Field of vision!

[vache]

Plus, hearing could be reworked so that you have a good chance to not hear a lot of things you’re not focused on, unless you have the good hearing trait. It would actually give some reason to take that, and give more of a downside to the poor hearing trait.

[kevin.granade]

[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]
Huh, well there you go, the “wait to look around” thing isn’t a terrible UI, which was my main problem. That’s at least worth giving a try.

[Catfoodbob]

perhaps perception should also factor into your vision range, MUAHAHHAHa you will then really regret making the mistake of using perception as a dump stat when you can’t even see your immediate surroundings without Night-vision in complete darkness… also perhaps let there be a low light vision mutation that amplifies the light level which increses radius of sight based on light… but in complete darkness there is nothing to multiply

[Belteshazzar]

I’d actually considered this before as it adds to certain games like X-Com (which could ‘technically’ be played like a roguelike…) the cone of vision added something, especially in those super tense night-time jungle map abduction missions where you’re the last man conscious against an unknown number of Floaters.

However, I’ll note that these sorts of games usually have more than one character to control and one could both cover one’s corners and make at least one full facing twirl in a single turn (in addition to other actions.)

[StopSignal]

I think someone should give it a try, and then hand out a .zip with the modified game, to see how it would work. If we don’t like it, we will stop bothering with this.

Keeeeeeeeeeviiiiiiinnnnn…

[micko]

Woohoo. Yes the wait to look around would work. As belteshazzar stated with xcom games, the turning around cost 1 tu so you had to manage how much of the map you could see with your players. ( ps. Have you guys seen the awesome remake called xenonauts?) . This lead to some intense moments where you breach a door but run our of turns to fully explore the room. The dark unexplored corners could be hiding a number of aliens. If the room was completely revealed as soon as you walk in it wouldn’t have the same effect.

As for the looking around part, could the mouse be factored into this? I know having to manually turn around with the keys can be a pain in the bum (see ‘unreal world’). A mouse click could direct the players orientation giving a cone of sight in that direction. Movement could be the same with keys and would allow for strafing. This could open up more dynamic combat with the player only being able to attack in front of them until they develop more combat styles that allow for sweeping attacks, flips that may jump them a few squares away and turn their vision around ready for attacks, ‘equilibrium’ style gun fighting etc …

As was also mentioned, using this system for zombies could be factored into the stealth system where the player can see the enemy orientation and sneak around without being seen ( think metal gear solid!). Also, if a player wanted to develop sneaking they could have new abilities that you could leap or roll past a cone of sight to avoid being seen.

[KA101]

[quote=“Belteshazzar, post:24, topic:6247”]I’d actually considered this before as it adds to certain games like X-Com (which could ‘technically’ be played like a roguelike…) the cone of vision added something, especially in those super tense night-time jungle map abduction missions where you’re the last man conscious against an unknown number of Floaters.

However, I’ll note that these sorts of games usually have more than one character to control and one could both cover one’s corners and make at least one full facing twirl in a single turn (in addition to other actions.)[/quote]

Very true, and the Opposition in those games also has vision arcs (and it’s possible to surprise them as much as it’s possible to be surprised by them). Just something to keep in mind.

[vache]

Yeah, but it shouldn’t be hard to port the same thing to creature function from player function. The hard part is showing the player which direction a creature is looking. There could be a DF style multi creature blink, but have it blink between the creature and an indicator, if we had more glyphs available then possibly directional arrow glyphs.

[RAM]

Would this make dismantling a car fatal?

[vache]

Since you’re staying in one spot while dismantling the car, your vision would work the way it currently does.

[Hyena_Grin]

Nice, I really hope we get to try it out at some point, Kevin.

It would make running from zombies pretty tense. You turn tail to run and suddenly you can’t see them anymore, you just get those randomish question mark symbols for sounds. You may lose them but you’ll have a hard time figuring out where you lost them. You just ran in a panic for a while until you stopped seeing question marks and ducked behind a house. Are they still back there? Are they still following you? Should you wait and see if you can hear them coming?

Yeah, I think this would be a huge improvement, adding some legitimate uncertainty to the game.

[RAM]

Since you’re staying in one spot while dismantling the car, your vision would work the way it currently does.

That seems somewhat counter-intuitive. Manicular vehslaughter is pretty intensive work…

[Straume21]

Well, the thing isn’t that your character is always looking around them in a full 360 degree circle at any given time, but the idea is that they can be looking around.
Therefore, things that enter into their field of vision, no matter what direction they’re coming from, can be seen and looked at within the time it takes for a full turn, and surroundings that are behind or beside you without a creature on them to call for your attention, your character knows what’s there immediately in the first turn it enters into their vision, and they don’t need to look at it again if nothing about it is changing.
This is one of those things in which the player/character gap is very obvious. Just because you can see something on your screen, or even if you are scrolling over to it within the field of vision, your character isn’t necessarily looking at it (if it’s something they already know is there, like a chair or an item that isn’t moving), or they have time to look at it during every turn and be aware of its movements.

And guys, the game doesn’t need a field of vision implementation. While it would add a new layer to the game and something else to be worried about (whether that’s good or bad), in this particular sense, it functions like a traditional rogue-like, and I don’t think this should be something we stray from in the game’s development.
Part of the charm of the game is the twists that it adds to the traditional model of the rogue-like game, one of the aspects of that model being the full 360 degree field of vision.

[Zireael]

The Survivor is like a fucking owl.

Sigging this so much!

[StopSignal]

snip

I agree with what you say, but we just want to try it. If it does not work for the people who want it, it will work even less for you.

[vache]

Vision cones for enemies could end up being one of the first building blocks of a stealth system. If they’re implemented for enemies, it’s only a small step away from being implemented for the player. Suddenly, once you know where you can go without being spotted, things like sound and smell become more important, and it could lead to mechanics like positioning yourself downwind of enemies for a sneaky infiltration into a home (and possibly a reason to ever use things like the scent vision bionic).

To prevent the whole “I turned my back and now I can’t remember what the room behind me looks like” thing from happening, there could be a fog of war type system, where visited but currently unseen areas are greyed out. You only remember the locations of static things like terrain/furniture/traps, while monsters get replaced with ?s that are placed based on where they were when you saw them last and how good your hearing is.

[RAM]

Those ?s would need to decay.