Weapon Recovery

[Amalia]

First off, I'd like to say that I think the business of mobs picking up fallen weapons is a nifty one. I know I'd do it, if I were unarmed.

But I must confess I also have a request regarding this occurrence: I have an alias set to recover my staff when I drop it. I've dropped it four times since the new pickup rules were instituted, and have managed to pick it up only once before an NPC did. Two of those times I had already typed in the command to pick it up and was waiting for the drop to happen.

If there's any way an auto-recover could be coded, I think it would be huge in eliminating frustration from this source-- even if auto-recover only applied to the weapons dropped by that character, and not those that any mobs might drop. I'm just not as fast as the computer. Maybe there could even be a skill or feat that makes a character quicker at recovering fallen weapons. It's not that big a problem for me, since I'm currently using a weapon that costs a few silver and change-- but I imagine it would be very troubling to someone who was using, say, their dead master's sword, and ended up having it destroyed by a mob that used it poorly or simply taken because they couldn't beat the mob without it and lost when the mob respawned.

On that note, a big thank-you to all the builders and coders and such for all the spiffy stuff that's been added thus far. Much kudos. Chocolate kudos.

[Jharthyne]

I think having an auto pick up for dropped weapons actually defeats having a chance of dropping the weapon in the first place.

On a slightly different note, does this mean that mobs should no longer "junk all" when dead? Since they may have picked up someone else's hard-earned weapon.

[Kregor]

This is a scary proposition, as many mobs out there may still, to my knowledge, have the junk all death prog... which could mean someone's intercepted magic sword ends up junked when the mob is killed to recover it.

I am linking this thread into the code forum, so that if this will be an issue, it can be dealt with asap.

[Theillik]

I noticed today that the mob picked up my weapon before it had barely left my hand.

[Lathlain]

I have had some problems with this as well. The system is a goodun', and makes perfect sense, but I'm increasingly of the opinion that there should be a delay between you fumbling, and the mob picking the weapon up. Perhaps also a reduced chance to fumble, either hard-coded or as a supplementary feat (In the light of this, I'd spend a feat point on fumbling less!).

With a lowbie alt I managed to fumble and lose a 'prized' blade and break my sole backup weapon in the same fight, effectively rendering me useless (Not to mention penniless ) in one fell swoop. It's true to say that FK is indeed a multiplayer game, and that it's only feasible that most adventuring would be done with others, but I'm going to be reluctant to go it solo at all now, let alone use any cherished weapons. This is particularly going to be an issue for newbies, Drow and Zhentil Keep-based characters

[Caelnai]

My character who is still in the newbie temple was feeling pretty buff until this change. Two quick deaths at the hands of a tiny dummy who grabbed her blade have taught her humility. She also lost her first store-bought weapon when a dummy snatched it a few seconds before the code update. No one ever said the adventuring life was easy.

Seriously though, it might be worth testing this with some newbie characters to ensure that the temple dummies aren't over-powered.

[Dalvyn]

Perhaps a solution would be as simple as making fumble drop the weapon into the inventory and not on the ground.

[Exer]

Currently, if you fumble, the weapon is dropped on the ground. The new code of having a mob pick-it up is neat. I like the new code change, my only concern is the same as Kregor. Quite a few mobs junk their inventory on death. This has then potential to be a big problem and the source of many emails to the admin staff.

While on this subject, is it only humanoids that pick-up the dropped weapon or do beasts do it as well?

[Lathlain]

Perhaps a solution would be as simple as making fumble drop the weapon into the inventory and not on the ground.

I think this would be the best course. It would solve a lot of potentially nasty happenings, for sure.

[Valacktor]

I have been having a little bit of trouble with this aswell. So far I have lost a total of 10 plat in weapons, this doesnt seem like much untill it happens to low level characters that cant get coin that easily. I would fumble my weapons, before I could even think to pick them up, the mob would take it, wield it and when I was able to kill the mob, my weapon was gone. Luckily they were weapons that are easily replaced.. I would hate to lose a magical weapon or a weapon gained through a quest that could not be replaced.

