Field of vision!

[micko]

Hey all, loving the progress on this game, top stuff devs

Just a quick suggestion I have not seen suggested. How about implementing a field of vision to players. The normal human field is nearly 180 degrees. The rest of the surroundings are unknown (bar the other senses).
To put this into perspective in this game, imagine creeping up on a building on the outskirts of town. You see a gorgeous grocery store up ahead, your stomach growling and urging you ahead. The coast is clear and you make a break for it through the front door. A fridge with the promise of goodies glistens at the back of the shop as you slowly make your way through the empty shelves. Your gaze fixated on the lone bottle of water on the back shelf, you fail to see the boomer shuffling towards you to your left. It’s too late to dodge the pink slime as it splashes into your eye.
You lose half your vision now with only one eye open you must find the beast and escape alive…

I think it could add real atmosphere to the game if it were possible to not have the entire world 360 degree view available at all times (various upgrades to the senses could lead to this possibility tho, reptile eyes?). Searching houses could take on a whole new level of difficulty by having to use the field of vision. Hearing could also play a greater role, as well as various upgrades to all the senses as previously mentioned.

Fights where your face is hit could lead to a temporary (or permanent) reduction in sight, hearing or both making you decide if it is a wise choice to barge through that pack of Zs or skirt around the outside.
Finding mutagens to improve the vision ( up to the 360 degrees it is now) could be a goal.

Having said all this I have no idea how big a job it may be. I would envision the use of mouse (currently used to target or examine objects) to be able to direct the players orientation. As any action costs time, any turn of the head would also take up time and depending on the players condition (drunk, high on meth, hallucinating) this could take more or less time.
Imagine you have just had an epic battle with a hulk and as you land the final blow a sigh of relief washes over you. Battered and bruised you turn your head for home…only to find the wandering horde had been closing in on you the entire time! Just meters away, you brace for impact.

Situational awareness would take on a whole new level when you must check your surrounding before you bandage that leg, or eat that cold steak that has been in your pack for days.

Anyways I think it would add a ton more atmosphere, challenge and opportunities for mutagen and cbm implants to aid in your limited (normal?) field of vision.

There are a bunch of examples of how field of vision can add atmosphere to games. Dark wood (still in development) is a good example. http://m.youtube.com/results?q=darkwood

Cheers!

[Mrnocamera]

The average turn is around 6 seconds, and it’s been agreed that the character looks around the entire area they can see during that time.

[Datanazush]

The average turn is around 6 seconds, and it’s been agreed that the character looks around the entire area they can see during that time.

The Survivor is like a fucking owl.

[micko]

How realistic is it that the player is pirouetting every step they take tho? I know dance dance dance is a book you can read but to bust out a twirl every turn seems a bit much?

For gameplay sake could you see it another way that the player has to take the initiative to look around?

[FunsizeNinja123]

The Survivor is like a fucking owl.

[Datanazush]

[quote=“micko, post:4, topic:6247”]How realistic is it that the player is pirouetting every step they take tho? I know dance dance dance is a book you can read but to bust out a twirl every turn seems a bit much?

For gameplay sake could you see it another way that the player has to take the initiative to look around?[/quote]
I generally dislike the idea of manually having to look around in roguelikes, mostly on principle of it being turn based, and it being a pain to have to manually survey the land every time I step outside.

Besides, it’s around 6 seconds per turn, unless you’re getting mobbed down by zombies from one direction, that’s more than enough time to do some over the shoulder checks.

[vache]

It could be that a move in any direction aims your field of view in that direction, while any rest or waiting (like pressing 5 or .) causes you to turn and search all directions.

The interesting thing might be trying to create this behavior in monsters, but then you run into the issue of how to convey what direction a monster is facing to the player.

[Khrysanth]

Five days ago the shit really hit the fan. People who die rise up as Things. Other Things are out there. All of those Things want to kill you.

You’ve managed to survive this long.

Now tell me: Would you tunnel vision yourself and not pay attention, or do you think you would’ve been paranoid enough to constantly be looking around?

We have a field of vision, and it is hindered by things that block our sight. It’s actually trivial for humans to look around quickly even while doing other things, especially with a six second period of time.

[kevin.granade]

I’ve looked into this a LOT, and there simply is not a user interface for this that is non-crappy. When a game is built around this kind of thing, and uses some form of mouselook for it, it’s great, but I don’t see any way to do this in dda without requiring tons of keypresses very frequently or requiring a mouse for gameplay, which I’m not willing to do.

[StopSignal]

This was suggested before, and i really like it, but it would be a bit hard to implement, at least as a mod, and also it wqould be hard to find a way that does not disturb fastg paced gameplay very much.

Also, it would be awesome to implement if we had mirrors, that would work like Kevin’s portals. They could be really helpful.
I’d really like it as a mod. I guess you should be able to change your point of sight with + and -, or at least that is the way i’d implement it.
Also it would be really cool if you could shoot without aiming to the back (with a really big nerf at aim), but if you put the key to actually aim, (the one Kevin implemented) your point of sight should change to where you are pointing at the moment.

Things like that…
What can i say, i’d really love it.

[bahihs]

This type of thing is appropriate for an first person game, but I can’t see it adding much value to DDA. Having to turn around manually constantly (because there are no other indicators of enemy presence, no noise, no smell etc.) is just annoying. I tend to think of it as the PC using all of his senses (especially hearing and smell) to determine when he needs to turn around, then doing so for enemies. And using memory of what hes already seen for background objects.

