In response to the thread: http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=6&topic_id=17035&mesg_id=17035&page=

A chance for folks to vote.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

Poll result (54 votes) Wield will automatically remove your dual-wield if necessary (51 votes) Vote Wield will not remove your dual-wield, but fail to wield the weapon (3 votes) Vote

It seems to explain the old wield system before changes.

Or did it with the reboot last night? I mean not that it got me killed again (it did) but it certainly isn't working in the wield always works category as of pre-reboot last night. Also there seems to be some weirdness where you can't dual wield two identical weapons (when spec'd) if you have a light primary and one of the identical weapons dual wielded.

As always, I will post when I make changes.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

A two-headed pickaxe with tips of diamond is too light to wield while dual wielding a sword of honor.
You stop using a sword of honor.
You stop using a jeweled broadsword.
You wield a two-headed pickaxe with tips of diamond.
A two-headed pickaxe with tips of diamond feels like a part of you!

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

My bug reporting skillz are awesome, huh?

Here's a dumb question, not really related to this recent change, but to wield/wear changes in general...

When you get crunch-kotegaeshi'd, does it choose a wrist at random between "primary" and "offhand"? And is the game consistent, so that if your primary wrist gets crunched there's no way to hold something in your main wield slot until the kot effect is gone (or vice versa w/ off hand and worn/held items)?

Suppose I'm dual wielding two swords, and my main hand gets crunched. Now I have a sword in my off hand and nothing in my main hand. If I remove the sword in my off hand and immediately try to "wield" it, will it go into my primary wield slot, or will I get the "your wrist hurts too much" echo?

Preface: Metacommands are used in this specification. The way they are mapped on the real wield syntax is another matter and it is not considered here.
Also, I don't expect that you will throw away anything that is already written (I'm a programmer myself, hehe) and will immedately start implementation of this specification. However, it may still be a good decision, though ANSI standards tend to be never fully implemeted.
After all, Zulg, you've asked players' opinion so you can only blame yourself

Purpose: Design very predicatble wield behaviour with well defined results. Consider held items, wand, weapons and shields using the same approach. Keep the whole thing simple and flexible at the same time.

Wield metacommands:
primary <one-handed weapon or two-handed weapon>- Wield an object in the primary hand or two-handed weapon in both hands for non-giants.
offhand <one-handed item> - Wield an object in offhand.
both <two-handed weapon> - Wield two-handed weapon. This command works with both slots. For everybody except giants it will be equivalent of using primary command on a two-handed weapon. For giants: primary two-handed wields the weapon into the primary slot while this command force-wields this weapon as two-handed.
remprimary - Remove your primary weapon. No parameters. Perhaps should work even if you are blind.
remoffhand - Remove offhand.
remboth - Remove all wielded items. Similar to "throwdown".

Possible outcomes:
Every command produces one of two possible results: success or failure.
Success:
For wielding one-handed items: (primary for a one-handed weapon and also two-handed wepon for giants or offhand for a one-handed item) an item, specified as a parameter is put into the pointed slot. The item that previusly was there is removed. Other slot is not touched. Note: primary and offhand commands consider a two-handed weapon as one-handed for giants.
For wielding two-handed weapons: (both command for giants, primary or both commands for other races) A weapon is wielded as two-handed and autoremoves any items that were held in both slots.
Remove one-handed items: (remprimary for a one-handed weapon remoffhand for a one-handed item) Emptifies the specified slot.
Remove two-handed items: (remprimary or remoffhand while wielding a two-handed weapon) Emptifies both slots.
Remove all items: (remboth) Emptifies both slots. Works for one-handed items and two-handed weapons.
Failure:
It's guaranteed that nothing changes in the current status of both slots. No items removed, nothing is swapped.

Reasons for wield failures:
Everything that would lead to the inconsistent slot combination or can't be performed because of other reasons.
Possible reasons for wield failure include but not limited to:
- inconsistent slot combination.
- weight.
- race/class/alignment restrictions.
- blindness (potions can still be wielded).
- a cursed weapon that already occupy the specified slot.
- broken arms.