[Caelnai]

The new code of having a mob pick-it up is neat. I like the new code change, my only concern is the same as Kregor.

Yea, I like it too. I've had a lot of fun fighting better armed mobs...aside from all that extra dying. But I suppose it would be a bit coding-intensive to tweak it on an area basis (like for newbies temple.)

Will most mobs equip a weapon given to them? If so, you could RP the weapon transfer that way.

[Balek]

If we're not planning on universally removing junk progs on mobs then I think disarm should move the weapon to the inventory just as a fumble should. There could easily be problems where a mob is involved in a fight between two PCs and ends up grabbing a weapon that has just been disarmed to the ground.

There are a couple other potential ways of fixing this problem. One would be to make it so that mobs do not pick up magical weapons. This is not ideal, as some mobs spawn with magical weapons and thus would not pick up their own weapons if disarmed. Additionally they would still pick up nonmagical player owned weapons. Still, it would prevent the loss of the more valuable player owned weapons.

A more ambitious strategy would be to program a new flag and command for weapons and players respectively. The player would set a flag on the weapon indicating that it is player owned by using a command such as 'own mace'. By setting this flag, we can ensure that player owned weapons are never picked up by mobs, but all other weapons could be. The flag could only be set on weapons held by the PC, so there would be no issue with someone disarming a mob and immediately setting the fallen weapon to 'owned' status. I think this solution would really be ideal because it preserves the realism of dropping weapons when fumbling or disarmed while also providing a sound and reasonable way to prevent unnecessary weapon loss. The disadvantage is that it would require changes to programs on mobs that make them pick up weapons, as well as the coding of a new flag and command. Still, I think the advantages of the system outweigh the disadvantages.

[Zach]

I was in the peeks and i dropped... the fang client laggs on my mac a bit so by the time i see it was dropped, it was picked up!

I had no other means of backup weapon fighting.... and my brawling is close to non existent. bearly hitting once to there 25 hits

[Kilak]

I'm kind of worried about the weapon damage. I dropped my axe while fighting a bandit, and he picked it up. Luckily I was able to draw a shortsword I had in my pack and kill him with it, but just by blocking his attack twice with my shield took my axe from good to bad condition. Is this normal when a mob attacks?

I agree with the other posts in that loosing a weapon would really suck. From now on, I'm going to try and have a second weapon ready in case I drop the first.

[Isolrem]

First of all, I think changing the junk system is out. I have always admired how much more balanced the auto-junk made the game
That being said, I have a few ideas to offer to the situation (although in truth I'd only learend that mobs have started doing this, and thus explaining the whereabouts of quiet a number of missing weapons of mine lately, totalling up to 50 plat's worth I think, with additional emotional value)

1. Give the mob a reasonable delay time before they attempt to pick things up (though knowing myself, this wouldn't hardly help me, as I notice all my weapon losses about three hours after the incident)
2. Put a temporary flag on any item the mob picks up, which gets dropped before auto-junk at death (probably easier and more efficient than the ownage system Balek produced?) This flag needs to only last for at most 10 min, after that it's up to the player to take the risk or seek immortal aid or get a thief to disarm + steal
3. If ever we decide to let mobs specialize in any weapons, they would only take the weapons they are trained in (this adds many aspects to the game, a swordmaster would disarm you and grab your sword, but not touch your discarded staff). However of course presently all mobs are trained in all weapons, and though I'd like to see this perfected it is a very ambitious, and perhaps ultimately impossible projection.
4. Turn off auto-junk for any mob that has picked up a weapon (I can see how this can be abused)

on a side note, I'd always noticed the mobs seem to really kill weapon condition when they use them - why is that?

[Balek]

To be perfectly honest Isolrem, I still feel strongly that the system I outlined would work better than your system. I'll address each one of your ideas in order.

