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Caravel Forum : DROD Boards : Bugs : Interaction of disarm tokens and doubles (Build 54, but not fixed since)
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icon Interaction of disarm tokens and doubles (0)  
If you hit a disarm token after having placed any mimics or decoys, the doubles will lose their sword as well. If you hit the token again, both you and the doubles get their sword back. This is fine. However, if you hit a disarm token and then place a mimic or decoy, the double will have a sword even though you don't. If you hit the disarm token again to get your sword back, the double keeps its own sword. Hitting the token after this functions as you'd expect -- the double has a sword precisely when you do.

Since doubles lose their sword when you do, I'd expect that placing a double while swordless would result in a swordless double. I know that some existing rooms will be affected by such a change (Terrakept Resonant : Thrice Descended : 2 South, 2 West, for example), but the current behavior seems like a bug.

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04-10-2008 at 11:38 PM
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Rheb
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icon Re: Interaction of disarm tokens and doubles (+1)  
Well I think this seems like a pretty normal behaviour, it's natural that disarm tokens either arm or disarm you and all mimics, decoys and clones depending on which state all disarm tokens are currently in, (not depending on if the player has a sword or not, since that can be changed with scripting). And since mimics and decoys are placed with swords no matter if the player is standing on oremites or if the "player sword off" script is activated it seems pretty obvious that they are placed with swords even if the player has been disarmed by a disarm token. Then what you could discuss is if disarm tokens should disarm/arm mimics and decoys or not.

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04-12-2008 at 10:29 PM
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Jatopian
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icon Re: Interaction of disarm tokens and doubles (0)  
It is inconsistent.

But since mimics and decoys are inconsistent enough that no one in the entire Eighth except Beethro can use them, we might as well go whole hog in our stubbornness.

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04-13-2008 at 06:51 AM
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CuriousShyRabbit
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icon Re: Interaction of disarm tokens and doubles (0)  
I have already "learned" the existing 3.1 disarm token behavior, and would prefer it NOT to be changed.
04-29-2008 at 06:40 PM
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Jacob
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icon Re: Interaction of disarm tokens and doubles (0)  
I vote to keep things the way they are for the reasons given by Rheb, plus the fact that it will break existing rooms, and rooms in a hold currently in beta, plus it has puzzle potential.

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04-29-2008 at 11:45 PM
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calamarain
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icon Re: Interaction of disarm tokens and doubles (+1)  
Jatopian wrote:
But since mimics and decoys are inconsistent enough that no one in the entire Eighth except Beethro can use them, we might as well go whole hog in our stubbornness.
Not true. Only Beethro can use mimic *potions*, but others can use mimics. Just play Imperial Wandering if you want an example :) It might not be canon... but it is in the game engine :)

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[Last edited by calamarain at 04-30-2008 12:03 AM]
04-30-2008 at 12:03 AM
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Dischorran
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icon Re: Interaction of disarm tokens and doubles (0)  
If the behavior were to be changed, I'd vote to always have mimics/decoys placed armed, and have the disarm token switch all swords - if swordless Beethro places a mimic/decoy, it would appear with a sword and then lose it when Beethro hits the disarm token to rearm himself. Of course, if this causes significant room breakage as well, I'd rather see it unchanged.

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04-30-2008 at 01:11 AM
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Jutt
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icon Re: Interaction of disarm tokens and doubles (0)  
I'd rather not see a disarm token as a switcher. For one because the graphics of a disarm token depicts at all times whether Beethro and doubles are sworded or not. Except of course in the situation pointed out here, but then I'd rather see it fixed such that the token graphic is really always an indicator for to swordedness of all affected entities in the room. To be honest that would be way more intuitive too.

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04-30-2008 at 11:56 AM
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icon Re: Interaction of disarm tokens and doubles (0)  
Okay, in summary:

The current behavior:
-- Doubles always start out with a sword.
-- Hitting a disarm token changes whether Beethro has a sword, and changes all doubles in the room to the same state.

My suggested change:
-- Doubles start out with a sword if and only if Beethro has a sword.
-- Hitting a disarm token changes whether Beethro has a sword, and does the same for all doubles in the room.

