Aquatic Combat

[osma]

Preface: Please keep in mind throughout this text that Icesus is Icesus, which means that ideas that usually would seem stupid, such as fighting a whale from a boat, is no stranger then having a squirrel attack you after you stick a longsword into it. Some of the ideas presented use this to my advantage.

With the exception of a few die hard fanatics (cough jarrun cough) few people seem to care about boats or lakes. However, in thinking about the situation, I realised that there is numerous ways to make these basicly dead zones and create a useful series of ideas out of them.

To start with, consider water to simply be considered a new terrain, with its own monsters. However, since it is both a highly dangerous terrain, and poses a number of difficult problems, it will be considered a higher level (highbies and midbies) terrain.

Aquatic Combat:
My vision for water terrain would be that it is much more likely to have the good monsters (read high exp and/or high cash)... and be much more difficult then usual to kill.

When a medium sized charecter tries to enter a shallow river, they get the notice that "The water isn't very deep but you still have to try to swim." It would very likely be quite difficult to do combat with an alligator if you are having to swim just to move forward. The alligator on the other hand would not only be proficiant in aquatic combat, but in icesus it is huge sized, so would have very little trouble moving through the water.
Further, even large charecters (centaurs for example) have water around their ankles, which would slow them down a bit.

To make up for this deficit, charecters would have to learn Aquatic Combat. In conjuction possibly with various other skills (such as swimming for medium sized charecters), Aquatic Combat would slightly even the playing field, making it easier to combat these high experience and/or high cash mobs. (note: especialy with shallow rivers, corpses should not dissapear. The river is shallow enough you can see the bottom. Animals can be skinned in that little water, and corpses looted. In deeper rivers, the corpse could be taken to the bank (or shallower water) and worked with, so no point in letting them sink either). This skill could be learn by doing, and certin classes would be able to train it up to a reasonable % based on guild.
Examples would include Army (who would learn it like marine training); rangers and wilders who are used to any and all natural terrain (rangers could even have water added to rural combat: "You use the surrounding currents to your advantage, pushing the Turtle up into shallow waters, allowing you to easily strike it.");and the best guilds, the shifters, for reasons i will get to in a few min, and Water Priest who could quite naturally gain a number of diffrent aquatic skills and spells.

[An additional note for magic classes: although it dose not make sense for a mage for example to learn Aquatic Combat, it would be reasonable for certin types of magic to have diffrent effects in water. For example, Electric spells could deal extra damage (or aquatic creatures could have weakness to water). Cold spells would be more likely to freeze (including if used by monsters against players), fire would deal minimal damage and not catch people on fire, and acid specials that go off (covering a mob in crossive acid) would wear off quickly in the water running over their bodies.]

Rivers:
River terrain (r) are everywhere, usually providing drinking water and a place to drown shorter people. Medium sized races can walk/swim without danger of dying, and mounts (at least horses) can walk through those terrain rooms without problem. These would be considered a more low to medium level terrain, with mobs such as A suspicious-looking log (alligator type), various reptiles (turtles and frogs) aquatic mammals (bever and otter) and the ever-present wyverns (who are basicly reptilian and found everywhere). In colder areas such as ice flows, or rivers surrounded by snow, you might also find seals diving in the waters and walruses sunning on a block of ice in the river. Depending on who codes it, you might also get various monsters based on surrounding terrain, such as "A unicorn drinking at waters edge" in plain terrain or "A grizzly bear fishing in the shallows" in forest terrain.

Deep Rivers:
Deep river terrain would work much like shallow river, but would be for even higher level players (and people with either very high swimming, or very large bodies, or boats.) It would have the same monsters as shallow rivers, but would have additional mobs such as riverboats, ect.



For deeper terrain, the chareter would require something to keep them from drowning. There are a number of ways we can do this, and the choice is yours.

A) Boats -
There are numerous ways to create, design, or buy boats. First, there is a mob near the fishing hut that sells boats. This mob can be reproduced near every major lake without effort (hell. every major city has a nearby body of water which you could set up a boat maker.) Second, it is perfectly natural that a logger could take some cut logs, tie them together, and make a basic raft (maybe even a slightly larger raft for more then one person.) (2-3). Carpenters, maybe with boat specific skills, could build basic boats and higher quality rafts (less unstable). An additional few levels might be added to carpenters, giving them the abilities to make very high quality boats/ships which will allow up to 9 players to be in the same boat (also known as a full party.)

