[BUG] Tavern brawl bug + misfeature

[Narduiran]

I've been seeing the drunk in the tavern, and well, in its current form, the encounter is broken for a couple reasons.

For example, as soon as you enter the tavern, the conversation panel pops up. You have no option but to fight the man (I had to fight him with either choice to apologize or to insult him) even with 4 persuation (if it even affects the convo's outcome).

But here comes the real problem. My character has a crossbow in the first weapon slot. This means that to get to my sword, I need to cycle through the crossbow first. Of course, the tavernkeeper doesn't want shooting, and says so through a conversation screen. But while this screen pops up, the drunk still fights.

The fight went pretty much like this:
[list type=decimal]
[*]Close the drunk convo
[*]Drunk approaches with his sword primed
[*]I cycle to my crossbow
[*]Tavernkeep convo pops up and while stuck in there, drunk hits me
[*]I close the convo and move away from the drunk, then cycle to my crossbow again because my weapon was sheathed through convo
[*]tavernkeep convo pops up again, drunk catches up and hits me again, killing me while I'm in convo
[/list]

Here's a screen before the text faded:

Spoiler

And for a finishing bonus, when I was asked to click to continue, the game CTD'ed. Here's a screenie of the error:

 

[nijis]

The encounter is certainly open to discussion. I had intended it to be a bit disorienting, with the chance for a player caught off guard. Unfortunately, there is no current way to disable only missile weapons, and allowing the character to Indian Jones the attacker would be too easy. I generally had no problem cycling quickly to past a missile weapon to avoid the second "no shooting," although if the timing is really unlucky, I suppose it could catch you out twice.

The crash at the end, however, is not part of the design.

 

[Riggea]

If it is in a tavern, cant you do what you do in castles and make it a fist fight? Its kinda sad but, we never use our fist in the game .

Oh, or why dont you make it like when you sneak into enemy towns, and give yourself a default clothing, and maybe a sword. Or something like that. (I know nothing on programming, so i dont know if it is possible, so I'm just giving ideas )

And also, to fix your problem, just go to inventory, and put the crossbow in the last slot, so it will come out last, it aint that hard

 

[amade]

And also, to fix your problem, just go to inventory, and put the crossbow in the last slot, so it will come out last, it aint that hard

Yes, but the point is you should be able to draw your sword even if it won't let you take out your crossbow. Though I did manage to shoot the drunkard once because I was too quick with it (Ya think you're fast enough, pardner? ) that the tavern keep couldn't stop me in time.

A possible solution is to remove missile weapons (or all weapons, helmet and shields like when you enter castles - then we can fist fight) upon entering a tavern with the drunkard in it. However, this is a cop out measure too... because you won't be able to draw the missile weapon and get the "don't shoot" dialogue (if regular players don't encounter it, they will demand an explanation why missile weapons aren't allowed). So somehow players should be able to retain their missile weapons just so that they can draw it out and get the don't shoot dialog, for the sake of immersion at least - but another mechanism is needed to make them automatically draw melee weapons and avoid the dialog loop... tall order maybe?

 

[nijis]

There should be another chance to use your fists, but it's not implemented yet.

I had wanted bar fights to resemble the brawl that killed Christopher Marlowe, or an Old West saloon shoot-out -- fast and lethal. If Armagan can implement the operation "disable_item_for_agent", I think I probably would prefer to go down that route. In terms of coding, I suspect that would be easier than auto-drawing their sword.

It could also be that involuntary tavern brawls, as much as I like the idea, are actually the kind of feature which could drive players from the game.

 

[Sarejo]

Maybe, after the first "No shooting!, No Shooting!", weapon should autochange to the first melee weapon. But I like the "No shooting! No shooting!" scene, the problem is that the weapon is sheathed.

 

[nijis]

Maybe we can find a way to override the weapon unsheathing. There would also need to be a penalty (small relation minus with the town, maybe) for actually shooting after the warning.

 

[Narduiran]

Well, for one thing, might it be possible to make the event possible to conclude without a fight with enough persuasion? There could be a reputation bonus with the tavernkeeper for avoiding violence?

And if violence ensues, it might be more interesting to make it a fist fight. I find bar brawls with swords a bit weird. Less immersing in the least.

 

[amade]

Well, for one thing, might it be possible to make the event possible to conclude without a fight with enough persuasion? There could be a reputation bonus with the tavernkeeper for avoiding violence?

It's already possible to avoid a fight. If you have high renown you can just intimidate the drunk by saying "Do you know who I am?" and he'll back off (he's supposed to fade away like routed troops but currently he drops dead after backing off and tavern customers start running). Avoiding the fight doesn't gain you a rep with the tavern keep though I think this is proper, because nothing bad happened so he/she wouldn't have noticed how significant the deed is. Just another day at the bar.

 

[daumor]

Well, for one thing, might it be possible to make the event possible to conclude without a fight with enough persuasion? There could be a reputation bonus with the tavernkeeper for avoiding violence?

And if violence ensues, it might be more interesting to make it a fist fight. I find bar brawls with swords a bit weird. Less immersing in the least.

Well he said that it was meant to be a more "Wild West" saloon fight and less of your average pub brawl.

There should be another chance to use your fists, but it's not implemented yet.

I had wanted bar fights to resemble the brawl that killed Christopher Marlowe, or an Old West saloon shoot-out -- fast and lethal. If Armagan can implement the operation "disable_item_for_agent", I think I probably would prefer to go down that route. In terms of coding, I suspect that would be easier than auto-drawing their sword.

It could also be that involuntary tavern brawls, as much as I like the idea, are actually the kind of feature which could drive players from the game.

 

[Sarejo]

Maybe we can find a way to override the weapon unsheathing. There would also need to be a penalty (small relation minus with the town, maybe) for actually shooting after the warning.

Ah, yes. This solution seems like the best for me.

 

[nijis]

Another idea might be to enable friendly fire for neutrals. The "No shooting" warning would still be triggered, but after that a player is only penalized if he or she actually shoots a civilian.

There is probably also room for a few other options. A "Let's settle this outside" could lead to a fistfight, and the apology might defuse it entirely, persusasion permitting. This is a circumstance when a player should note an advantage from high persuasion.

 

[amade]

Just an idle thought, it'd be interesting if it escalated into a free-for-all tavern brawl. Folks try to keep out of the way but sometimes they still venture too close and the player's attack becomes interrupted when he/she strikes. Perhaps it could be made so that it hits them anyway and they get angry and join in the fight. You lose rep with the town for not being careful and causing others to get involved. You lose rep with the tavern keep if you get him/her involved too. Folks who get knocked out will be removed from the scene (excluding the barkeep) until they respawn again after some hours. If you want to take it further maybe you can get negative rep with certain NPCs as well, e.g. ransom brokers, travellers, book merchants, etc with the appropriate consequences. Though if you can get negative rep with them there ought to be a way to get back into the positive (maybe not getting them involved in a fight increases rep with them?).

Also, just a question... currently the scene doesn't end if you lose, what really happens if you lost a tavern brawl? Negative rep with the keep?

 

[amade]

Muh, another one to add to the list for the drunk bugger

Apart from sometimes taking a long time to react, sometimes the drunk doesn't react at all. I had to walk up to him and talk to him before he becomes provoked. I had encountered him earlier in the same game and he reacted normally.