Possible future changes:
Combo command.
This command allows combine several atomic comand and execute them as a whole in one pulse.
For example:
Combo remboth, primary sword, offhand dagger - In one pulse removes all weapons and duel-wield sword/dagger combination. The combo command is succesful if any of atomic command is successful. In other case, the combo comand fails and nothing is changed.
Notice: that having a such command makes autoreplacement feature of atomic commands obsolete because it costs "nothing" to remboth before wielding new items.
However that may lead to some balance changes and make some legacies less powerful so it should be thoroughly considered.

Do you honestly think you could make the wield command any more ####ing complicated with this system you purpose?

Gabe

No!
I'm trying to make it simplier.
At least it would be more predictable.
Lazy people, take 10 mins and actually THINK about what I've written!
I may be wrong about the LATEST wield modification (I'm not active now) but some times ago it was a real nightmare to predict wield results.
A two-handed weapon would remove other weapons but not held items or a shield.
Wielding heavy weapons was completely unpredictable and so on.

Ahh yes, the people who actually take the time to comment on your stupid ideas, or take the time to read your silly mud view of player killing or whatever other garbage you spew out, are lazy. Just because your idea is overly complicated and doesn't really address any of the problems short of just seperating everything into a sub command of a sub command doesn't mean someone didn't read it.

Gabe

That your answer on my proposal demonstrates that you actually don't know what about you're talking.
I don't expect everybody be a rocket scientist and grasp every single detail of my idea from my post (written in bad english).
If you don't get something, just ask and I will try my best to explain.
My idea takes some time to understand but that's because the wield problem is complicated itself. The current wield system is much more complicated yet still you can live with it.

Your massive russian intelligence is far superior to mine, and I am unable to comprehend any of your ideas, my apologies. I will not attempt to parse them next time. Save myself some time.

Gabe

That not a single of your posts in this thread is constructive.
The problem is already complicated enough without your flames. Additional garbage is simply doesn't needed.

My acid test is usually to imagine answering the inevitable questions that will pop up on the newbie channel. I've read your original post twice and I'd still dread all of that. Beyond that, it looks pretty ugly to code, particularly all of points where you have to check several steps ahead to know a result. The existing wield code is extremely complicated as is.

One big perk to the current system is that assuming you're willing to do a little 'try and see' pairing, the command syntax is easy to remember and use.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

My "wield" is much simplier than the current version.
Command description is rather short and logically is not very hard to understand.
My post is long because I tried to point out at the details as well as the main idea.
If you get away giant + two-handed stuff from my description it will be very simply. (that kind of stuff adds some complexity, though once you get how it is working it sholdn't be a problem)
Should carefully read my post, I don't think you will find my idea overcomplicated. (Compared with current version)

If you will try to describe how exactly the current wield is working I doubt it will take less than several pages and I'm sure it will be much harder to fully define than in my version. I challenge you
You will have to describe various situation for weapons, held items, shields, two-handed weapons separately, because they aren't processed using the same algorithm.
For example: what happens when you wield a heavy weapon?
I can think of several outcomes:
- both weapons are removed, and the new weapon is wielded.
- both weapons are removed and nothing is wielded.
- offhand is replaced.
- primary is replaced.
- if one of your weapons is cursed you may end up with a failure even if you tried to wield that weapon into the other slot and your second weapon may be removed or may be not.
- if you have held items/shield, the behavior of wield will be different.
- and so on.
In the current system I had to find out the result from experiments mostly. And it is very inconvenient when you have several weapons (or die often and thus have to change your weapon set).

I posted my idea when I realized how complicated and "random" is the current system and Gabe just made a clever remark (I bet without even thinking about that stuff I pointed here).

The key points of my idea is well defined result of commands.
If you wield to primary, exactly your primary slot will be processed.
Basically wield commands for slots are strictly defined.

Another good feature of my proposal is "remove" command without arguments.
You don't have to remember what exactly you are wielding. If you want to make your offhand slot empty, you just type "remoffhand" (or whatever syntax that will be). In the curent implementation you have to look what are you wielding. Moreover, if you wield similar weapons in your hands you may have real troubles to remove exactly what you want.
For example, when you have dualed a black sword + white sword, if you type "remove sword" which sword will be removed? If you try something like "remove black" you may end up with removing your pitch-black rings instead (happened to me). Sure, you can try longer descriptions, but the problem will still remain if you are wielding exactly the same weapons in both hands. I had similar problems in the past and often I had to use tricks like dropping my offhand weapon and picking it back, so it would be first in my inventory list and processed first.

