15 replies to this topic

[Zyraen]

On my replay with the Conductor, I found myself irritated once more by having to walk around doing FedEx. It also became horrifyingly clear how Extremely powerful Boots of Speed made my party, especially my Melee muscle-flexers - running with Valygar, Keldorn, Anomen, Yoshimo (as a Shadow Blade, ie Fighter (inactive) / Thief ) and Yasraena.

For the sake of some challenge and my sanity, I've more or less drafted up the code required for a Waypoint Mod. Basically it unlocks Waypoints according to where you visit.

Here's how it works, some examples
- when you are done with Gaelan, you gain access to all Waypoints in all Districts Athkatla, less those inside (like Sewers etc) related to Quests
- for maps like Trademeet, De'Arnise Keep (sieged), Umar Hills, when you gain the map you gain the Waypoint.
- for situations like Windspear Hills, you still have to travel there first to gain the waypoint
- Side Quests (tentative) : as you gain quests, you gain the Waypoints. When the quests are no longer relevant, they are dropped. This includes the Windspear Hills waypoints (no point visiting Garren after Firkraag is dead, right?) <== if I'm short of time I will drop this
- Main Quest : as you progress the main story to Aran's/Bodhi's Lair, Spellhold, Sahuagin City, etc, you also gain Waypoints. The last 2 waypoints in SoA are Suldanessellar Temple and Suldanesselar Palace, both which you only gain AFTER summoning the Avatar of Rillifane
- Strongholds : as you gain strongholds, you can teleport to them. If you don't have multiple strongholds installed (why? I don't know, I know I like multiple Strongholds, but well, its your choice), I will try to code so that you port right back to your stronghold. There are a few exceptions like the Mage and Ranger, where there are 2 points (Mage Sphere Lab and Mage Sphere Entrance / Ranger Cabin and Ranger Forest )
- finally as a tip from ToB, a "Go Back to the Last Place I Teleported from" choice

As a side note, there will be a "Timed Rest" component.
- Rest till daytime (9 am) or night time (9 pm)
- Rest for 1 day, 3 days, 5 days (to all those Stronghold people... FINALLY!), 1 week, 1 month (why? I don't know, just providing an option.)
If I can, I will restrict their use so that they may not be used in some places.
Note : None of these Rests are "true" rests, which means they won't result in any talks but ALSO won't result in any (seen-till-I-want-to-kill-myself) dreams, they merely restore the party as if the party had just rested

I plan to implement it as a cheap wand with 100 charges that you can just buy off Ribald.

Before I release it, hopefully by this Sunday/next Monday, hope to hear what you guys think

Edit : changed all the Resting to Scripted Rests. This is so you don't accidentally end up losing 1 whole day when you rest at 6 pm hoping to get up at 9 pm and end up getting up at 9 pm the next day (because ingame rests require minimum of 8 hrs and then the script will probably kick it all the way to 9 pm of that 2nd day)

Edited by Zyraen, 18 January 2011 - 09:20 PM.

[Zyraen]

Lol am I the Only One who would find something like that hella useful, or is it that this forum is somehow restricted in access?

[Kaeloree]

Definitely not restricted access. Hey, I'd use it, I find walking everywhere a pain in the ass while testing.

[Miloch]

Lol am I the Only One who would find something like that hella useful, or is it that this forum is somehow restricted in access?

Lol, did you notice your first and second posts were only a few hours apart, and during "off hours" for most SHS members? I'm lucky if I get a *crickets chirping* post after several days on any of my posts...

Well first of all, there are probably a few mods that already do something similar - "Aurora's Shoes" has a pair of boots that can teleport you to various taverns (which gets you close enough to "key points" in the game probably). Then there's a mod by Salk (Cursed Items?) with a "Stone of Recall" or some such that has a similar feature, so I'm told. A few other mods probably too. Is that the sort of thing you mean by "teleporting" and "waypoints" or is it a bit more complex than that?

Also, I'm curious how "horrifyingly clear how Extremely powerful Boots of Speed" make your party. Sure, it makes them quicker, possibly opening up backstab exploits and similar, but they shouldn't really *haste* your party per se (i.e. give attack per round bonuses). I realised how incredibly slow and dull it made the game without them during a replay, though that's about it.

[Zyraen]

It might just be my imagination, but it *seems* that my Melee Attackers actually have double attacks during the Boots of Speed. Plus Melee (when you don't yet have a lot of missile weapons and half your party is actually dual-wielding) getting to the frontline (or backline, with ambushes) very quickly makes enemies quite squishable and formation moot.

