stairs

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

What would be the best solution to the problem of jammed staircases?
What should happen when a character (or a monster) wishes to go down
(or up) the stairs, and there is some entity standing on the other
staircase, blocking the way?
This is not a problem of implementation - I wonder what should happen:
- just saying "staircase is blocked, you can't use it seems a bad
idea; it does not add any fun to the game and might be very, very
iritating;
- pushing the blocking thing aside may lead to strange sideffects,
especially when the player is the one pushed Also, there is no
guarantee that there is enough space downstairs to accomodate
everyone.
Any thoughts?

regards,
Filip

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

The two entities could switch places. IT wouldn't be a very logical
solution but it would work and you would have no problems with moving
them since nothing else is in the way.

Or you could make both entities fall down and start a big domino like
wave by pushing all the others around them. That would be fun.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

Uzytkownik <Draffurd@gmail.com> napisal w wiadomosci
news:1125163985.878328.245570@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> The two entities could switch places. IT wouldn't be a very logical
> solution but it would work and you would have no problems with
> moving
> them since nothing else is in the way.

Imagine a powerful player getting thrown to some other level by a rat
who happend to have better initiative

> Or you could make both entities fall down and start a big domino
> like
> wave by pushing all the others around them. That would be fun.

It is doable, but there would be some risks... like making a closed
loop with A replacing B, B replacing C and C replacing A. I guess it
could be implemented well, but it just does not seem worth it...

regards,
Filip

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

Hmmm... my temporary solution is to have a special situation: in
specific cases like teleportation, going down the stairs and so on,
two impenetrable entities, like monsters, player etc. _can_ share one
square. one can even fight in this position.
Does this side-effect sound like a bug or a feature?

regards,
Filip

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

Filip Dreger <fdreger@amiga.pl> schrieb:
> Hmmm... my temporary solution is to have a special situation: in
> specific cases like teleportation, going down the stairs and so on,
> two impenetrable entities, like monsters, player etc. _can_ share one
> square. one can even fight in this position. Does this side-effect
> sound like a bug or a feature?

I'm pretty sure that Nethack will just try and place you as close to the
occupied staircase as possible. In any case, this seems like an easiest
'good enough' solution.

--
Jim Strathmeyer

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

Filip Dreger wrote:
> What would be the best solution to the problem of jammed staircases?
> What should happen when a character (or a monster) wishes to go down
> (or up) the stairs, and there is some entity standing on the other
> staircase, blocking the way?
> This is not a problem of implementation - I wonder what should happen:
> - just saying "staircase is blocked, you can't use it seems a bad
> idea; it does not add any fun to the game and might be very, very
> iritating;
> - pushing the blocking thing aside may lead to strange sideffects,
> especially when the player is the one pushed Also, there is no
> guarantee that there is enough space downstairs to accomodate
> everyone.
> Any thoughts?
>
> regards,
> Filip
>
>

I can't believe no one mentioned the traditonal FPS solution--TELEFRAG!

--
Risujin
risujin@fastmail.fm

 

[skeksis]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

"Filip Dreger" <fdreger@amiga.pl> wrote in message
news:deq5iv$isg$1@nemesis.news.tpi.pl...
> What would be the best solution to the problem of jammed staircases?
> What should happen when a character (or a monster) wishes to go down
> (or up) the stairs, and there is some entity standing on the other
> staircase, blocking the way?
> This is not a problem of implementation - I wonder what should happen:
> - just saying "staircase is blocked, you can't use it seems a bad
> idea; it does not add any fun to the game and might be very, very
> iritating;
> - pushing the blocking thing aside may lead to strange sideffects,
> especially when the player is the one pushed Also, there is no
> guarantee that there is enough space downstairs to accomodate
> everyone.
> Any thoughts?


> I'm pretty sure that Nethack will just try and place you as close to the
> occupied staircase as possible. In any case, this seems like an easiest
> 'good enough' solution.

Dear God! Please don't let them share squares! Eech!