I don't know how well the current wield code is designed, though I afraid it is not a very clean desing because of many years of development. I can't estimate what it takes to implement my idea.

But in general, such kind of stuff is implemented using shadows.
You make all changes in a shadow and if every check is passed, then apply changes.
In this case it may be shadow primary/offhand slots or the whole shadow PC (heh, though I don't suggest that!).
In general, it is easier to put a weapon/item in the shadow slot and make all consistency checks at once rather then apply them one by one and make changes in the current wield status along the way. Perhaps some tricks will be needed to make checks for progged items.

nosepick - Stops the game for 30 seconds so that you can pick your nose and think about what the correct command for your purpose what the right command syntax was again.

On more serious note, much of it sucks.

>Wield metacommands:
>primary <one-handed weapon or
>two-handed weapon>- Wield an object in the primary hand or
>two-handed weapon in both hands for non-giants.
>offhand <one-handed item> -
>Wield an object in offhand.

We already have 'wield' that always wields weapon in mainhand and 'dual' that always wields weapon in offhand. Thus, these options are redundant.

>both <two-handed weapon> -
>Wield two-handed weapon. This command works with both slots.
>For everybody except giants it will be equivalent of using
>primary command on a two-handed weapon. For giants:
>primary two-handed wields the weapon into the primary
>slot while this command force-wields this weapon as
>two-handed.

Weapons that require two hands automatically removes offhand item. Personally, I think that's fine as is.

>remprimary - Remove your
>primary weapon. No parameters. Perhaps should work even if you
>are blind.
>remoffhand - Remove offhand.
>remboth - Remove all wielded
>items. Similar to "throwdown".

In short, you want throwdown to inventory. However, an additional remove command for emptying a slot could work. The syntax could be something like empty <bodypart>

The multiple same bodypart slots could be something like finger1, finger2, neck1, neck2.

>On more serious note, much of it sucks.
>We already have 'wield' that always wields weapon in mainhand
>and 'dual' that always wields weapon in offhand. Thus, these
>options are redundant.

You've missed first sentence from my post. I'm talking about logical metacommands, not about exact syntax for their implementation.
In practice you can map "primary" as "wield" and "offhand" as "dual".
You will have to remember as much as you have now. You still we be working with two commands for wield. (In very rare cases with the third command "both").

>Weapons that require two hands automatically removes offhand
>item. Personally, I think that's fine as is.

"both" command is here only for giants and two-handed weapons.
How in the current system you can wield a two-handed sword as a giant exactly as two-handed?
In my system "primary sword" wields it as one-handed and "both sword" wields it as two-handed. For other races primary and both for two-handed weapons will be synonyms. In fact, "both" command will be very rare and all races except giants may not use it at all. However, if you can better ideas how to avoid additional "both" command (or whatever syntax it will be mapped off) present it.

>In short, you want throwdown to inventory. However, an
>additional remove command for emptying a slot could work. The
>syntax could be something like empty <bodypart>

Something like that. Remove <bodypart> command may be implemented and it will mostly cover these three remove subcommands. Exception is "remboth" which removes both weapons at once.

In my previous post I tried to give detail explanations how wield command are supposed to work. At first glance it may look complicated (though actually it is simplier than the current system). So now I feel that is also useful to give overview and some clarification to my proposal.

First of all, metacommands described in my proposal are virtual commands. They can be mapped on real commands the way implementator is choosing.
For example, "primary" command may be implemented as "wield"
and "offhand" command may be implemented as "dual".

Below I will give some quick comparison for my proposal vs. the current system so you would see that proposed syntax is not more complicated.

My proposal        What is does     Current system
primary <weapon>   wields primary    wield <weapon>
offhand <item>     wields offhand    dual <weapon> or wear <item>
remprimary         removes primary   remove <weapon>
remoffhand         removes offhand   remove <weapon/item>

>In my previous post I tried to give detail explanations how
>wield command are supposed to work. At first glance it may
>look complicated (though actually it is simplier than the
>current system).