[i2amroy]

IIRC we actually already have mirror support in-game.

How realistic is it that the player is pirouetting every step they take tho? I know dance dance dance is a book you can read but to bust out a twirl every turn seems a bit much?

That’s the exact thing, if the player has a set field of vision then that’s exactly what players are going to do; spin around after every single turn. The advantage granted by having the complete circle of vision is just so great that unless you were extremely pressed for time it would never not be worth it to spin around after each step (and thus require a bunch of extra key presses).

[StopSignal]

An idea for an interface that could be useful!

Well, no one uses the arrows, no? Idk. At least i think no one uses them, or should. They don’t have diagonal movement.
Let’s say that Player Mcnoob is looking at the right.

           @ ---X

Now you put the DOWN key.

            @ -
                    -
                         -
                             X

Player Mcnoob now looks a bit nearer SOUTH (DOWN). If you put it enough times, it will face SOUTH (I think it would require 3 keypresses, one for EES (East East South), another for SE (South East), another for SSE (South South East) and another one for, finally, SOUTH) . If it’s facing SOUTH, and you press DOWN, it would not make anything.
Neither would pressing UP (NORTH), because the game can’t decide for you if it should look EAST or WEST first. You should have to press one of those first.

You like it?

[i2amroy]

Well, no one uses the arrows, no? Idk. At least i think no one uses them, or should. They don’t have diagonal movement.

I do. Being on a laptop without a number pad I generally use the arrow keys and then reach up to hit the 1/3/7/9 keys on the top of the keyboard for diagonal movement (since I find the hjkl stuff to make no sense at all to me due to the way the keys line up).

[Hobocop]

SoTS: The Pit has a field of view mechanic, but there are several other items and mechanics in the game to mitigate blind spots, such as enemies having distinct sound effects so you can identify what’s coming without needing to see them. I feel like you’d also need to have such mechanics lined up to support a limited field of view without it becoming more of a hassle than an interesting gameplay mechanic.

[StopSignal]

[quote=“StopSignal, post:13, topic:6247”]Well, no one uses the arrows, no? Idk. At least i think no one uses them, or should. They don’t have diagonal movement.

I do. Being on a laptop without a number pad I generally use the arrow keys and then reach up to hit the 1/3/7/9 keys on the top of the keyboard for diagonal movement (since I find the hjkl stuff to make no sense at all to me due to the way the keys line up).[/quote]

Oh, i’m sorry then! I am used to have number keypads around in my house because my family uses them a lot, so…

[kevin.granade]

FYI, we have mirrors, though the only place where they make sense currently is rear-view mirrors for vehicles.
And yes, like portals they have to hook into the FOV code, so we have to be careful with them for performance reasons.

Likewise restricted FOV could not be a mod, it would have to be built into the main game.

[Hyena_Grin]

[quote=“vache, post:7, topic:6247”]It could be that a move in any direction aims your field of view in that direction, while any rest or waiting (like pressing 5 or .) causes you to turn and search all directions.

The interesting thing might be trying to create this behavior in monsters, but then you run into the issue of how to convey what direction a monster is facing to the player.[/quote]

This very much seems like something I could live with. Wait actions (or most non-combat actions in which you are not moving to a different tile) giving you full 360 vision would probably make this a lot less of a hassle to deal with. I just like the idea of walking down a road and actually getting snuck up if I don’t pause to check behind me from time to time. You wouldn’t have to reverse directions, just stop for a turn. It’s pretty much how it would work in real life, so I don’t really see the problem.

You could manually look in another direction without changing tiles by using the look button.

I think what I would do is have the full circle (or square) visible for the sake of awareness, but keep everything except your LoS fogged out. So you’d see everything you normally do, except for monsters. Those you need to be actively looking in their direction to see.

I dunno, I can definitely understand why someone wouldn’t want to use this, but it would make for an interesting optional feature or mod, and it doesn’t seem like it’d be that much of a bother.

[Adrian]

The Survivor is like a fucking owl.

Is that a serum yet?

[StopSignal]

[quote=“Hyena Grin, post:18, topic:6247”][quote=“vache, post:7, topic:6247”]It could be that a move in any direction aims your field of view in that direction, while any rest or waiting (like pressing 5 or .) causes you to turn and search all directions.

The interesting thing might be trying to create this behavior in monsters, but then you run into the issue of how to convey what direction a monster is facing to the player.[/quote]

This very much seems like something I could live with. Wait actions (or most non-combat actions in which you are not moving to a different tile) giving you full 360 vision would probably make this a lot less of a hassle to deal with. I just like the idea of walking down a road and actually getting snuck up if I don’t pause to check behind me from time to time. You wouldn’t have to reverse directions, just stop for a turn. It’s pretty much how it would work in real life, so I don’t really see the problem.

You could manually look in another direction without changing tiles by using the look button.

I think what I would do is have the full circle (or square) visible for the sake of awareness, but keep everything except your LoS fogged out. So you’d see everything you normally do, except for monsters. Those you need to be actively looking in their direction to see.

I dunno, I can definitely understand why someone wouldn’t want to use this, but it would make for an interesting optional feature or mod, and it doesn’t seem like it’d be that much of a bother.[/quote]

Exactly this. Really.

It woud also add so much horror in going inside caves and stuff like that…