A Land Far Away

NWN1 PWs eventually got options to toggle/turn 'clipping' on and off (called various names on different servers); basically PC's didn't 'bump' each other out of the way when passing by each other, but moved past each other smoothly. Is this possible to do with NWN2 at all?

This effects gameplay in three different ways:

1. when PC avatars 'bump/clip' they can get trapped during combat by allied creatures/other PCs, taking away control of movement. This happened to me twice in two days and was incredibly frustrating; the other players didn't realize what was happening (somewhat understandable) and my PC was getting pounded standing in place trying to move away from hostiles while trapped by friendlies.

Both from a PnP rules perspective (where you can freely move through squares that an ally occupies as long as you don't end movement in that square) and from a reasonable IC RP perspective (Hey, my buddy that's between me and the nasty is getting beat on and looks like he's pulling back; I'll make sure I don't get in his way/Hey buddy I'm getting beat on here and need to withdraw, let me get by thx vs *desperately runs into his buddy's chest again and again and bounces off while the buddy blindly ignores his plight or even steps on his foot*) this doesn't seem ideal unless the PCs are literally supposed to be packed like sardines into a truly tiny space.

2. Travel map, at least TSM's travel map. One of the less delightful (though somewhat humorous) experiences in ALFA is transitioning to one of TSM's travel maps and seeing the party leader (who is the only one that can move) get trapped by the other PCs around him. An option to toggle clipping on/off would simply eliminate this problem.

Less often, this also applies anytime a group of PC's get clustered together and need to move carefully; as is, it's like watching a bunch of bowling pins sometimes, one move a certain way, and everyone gets knocked around, possibly triggering traps, etc that they're trying to avoid.

3. Aesthetics. It just looks silly when folks are knocking each other about just by passing near them/moving close to them. It also prevents certain kinds of more touchy feely RP. I'm surprised none of the members of the cyberaholics anonymous have complained about this yet.

if you remove though.... you could put 5 people standing in the same square right?
or is there a way to prevent that?

I've never seen that be an issue in NWN1. I think it may be possible to end up with several people in what looks like a very tight group hug... which isn't such a bad thing. ALFA needs more group hugs maybe?

As for combat, I don't recall seeing silly stuff like five folks standing in one chokepoint pounding a lone mob. I'm not sure why that is, I just don't recall ever seeing that.

Per RAW, you CAN have 3 attacking a lone mob standing on a 5 foot square chokepoint, more if others have reach weapons. Or if you allow it to move one square forward, you can have 5 pounding at him (again, more with reach weapons), although his buddy behind him then can reach two of your guys with melee.

More importantly imo, none of them would be prevented by their buddies from withdrawing/escaping/tumbling back out of danger.

It's a good question though; the ideal perhaps is if clipping can be adjusted so you can have two, maybe three slip/slide past each other without issue, and maybe more than that can't, so you don't have more than 3 pounding away at a chokepoint?

Although honestly, how often do we see a cluster of 4 or more melee PCs taking good advantage of a chokepoint small enough to only allow one creature to fit through? I've yet to see such brilliantly executed tactics with a group large enough to have 4+ melees in it.

Turrets (numerous people occupying the same space) in chokes would happen even if the players didn't consciously order it that way simply because the AI moves you up the closest available slot next to your target when you attack it. Without bounding boxes the turret would likely be the inevitable result. To boot, AoE attacks would take on a whole new level of danger*...


* This reminds me of the Archon Toilet. (Slightly niche reference there.)

Clipping cannot be adjusted. I don't really see any reason to let it be turned off? We cannot and should not try to emulate 3.5 rules where NWN's are actually superior (we use 32-bit floating point numbers with X, Y and Z coordinates; 3.5 uses 5-foot squares).

It should be possible to code a "tumble away from combat" button that makes your PC "jump" up to a certain distance to a free space if he's trapped.

Travel map clipping can be bypassed by the leader using kemo emotes.

I thought removing clipping was precisely one of the features of the Kemo set for the above mentioned, infamous "touchy feely" RP.

Simply removing clipping in combat, or even allowing a button to toggle it, will likely cause more issues that it will solve. But it might be beneficial if you could enter a mode where you ignore clipping by allies (it should be a tumble check to ignore enemy clipping), but while in the mode you can't do any other actions except movement (and talk / emote as normal).

I wasn't aware Kemo had this feature; good to know.

So, removing clipping is possible?

As for combat, if either of those approaches to maneuvering past allies could be implemented it would be grand. It wouldn't even have to be a tumble check, simply move away and take an AOO is an option for folks without tumble (as is full withdrawal to avoid the first AOO).

If temporarily turning off clipping is possible, perhaps a 'withdraw' mode or toggle that makes you temporarily not clip allies, but unable to do anything but move for that round. The tumble check or eat AOO should still roll as per normal. It's not as good as full pnp Withdraw but it's still a huge improvement to getting trapped by your buddies.

Not clipping through enemies with a high enough tumble check would be nice for high tumble folks (DC is 25+), but really just gravy.

Turning off Collisions has been discussed by Tech before - beside the issues already raised in this thread, there are several notable exploits that become feasible when Collisions are ignored.

If we turn off collisions for PC's, do we then turn off collisions for mobs as well to be fair?

There are multiple methods to turn off clipping-- the obvious one is extremely buggy and exploitable. The less-obvious one is more work, so not something that we're likely to just see pitched in one update-- for PCs or NPCs.

Zelknolf wrote:There are multiple methods to turn off clipping-- the obvious one is extremely buggy and exploitable. The less-obvious one is more work, so not something that we're likely to just see pitched in one update-- for PCs or NPCs.

What is the less obvious one?

kid wrote:What is the less obvious one?

Killing all the PCs. = No clipping.

Oh wait, that's the obvious one.

The less-obvious one is a technical explanation: we can tweak the yoinkboards and the scrimshanks, but we have to watch the fiddledoos and the yoinkboards and the scrimshanks, because if you shenagle the fiddledoos while the yoinkboard is tweaked, your scrimshanks get in a big pile! And nobody wants that.

(sorry Kid, I've learned that there's a threshold of technical-ness that's just not a good idea to post in a public forum; it makes a mess of everything and people generally end up grossly misinformed. Doing no clipping in a way that can't be exploited requires more effort and a lot of testing, because the actual "clipping" function lets you walk through locked doors; that's all there is to it.)

didnt ask for the tech explenation.

Wanted to know what would the less obvious way mean to us in game.

Well, perhaps the PC who goes into "squeezing through narrow things" -mode could instead have a very small "footprint" (the radius the object takes on walkmesh)? Is there a way to scale that independently? Then you can't go through objects, but odds are rather good you could squeeze past a swarm of characters bumping into each other. Suppose a problem is if you try to get back to normal mode, but are in too tight a spot to fit. But that problem should be no less (in fact even worse), if you just simply remove all clipping, cause you can box yourself even tighter.