Bay 12 Games Forum
Dwarf Fortress => DF Suggestions => Topic started by: Neonivek on September 14, 2014, 02:49:20 pm
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Simple suggestion. You see a river in front of in the overworld view... You should be able to just... cross it.
Either just automatically (and make it take time) or by doing an action.
The thing is that Rivers are WAAAAAY too much of an obstacle.
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All you have to do is become a novice swimmer, then spend five minutes swimming in a pond. Just press d, swim across the river, sleep for an hour, then leaves. Easy.
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Stopping and swimming is still way longer than just crossing the river using fast travel mode. Keep in mind that you can't just pop out next to the river - you need to be some distance away both coming down and going back up into fast travel mode.
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You should be able to cross rivers on the world map if they're frozen, or if you have Adequate or better Swimming skill. (Adequate is the point at which you don't panic at falling in, so it should be as unproblematic as land travel).
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Stopping and swimming is still way longer than just crossing the river using fast travel mode. Keep in mind that you can't just pop out next to the river - you need to be some distance away both coming down and going back up into fast travel mode.
And you have a great chance to lose party members... because you have to wait for them all to sort of huddle around you from the river.
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The companions wont jump in after you. It's fast and simple.
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The companions wont jump in after you. It's fast and simple.
It's not fast It takes more then 10 times the time you'd normally take to travel the same distance.
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It's not fast It takes more then 10 times the time you'd normally take to travel the same distance.
I never use travel mode except to get companions over rivers and down from trees.
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So you want to spend all of adventure mode fast travelling and not doing anything? Kind of pointless, but I guess that's fun for you.
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So you want to spend all of adventure mode fast travelling and not doing anything? Kind of pointless, but I guess that's fun for you.
I don't want to spend all my time swimming across rivers when I could use that time instead to get to the next location that's actually interesting.
If you want to spend your time swimming, I guess you can still do that. *grumble* As if grinding (and swimming across rivers is grinding at best) ever was a valid part of actual gameplay...
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You're complaining about a ten seconds at max activity. And that's if you're on a horrible computer and you're going across an ocean.
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Dude, loading the local map sometimes takes 3 seconds on its own!
And if every step takes half a second (which isn't unusual at all on older or larger worlds) then it cannot be a 10-second activity ever, because the world squares are more than 20 steps across.
I don't see your problem with this proposal. Are you contrary only for the sake of it or is there an actual concern that the game would be worse if you could cross rivers on the world map?
It's fine if you don't have a problem with how it works now, but I don't see how this would make the suggestion less valid. If you don't have anything that actually speaks against this proposal then I'd suggest you shut up and let the people who actually care do the talking. It's not like you loose anything when it gets implemented.
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It just seems rather pointless. Bridges on major rivers would make sense, like in the towns. But it would only make sense if your companions were trained swimmers as well. The swimming across then sleeping doesn't make much sense either. With that already existing, there's really no reason to implement it, other than people want to be in fast travel 24/7.
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Look, I only want to leave fast travel when I get to actually do something interesting. "Swimming across a river" doesn't count as "doing something interesting" - fighting against monsters is, talking to locals is, exploring caves and caverns is, climbing across ridges is, swimming across rivers is not. Is that really so hard to understand?
It might be pointless to you, it's just not for me and probably not for the OP. I don't get why you are posting in this thread in the first place - it's not like you are making alternate suggestions or telling any reasons why it is a bad idea.
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Well I was stating the already implemented alternative, a reason why it wouldn't logically work, even though the alternative doesn't either, and another alternative. And you're still complaining.
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Uhm...
I was of the impression that fast travel was implemented so going long distances wasn't as tedious - now I have to cross rivers on a regular basis, switching between local map and travel map around 5 to 10 times when going from one location to another. Assuming a load time of 3 seconds for loading/unloading the local map this is 15 to 30 seconds for loading alone, not even counting the time it takes to walk to the river, swim across it and then walk away from the river, which takes even more time. I think this is rather tedious, especially if I just want to get to that damn necromancer tower to actually do stuff.
Your "alternatives", if I get that right:
All you have to do is become a novice swimmer, then spend five minutes swimming in a pond. Just press d, swim across the river, sleep for an hour, then leaves. Easy.
Doesn't even get the point of what this is about. I don't want to avoid having to swim across the river, I want to avoid having to load the local map for that.
This comment by Sutremaine actually addresses what this is about:
You should be able to cross rivers on the world map if they're frozen, or if you have Adequate or better Swimming skill. (Adequate is the point at which you don't panic at falling in, so it should be as unproblematic as land travel).
I agree with this proposal.