B) Aquatic Mounts -
It would be perfectly reasonable to have a harbor in which you can tie up your boats. In the same area/room you could have a stable which would sell aquatic mounts. These mounts would act like normal mounts, but would be limited to water terrain and swamps only (some aquatic mounts might be too large for swamps). Examples would be an alligator mount, a sea serpent, a Aquatic Wyvern (shore living wyvern), Turtle (low damage, high defence), sea horse.
In addition, some mounts could be taught the feat Swim which will allow them to (if unencumbered by a wagon) enter water too deep for it. This would however be very tiring and may cause some mounts (horses) to drown if they run out of ep.

C) Guild abilites
There are 2 abilities that I have thought of that would qualify as allowing a player to enter water without a boat or mount. One, would be Hive, which would have the mutation Gills which, quite naturally, would allow them to enter water squares without drowning.

The other goes back to my previous statement about shifters. An additional shifter guild could be added that would allow a player to shift into a sea serpent. When shifted into a Sea Serpent, the player would not be able to move overland very effectively (high ep cost and low combat power) but it would be highly effective in aquatic environments. Some early examples of the diffrent forms might be eel, electric eel, Sea Snake, Sea Serpent, Kraken. My thoughts on guild location would be either the swamps near Highhill or the swamps outside of Cendosis.

[Water priest might be taught a skill Water Walking in which they are able to, with great effort (high ep cost) walk on water. The higher the skill, the lower the cost, until with 100% they could walk over water as easily as over plains. Yes i know they have a spell that gives water breathing, but spells wear off, and you don't want to start drowning while in battle. The spell could be used on other players while they just use the skill for themselves.]
Deep Water:
Deep water (lakes and etc.) would be Highbie only terrain. Besides needing a boat or whatever to enter those zones without quickly drowning, the monsters found randomly in deep water would start out around 50k and go up from there. Examples of monsters would be Hammerhead Sharks, Great Whites, Kraken, Sea Serpents, Whales, Dolphins, Mermen/Mermaids, ect. (For those thinking saltwater versus fresh water, first remember that all the animals in the world fled to this area when the ice age hit, and two, it is far from the strangest things in the game.)

Deep Water Combat:
When in combat while on a boat or a raft, a charecter would learn various skills dealing with a) driving a boat with lower ep loss (large boats might have many oars where the party could share the ep cost of rowing), or sailing; b) fighting while on a moving ship; c) staying on-board when a Sea Serpent is trying to kick your ass into the water and eat you. Smaller boats (rafts) would be very easy to manuver, but would be very difficult to fight on and/or stay on when in major combat. Larger boats/ships would be harder to move through the water (unless the player/s were skilled in sailing) but would likely have defenses and maybe even large combat objects such as a ram or a billista.
If a monster throws you off the ship, you can possibly take a turn or two to climb back on. How that would effect your party (and those who are behind you in combat) might be intresting, not to mention if you can't swim.
When a monster dies, it would be pulled up on deck (corpse would appear in ship) where it can be skinned, looted, and dumped overboard (dig grave).


That is enough for now since it is getting late, but I may remember more later when it is not 1 am.

(P.s.: as a side note, if any of this is done, it would be reasonable to add hunting to water terrain, including water terrain mastery. I envision it like either stalking along the shoreline or sitting on a raft looking for something to shoot.)

[goderic]

Most of what you say makes a good deal of sense. I'm just a little baffled as to what sort of aquatic creatures would be high - cash?
As a side note, the mage 'floating' spell would suddenly go from being basically useless to very, very good indeed...

[allanon]

Sounds like fun, if only because you are correct that nearly all the water rooms of the OW go unused. Not even hardcore fishers bother - if you can catch the sturgeon right outside Vaerlon, why bother getting a boat and sailing to middle of giant lakes? This would add some nice touch.

