Opinion: Clickable "lightswitch" controls or invisible walls?

[Ociporus]

I remember the old days of exile and early avernum -- bumping head first into walls to see if there was an invisible one. I'd wait until I'd cleared the dungeon of all nasties, then systematically bump along until I found the special treasure I just knew had to be there.

 

I remember the sudden rush I felt when my careful probing found a previously-invisible access! I'd momentarily pause, because either treasure and/or a powerful foe was awaiting me. Sometimes one invisible door led to another!

 

Sometimes I'd rest for a bit in that secret spot. Then upon exit, there were tons more enemies waiting for me! (A3??).

 

Then there was also the farsight spell to spot particularly difficult invisible areas.

 

A labor-intensive process you say? Too hard? So what's your opinion? Do you prefer the invisible doors or the obvious light-switches? (I call them "light-switches" because of their appearance).

[rabbit]

Light switches. They can still be missed. There's a difference, too, between playing well and playing like a machine.

 

Wasn't it Jeff who wrote about cheating on World of Warcraft? Saying that the majority of those using bots to manually level up and gather were doing so because it's so damn tedious?

 

There's no challenge in manually searching for secret doors or traveling from place to place looking for that ONE last herb.

 

A solid example of this dichotomy is King's Quest and Phantasmagoria. King's Quest let you click on everything without any hint as to what was clickable. Very frustrating.

 

Phantasmagoria highlighted your cursor when hovering over something actionable. The game was still difficult, but it wasn't _as_ frustrating.

 

Games are meant to be fun and challenging. Anything that detracts from those goals by way of unskilled labor (bumping into walls) is antithetical to the purpose of a game.

[Ociporus]

Since there has been so much debate about what people want to see in A6 and whether there will be re-writes of Exile & A1-3, it is a valid question.

 

I thought it [invisible walls] added to the atmosphere of the old games. A little more tension. Maybe a little more reward for fastidiousness.

[Sudanna]

Nalyd misses Far Sight. It was his favorite spell. He could just picture Mycroft falling back, foaming at the mouth and screeching insanities about the area he was searching. Ah, rabid Mycroft, Nalyd misses you.

[Brock The Archmage]

Imagine Mycroft using Far sight in a town early in the morning when people are bathing in preparation for work. He just wants to find secret doors, but he gets quite a shock....

[Lilith]

I actually think the switch system is more challenging than the false-wall system, because it's based on the player's observational skill rather than her willingness to perform repetitive tasks. I can find every secret door in Exile or Avernum just by hugging the walls and running my fingers across, say, the 789 keys when walking north instead of just mashing the 8 key. That's got nothing to do with skill.

 

If Jeff wanted to bump up the challenge, he could hide the switches much better than he does and change them so that the U key doesn't highlight any switches onscreen. He doesn't because people already make angry posts complaining about the difficulty of finding hidden switches, which means it's probably about as difficult as he could get away with.

[Micawber]

I was playing Avernum 3 again recently, and I rediscovered how tedious it is to be constantly searching for secret passages (even though I have remember "roughly" where they all are from many previous playthroughs). The same basic technique applies, i.e. look at the automap to spot where a secret area is likely to be, then figure out how to get in there. But the Avernum 5 setup is harder, because the switch need not necessarily be adjacent to the secret area -- this adds more of a challenge. And it may also be hidden by the perspective. And Avernum 5 has much darkness, so the dark spots tend to blend in unless you use lamps and walk very close to the walls.

 

I didn't find hitting "u" all the time to be a good way to spot switches... too many barrels, chests, bodies, boats, etc, makes it way too tedious.

[Ociporus]

So if the early games are converted, I guess the switches just need to be placed somewhere. I suppose that would add some new challenge for ones that played the old games enough so as to roughly remember where the hidden areas were -- they would need to find the switch that opened access to it. Or multiple switches...

 

Also, given that movement tends to be by mouse now instead of the venerable old keyboard keys (which I find confusion now that NORTH is skewed to the top-right) bumping into walls to discover hidden doors is even more tough.

[Callie]

The switches are better, I think. It's a lot better than staring at the automap, looking for little protrusions from the unseen side of the wall.

[Mah Al Ibara]

I agree that switches are better than the earlier invisible walls. There are still hidden entrances, but most require hints from NPCs. It might be a good idea to make it possible to also detect such entrances through high nature lore, arcane lore, or tool skill, since there's always the possibility that you may have prematurely killed the NPC whose hint is required (e.g., Kingsley, in the case of the Mindwarp Chitrach quest).

[Alorael at Large]

The switches are better, but I'd be unsurprised if they weren't dragged in for remakes of old games that use the walls. Instead, it seems possible that secret doors might be highlighted if you have, say, enough disarm (or some other thief skill). That way they don't need to be reprogrammed, but the tedium can be removed if you have a party specialized in doing so.

 

—Alorael, who doesn't think this is likely. It would require almost as much work and not add much. But it's another possibility. And consider that wall-bashing isn't a problem as long as there's a better option available.

[DrRorschach]

As much as I love anything and everything exile, I must admit that I kinda prefer the lightswitch method a little better. Not to say that they don't piss me off every freaking day, but they require intelligence and observation on the part of the gamer, not just brute force and chunks of time. But maybe if you were to take damage in the exile games, say a broken nose, for being idiotic enough to continually run facefirst into a wall.....

