistic ones are the way to go. Isthvan made the best point, that these things are so expensive, yet at the same time they seem to grow in any puddle of water. A total nonsense.

[sparhawk]

This would not apply in this case, because the player would combine it themeselve. And obviously the individual ingredients are not THAT expansive.

It's pretty simple. Normally these arrows are done by workers specializing in them. They are harvesting the crystal and build arrows from them. These ingredients are also growing naturally in it's specific environment, but of course they are not as widespread. It's the same as you can find wheat growing wild as well, but to turn it into profit you will have to cultivate it into wheatfields. Same here. So this explains why the crystals (or whatever it is) can be SOMETIMES found in places where you wouldn't expect them, but they are not so abundant that everybody can make a profitable business out if it, unless he spends some actualy work to do it. That's why they are expensive, but still can be found in unusual places.

[Ishtvan]

I'm not totally against finding stuff in water and fireplaces, and I'll admit that the first few times finding the crystals were somewhat wonderful and exciting, but to me it got really old after that.

 

I just think there's better ways to encourage exploring. Finding crystals in water got really predictable and unexciting; for me the real enjoyment came from finding some noble's secret cache of loot behind a painting, or finding an interesting readible. FM authors could put some caches of loot underwater, or secret switches in some fireplaces, etc.

 

For the specialized thief tools though, it just feels better to me to bring in what you need at the start of the mission and not rely on finding stuff. I'm open to Sparhawk's ingredient idea though, that might work if it's done well.

[Domarius]

Yeah and a crap load of work to implement. Besides, it was my idea.

[Springheel]

I wouldn't want to see a system where you become a chef mixing ingredients to get the right kind of arrow. That's too involved.

 

As for the value of crystals, everything costs a ridiculous amount of money in Thief. Even broadheads were 25 gold (your equipment at the beginning of a mission was often worth more than your total loot take for the night). And it isn't going to immediately occur to a servant that they could fish that crystal out and sell it on the black market to a thief. Even if there was something of a market for crystals, the thief is finding ones that have only recently grown.

 

As for doing away with finding equipment entirely, that ties the hands of FM authors somewhat, who may know that the player will need a certain piece of equipment to be able to complete the mission. It also limits the number of interesting things they can place for the player to find in outdoor or cave missions (how many loot crystals can you pick up before it gets boring?)

 

Let's be sure we're making decisions that are best for gameplay, rather than going with what looks coolest.

[sparhawk]

The primary objective is to find loot and solve the mission objectives. So why does crystal finding get boring? It's not something that you HAVE to do. And the mixing of the materials should be properly easy. There should just be three maximum four materials. Just put them together and you have an arrow. It gives the player some additional choice, it explains why the stuff is found in the map somewhere and the map designer has a better way of distributing the materials, because he doesn't distribute it totally arbitrary. And this is certainly NOT a crap load to implement.

[Domarius]

It's not that simple - what's the interface for mixing them together?

[sparhawk]

The same as we use for all other stuff in TDM. Drop it on the floor, activate the appropriate item on your inventory and frob it. How do you use a key? The same way. Select the key from the inventory and frob the door.

 

For some maps we could provide a machine like the one that was already posted, but that shouldn't be neccessary. That's the same way they did it in Thief. Or if we ever make a more complex inventory, then we can use simple drag and drop interaction, but there is no urgent need for that.

[oDDity]

I wouldn't be advesre to RPG elements creeping into the game, and I'd guess most other people wouldn't either.

I actually love to see a Thief based RPG.

[sparhawk]

Yeah. That's what they tried to do with TDS, but they miserably failed. I guess this arrow construction kit would not be such a problem and I guess that most people will like it.

[Domarius]

Okay so you frob one item with another - if we stick with 2 ingredients per arrow, it could work - but more than that and its going to get complicated - if you frob ingredient A with ingredient B, and haven't frobbed it with ingredient C, what does the result look like? A, or B, or something totally different?

[sparhawk]

If you frob a stick of wood and a crystal nothing would happen. I said at least three ingredients. So you have that cage or whatever it is, that makes the actual arrow. You would have to frob the wood with this cage and then with the crystal. If we define the arrows such that they overlap that would be ok. Bascially this has also be done in T2 with the help of machines. You have to pout in the proper parts in the proper order. It's not really something totally new anyway.

[Springheel]

It was mind-numbingly tedious in T2. It also sounds like mixing potion ingredients in RPGS, which is also tedious. What's the point of making picking up arrows more complicated? How does it improve gameplay?

[Subjective Effect]

I think the one on the left should be the gas arrow. It's the water arrow, correct? You could store gas in that and it would burst on impact.

 

The fire arrow looks nice but it's too complex. Why not make it out of some chemical that explodes on impact? Or similar to a petrol bomb - you light it, fire it and when it smashes the fire sets of the released explosive.