JUMPING indoors issues

Well, the no jumping "indoors" has to go ... it solved that one issue in the maze, but also stopped all jumps in vaulted caverns ,like Troll areas. Also cannot jump over small ledges like water placed in shallow depressions. We got stuck in the place because of it.

Friends,
Can we get some general input on the jumping in general? I have seen in abused to bypass doors when indoors - so we nixed indoor jumping for now. We are looking at adding triggers for builders to enable jumping in select indoor locations, effectively jumping the jump activator to the chosen / linked location. This is a tentative solution and we are looking for more feedback and or suggestions on changes to remediate the 'cheat' use of jumping.

GM_ODA wrote:Friends,
Can we get some general input on the jumping in general? I have seen in abused to bypass doors when indoors - so we nixed indoor jumping for now. We are looking at adding triggers for builders to enable jumping in select indoor locations, effectively jumping the jump activator to the chosen / linked location. This is a tentative solution and we are looking for more feedback and or suggestions on changes to remediate the 'cheat' use of jumping.

Admittedly, I've used the 'Jump' to get over a locked door in The Maze, but have very mixed emotions about 'Jumping' indoors over doors, walls, etc.  Let's use a little logic here: Can a 'typical' PC jump straight up, through the ceiling, then down through the target ceiling, then land on the floor in the next room? Doesn't make much sense, does it? But consider jumping over an impassable trap inside a corridor. Or 'Jumping' over a (small) swift underground stream? That would make sense, yes? Maybe a PC could jump over a gang of nasty Orcs when surrounded (lightly armored and unencumbered. Sorry, NO ONE can jump in PLATE MAIL! ). Even that would make 'some' sense (I've seen it happen in Kung-Fu movies ). But jumping over a door or wall in an enclosed/underground area? I don't think so. 'Jumping' is useful in some situations, but completely illogical in others. Some restrictions really need to be programmed into the 'Jump' routines, especially 'indoors'.

Now, let us go outside. There are times where jumping off a 10' cliff could be useful, or even jumping over a wall of trees to get back on the trail. With a little training and practice, a 'real' human being should be able to jump off a single-story house roof, and land unhurt (Well, at my age? ). Not at all illogical, and there is always a chance to turn an ankle or, even break a leg. But every time? NOT! If every jump resulted in injury, the 82nd Airborne's jump into Normandy would not have been successful or even possible. A Paratrooper lands at about the same speed as someone jumping off a roof (about 10-15 MPH). Some adjustment needs to be made to the % chance for injury when Jumping.

Its not really logical to be able to jump over a 10'-20' screen of trees, but, hey, its Fantasy , so some allowances really need to be made, considering the genre.

I hope my 'thoughts' on jumping have been helpful.

Roger Dodger

Cannot not height and length of jump be adjusted? I mean jumping over a narrow stream or puddle fine. Indoors a bit tricky. There could be a difficulty and dice roll factor in it.
Is flying tied into the jump script as essentially it is almost the same animation though one needs to have wings. Yes equipment should be taken into account.

maybe having to drink and enhanced dexterity potion to jump. Logically I do not think most characters could jump more than 20-25 feet.

Animayhem wrote:  Logically I do not think most characters could jump more than 20-25 feet.

20-25 feet would be perfectly reasonable for a Running Broad Jump! A standing, flat-footed jump [?], well not so much. Ever watch Olympic Obstacle Course runners jump over the barriers during a race? Those things are only three feet high, yet sometimes they trip over them. But, again, this is Fantasy.

I did some jumping over walls in Chonda Port today. Whoa! "Able to leap over tall buildings in a single bound". My PC jumped clear off the screen, then back down to the ground. Works well outside, but in an enclosed space it would be like running full tilt into a wall when you hit the ceiling . Horizontal jumping, like over an obstacle, should be OK (even if the PC looks like he jumps out of the screen ). There is probably no good way to adjust how high the PC jumps in the scripting.

Roger Dodger

BenevolentDevil wrote:Well, the no jumping  "indoors" has to go ... it solved that one issue in the maze, but also stopped all jumps in vaulted caverns ,like Troll areas.  Also cannot jump over small ledges like water placed in shallow depressions.  We got stuck in the place because of it.