That is one opinion Chaining however many commands together doesn't make things easier for someone completely new to the game in my opinion.

>So now I feel that is also useful to give
>overview and some clarification to my proposal.
>
>First of all, metacommands described in my proposal are
>virtual commands. They can be mapped on real commands the way
>implementator is choosing.
>For example, "primary" command may be implemented as "wield"
>and "offhand" command may be implemented as "dual".
>
>Below I will give some quick comparison for my proposal vs.
>the current system so you would see that proposed syntax is
>not more complicated.
>
>

>My proposal        What is does     Current system
>primary <weapon>   wields
>primary    wield <weapon>
>offhand <item>     wields
>offhand    dual <weapon> or
>wear <item>
>remprimary         removes
>primary   remove <weapon>
>remoffhand         removes
>offhand   remove <weapon/item>
>

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

>And that is the idea behind changing wield to always work. 99% of
>the time, 99% of the characters (all of which have wield) will have
>an expected outcome of success.

Actually, failed wield usually means you still have your previous weapon as primary.
In some case, the current system may wield primary if there was none while my system will fail, in other cases, the current system may remove previous primary weapon without wielding a new one while my system will just produce "failure" leaving you with the previous primary weapon.

>I also don't think you need to have specific remove functions
>just for your primary/dual/held items.

You can live without them. They just make things easier.
Problem with the current "remove" command is that it requires a parameter.
In your mind you usually try to emptify one of slots from any item. Right now you have to remember what item resides there or look before trying to remove. And in pracice people actually often look at themselves before removing weapons.
The second problem is that the parameter must specify "unique" key-word, commonly used key-words like "white", "black", "sword", "adamantite", "steel" often remove something else instead of desired weapon. And if you are spec'd in a particular weapons and wield two exactly the same weapons, remove command becomes "random".
After all, old remove and my specific remove commands may co-exist.

Anyway, take care. You can't rewrite the wield system anyway because of many additinal things attached to that so you have to deal with the monster that is already written
It is just a theory. After all there should be someone who produces theories from an "ideal" world even though he doesn't expect them to be implemented right away.
That gives a scope and allows to look at familiar things from a diffrent angle.

To have both hands independant.
wield right sword
wield left sword

or just
right sword
left sword

and all checks applied to one hand should not touch the other hand.
If you try to wield something heavy in your right hand while holding something heavy in your left hand, the wield fails.

For urgent moments when most people can't think it is possible to have 3rd command:

"grasp" (or whatever) sword
which tries to wield it into your right hand and remove offhand if necessary.

>To have both hands independant.
>wield right sword
>wield left sword
>
>or just
>right sword
>left sword

wield sword
dualwield sword

>and all checks applied to one hand should not touch the other
>hand.
>If you try to wield something heavy in your right hand while
>holding something heavy in your left hand, the wield fails.

So you want it how it works today...

>For urgent moments when most people can't think it is possible
>to have 3rd command:
>
>"grasp" (or whatever) sword
>which tries to wield it into your right hand and remove
>offhand if necessary.

Personally, I think this makes it overly complicated.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

>>To have both hands independant.
>>wield right sword
>>wield left sword
>>
>>or just
>>right sword
>>left sword
>
>wield sword
>dualwield sword

I don't know how it works today as I'm not playing currently.
So I rather describe what I would like to see, not the changes to the current system (it may already work as I like and that's good)

>>For urgent moments when most people can't think it is
>possible
>>to have 3rd command:
>>
>>"grasp" (or whatever) sword
>>which tries to wield it into your right hand and remove
>>offhand if necessary.
>
>Personally, I think this makes it overly complicated.

I can live without 3rd option as well, but I see (dumb) people vote for it.
If they want, give them.
I just don't want to lose first two options as I prefer the effect of the wield command to be strictly deterministic. For example, I don't want my offhand to be removed if I try to wield my primary weapon.

I do not see that happened. But I agree with keeping it as it is. Do not shrink the game, expand your mind instead.

Maybe it would help if we could delineate all the common wield scenarios. I'll give it a go. Tell me if I missed anything.

