"Reveal" skill

New ideas for the lands
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fearecia
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"Reveal" skill

Post by fearecia »

I couldn't think of a better name, but bear with me a minute.

There are a bunch of places in Terris that have hidden exits, hidden portals, commands, etc. What I'm suggesting is a skill that will tell you if there exists an unseen exit to the room. IE: something you need a key for, a command for, an item for, etc. The point here is that there are a lot of places in Terris that are unfinished, broken, what have you. It can be very frustrating chasing old clues that don't lead anywhere anymore, or exploring unfinished new areas, so it'd be useful to be able to "examine a room" and know if there is something else to it. Kind of an extended awareness skill. It's basically a very limited version of what staffers can do when they "check" rooms for commands/exits.

We could make the skill extremely basic in that the feedback would be "you see that there is a way to move beyond this room." Or, maybe at higher levels, it could give you better hints. "Speaking a command will send you to a new place." "You feel you need a key here." Etc. Even just the super basic output would be helpful, as it gives us a clue that we're missing something.

Just a thought to save us all some frustration.
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Tashmaal
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Joined: Mon Feb 27, 2017 2:09 pm
Guild: Barbarians

Re: "Reveal" skill

Post by Tashmaal »

I like this idea. Maybe just something like "You sense that there is more to this place than meets the eye." This leaves the option open to include hints towards hidden items, commands that open exits in other locations, etc.
sliper
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Guild: Warlocks
Temple: Fate

Re: "Reveal" skill

Post by sliper »

There are at least two rooms I would use this in.
Sliper, Charter Member
Silk
Posts: 258
Joined: Thu Aug 08, 2013 1:51 am

Re: "Reveal" skill

Post by Silk »

A few questions if I can...

1. How would this really be different than the existing "Awareness" skill? Do we need another skill or would there be an issue just enhancing the existing one?
2. Is the challenge not knowing something is there or that it is too difficult to figure out how to "action" what is there?
3. Would telling people that something is there too generally take away from people using examines to determine something is there?
4. Would it be better (and I can't commit Code to this) to put a "hyperlink" to the text in the description/examine to trigger the examine (which could provide a better idea of what would be in the room)?
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fearecia
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Re: "Reveal" skill

Post by fearecia »

1: The current awareness skill functions via the "search" command, which potentially reveals hidden exits that can be discovered this way. It also increases the chance of finding an item via an examine for things that are dependent upon the skill.
  • Awareness skill does not tell me if:
  • I need to "use key."
  • I need to say a chant.
  • I need a particular item to pass through.
  • I need a particular command to activate something.
We are suggesting that an expansion to the awareness skill/a new skill would help us determine if there are secrets to be found via other methods.

2: Sometimes the challenge is not knowing something is there. Sometimes it is really annoyingly difficult to figure out what particular command structure which particular coder used to write the command. IE: The differences between the person in charge of the Fog Giant area vs most other places in the lands. In the Fog Giant area, you better include "the" in most of the commands, whereas this gets skipped in the vast majority of the rest of Terris. "Open the box" vs "open box." Or even the extreme variances in the "climb" command. Am I just using it wrong, or is it "climb" "climb mountain" "climb rope" etc.

This also comes back to is there even something there at all? Such as in Gallowhaven, there is that little town that is not currently finished. Unless someone has told you that it's not finished and inaccessible at this time, you'd honestly think you just need some special command/item to get past the guards at the gate. Or, how about the second level of Pragma? It honestly seems like there is more to it, but no one has been able to figure it out. Even knowing which room to focus on would be an immense help in moving forward in discovering things.

3. I think telling people that something is there encourages them to work on finding it. It also saves them from wasting there time when there is actually nothing there. Even if we don't figure out what we are missing initially, at least we know to go back and look.

4. The hyperlink thing for examines might be helpful for finding items. Examines unfortunately, don't always tell you that there's an exit you need to find by having whatever item on you. There are several guilds that are examples of this: they have rooms you cannot find unless someone gives you the chant, because it's not listed anywhere in the game. Or how about all the leftover hints for the Hall of Antiquity that was taken out of the game at least 15 years ago? We could spend ages chasing that dead end trail just because we don't know that it doesn't lead anywhere anymore.

Again, for me, it's more about knowing that a room leads to another area via some special means. Items are generally discoverable, though they may be a pain. The exit I need a chant for? Not so much.
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Tashmaal
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Guild: Barbarians

Re: "Reveal" skill

Post by Tashmaal »

1. How would this really be different than the existing "Awareness" skill? Do we need another skill or would there be an issue just enhancing the existing one?
Enhancement of Awareness could serve the same purpose. Higher levels of Awareness could provide deeper clues or even just the vague "There's something more here" output. Perhaps it could tie into the "SEARCH" command.

