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Sheffie

Drowning code is terrible. Last gasp is also terrible.

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I'm working on a canal, so I'm standing on the corner of a tile with a dredge, removing dirt. Because the water is steep, I am not regaining stamina. Because I am not paying enough attention, my stamina gets down to zero.

 

So much for the things that are my fault. Now, over to you.

 

I choose to swim diagonally across the tile, because that's my shortest route to dry land. The heights of the corners of this tile are as follows:

 

Southwest: -11 (my initial position)

Northwest: -16

Northeast: 0

Southeast: +20

 

When I try to swim diagonally from the SW to the NE corner of this tile, two problems are noticeable. 

- I am bumping off the diagonal slope very rapidly

- I am moving very slowly

These two factors combine to result in a situation where I take 57% drowning damage crossing one tile. This value seems excessive, and is probably an indicator that there's a bug.

 

Yes, I'm aware of the kludge that is "Last Gasp". I know that in theory you can use it to haul yourself out of the water and avoid drowning. I also know that in practice it almost never works. Just about every time I find myself needing it, I stop climbing almost immediately. I find myself more annoyed than I would be if the feature didn't exist.

 

Some suggestions:

  • Prevent  "Last Gasp" from deactivating before two minutes have elapsed, or before the player has travelled two tiles, at minimum.
  • Make "Last Gasp" do something completely different. For example, allow the user to activate the feature in any shoreline tile, and have it lock them in place while their stamina regenerates, before deactivating the feature and beginning its cooldown. Essentially, you cling to a rock and recover.
  • Debug the "last gasp" code and find out why it throws you out of climbing mode so easily. If there is a particular edge case, such as activating the feature before or after coming into contact with a steep slope, that prevents the feature working properly, and you are unwilling or unable to fix that, consider offering instructions to the user in a dialog, before activating it.
  • Debug the drowning code and find out what part of contacting steep slopes, or falling, is "confusing" the reckoning of how much drowning damage the player takes.
Edited by Sheffie
Moderation edit

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One of the more instructive ways to improve the usability of a software product is for developers to observe ordinary people attempting to use the software as intended. A critical part of this technique is that developers are not allowed to help or instruct the users in any way. I believe that the last gasp feature is one which would benefit enormously from such an exercise.

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I have never had Last Gasp fail. Last gasp doesn't turn on or off climbing, it's a buff of it's own.

 

Simple solution, why aren't you using a boat to dredge? The dirt to hold is so much easier than having to empty it every dig.

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5 minutes ago, Kelody said:

I have never had Last Gasp fail. Last gasp doesn't turn on or off climbing, it's a buff of it's own.

 

Perhaps I'm the only person who can't use it. It's a possibility.

 

So how is it supposed work?

 

You activate Last Gasp when you're... touching the rock, or not? In climbing mode, or not?

Edited by Sheffie

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It won't help you swim. It won't stop you from drowning. It only lets you climb up the shore. If the shore is too steep or you weigh too much, it's very possible not to be able to escape the water before drowning.

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I think I've figured out part of the problem.

 

When you activate Last Gasp, this puts you into climbing mode automatically .

 

The user may not be expecting this. If the user does not realize that they were put into climbing mode by the Last Gasp code, they will surely press the key bound to Toggle Climb, in the belief that they need to start climbing in order to climb out of the water. If they do this — not at all unreasonable or unlikely — they will leave climbing mode, having lost their opportunity to use Last Gasp and having gained no benefit from it.

 

The problem, then, is a combination of factors:

  • automatic operation of the Toggle Climb functionality, and
  • the decision to make climbing a toggle rather than having separate on/off commands.

It is the combination of these two that makes Last Gasp a frustrating feature, and one which is potentially fatal to the character.

Personally I still think that a dialog box explaining the situation would be the best solution. That gives the average user the highest chance of using the feature correctly. The second best solution would be to temporarily lock the user in climbing mode, and the third best, to simply remove the activation of Climb mode from the Last gasp code, leaving it up to the user to activate.

Edited by Sheffie

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If you are making a canal, I highly recommend parking a boat near you and embarking as passenger to regain stamina.

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16 minutes ago, zethreal said:

If you are making a canal, I highly recommend parking a boat near you and embarking as passenger to regain stamina.

Then the dirt ends up in the boat also, instead of in the dredge.

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I appreciate the helpful tips and workarounds.

I'm trying to report a defect.

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I think it is rather a topic for suggestions. I used last gasp twice, once with so few effect that I decided to log out for 2 hrs to get a bit stamina back (that works too given it still works). I would support that last gasp is nothing less than intuitive, and easily mistaken and then on cd for 18 (?) hrs.

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