1. Dual-wielding, want to change both hands.

2. Dual-wielding, want to change main hand w/ another one-handed weapon.

3. Dual-wielding, want to change off hand w/ another one-handed weapon.

4. Dual-wielding, want to wield a single two-handed weapon.

5. Wielding a weapon and a held item, want to swap weapon for another one-handed weapon.

6. Wielding a weapon and held item, want to swap held item for a one-handed weapon.

7. Wielding a weapon and held item, want to swap both for a single two-handed weapon.

8. Main hand is empty (disarmed) and off-hand has weapon, want to wield a one-handed weapon in main.

9. Main hand is empty (disarmed) and off-hand has held item, want to wield a one-handed weapon in main.

For each of these there are three special cases, all of which could be simultaneously in effect:

A: Affected by kotegaeshi (i.e. only one wield/wear spot).

B: The desired action is not possible due to weight restrictions (i.e. you couldn't wield the weapon even if both hands were empty because you're just too weak)

C: The desired action is not possible due to dual-wield restrictions (i.e. you're trying to dual-wield something that's too light/heavy, or you'er trying to main-wield something that's too light/heavy for your dual wield).

(2) and (8) are where I could see the "automatic" behavior haveing undesirable effects, since it could result in your dual-wield being removed in order to complete your main-hand wield request.

(3) could also be weird. What do you want to happen if you try to swap your dual-wield and the weapon being swapped in is too heavy/light to be dual-wielded with whatever's in your main hand? Should the main-wield be removed and the "new" dual-wield be placed in the main hand? That seems wacky.

I don't want to wield system think for me, I can do that better myself

With the old wield system I had real problems to track my weapons because of these many scenarios you've described.
For example: if I try to wield a two-handed weapon it would remove my offhand weapon automatically, but if I have a held item in my offhand (wand, light, shield) the wield command would fail.
Even more, if I try to weild something heavy, my offhand will be removed but nothing will be wielded instead.
So I have many possible outcomes of the wield command instead of simple success/fail.
Another example: when I try wield a weapon, my two-handed weapon will be removed, but if I try to wield a held item or a shield, the wield may(?) fail (should double check that).
Yet another example: in the old system it was not always possible to predict where to goes a wielding weapon: to primary or to offhand. It was based on the weight of weapons.


I prefer to have a simple determenistic system.
Don't make any difference between weapons and held items (except that a held item can't be in primary)
So if I want to wield a two-handed weapon or a held item/shield or a one-handed weapon that would result incorrect primary/offhand combination (because of weight, weapon types or cursed status) the wield command just fails and I have to remove my offhand(or primary) first.

Similar approach goes to all other cases.

People who are using the raw telnet (do we still have those?) may argue that in some urgent cases they want to swap weapons quicker, so I would agree for an optional command that doesn't fail in case of incorrect primary/offhand combination but removes existing weapons/items first. But as i said, there are more than two possible outcomes in this case and I, personally, wouldn't use it.
If I want to speed up things, I would better create some aliases. (I'm not discussing situations where 1 pulse matters ){ )

In general I agree. But, if there's a situation where it's almost *guaranteed* that the player would want something to happen automatically, then it might make sense to hard code it.

For instance, what if "wield" commands failed if you already had something in the slot? i.e. you had to "remove sword1;dualw sword2"? That would be silly. If you enter the command "dualw sword2" then it's obvious that what you want to happen is for sword2 to replace sword1 in your off hand. So have the "remove;wear" be atomic, as part of the "dualw" command.

In the scope of one slot the replacement should be automatic.
So when you do something like "wield-primary sword", it will replace an item in the primary slot if (and only if) the wield command was successful.
What I mean, it shouldn't touch the other slot.

Another important thing:
A failed wield (the wield that would result inconsistent primary/offhand combination or can't be executed because of other reasons like cursed items or broken hands) sholdn't modify the current status of slots. It shouldn't remove or swap anything.

Do you prefer it the way it's currently coded? If so, why? I haven't voted either way...just curious.

Thinking about it, it is likely an artifact of the previous wield code. The more I've been thinking about it, I think having wield always work is the right thing but wanted to get the players thoughts before I went and changed it.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!