Autopickup/always_pickup issues

[wobbly]

Could we have auto-pickup mark all arrows instead of just yours? Currently when I shoot down orc archers I'm walking over the little stacks they leave expecting to pick them up, then walking backwards when I notice there still there. Also fire from floor? It feels a little inconsistent that some arrows are immediately available to be fired & some aren't.

[taptap]

Could we have auto-pickup mark all arrows instead of just yours? Currently when I shoot down orc archers I'm walking over the little stacks they leave expecting to pick them up, then walking backwards when I notice there still there. Also fire from floor? It feels a little inconsistent that some arrows are immediately available to be fired & some aren't.

This could easily turn out annoying in late game, when you use mostly improved arrows and don't want to pick up standard arrows on the floor or even earlier when you reached you convenient arrow limit, be it 2x99 or 3x99 and autopickup pushes you over the weight limit or similar issues. Firing from floor would require changing archery back to a throwing like interface, the f / F type of shooting looks much more convenient to me.

The same goes for the mold warning. It may be convenient for the violet mold you have to pass but don't want to bump into, but it would superbly annoying to answer a prompt every time when you close in on a shadow mold to kill it or when you have to pass by a mold without bothering to kill it. And having the prompt for violet molds that are a pain, but not necessarily more deadly than the other molds feels inconsistent as well (I died to both a pair of brown molds and a pair of shadow molds before, while it is very hard to blame a death of a char to a violet mold).

[evilmike]

It sounds like I've been too quick to dismiss this. I was thinking that the advantages were:

(1) making the smithing weight interface take fewer key presses.
(2) not having your weapon be outclassed by one that is identical except for the weight quite so often.

I see both of these as really small improvements relative to other issues with the game (e.g. making the early game more varied), and I don't like the fact that it feels a bit artificial for weights to be so discrete when it is clear the system can represent smaller weights.

However, maybe you are also thinking of:

(3) having fewer of each type of sword feels a bit simpler and more boardgamey
(4) having fewer weights makes the function from weapon weight to overall usefulness less spiky (i.e. the jumps from 2.9 lb to 3.0 lb are big quality changes over small weight increases, while 2.5 lb to 3.0 lb is a smaller quality change and over a larger weight increase).

I see (3) and particularly (4) as more important than (1) and (2) and maybe enough reason to do this. I could maybe avoid my other concerns by changing the very light items like rings to weigh either 0.0 lb or 0.5 lb. Other people's thoughts?

Note that this won't solve taptap's problem, but he could try a dagger smith instead (if they are moved to 0.5 lb). This would make daggers a bit more useful by giving them this niche. We've also considered making daggers to be like light shortswords but without the [+1]. i.e. Dagger (+0, 1d7).

(1) This is actually a big deal for me, although it applies to armour weights too. I've mentioned before, I find adjusting weights in the smithing menu to be very fiddly. There are other ways of fixing it, but rounding to 0.5 is a simple one.

(2) This point also applies to armour as well as weapons. What I don't like about the current weights is that it's hard to remember what weights your equipment is when everything is rounded to 0.1. A coarser scale at least makes it a bit easier to keep a mental note of what your equipment weighs, and it's a bit quicker for me to parse too.

Also, it's helpful to be able to calculate if a certain piece of equipment will bring you over a certain weight limit (for stealth reasons), and rounding to 0.5 makes the mental arithmetic easier. I can add up 1.5 + 2 + 3.5 a lot more quickly than 0.8 + 1.7 + 3.6.

(3) This is a very general point which is covered by the other ones, so I don't have anything to say here specifically.

(4) This is the most important point. Even though the underlying combat system remains unchanged, rounding weapon weights to 0.5 still simplifies things (significantly, in my opinion). I find it strange that a 0.1 increase can be so significant, as in your example. The system (whether you intended it to or not), places heavy emphasis on multiples of 1 (0.5 is noteworthy too because of momentum). Situations where 0.1 makes a difference between two weapons (aside from the relatively small effect on critical hits) feel like edge cases. Even though it always makes sense if you fully understand the combat system, it would feel more elegant (and thus easier for players to understand) if the weights were rounded. This applies mainly to newer and intermediate players, not to experts (who there are very few of, overall).

As an additional benefit, rounding to .5 will make it easier to mentally determine how many critical hits you gain/lose from switching to a lighter/heavier weapon. This is related to my point about armour weight. It's just a lot easier to multiply multiples of 0.5 than it is with multiples of 0.1.

Regarding your point about daggers: making 0.5lb daggers possible (and tweaking their combat stats) is a good idea and I was going to suggest it. Seems like a way to give players options for super-light weapons, and gives daggers an actual niche.

Regarding game balance: I don't think this is a major concern. It does make finding a perfectly balanced weapon easier, but the game itself isn't going to see a noticeable change in difficulty. There are so many other factors in choosing which weapon to use, anyway.

[BlueFish]

This could easily turn out annoying in late game, when you use mostly improved arrows and don't want to pick up standard arrows on the floor or even earlier when you reached you convenient arrow limit, be it 2x99 or 3x99 and autopickup pushes you over the weight limit or similar issues. Firing from floor would require changing archery back to a throwing like interface, the f / F type of shooting looks much more convenient to me.

The same goes for the mold warning. It may be convenient for the violet mold you have to pass but don't want to bump into, but it would superbly annoying to answer a prompt every time when you close in on a shadow mold to kill it or when you have to pass by a mold without bothering to kill it. And having the prompt for violet molds that are a pain, but not necessarily more deadly than the other molds feels inconsistent as well (I died to both a pair of brown molds and a pair of shadow molds before, while it is very hard to blame a death of a char to a violet mold).

Agreed about not auto-picking up all arrows.

Regarding the re-stating of your already stated points in the discussion of Violet molds, I'll just note that for all the dismissal of arguments against violet molds on this forum, for some odd reason the change log for version 1.1 of Sil reports that they were halved in frequency - making them a quarter as common as other molds.

History shows, even if the forum as currently constituted does not, that there are valid reasons to re-think purple molds. That re-think took the form of making them less common. I Like that, but I like my idea to make them glow even better. It makes for a more fun and less frustrating game. (Anybody who would like to do this in their own game can change the last number in the Violet Mold's A: line in the monster.txt file to "1", from "0".)

[Scatha]

For the arrows, one natural rule would be that you auto pickup only those that match and can fit into an existing quiver. However this could still be problematic as that might be undesirable if it would make you encumbered.

[wobbly]

Yes that was more what I meant, though possibly I didn't make that clear. I didn't consider the encumbrance problem. Maybe you could prompt for picking up something that would overburden you? or not. It's not a big issue to me, just a nice to have.

Firing from floor would require changing archery back to a throwing like interface, the f / F type of shooting looks much more convenient to me.

Not necessarily true as it would only really apply when standing on arrows. Maybe better is to have the throw command default to firing with arrows? Is there any reason to peg arrows at enemies anyway?