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Entropy

Discuss the different visibility system here

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Personally I think we need to see less with 4 perception and that all objects should be affected. To sum things up in a nutshell of most people's thoughts :P

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Blee and i were having some fun with it. Check it out:

 

invischim.jpg

 

bleefightingrocks.jpg

 

If i didn't know that he was fighting chims, i would have thought he went crazy :P

I mean swishing his sword at rocks and thin air?!?

Weird....

But funny :P

Edited by kat

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I don't mean to bitch, but personally I think it looks really bad. The idea is cool and all, but

1. According to the scale, we can 100% not see people only around 20 ft away? That doesn't make sense, even at night. You should at least be able to see light particles moving in that area, even if you don't know who/what it is, you know there is something there

I think you are missing the obvious point that your perception is very low (4 or something?). IRL that is the equivalent of severe nearsightedness.

 

 

2. Maybe cover up the radius that you can see with fog or something. Why we can see tiny flowers, in detail on the very edge of our screen, but not see feros 5 tiles away? :blink:

The concept is cool, but it was not implemented right IMO

 

I think it is implemented very right. There is no point for the little flowers to dissapear because they have no strategic or tactic importance. We could assing a different visibility (client based) for each object, but I doubt that having the little flowers dissapear would improve your game experience.

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I think it is implemented very right. There is no point for the little flowers to dissapear because they have no strategic or tactic importance. We could assing a different visibility (client based) for each object, but I doubt that having the little flowers dissapear would improve your game experience.

They (terrain items) are also fixed items. The human brain will often times fill in known items even if they can't truly be seen. However, the converse also holds value. That is knowing where your vision starts to fade. Where things become blurry or out of focus. As it is right now we don't know if our vision is bad or if there simply isn't anything there.

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IRL that is the equivalent of severe nearsightedness.
You can still see that there is stuff goin on, just don't know what it is :blink: It's not like you see a rocks, trees, and no person, then suddenly *zap* they're right in front of you

 

There is no point for the little flowers to dissapear because they have no strategic or tactic importance.
Then why are they in the game? For visual effects/making it more intresting, of course :(

No, it's not neccesary. It just looks funny when you can only see objects besides humans, when IRL you'd probably spot the humans easier (they are moving)

 

And yes, my perception is low, because I rarely pk, and, other than pking, perception has little importance for now. Even on pk maps it's probably not very useful, just gives you a few extra seconds warning before someone attacks you or w/e

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They (terrain items) are also fixed items. The human brain will often times fill in known items even if they can't truly be seen. However, the converse also holds value. That is knowing where your vision starts to fade. Where things become blurry or out of focus. As it is right now we don't know if our vision is bad or if there simply isn't anything there.

 

This is true, but you have to keep in mind that darkness in the game can not be reliably implemented due to two factors:

1. The gamma and monitor intensity settings vary on each computer, so while on some monitors the dark is dark, on others the dark is not so dark. Originally the night was very dark, but many people complained about it that they couldn't see anything, especially if the ambient room light was high (such as playing the game at noon, the sun shinning through your window, while in game it's night).

 

2. Reduced visibility doesn't mean you don't SEE a player/monster. It means that it blends with the background, so while you see the player there, you can't tell what's in there (could be a bush, aplayer, a tree stump, etc.)

 

What we could do is to have a thick, black fog at night, based on your perception attribute. If someone wants to implement that, please let me know.

 

Atlantis, did you, like.. ever play chess?

If so, did you complain that the queen is more powerful than the king? Or that the tower can move? Or that the horse/knight can jump over the pawns? Or maybe the fact that the chess table has only two alternating colors, usually black and white, instead of maybe green?

The vast majority of people playing chess do not care about those details, nor do they complain about the fact that the rules are different than how it would be IRL.

This is a game, and it's rules do not necesarly mirror the IRL rules. You will have to take them as they are.

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Is there going to be a way to tell if a player we can see can also see us ? such as an eye icon next to there name

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Entropy, could we use a forced gamma setting for individual players, npc's, creatures and objects on the client side when the next client is out?

 

Not sure if I said it right.....

If you have ever played doom, the dark areas are almost pitch black. I cheat and turn the gamma up to see in the dark. Looks crappy, but it works. We could do the reverse and limit the amount of gamma.

 

The gamma of players could be reduced the further away they are and increased with light near them or light sources such as the moon.

 

Unfortunately, I am not a graphics programmer and don't remember much of what I learned about rendering, so I can't describe this idea much better.

 

As much as I know, you already have something in the works for the next client for this. (pauses to think) eh...you probably do.