I presume the situation is:

1) 'monster_foo' is following me, just one square behind
2) I've gone up a staircase
3) I choose to go back down
4) Due to the follow code, the monster is on the stair square I need to
appear on

Personally, since I'm the player, and the game is about 'me' I'd expect to
take precedence. Anything I land on is displaced, and moved away using a
nice: CCoord pos =
find_nearest_free_space_to_this_using_spiral_search(CCoord this_pos)
function

Alternatively, create u-shaped stairwells that will never be navigated
across in normal movement and don't allow monsters to navigate onto the
stairs themselves! (see below) This also means that movement up/down only
requires a movement in a direction rather than the clumsy '>' input.
......
..###.
..#<..
..###.
......

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

Filip Dreger wrote:
> What would be the best solution to the problem of jammed staircases?
> What should happen when a character (or a monster) wishes to go down
> (or up) the stairs, and there is some entity standing on the other
> staircase, blocking the way?
> This is not a problem of implementation - I wonder what should happen:
> - just saying "staircase is blocked, you can't use it seems a bad
> idea; it does not add any fun to the game and might be very, very
> iritating;
> - pushing the blocking thing aside may lead to strange sideffects,
> especially when the player is the one pushed Also, there is no
> guarantee that there is enough space downstairs to accomodate
> everyone.
> Any thoughts?

Entering stair tile: You see a <foo> at the other end of the stairs.

Pressing the appropriate button to walk the stairs: You swing at the <foo>!

Pressing the appropriate button(s) to cast a spell:
Choose target.
Pressing > or <: The Magic Dust hits the <foo>! The <foo> looks stoned.
The <foo> says; "I love you, man!".

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

Filip Dreger wrote:
> - pushing the blocking thing aside may lead to strange sideffects,
> especially when the player is the one pushed

Why that is a strange side-effect? If the player is standing on stairs
and someone enters the level, the player is pushed aside. In theory
there could be no room around the stairs and in that case the two
should swap places.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

"Filip Dreger" <fdreger@amiga.pl> wrote in message
news:deq5iv$isg$1@nemesis.news.tpi.pl...
> What would be the best solution to the problem of jammed staircases?
> What should happen when a character (or a monster) wishes to go down
> (or up) the stairs, and there is some entity standing on the other
> staircase, blocking the way?
> This is not a problem of implementation - I wonder what should happen:
> - just saying "staircase is blocked, you can't use it seems a bad
> idea; it does not add any fun to the game and might be very, very
> iritating;
> - pushing the blocking thing aside may lead to strange sideffects,
> especially when the player is the one pushed Also, there is no
> guarantee that there is enough space downstairs to accomodate
> everyone.
> Any thoughts?
>

Hmm. This is an interesting issue which could either add a lot of
nice tactical considerations, some cheap tactics (for player and/or
monster) or just annoyance/tedium. It is of course not a problem if the
levels are not persistent in any way...

I think the most boring and vanilla approach would be as Elethiomel
suggested; treat the destination square as any other square in the
dungeon. That would be fine, but seems to me to remove a lot of nice
tactics involving staircases; they are in that case simply another way
to go to another square. Not very interesting.

I like the swapping places idea. Yes, it would be annoying if a rat
did it to you; so make it balanced. Only a monster who is of similar
power to you can swap places with you. Sure, it's not realistic, but it
is pretty cool and unique. You could keep swapping with a tough critter
and fight his friends as a kind of delaying tactic.

Anyway, whatever you decide upon, let us know .

--
Glen
Lyt E+++ T-- R+ P+++ D+ G+ F:*band !RL RLA-
W:AF Q+++ AI++ GFX++ SFX-- RN++++ PO--- !Hp Re-- S+

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

edward@lore.net wrote:
> Were you proposing to have monsters which follow the player from one
> level to the next even if they are not directly next to the player when
> s/he leaves the level?