Bridges on major rivers would make sense, like in the towns
This is also besides the point. Of course going across bridges is nice. But again, having to switch to the local map only because I swim instead of walk seems a bit stupid, especially because there is nothing interesting about swimming at all.
But it would only make sense if your companions were trained swimmers as well
Maybe you should read across what you write before you post it. Unless you actually meant to imply that companions only are able to cross bridges if they can swim.
Restricting swimming across rivers on the travel map to when all of your companions can swim is fine with me.
The swimming across then sleeping doesn't make much sense either.
I don't even know what that means.
With that already existing, there's really no reason to implement it, other than people want to be in fast travel 24/7.
Because in Dwarf Fortress there's only two activities: Swimming in rivers and fast traveling. I guess I imagined all the other stuff I thought I did.
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So you failed to actually read it in order then? The way you get across a river now without bridges in towns or going around is simply swimming across, then if you want your companions across, sleeping. This somehow magically brings them across. It takes an incredibly short amount of time. I'm not sure how you got 3=15. Try using smaller worlds, it makes map switches faster. When did I ever say you could only cross bridges if swimming? Never. You simply thought that up yourself. Bridges on rivers would act just like they do in towns, allowing you to fast travel over. You're the one who seems to only want to fast travel, I don't see why, but it seems to be what you mainly want to do. Read things in order, you might understand them. The map isn't one giant river, it's not tedious at all to spend a few seconds maybe a few times an hour going across. Towns are often on rivers.
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It takes an incredibly short amount of time
Yeah... assuming you have to do it only once... and even then you probably could have got to where your going in the amount of time it takes to cross one river.
Even then is this suggestion really so bad? if crossing a river is really so easy... Why not make it possible to cross on the map?
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I never said it shouldn't be implemented. You people are taking refinement and replacements as opposition.
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the option to cross in fast-travel should be there for those who want it.
there could still be ways to make it slightly more immerse such as a certain swimming skill necessary to cross that could change based on the strength/speed of the river.
armor also could be taken into account with more armor and more things carried making it so you need a higher swim skill to cross in fast-travel.
the option to fast travel could also be not available if there are predator-type animals at that particular location like crocodiles
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So you want to spend all of adventure mode fast travelling and not doing anything? Kind of pointless, but I guess that's fun for you.
Have you ever tried to walk across a continent in Fast Travel to get to another civilization? You have to stop every thirty map tiles, load the local map, swim/walk across the river, and then load fast travel again, and nothing really happens. It is time consuming and boring.
It would be some much easier to just skip it if you can swim or the river is frozen.
Plus, there are things like quests and ambushes while you are walking. Who plays adventure mode simply walking everywhere anyways?
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Water presents a chance to force you into the local area. Unlike an ambush which is routine, you have to deal with local critters, zombies, alligators, etc.
Its not easy to ford a river, and Id like to think it helps make the process of travel more visceral.
This of course, is not to say it cant be improved.
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You don't need to sleep in order to make your companions automagically cross the river. You can go into the local map, cross the river yourself, and then fast travel as soon as possible. Your companion should follow you, but check that this is the case by fast travelling one tile and then going into the local map. I think that if they do remain behind, they appear as an asterisk on the map. It's still a pain in the butt, and being able to Travel would be much better.
You can also teach companions to swim by tile-swapping (notice that when you try and walk into their tile, they move into the one you were just occupying), but that only helps if they see a carp or something and dive in to kill the menace. They still won't enter the water willingly.
It'd be neat if you could order a companion to go for a dip, and then you'd stay next to them to give them a hand out when they were tired of half-drowning. If you moved away from the edge of the water and they got themselves out before drowning, they'd be mad at you.
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You could actually cross rivers in fast travel in the 2010 version of the game. It made traveling from place to place much more streamlined.
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You don't need to sleep in order to make your companions automagically cross the river. You can go into the local map, cross the river yourself, and then fast travel as soon as possible.
Which can make you lose companions.
You could actually cross rivers in fast travel in the 2010 version of the game. It made traveling from place to place much more streamlined.
It also had this slight consequence of making exploration fun. To where you really did want to explore the four corners of the earth and find some of the hidden areas tucked into corners or behind mountains.
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I think the most annoying thing for me in regards to rivers is the distance you need to walk away from it in order to be able to fast travel.
I don't mind the manual crossing of a river, as for me it's often a good occasion to drink and hunt preys to refill my carried food, but once you have done everything you wanted/battled anything that was in/close to the river and just want to leave, you have to walk for a boring and completely uneventful time until finally the "you must move away" message does not pop up and you finally can resume your fast travel toward something more interesting, and hope your stupid companions will not be left behind.
making that "must move away" distance much shorter would break less of the fun in my opinion.