Would be good to be able to jump over the Black Puddings in the Sewers, too.

Maybe a no jumping trigger in certain areas. There are no rest trigger scripts about. That why areas are isolated without having to fuss with the actual jumping action.

Animayhem wrote:Maybe a no jumping trigger in certain areas. There are no rest trigger scripts about. That why areas are isolated without having to fuss with the actual jumping action.

Way brief, I'm not sure I understand what you are saying. Elaborate please.

Well,
I kind of look at the "indoor door-jump" a bit differently...
In the case of "secret doors" I absolutely see why someone would not want players to be able to "by-pass" the "system" in place. ( However, I found it absolutely essential to do so , otherwise none of the "maze" would have gotten explored much at all.
One could see it as an "exploit", and in general it does not make much RP sense at all, like Dodger stated.

Or one could not fret over the little things.... , is it a real "issue" characters can somehow manage to "jump" over wall sections? From the places I've explored from what I know ... Jumping/Climbing is the only way to get to certain places, certain paths, ect ...
"Indoors" covers everything not above ground, or "inside" ... so , if one negates jumping in those areas, places where it does make sense ( vaulted cavernous places with a high ceiling ... ect ... ) are now impassible in certain ways.
Also from what I've seen , no real lasting "harm" comes from being able to bypass a secret door , or wall section here and there. Most of it is simply exploration , or ways to further explore.
It may have not been intended to be by-passed , but I can't see any reason to "thwart" a working bypass at this time.

Why?
Because if you build it , players ( or characters ) should be able to see it right?

If you have 112 "maze areas or more" .... do you want only the characters with high search skills to be able see all 112 areas, or would you rather have a way or two for all characters to be able to potentially see the same areas?

You cannot at this late stage in NWN's life cycle , point to multiple players being on, to use a "party" where one with high enough "search" , helps the rest out.
First off, there's just not the population here to do that.
Secondly ... characters might not always be able to travel together ...
Thirdly, like before ... if the character with the search skill , leaves, goes AFK ... the rest of the characters are "stuck"?

Malfor and I , got to exploring the troll areas ... which is rather vast if one didn't know. ( BTW, Acid is not working as a means of killing troll goo and bodies atm ) ...
We "discovered" quite by accident, you can get in the
"ceiling" areas of the caverns...
Though there is a script that fires, saying you should be prevented by the system to be there , please leave.
Well, the Gatholm doesn't work there and if you are the only character up there, you cannot get out.
Malfor "knocked" ( by bumping ) Natasha off the upper ledge, causing her to fall in water down below in a strange area. Found deep gnomes ... I could not get out of the "water" by "normal" means or runestone use. Climbing ropes wouldn't work ...
If I didn't have the "hawk robe" , I would have been stuck in the water.
Malfor was still stuck up top, and I couldn't return to help him down. DM was afk on one of his toons ...
If we were able to "jump" , he could have fell with Natasha ...
We could have easily gotten out of the water ... and back to finding our way around.

But , because of a simple jumping exploit ... the indoor jumping was disabled. I understand the why it was negated ... don't get me wrong.
At first before other issues popped up ... I thought it was fine.
But in discovering, it tends to cripple you when elsewhere, in places that restriction makes no sense ( and probably ruined the design on the areas. ).

So, which is he lesser of two evils?
Cripple all Jumping-areas vital to going farther in the module and exploration?
Or stopping an exploit of a single thing such as secret doors in the ever-lasting maze?

I would say, not worrying over the maze-door "jump-overs" is the lesser of two evils there in my opinion ...

But then again, I don't have the "big picture" in mind there , like Oda would ... I've explored a vast many areas, but only discover lore and things as Oda imparts them to me as it stands.
I tell him all the time, what he sees as simple ... he built it, and knows it's there to be simple.
We players , don't even know to start looking , to find anything. lol.