 

Oh....and Conavar, I think that would be a little bit odd that you would be able to tell in real life.....unless they obviously look right at you.....and that would have to be a perception check too. lol More work for the programmers.

Edited by nathanstenzel

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Is there going to be a way to tell if a player we can see can also see us ? such as an eye icon next to there name

Actually, I was thinking of that (well, the opposite, a closed eye icon if they can't see you). But that will be complicated to implement, so there will be a spell or a device to briefly show you those that you see but that don't see you.

 

Entropy, could we use a forced gamma setting for individual players, npc's, creatures and objects on the client side when the next client is out?

 

The gamma can not be set individually, but it could be set via all kind of tricks such as using a different material color and stuff.

However, that would suck, and the fog is a better idea.

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Oh....and Conavar, I think that would be a little bit odd that you would be able to tell in real life.....unless they obviously look right at you.....and that would have to be a perception check too. lol More work for the programmers.

 

Well no its not or do all special forces units work by guess work ? no they stay in the shadows and cover, maybe im wrong in assuming that one of the reasons this was implemented in the game was to add a more stealth element, and if you cant tell who can see you wether true to RL or not then kind of defeats the object.. unless you have to walk around KF shouting " OK WHO CAN SEE ME THEN " :blink:

 

 

 

EDIT: seen Ents reply so nvm

 

Edit: Is this just going to be a player based skill or in the future will creature's have limited sight based on a perception score ?

Edited by conavar

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<CLIP>

Entropy, could we use a forced gamma setting for individual players, npc's, creatures and objects on the client side when the next client is out?

 

The gamma can not be set individually, but it could be set via all kind of tricks such as using a different material color and stuff.

However, that would suck, and the fog is a better idea.

 

Maybe brightness? Eh oh well. I am sure someone will check into how to render different things with different lighting settings.....or adjust all the color and brightness settings everywhere based on some value.

 

After that, it can be geared up to be relative to viewers position.

 

Fog.....hmmmm....come to think of it, that might work....

....Can you add fog density based on perception with the fog being denser farther away from you? That should actually have about the same affect, since fog will decrease the contrast of everything by making it go grey....although it should be a darker grey used in perception and in addition to the Real fog.

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Fog.....hmmmm....come to think of it, that might work....

....Can you add fog density based on perception with the fog being denser farther away from you? That should actually have about the same affect, since fog will decrease the contrast of everything by making it go grey....although it should be a darker grey used in perception and in addition to the Real fog.

This is what I meant to do. The further away from you, it should be harder to see (everything), rather than a specific line where vision (of only humans) just "cuts off". So as it went further away, there would be more fog. And less fog with higher perception. does that make more sense?

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This is what I meant to do. The further away from you, it should be harder to see (everything), rather than a specific line where vision (of only humans) just "cuts off". So as it went further away, there would be more fog. And less fog with higher perception. does that make more sense?

 

Of course it makes sense, but it is not simple to do it due to the fact that the client doesn't know where the magic line between visible and invisible is.

First, the client doesn't know the light information (how much light each tile gets). And even if it knew, it would be hard to have fog only over some areas and not over others.

Furthermore, like I said, the player can be more or less visible based on a multitude of factors such as what they are wearing, incident light, and possible other factors in the future.

 

The conclusion is that such a line (or fog, blackness, whatever) would not be very accurate.

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Will the weather influence the visibility?

 

Like in a very strong rain in the night you could only see 2-3 square away for basic perception. It's kinda already implemented for the static objects if you have the Fog option on. In such rain i can't see a thing :blink:

Edited by kibora

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My perception is 5 so i cant see a big difference.Anyway as an idea its very good and i guess the system will be improved in the future updates.

A potion of night vision with a p/c penalty would be good also.

Edited by agis29

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ATM i'm not really sure what i think about the whole thing, in a way i like it, and in a way i don't.. but here are some observations..

 

Mirror cloak and NMT cloak (for example) have same light values, one is psychedelicly orange :) other one is black, i think that should be taken into account..

Also, Q.Staff should not have same value as some other weapons as it is wooden (no moon reflection on blade for example) and it's black or dark at least.

 

Also medallions give value of 1 (if i'm not mistaken) and they are usually worn under the shirt...

 

Also i think Roja could make some "darker" versions of leather armor, enable ppl to play like rogues or thieves, and of course with much less light points.

 

 

If you want to pursue the racial differences thing, gnomes for example could have -2 bonus to being seeable..

those dark elves -3 or something like that...

 

This option leaves a LOT of place for creativity and to me it seems it's not being used at all but just plain, i see u / u don't see me.

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I would humbly suggest that being a 10 foot tall one eyed club wielding big bastard should also have a bearing.

 

 

You are absolutely correct.