Although I have to note, the rest of the outworld would probably need slight buffs if water gets this much attention. Perhaps long-awaited ice fishing etc. could come too

[khazadhum]

I like it myself, being only a lowbie and a newbie I never really thought about it. But the idea seems quite well planned out.

This would also open up the idea of player owned ships, ship to ship combat, piracy, trade between towns.

As for which aquatic creatures would be high cash I can think of merpeople or water elf (perhaps a new player race as well?) some sort of water dragon in various sizes, giant squids which have dragged some poor ship to a watery grave. Some of these might have stashes which after the monster is killed the hoard would have to be searched for in an underwater cavern.

All in all a really really good start and jumping off point that has lots of possibilities for expanded play and with the potential for doubling the play area of the game. Can't wait to see some of this implemented.

[thakkrad]

Although I have to note, the rest of the outworld would probably need slight buffs if water gets this much attention. Perhaps long-awaited ice fishing etc. could come too

Ice-fishing was implemented more than a year ago ... so unless someone has removed it, it should still be in the game

[osma]

I'm just a little baffled as to what sort of aquatic creatures would be high - cash?

Most people consider killing alligators, anacondas, and ciaman's to be "cash" mobs (as in reasonably easy to kill animals with 4 good value skins). Likewise, many of the monsters in aquatic terrain (above 3 plus many others, such as sea snake (serpent skin) and whale skin (easily 4 skins, although probably not easy to kill))

[sraak]

very well though and planned. all the replies are fine too. but.
you forgot very big sea areas. well, why not upgrade your version about midbie-highbie terrain to low/newbie-highbie terrain?
low waters for new/lowbie, middle waters to midbie and deep places to near lvl100?

and one more thing:
(i know, coding this is not so easy, but...)
it's time to get some masteries to this, in addition to perhaps water terrain in hunting. swimming-like masteries. and yes, then swimming has to be downtuned a bit, since, it's quite easy to learn nowadays.

[allanon]

...and then we can have Icesus Swim Competitions! New Divemaster title too...

I've been gone too long Can we build igloos, melt snow for water, make snowballs, cut grass for haymaking, climb trees in forests etc. yet?

Also, hunting in Wastelands terrain needs its own mastery.

As for "high - cash" aquatic foes, I think skins was the original idea. But I rather fancy the concept of killing krakens who happen to have ancient treasure chest on them. Or perhaps even fishing for such things!

Code: Select all

You finally manage to reel in the catch, it is a pouch full of mithril coins!

And suddenly, we find a use for Survivalist/Fishers guild

[osma]

Speaking of, at one point in my midnight rambelings, i forgot to mention that a possible uptune to make fishers more acceptable would be to have them have some small boat/raft making skills (fishing boat) and a bit of (small%) aquatic combat (got to fight those sturgens! Actualy would be more for those who like to wade out into the river and fish in the middle of it).

Also, aquatic would make swamps fighting a bit easier, and/or swamps would become a bit harder UNLESS you have aquatic combat. Was planning on adding swamps into the whole system somewhere because it always has water on the ground, and has a lot of the animals found in other enviroments (rivers). Hence some aquatic mounts being able to run in swamps, most of the boat makers and stable/harbors being in swamps, and shifter guild being located in a swamp.

[jarrun]

this idea is full of win!

[dwo]

The whole thing sounds realy cool and it would open up lots of new ways of exping etc to game. I realy like it.

I cant wait to hear what yoz will say..he has the best comments around here!

[yoz]

I hope you drown in your watery ideas.

I like an idea to be able to fight seamonsters and such while on boat etc (galleon full of halflings blasting ahead against a gigantic Sea cucumber!111), ending up in highly likely sinking of your boat, but i definately find it retarded to go swimming to bash some sharks. Come on. However, something like underwater areas or cities could be a nice idea.


Few good pointers, too many retarded ones.

[huntor]

It might be helpful to rename Master Hunters and Master Fishers to wood lore masters and water lore masters or something like that and add some aquatic skills to the water lore, also with the higher level monsters, when skinning as you auto carve you could note inside a shark or other fierce opponent's stomach an old adventurer(bones) with x grade and quantity money or gems that could help make it worthwhile to become so good with aquatic combat. of course everything could stay the same and they make a new subguild keeping master fishers still a bored person's guild