To be fair though, most of my past games tend to be rather spell / range intensive, resulting in less "powerful" boots of Speed.

Edit : Thanks for the Heads Up Miloch. I always wondered why it was so quiet at SHS all the time when I was online rofl.

I didn't know other mods provided the waypoints, but the waypoints is basically just something that teleports you to a convenient location, like right in front of Cromwell / Elhan / Jariel (for the Thief's Guild. It specially draws a distinction in the Mage Sphere Lab and Mage Sphere Entrance, saving time traipsing across the intervening gap. Having to MoveToArea then Ctrl-J gets irritating quite quickly.

Edited by Zyraen, 19 January 2011 - 01:50 AM.

[Wisp]

It might just be my imagination, but it *seems* that my Melee Attackers actually have double attacks during the Boots of Speed.

That is just the animation speeding up. The actual number of attacks per round remains the same.

[Zyraen]

Wisp : wow that's great to know they look really deadly, all those flashing pairs of swords

[Miloch]

I think it's a good idea, but I don't know if I'd make the teleporting item cheap - Aurora's Boots of the Bar are fairly expensive. Then again, if the main goal is to make it available early for those who've played the game 1000 times and don't want to slog around everywhere *again*, it might be acceptable. Also, it might make more sense to give it a few charges per day rather than 100 fixed charges.

How are you planning to implement the "waypoints" technically? Aurora's Boots ask the user where they wish to teleport (via dialogue invoked by invisible summoned creature) providing several choices based on where the party is. In BG1 for example, they can't jump to Baldur's Gate city until they've progressed to the "chapter" that makes the city accessible, and so on.

[GeN1e]

I prefer CTRL-J

[Zyraen]

@Miloch - maybe I'll just cut it down to 20 charges, at moderate cost. Its still implemented by dialogue subdivided to a few categories

1) Athkatla - district points, basically
2) Elsewhere - Trademeet, Umar Hills, Watcher's Keep, etc. modified according to when your party has access to them. excludes places like North Forest and Small Teeth Pass since there's no Quests there.
3) Quest - based on the quests you have ongoing. these will be modified according to the party needs
4) Storyline - these will increase over time, based on where you are. the only ones that will be dropped when no longer in use are Bodhi's Lair (on her side) waypoint. Since after you're back from Spellhold there's no reason to go back there.
5) Stronghold - self-explanatory
6) Last Place I Used This.

The dialogue basically memorises the current position (this memorisation is skipped if you use Option 6), then moves Player1 to a particular point in the world, before porting the entire party over next to Player1

@Genie - sure, whatever rocks your boat. After years of memorising ARE names and using MoveToArea, Ctrl-J over to approximately correct black spots, that sort of thing just doesn't cut it for me anymore...

Edited by Zyraen, 19 January 2011 - 03:25 PM.

[Crazee]

I would definitely, definitely use this. CTRL J-ing feels too much like cheating. Best of luck!

[Kwiat_W]

Great idea, thou I wouldn't make this a cheap item, but a completely free of charge, unlimited use feature accessible from the start of the game (thou at start there are no place to go) via innate ability button.

[cmorgan]

You might check with berelinde - I think she already has a "Traveller's Stone". Not knocking the idea, and there should be no problem having different interpretations, but just saying .

Edited by cmorgan, 05 February 2011 - 02:13 PM.

[10th]

Unfortunately the Traveller's Stone doesn't work at the moment (b!tweaks v4).

Somewhat similar mods that are floating around, which aren't yet mentioned in this thread and which are by no means as big in scope as Zyraen's plan:
- Teleport v14 - 7th level mage spell, works by extending a bunch of area scripts to set variables, which in turn enable those locations for teleport (if blackwyrm wouldn't go down repeatedly you could even get that mod)
- planar sphere mod 26c - Pocket Plane style spell if you own the planar sphere. Enables you to quickly return to Athkatla.

10th

[Jarno Mikkola]

Somewhat similar mods that are floating around, which aren't yet mentioned in this thread and which are by no means as big in scope as Zyraen's plan:

And there's Salks "Stone of Recall" in renamed "Cursed Items Revision v3.5" mod, but that's again blackwyrm mod.
Uh, the Teleport v14 is here too...

[10th]

I intentionally left Stone of Recall and Rod of Refuge (Konalan's Tweaks) out, as both mods only transport you to a custom Pocket Plane from which you are unable to travel to other areas. Whereas the other two mods enable you either to travel to other areas (Planar Sphere mod 26c), or work in almost the same way as Zyraen's planned Waypoint Mod (Teleport v14).

10th