As far as I knew previously, everyone pretty much navigated what was there in the "maze" by "jumping" narrow wall placed wall sections. Only one or two others knew there were secret door triggers in there. And the DCs were so high, only epics would have been able to detect them anyways.
( Or dumping all skill points into search , which in my opinion is an exploit in itself , at least "metagaming" in a fashion. )
That's just based on my limited knowledge though ... I think most the players that did know things, have wandered away elsewhere now. So, I can only ask so many players as hey come on, things about the mod OOC , and I have even found I knew more things by discovery/accidents than a couple of players that have been around here far longer than I have, lol.

Animayhem wrote:Cannot not height and length of jump be adjusted? I mean jumping over a narrow stream or puddle fine. Indoors a bit tricky.  There could be a difficulty and dice roll factor in it.
Is flying tied into the jump script as essentially it is almost the same animation though one needs to have wings. Yes equipment should be taken into account.

maybe having to drink and enhanced dexterity potion to jump.  Logically I do not think most characters could jump more than 20-25 feet.

Lets review:

PLAYER chooses target of landing and start location. Therefore, no, length cannot be adjusted by script directly. What we DO do here is apply penalties to overly ambitious distances and drop the PC on their butt somewhere between start and goal if they fail. HEIGHT, we cannot adjust, you may have heard of NWN referred to as a 2D 3D game, this is because it really does not handle Z axis much if at all. Yes it is the same animation as flying as that is all the animations there were (stock) that applied to the needs.

We can set a penalty to jump on the Area, but this does nothing to address the totally game-breaking jump over locked doors and walls ... remember, indoors, there is a ceiling so this would be IMPOSSIBLE in RL.

As for total distance you can jump, we use the D&D rules for that and with sufficiently high stats you can jump very very far. Remember D&D characters can FAR exceed even RL olympic athletes. When we did our NWN forumulas, we started from 'what are the olympic records' and assumed DEX and STR were 18 for these persons, then we extrapolated up and down from there... using another baseline of some young persons of more average athletic ability setting those lower limits for me.

IIRC our jumping does factor in encumbrance.

We can set a penalty to jump on the Area, but this does nothing to address the totally game-breaking jump over locked doors and walls ... remember, indoors, there is a ceiling so this would be IMPOSSIBLE in RL. wrote:

I don't think it's really "game breaking" ... just an immersion breaking thing really. At best, one gets to jump into areas that are certain death , which in my opinion is the best way to escape that never-ending loop of hallways and rooms.
Especially seeing, there's no real reason to go down there that's readily apparent. It's just a place, one wanders into ... and are lucky if they can do much of anything but survive , or retrace their steps to get back out. There's not enough "clues" as what it's purpose is for. NPCs near the entrance, don't talk about it ... which is strange because it's located under a very popular Inn , one would think ... adventurers would be flocking to it via word of mouth, to test their mettle and hopefully discover some secrets or loot ...

I see your point on, higher levs being able to find "shortcuts" through the maze, lower levs could not ... , that's alright I guess.

but if the jumping over walls in there bugs ya ... you are going to have to adjust other areas , so regular spots you could jump in ... can be navigated as intended. That's a crap load of tedious going to each area and making adjustments ... as it stands, you can't even jump/hop/fall from various elevations in a cavern, where the ceiling is way up there above you ... not in the way. There you aren't vaulting walls and doors, just trying to get to another open elevation spot you can see.

, and the mine platforms , still do not let my characters climb up them or take them to the areas above ( I have found two of these, one in the depths of the goblin caves near the gorgon , and one in the deep troll caves ...where Natasha is currently stuck. ).

But, the only way I see to remove jumping exploits all together, is to remove the jumping option. Which would suck, because it' s one of the cooler features of AR in means of travel/exploration means.
Unless one could disallow "jumping" with-in so many meters of a secret door trigger ... , that would solve that issue I think. Because in the maze itself .. you can only "jump" where corridors are close enough to jump across anyways. Distance/encumbrance already thwarted most "jumping" in there from all I could tell.
Only spots was where secret door MIGHT have been I think, because the corridors linked were usually so close you could target the other side and wasn't much distance to jump. Any farther, and you stayed in the same spot, just getting hurt trying.

Friends,
Jumping over walls and through ceilings is NOT something I'm interested in supporting.