I still think the second behavior is more logical, but the first is not overly complicated and it is easily predictable. It is also not completely illogical. Additionally, changing the current behavior risks breaking existing rooms. Given these facts, I'm going to change my mind and suggest that it's better to keep the current behavior.

There's one argument I want to address, though:

Jacob wrote:
it has puzzle potential.

Simply having puzzle potential is not a good argument for putting an element or a behavior into DROD. In a game like this, it's important to make everything predictable and logical for the player. It's quite possible to have an idea that would have plenty of puzzle potential, but is still a bad idea, because it's difficult for the player to understand. To take a concrete example:

Way back during the JtRH beta, I noticed a problem with tar-covered tunnels. If an exit tunnel was covered by tar, you could end up standing on top of tar, which caused all sorts of strange behaviour. Obviously, you're not supposed to be able to stand on tar, so I wrote up a few different ways to resolve the problem. One of them was this: Allow tar to cover tunnels, and to regrow over tunnels. A tar-covered tunnel is treated as non-existent. This means that if tunnel A points to tunnel B, and then tunnel B becomes covered by tar, tunnel A will then point to tunnel C, which is further away along the same row, instead.

The problem with this idea is not that it doesn't have puzzle potential. It does. The problem is that it makes absolutely no sense. Logically, a tunnel ought to go the same place all the time. It should not go to a different location just because you block its exit. It's really quite important to avoid this sort of situation -- the entire basis of DROD is to present the player with a challenge that needs to be analyzed and solved on the basis of the rules of interaction between the game's elements. If those rules become too arcane and bizarre, analysis becomes impossible.

The behavior discussed here is not quite that bad, though. It's the result of a fairly simple rule that I hadn't predicted in advance: doubles always start out armed. As long as that rule is maintained, I'm fine with the current behavior.

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04-30-2008 at 10:27 PM
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Tahnan
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icon Re: Interaction of disarm tokens and doubles (0)  
I think what we have here is a minor inconsistency, if that. Given that there are any number of rooms that rely on this behavior, changing it would do more harm than good.
05-01-2008 at 05:42 AM
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Beef Row
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icon Re: Interaction of disarm tokens and doubles (+1)  
Another vote for keep as is, based on Rheb's point that scripted and oremite sword removal gives the same results.

If a future patch allows other NPCs to use mimic potions (perhaps there could be a potion token similar to power tokens, for instance), I'd suggest they keep the same property, treating armedness as a property of the potion, not of the character consuming it (as Beethro's sword is not part of his anatomy to be mimicked anyway, or at least so I would hope).

Basically, I suggest it should be canon that mimics are designed as a weapon, and as such they are designed to be armed. Disarm tokens are a defense meant to prevent weapon use, including weapons in a secondary form by mimics. They are generally good at what they do, but they are blind to newly created mimics as they can only detect a mimic threat when they are actively triggered.

This would not only eliminate any concern this is inconsistent, but fit with the Empire's tendency to great knowledge coupled with blind-spots where more.. dynamic... events are concerned.

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05-01-2008 at 07:23 AM
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mrimer
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icon Re: Interaction of disarm tokens and doubles (0)  
Watcher wrote:
If you hit a disarm token after having placed any mimics or decoys, the doubles will lose their sword as well. If you hit the token again, both you and the doubles get their sword back. This is fine. However, if you hit a disarm token and then place a mimic or decoy, the double will have a sword even though you don't. If you hit the disarm token again to get your sword back, the double keeps its own sword. Hitting the token after this functions as you'd expect -- the double has a sword precisely when you do.

Since doubles lose their sword when you do, I'd expect that placing a double while swordless would result in a swordless double. I know that some existing rooms will be affected by such a change (Terrakept Resonant : Thrice Descended : 2 South, 2 West, for example), but the current behavior seems like a bug.
The current game logic has this side-effect, but it isn't a bug. Maybe it was an oversight, but it's possible it was also the intended behavior and I can't remember for certain now. I'm going to leave this as-is for 3.2.

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05-01-2008 at 04:29 PM
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