That could be tricky if levels are handled one at a time..
It could be done with events, setting "this npc follows
player" event and then triggering it after couple of turns.
Anyway, I wasn't proposing anything In my game monsters
can't go to another level and stairs are kept clean from
any blocking objects.

 

[Edward]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

Krice <paulkp@mbnet.fi> wrote:
> Filip Dreger wrote:
> Why that is a strange side-effect? If the player is standing on stairs
> and someone enters the level, the player is pushed aside. In theory
> there could be no room around the stairs and in that case the two
> should swap places.

I remember getting shoved out of stairwells by orcs and suchlike in
Dungeon Crawl. Looking into the source code there, though, it
appears to be the result of autogenerating a creature near the player
when the player is near the stairs.
Were you proposing to have monsters which follow the player from one
level to the next even if they are not directly next to the player when
s/he leaves the level?

--
--jude hungerford.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

On 2005-08-27 18:49:25, "Filip Dreger" <fdreger@amiga.pl> wrote:

> What would be the best solution to the problem of jammed staircases?
> What should happen when a character (or a monster) wishes to go down
> (or up) the stairs, and there is some entity standing on the other
> staircase, blocking the way?
> This is not a problem of implementation - I wonder what should happen:
> - just saying "staircase is blocked, you can't use it seems a bad
> idea; it does not add any fun to the game and might be very, very
> iritating;
> - pushing the blocking thing aside may lead to strange sideffects,
> especially when the player is the one pushed Also, there is no
> guarantee that there is enough space downstairs to accomodate
> everyone.
> Any thoughts?
>
> regards,
> Filip
>
>


I've thought of the issues of stairs from the development point of view. I am
wanting to allow monsters to be able to follow the player down and up stairs.
The way that I have been thinking about doing it is to always have three levels
in memory being updated. The level above the player, the level that the player
is on and the level below the player. This would mean that there would be some
consistency in moving between levels (and also means that the player cannot go
down or up stairs to get out of a sticky situation).
Anyway, onto the stairs themselves. I was thinking of using something like a
LevelConnection class that stores three cells in it. The first cell would be on
level 1 the second cell would be a transitional cell and the third cell would be
on level 2. When the player approaches the stairs on level 1 they would look
like:
#######
#######
#######
..>>###
#######
#######
#######
When the player moves onto the stairs/ramp (one of the '>'), then the screen
would divide in two and display part of level 1 and part of level 2 like:
### ###
### ###
#######
..>>>..
#######
### ###
### ###
Finally, as the player moves off the stairs into level 2 the entire screen would
simply show level 2 like:
#######
#######
#######
###>>..
#######
#######
#######
I like this because it means that players can get an idea of what monsters are
on the other level at the bottom/top of the stairs. It also removes the need to
press the '>'/'<' keys to move down/up a level.

Regards,
Ben

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

benn wrote:
> I've thought of the issues of stairs from the development
> point of view.

I think this issue must be observed from the player's
point of view.

> (and also means that the player cannot go
> down or up stairs to get out of a sticky situation).

Being able to escape to stairs should be added to the
core roguelike rules I can't think a way to replace that..

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

"Skeksis" <dene@> wrote:
>Alternatively, create u-shaped stairwells that will never be navigated
>across in normal movement and don't allow monsters to navigate onto the
>stairs themselves! (see below) This also means that movement up/down only
>requires a movement in a direction rather than the clumsy '>' input.
>.....
>.###.
>.#<..
>.###.
>.....

I like this one. Partly because it reminds me of Dungeon Master.

On which note, I am having ideas. Ideas involving things that launch
fast-moving (but not game-instantaneous) bolts of magical energy
(represented as very fast monsters with a special AI that die as soon
as they hit a wall or impact on a target).

I shall obviously have to dust down Danenth.
--
Martin Read - my opinions are my own. share them if you wish.
\_\/_/ meteorites are outta sight but this one's place is in outer space
\ / if you wanna know i'll tell you why it's cause radiation makes you die
\/ -- Zombina and the Skeletones, "Meteorite"