When I build a dungeon, and place a wall, it is because I don't want your PC to just walk through that space. Jumping over it has the same effect. It breaks areas. It is turned off and will remain so, it is not enhancing in any way to allow lowbie PCs to get into areas that should take high skills to enter. The designs are made smart, allowing scripts to make that smart not count is silly.

It is immersion breaking therefore we don't allow it.

It is area / build breaking, therefore we don't allow it.

For any given PC, some things will be too difficult for that PC. We all have limits, creative folks find ways to surpass their limits (this still does not mean it is ok that jumping was broken in that way).

If I wanted a dungeon where walls and doors did not matter, I'd build a dungeon without walls and doors.

The maze does offer _some_ a reason to go there - rumors in the city of such a place exist, though authorities have been unable to confirm the exixstence. Mysteries attract mystery hunters. There are many entrances (most well hidden, even magically so) and many ways a PC could end up there by accident rather than by design. There are other reasons but these vary from PC to PC and some are more covert than is meet to discuss in this thread. Finding the clues that lead to answers for questions such as

Who built/owns/runs this place?
What is this place for?

and others takes some serious exploration of the space and maybe some other investigation outside the Maze. Remember, I build mysteries that are sometimes hard to solve, easy ones are for saturday morning cartoon shows that wrap up in just 30 minutes.

Clues - we have a few, most clues are distributed at this time by NPCs with rumors. Our custom in-game books and bardic stories/songs are not yet in the game, many remain to be written yet, when time permits. This module is in BETA, it is not finished, though I am working at it diligently, it is a big work and takes time. Some of the books to be included in the game will be sourced from LOG BOOKS PLAYERS WRITE, but we've had very few of those so far as most PLAYERS ignore the log books. I do understand there are places where more clues would be handy, and we are working to add those in the fullness of time. In some cases, the lack of clues can be a clue too - for example, why do you suppose those who might be near the entrances don't talk of it? That adventurers don't talk about it much means maybe most don't escape? There ARE tales of "Maze Madders" in the city, folks who insist there is a maze under the city, but who cannot find the way back inside ... and others ridicule them for this obvious delusion. The city has even had wizards scry spaces under the city and found no sign of a maze.

Yes, I understand that painting triggers where I want jumping to be enabled indoors is going to be tedious and an extensive bit of work but in the face of multiple PLAYERS using the same exploit to travel where they could not travel if real world physics were in play, I have to do something, it is game breaking to bypass walls and doors. If you have a notion on how to allow indoor jumping but block abuse of it, please to share. Sadly, blocking the script if PC is close to a door would not protect walls from being jumped over. We do a line of sight check that might in combination help, but we'll have to experiment some.

Next topic, mine platforms, yes, these were script broken a while ago and I am going around fixing them as time permits. Please use your bug report tool to report positions of these to expedite my finding/fixing them. If you have a PC stuck, say the word and I'll free it, and fix the platform associated with your getting stuck.

Animayhem wrote:Maybe a no jumping trigger in certain areas. There are no rest trigger scripts about. That why areas are isolated without having to fuss with the actual jumping action.

I am aware that by painting triggers you can make areas by which you cannot rest. I was wondering if there was such a trigger to paint to prevent jumping in certain areas.

Though it looks like you understood me by your last post.

Friend Animayhem,
I think I misread you to interpret it like we had 'no rest' scripts, which did not seem right.

You can script a trigger to do anything; allow rest, dis-allow rest, allow jump, dis-allow jump, etc., my point in the prior message was that it would take few triggers to make the 'right places' jump friendly. Triggers are memory intensive compared to cleverly scripted systems. I'm still pondering what script based fix is optimal here.

Oda, I think you took some offense to what I said, and that was not my intention.

But that's ok ... This is your playground, I'm only a guest here.
I wasn't trying t change the way you do things, just pointing out the one minor thing, caused a major thing by trying to block off the minor thing. As in this current time frame ...
I was hoping for an easier solution ...
I only had a slightly different point of view on the matter as a whole. I see things differently , because I'm on this side of the screen ... that's all.

I have been using my bug report tools ... , and I know you'd come rescue my characters , you've only done that for me about 9 times already, lol.

Trying to rework the jumping system, the all block indoors is temporary while the BIG BUG in the system is sorted out...