ACR Update

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Zelknolf
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ACR Update

Post by Zelknolf »

ACR updates are set up and will roll out as each server finds opportunity to restart.

Few features of this...
  • zSpawns will no longer produce technicolored rainbows of non-playable races (that is, skeletons/goblins/gnolls/etc will go back to the original dark sooty grey)
  • ACR AI will have better performance on the lost perception event (more specifically, less likely to throw an exception)
  • The combat XP that I promised a while back (wherein the most XP is had by parties of 4-6) actually happens now. (previously, the peak total XP awarded to the whole party was at 5 players, rather than the peak XP per character).
  • Traps which are not placed by a Trap origin object now shoot VFXes correctly.
  • Hit point adjustments and offline resting now fire later in the login process, so they don't lose hit points due to items that provide a bonus to constitution and don't heal due to temporary hit points.
    • Important to note that the ACR continues to not support items that apply a penalty to ability scores. There is a complete rewrite of core systems required for such items to work correctly, and toolsetters and DMs should be aware of the serious, likely unintended, problems such items cause players.
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Re: ACR Update

Post by HEEGZ »

thanks a bunch 8)
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Castano
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Re: ACR Update

Post by Castano »

thanks! I'll ask players to give feedback on the combat XP situation...is stuff better now? Are you more willing to arrange larger groups rather than couples/solos?
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Zelknolf
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Re: ACR Update

Post by Zelknolf »

Well, we found out about it because we've had enough people in game that larger groups are plausible, and so we got data points about the first implementation having a problem.

Imagine we'll have better information about whether folk are happier in groups now that there's no XP penalty for being in a group once we've given the latest iteration on it some time to hang out in play.
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Re: ACR Update

Post by Zelknolf »

And another one.

This time...
  • Swimming will not produce stacking heartbeats when crossing multiple swim triggers.
  • Detect Magic fires events on objects in a cone (so that it may be used by scripts on those objects-- like for a quest).
  • PCs who end up in a random dungeon template area by whatever means can use the area's ATs to go to the start area.
  • Players are prevented from taking two prestige classes on the same character.
  • The login check for excessive stats only fires on level 1 characters.
  • Traps should be better at identifying if they have an object to shoot projectiles from.
  • Larger random dungeons should continue to have a gradient of area CRs, instead of this trait being reserved for the small ones.

One known issue -- this swim fix works by slowing down the "stop swimming" event, so someone who goes out of the water without stopping to RP will find that they're able to "air swim" for a few seconds.
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Re: ACR Update

Post by danielmn »

Air swim? I prefer to think of it as dropping it like it's hot. It's always how I dry off! :P
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Zelknolf
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Re: ACR Update

Post by Zelknolf »

And I no longer need to carefully monitor everything that the random dungeons do from fear that they'll eat the servers.

Official documentation for them lives here:
http://www.alandfaraway.info/wiki/Random_Dungeon

And the sunken_* series of areas can be taken off of BG by any server who would like to re-use my work on the dungeons.

And an example of dungeon spawner widgets (which may also just be copied off if a server has also taken the sunken_* series of areas): https://github.com/ALandFarAway/alfa010 ... eb3ddd8013
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Wynna
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Re: ACR Update

Post by Wynna »

This is such a major system that it's hard to even comment on coherently. 'Thanks' doesn't seem to cover it. Well done, Zelk. This is a very cool tool and I look forward to deploying it in a game.
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Re: ACR Update

Post by HEEGZ »

Very awesome. Just read the wiki entry for the dungeons, thanks Zelk!

So on TSM or BG, I could make random dungeons with no spawns and no traps starting immediately? Ie. a 10 area/level random dungeon to fill up?
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Re: ACR Update

Post by Zelknolf »

Yes. A dungeon with no spawn tables is just areas to be used however you like-- though to accomplish this the dungeon -is- linked to your avatar ID, so you need to log in with a different one if you want more than one dungeon.
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Re: ACR Update

Post by Ithildur »

Great scott. Thanks for your work on this.
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Zelknolf
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Re: ACR Update

Post by Zelknolf »

We'll be getting another ACR update as our various servers find a chance to restart.

This time...
  • Haven Song uses the same checks as other bard songs to determine if you have adequate ranks in perform.
  • If ACR_Items calls create an item, then they return the id of the new item.
  • A PC who is petrified doesn't get a "You're dead" popup or a respawn button.
  • The petrification gaze attack now calculates its DC at 10 + half the gazer's hit dice + the gazer's charisma modifier (it used to be hardcoded to DC 13, as an uninteresting basilisk).
  • Gaze attacks are now decidedly vision-based. This means...
    • You can't be hit by a gaze attack if you are blind.
    • You can't be hit by a gaze attack if you are using blindsight.
    • You can't be hit by a gaze attack if you can't see the gazer.
    • You can't be hit by a gaze attack if the gazer can't see you.
    If you're used to pen and paper and want a comparison...
    • ALFA doesn't provide a mechanism to "avert your eyes" and provoke a gaze attack miss chance.
    • ALFA doesn't provide a way to pointedly not face a gaze attack monster.
As a summary on gaze attacks, this actually means that you acquire a few methods of fighting a creature that relies on gaze attacks: you can intentionally blind yourself (like with a blindfold), you can cast spells that allow you to function without sight (like blindsight), and you can use cover to break line of sight between you and the gazer (as always, combining cover with stealth is way more effective). This also means that magic and abilities that improve your vision (true seeing, see invisibility) make you weaker against gaze attacks-- so be careful when and where you cast stuff.

And of course be careful because PnP DCs on the really-nasty one is here. That greater basilisk just went from DC 13 to DC 21.
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Re: ACR Update

Post by kid »

Zelknolf wrote: [*]Hit point adjustments and offline resting now fire later in the login process, so they don't lose hit points due to items that provide a bonus to constitution and don't heal due to temporary hit points.
Question: Does that mean that Theoretically... If we'd like... We can have an "add X HP" item now?
Tech wise, that is, I know we can't as far as our game rules are.
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Re: ACR Update

Post by HEEGZ »

So... do we have blindfold helmet items in game that cause the blindness condition on PCs?
Zelknolf
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Re: ACR Update

Post by Zelknolf »

kid wrote:Question: Does that mean that Theoretically... If we'd like... We can have an "add X HP" item now?
Tech wise, that is, I know we can't as far as our game rules are.
No. The only bug fix is to items that increase a PC's constitution.
HEEGZ wrote:So... do we have blindfold helmet items in game that cause the blindness condition on PCs?
Not yet, but they're easy to implement at the server level.
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