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Water Arrows


JPMaximilian

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I liked the water arrows from Thief, but I thought it was lame how you would still have to shoot the torch with your bow even if you're right next to the flame. Makes more sense to just douse the arrow into the torch. Maybe this is too much of a nit picky thing to worry about at this stage in development.

 

It would require a way to select the arrow separately from the inventory and its own set of animations. It also means that the arrow isn't spent from the inventory, and would be available to shoot it again. That's a gameplay imbalance in my opinion. The arrows were designed in such a way that 'valuable' and highly useful arrows, like the water arrow...were consumable.

 

Really not worth the extra effort.

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Also, if you can walk right up to a torch with no one seeing you, then there isn't really much need to put it out.

 

You might be able to make that argument. I do remember whilst playing thief, if guards were on certain patrols, if would be better to put out the torch before they came back, in which case you'd be able to walk up to the torch. It is a small issue and perhaps it is needlessly complex. Oh well.

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Possibly, but it might be difficult to distinguish between frobbing it to pick it up and carry it around (if it's a torch that can be moved from the holder, for example) and frobbing it to douse it. We had this difficulty with the candles, and in internal discussions we came to the conclusion that we'd split candles into two frobable parts, frobbing the top part near the flame will snuff it out, and frobbing the bottom part or the holder will pick up the candle. There is some danger of frobbing the top when you meant to frob the bottom and vice-versa.

 

I guess we could do something similar with a torch and make it use up a water arrow if people think it's necessary, although I don't personally feel inconvenienced by having to get out a water arrow yourself and fire it point blank, and it would be frustrating to do this by accident when you wanted to pick up the torch and carry it.

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@OrbWeaver: Yes, candles will be snuffed out by your invisible ghost hands. :) An animation wouldn't be possible from every angle, meaning it would have to be a "suck in to position, then animate," and we don't like that. That pretty much goes for all body awareness issues. If some third party wants to add body awareness later on, that's fine, but we're concentrating on basic gameplay before opening up that can of worms.

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If you can do that can you not also implement it for other specific light sources and remove a water arrow from the inventory when it's done to signify that you just popped a water arrow "bag"/"crystal" over them?

That is a Bad Idea, because it makes it entirely too easy to accidentally waste a consumable resource.

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Ooh! I think frobbable items should highlight in bright blue, and loot should sparkle--even if it's a bag of spice! And 9 times out of 10, when you blackjack a person, they should fall to their knees, and bend backwards until their head is touching their heels! And barrels... If the player can't throw a large barrel at least 20 feet, then the game is crap. period. :wacko:

 

I do apologise. It was meant to be humourous as we all know TDM will rival the originals in every way, except storyline.

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Normally frobbing something does not involve the loss of resources or equipment, unless the resource was selected in the inventory first. Changing this dynamic is likely to cause considerable confusion to users.

 

"Oh look, I can put out all these torces by frobbing them. Hey, where did my water arrows go?".

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What happens if you stand on the edge and happen to slip with the mouse and you fall down? What happens if you fight with the AI and in the hectic you press thw wrong key? What happens if you want to save the game and instead reload the old one?

 

Bad luck.

Gerhard

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Exactly.

 

Frob the right thing and you'll be fine. We've all made similar mistakes in games, but it's your fault because you messed up.

"Oh look, I can put out all these torces by frobbing them. Hey, where did my water arrows go?"

I'm awfully sorry, but my reply to this is RTFM. Frankly I am appalled that someone not reading the instructions properly can ever, ever, EVER, be given as a reason for not implementing a sensible feature that is gameplay enhancing.

 

It's like the noobs in Red Orchestra going "where is the crosshair??????". My initial answer was "there aren't any", then I started saying "this is a war sim, not an arcade game. They aren't any in real life - use the iron sights." Now I just say "RTFM" and shoot them.

I want your brain... to make his heart... beat faster.

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What happens if you stand on the edge and happen to slip with the mouse and you fall down? What happens if you fight with the AI and in the hectic you press thw wrong key? What happens if you want to save the game and instead reload the old one?

 

Bad luck.

With the exception of save/load, those are examples of things you might really do in that situation; If you're on a narrow ledge, it's easy to fall off accidently. If you're sword-fighting, it's easy to make the wrong move. (and the save/load example is why many games use F5/F9 instead lf F5/F6) However, I can't imagine going to grab a candle and accidently dousing it with a vial of water instead. That sort of mistake is very un-immersive and just causes people to get annoyed at the interface, whereas your two examples help to immerse the player in the world.

 

However, what I would be fine with, is making it so that if you frob a torch while wielding water arrows, it'll douse it.

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