2. Is the challenge not knowing something is there or that it is too difficult to figure out how to "action" what is there?
In general I would say the latter. Newer/new-ish areas have proven far more intuitive in both regards so I think older places in the world might actually benefit the most from this. To play devil's advocate against Fear's otherwise solid idea...clever enhancements to out-of-date or otherwise entirely unremarkable descriptions would be just as helpful and arguably less "meta."

I understand and 100% agree that exploration and discovery is the core nature of the game, so I am NOT suggesting that there is anything wrong with "deep" secrets or that this is an "issue" that needs fixing...but since we're on the subject, even the most dedicated explorer will eventually become frustrated when OOC syntax is both complex and critical to discovery. I will admit that it can quickly become very easy to spin your wheels on dozens of attempts to "action" something you know is there (e.g. SWING ON VINES vs SWING ON VINE vs SWING ON THE VINES vs SWING ON THE VINE vs GRAB THE VINE vs GRAB VINES vs SWING vs SWING ACROSS and so on).

There is, of course, the option to ask someone else for help, but I don't think that is ideal for syntax commands. While certainly possible, it's difficult to give IC clues for an OOC command, and this can encourage people to straight up ask for/give answers. It would be nice to have more in-game ways to obtain clues for this sort of thing.

I think there are a lot of pieces of knowledge about the lands that the more experienced among us take for granted; an entirely new player might simply never find certain things unless another player were to point them in the right direction...and there is a LOT that a new player would likely never even know to ask about.

I've found a lot of obscure secrets by seeking out clues/leads in old forum tales, but for the most part my searches were targeted because I already knew about the existence of what I was looking for. On a somewhat related note, the archived forums seem to have vanished recently (the formerly working link - https://www.legendsofterris.com/archive ... cboard.php - returns "Couldn't connect to the database. Please make sure all the information in dcsetup.php is correct."), so I'm not sure that would even be possible anymore.

3. Would telling people that something is there too generally take away from people using examines to determine something is there?
You make a good point with this, however as mentioned there are cases (typically rooms in older areas) where there are no clues to suggest more than meets the eye.

4. Would it be better (and I can't commit Code to this) to put a "hyperlink" to the text in the description/examine to trigger the examine (which could provide a better idea of what would be in the room)?
This would be a game changer - I think this would be too on the nose and (for me personally at least) would take away from immersion.

One suggestion I could make is to widen the net of accepted syntax to trigger an examine/event (so DIG GEM, DIG GEMS, DIG FOR GEM, DIG FOR GEMS, DIG FOR THE GEM, DIG FOR THE GEMS, DIG UP GEM, DIG UP GEMS, DIG UP THE GEM, DIG UP THE GEMS, and other similar commands would all work instead of just one of these).
Lamaenor
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Joined: Tue Dec 06, 2016 8:05 am
Guild: Enchanters

Re: "Reveal" skill

Post by Lamaenor »

Speaking as a newer player...

I had no idea the depth of this game when I first started until I got a helping hand from various other players. Certain examines I would have never figured out without someone either telling me the syntax or at least going "pssst, you should keep looking around". And I think the latter is what would be helpful. Maybe a passive skill that, when you examine a room, has a chance of adding something like "Something grabs your attention from the corner of your eye." It just seems like the easiest fix without revisiting every syntax in the game. Although I'm really fond of Tashmaal's idea of syntaxes giving more room for error. After all, the difference between "dig for gems" and "dig gems" is a pedantic one. But I'm also with him in that I understand exploration is a key part of the game, and wouldn't want it to become overly simplified.
Lamaenor
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Guild: Enchanters

Re: "Reveal" skill

Post by Lamaenor »

Also, Silk, speaking to your second question:
I think the biggest challenge is with some of the more obscure syntaxes, and not knowing something is there at all. I feel relatively confident that I can eventually figure it out if I know there is something to look for, and the syntax is hinted at either in the room description, the examine description, or from interacting with something in the room (e.g., "pull lever", "move books", "clean table", etc.)
Silk
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Joined: Thu Aug 08, 2013 1:51 am

Re: "Reveal" skill

Post by Silk »

So there are a few things we can do right now without making too many changes.
1. Review the syntax for events and see what the coders have put in to at least provide a consistent format for players to use.
2. Certain of the more "verb" things (dig, cut, mine, etc...) will be looked at as we implement "resources" and take those out of the event system.
- - More on this one in a later update post when we implement the enhancement fully (next content update maybe)
- - This will act something like your passive text idea mentioned above
3. Review examines in rooms to ensure that anything that is an examine comes from a description of the room, room emote, or an existing examine.
- - This should make things a little easier, but this one will take a bit more time than other things.
Stryph
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Guild: Warlocks

Re: "Reveal" skill

Post by Stryph »

Was going to mention sometimes I know there is something in a room but I cannot find the exact phrase. Some rooms are good in that if you examine the right thing in the room they will begin to lead you to what you need to type. However sometimes it just becomes frustrating because you aren't typing exactly what is needed. Also yes the issue of somethings working and some not makes it extra confusing.
Stryph - Tir - Rath

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