Right now, all the monsters have a default visibility. Soon, they will have a different visibility based on size and maybe color.

 

I absolutely second that. Maybe it's even possible to take surroundings into account? This would make fluffies next to invisible on arctic maps at night times .. :-)

 

On a different sidenote, does that also affect if the aggressive monsters see you? A cyclops would probably not have a high perception (being a brute, only having one eye etc), while feros seem quite capable hunters with their cat-like derivation ...

Cheers,

maj

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This sounds like a nice addition, though I've yet to see it in action.

 

One thought though; having just seen or unseen states may be limiting. It would be rather nice to have an intermediate 'vaguely seen' state (unselectable, untargetable) to smooth the transition between characters poofing in and out of existance.

 

Represent vague figures using a few basic body models (small/medium/large humanoid/quadrupded), no supporting animation or decorations. Batched into a single message (location & type, 4 bytes?).

 

So you see a figure in the distance or hiding in the shadows, but until you approach you don't know whether its friend, foe, or fiend.

Note that this has to be done by sending
less
information about the actors to the clients, since we cannot rely on a client to honor obscuration voluntarily.

 

Having seen this in action now, we definitely need something between seen-unseen.

 

You could do a partial implementation of "vaguely seen" now, by sending "grey" anonymous actors for out-of-range characters. Not ideal, doesn't cover creatures (apart from humanoid), and heavier on the bandwidth, but its a quick fix.

Edited by trollson

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The fog should work like the fog that you see when it's raining in the game..it's really really thick, and you can only see a little around you. Except the "fog" should be "blackness" for night time, so it should be black instead of the grayish color it is.

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My perception is 5 thanks to two pp that I'd been saving. I didn't play around with the night vision changes much but I did notice one thing that I'd just like to mention, others can decide what to do with the info. After spending my two pp at the wraith, I went and hunted a few wabbits in the north west of IP (where did all the beavers go?). I've got my perspective set on .28 in my options, and I've always been able to see bags that are a distance away, even if I wasn't able to see monsters or people the same distance away. No change there, except now people seemed to disappear somewhat quicker. I did, however, notice a change in how far away you can click to make your character move. In fact, repeatedly I tried to move onto a bag that was quite close, but my character wouldn't move. Or I'd try to walk somewhere not too far away, but again I had to click closer to myself in order to start moving. I don't fully understand why my inability to see far (despite the IP "advantage" of lighting) would affect how far away I can click.

I also went rat hunting in the IP cave to test my night vision there, and it didn't seem much different.

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I was training on fluff, and that decreased visibility really works. Durning night time it was a lot easier 2 loose fluff than durning a daytime when i saw them very clearly. Works fine 4 me :)

 

eMPi

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It seems to be working well for me at 4 Perception in Gerund's Smithery in VOTD. I was chasing a rabbit and deer within the fenced area, they would appear near the one lantern in the center then disappear in the darker corners. Didn't notice perception difference between deer and rabbit both. So I ate them. :pinch:

 

Also noticed of three players harvesting seated, the closest one appeared to me last as I approached. It was also the one dressed the darkest and without exc cloak. They were all without armor. Does this answer my question of players dressed similarly will be affected by the dark due to color of dress, hair, skin, etc.? Are goth Drow Elves harder to see at night than Trailer Blondes from Lakeside in pink & white? Could this bring up racial issues? :w00t:

 

As an observation, many games I've played use the 'fog of war' technique where unexplored areas are all black, explored areas are 'memorized', and areas in direct view are 'known knowns'. In other words, since I already know there are flowers way over there, they appear. What I don't see until I meet it is the garg coming at me. Not perfectly realistic, but definitely acceptable for game play. I think this system will work fine! :)

Edited by Mugwump

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Kudos

The visibility effect and use of the perception cross attrib is very cool.

 

I have two suggestions;

1) - How bout a torch that increases ur night vision but also ur visibility (ability to be stealth).

and

2) - What about having creatures have different perception lvls so that you could use creatures lack of night vision (maybe Cyclops) against them almost like a night time mm perk. eg. The Chims would likely have very hi lvl of perception.

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this new visiblity thing is a powerfull thing ..... after 4~5 feet from any 1 naked , i could not see him , tried it with a friend .....

 

well am only 4 perception , like most of player , and i will not add/reset coz of it, coz p/c & nex are more important than resoning & instinc (perciption attribute) , but may add some stratigy in pk (through pots)..

 

i have a suggestions :

 

Assassin armor (like black ninja ):

that limit what you can hold , and have some disadvantige , make the player cant see u untill 2~1 feet <------ OMG what !!!~~!!!1!! , but that would be cool :)

 

FMA

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