[Xaiya]

Why smash your nose into a wall when you can just slam your foot or hand into it?

 

I prefer switches. They add something. Though maybe a combination of the two?

[-=microphage=-]

Good question.

 

I like thw switches. The walls have the same pattern everywhere and you have to move your cursor to highlight a switch. Also there are instances of switches being hidden.

 

There was also a feature that you could type "u"sable items and they'd be alpha letter highlighting!

 

Moving our cursor over switchlike shapes is more naturally challenging than hitting every surface like you had OCD.

 

I remember how cool some of the earlier games seemed at the time...

 

But I find it difficult to get the same enjoyment after playing the new ones when I fool around with the old ones.

 

Looking forward to A6 and the re-writing of A1-3 with all the cool stuff that's possible now.

-=microphage=-

[Pig Catapult]

I have to admit, I'm quite fond of the switches.

[Thrasher]

The 'u' command makes them easy to find, especially those hidden ones. Almost feels like cheating...

[Hydromedia]

Why DISCUSS Avernum when one could PLAY Geneforge? Never like Avernum for reason just like that.

[Randomizer]

Play Geneforge and spend hours slowly moving the mouse cursor to highlight hidden items that are obscured by pillars, walls, bushes, etc.

[Upon Mars.]

No. You don't ''spend hours slowly moving the mouse cursor to highlight hidden items that are obscured by pillars, walls, bushes, etc...'' in geneforge !

You slaughter kill and obscure hopes of people.

That's what's it's all about.

[Tyranicus]

Am I the only person here who prefers the old wall-bumping style? It's part of the charm of Avernum, IMHO.

[Pig Catapult]

Wall-bumping will always have a very special place in my heart, but, given the new engine, I don't think it's really practical anymore.

[Evnissyen]

Randomizer:

The Geneforge lever searches seem to be confined to areas that, for some reason, you cannot access... or similar things. So you tend to know when to look for one, even if it is annoying, when you're dragging that damn cursor for the longest time trying to find a hidden lever, and still you miss it until finally, like magic, it pops up, gloriously outlined.

[rabbit]

> when you're dragging that damn cursor for the

> longest time trying to find a hidden lever

 

Or you can, you know, hit the 'u' key from time to time.

[Dikiyoba]

That's a new feature in A5, so it doesn't help in G4.

 

Dikiyoba didn't think G4 was terrible for hidden levers, because they occur so frequently you automatically start looking for them. It was the one hidden lever in G1 that took Dikiyoba forever to find.

[Randomizer]

It's not the hidden levers so much since I only missed one, but the loot that appears so you only spot it by highlighting it.

 

Well that and yesterday I missed a mine mostly concealed by the foilage and got acid sprayed. Having to reload to get the XP was a bother.

[Thrasher]

Yuck, I hate looking for hidden loot by pixel hunting (ala the Fallouts).

[Dikiyoba]

Originally Posted By: Randomizer

Well that and yesterday I missed a mine mostly concealed by the foilage and got acid sprayed. Having to reload to get the XP was a bother.

Oh, yes, those are annoying too. But at least you can't miss them.

Dikiyoba.

[Randomizer]

Yeah, the next one was fire damage and I survived by a few health. Jeff must roll on the floor laughing after placing these.

[Toby-Linn]

I like the new "lightswitches", plus the fact that you could tell where there was hidden rooms because of wall protrusions.

 

I find it's much harder in Avernum 5 to tell where secret rooms are because so much of the automap is empty....

 

What I mean is, when in a dungeon in Avernum 1-3 the large empty space at the top right/middle etc of the automap would have a secret room or something. In Avernum 5 it would just be an empty space.

 

I hope that made sense...

 

I would like to have a combination of head bumping and lightswitches for the next game, or maybe a lightswitch that actually makes light! Wait, do they have electricity in Avernum?

[King's Knight]

I prefer the new switches to the headbutting-the-wall style of finding secrets. Mostly because I play on a laptop that doesn't have a number pad, which makes the games before A4 a chore to play strictly using the mouse, while I get by fine in A4 and A5...

[Pig Catapult]

I really don't understand why playing the previous games with the mouse is such a pain. O.o;; It's what I did.

[Xaiya]

I prefer using the mouse on games. Then again, I'm not using a laptop (though laptops can have mouses too...just not on the go).

[Callie]

Originally Posted By: Pig Catapult

I really don't understand why playing the previous games with the mouse is such a pain. O.o;; It's what I did.

...because I'm too lazy to reach for the mouse.

[Toby-Linn]

I use the mouse all the time when playing games and such....I'm not good at the keyboard shortcuts, although I do know how to type.

 

Somestimes I wish I was better at using the keyboard for games, as it's probably faster.

[Paroxysm]

Originally Posted By: Pig Catapult

I really don't understand why playing the previous games with the mouse is such a pain. O.o;; It's what I did.

I use a combination of the mouse and keyboard personally. Pretty much have to play Avernum with the mouse though. (Point and click movement is nice, plus the isometric view screws me up.)

Jeff really didn't bother to hide the light switches. He just made them a pain to get to. That just made them annoying.

If you think that moving into every wall is dumb or time consuming then just don't do it. After you've played awhile you get a sense for finding them through looking at the automap and the actual terrain. (Or at least I did.)

[Evnissyen]

I found it annoying bumping into walls when I wasn't trying to find secret passages.