1. As you note, unless we completely disable picking up of player weapons, any delay by a mob in picking up a weapon could easily result in the problem of a mob junking a player weapon. While a longer delay for a mob picking up a weapon would be very nice to see, it does not really address the problem.
2. I'm not sure how a 10 minute duration flag that is set on every item a mob picks up is any easier or more efficient than what I proposed. Furthermore it does not fully address the problem. Consider a situation in which a mob who you do not want to kill for various IC weapons picks up your weapon. Let's say for the sake of argument that the market square guard just picked up your Uberswordofdoom. You can't kill the guard to get it back, you can't have a thief or fighter attack it and disarm it to get it back (I'd like to note that disarming a mob places the weapon in the mob's inventory, so this wouldn't work under any circumstance anyway), and there's a reasonable chance there won't be an immortal around to help you. As soon as the game resets for any reason, your weapon is lost for no good IC reason.
3. While mob weapon specialization and resultant selectivity for weapons would be nice and would be an interesting feature to consider, I don't think it really addresses the problem. Mobs would still pick up player weapons and junk them upon death, they would simply do it only to weapons they like.
4. As you mentioned, turning off auto-junk could easily be abused for the purpose of getting more and more equipment from mobs. Additionally, while I am not a programmer, it seems as though it could be just as difficult or possibly even more difficult to program this than the system I outlined before.

As for why mobs tend to damage weapons so quickly, I would theorize that it's because whenever you parry their weapon, they parry your weapon, or they hit your armor or shield they stand a chance of damaging the weapon. They are constantly hitting your armor, whereas a player hitting a mob or even another player rarely has a weapon deflected by armor.

[Jharthyne]

Actually, why not just go back to the old way? Weapons dropped are not picked up by mobs? While this is not realistic, it solves the heartaches and makes the game fun to play, rather than frustrating. Just like we don't think having realistic effects of starvation is going to add to fun, realistic mobs picking up dropped weapons have since proven the same.

If we are afraid of upsetting game balance, maybe we can make disarming mobs more difficult? This can be as simple as adding a "intercept_prog disarm" that allows the command to take place only a certain percentage of the time. With this, we can even choose which mobs to allow normal chances for disarm to succeed, and which to make disarm more difficult.

[Andreas]

As others have pointed out, I think sometimes we lose sight of the main purpose of the game: to have fun.

While some things did need to be changed to add more "realism" (i.e. the new spell system) to the game, the mobs automatically picking up dropped/fumbled weapons seems a step in the wrong direction. Losing a hard-earned or renamed item due to the pick-up & junk programs is just plain frustrating and senseless in a game where people are supposed to be enjoying themselves, not constantly worrying if the code will destroy their Uber Shiney Whatever.

I like Dalvyn's solution of disarmed/fumbled weapons going into the PC inventory. No need to reprogram tons of mobs and no need to worry about losing items on a permanent basis. It's a very simple solution and I think it'll work well for everyone.

[Taerom]

Realistically speaking, if you were to disarm someone in a fight, ripping their weapon from their hands, and throwing it to the ground, what would you then proceed to do? You'd move between them and the weapon, thus cutting them off from it. It is really kind of unrealistic for a disarmed weapon to be rapidly picked up again and used. As I see it, the disarm skill should really be seen this way roleplay-wise, and most desirably, code-wise as well. However, I don't think it would be much fun to put a delay on targets who are disarmed...there is no reason to stop most actions simply because a given character lost their weapon--a concentration check seems in order though--rather than having it act basically as a short bash command if the disarm succeeds, however I think it would be good if players adhered to this in fights, uncoded. So basically what I'm saying is it really makes no sense to have mobs instantly grab and rewear disarmed or fumbled weapons. I'd have to assume that when you drop your weapon in the middle of a fight, be it because you screwed up, or because you were disarmed, you're not only surprised, but if you've been disarmed, the disarmer would take steps to cut you off from your weapon as well.

But in lieu of such a realistic system, I suppose the best alternative would be to have disarmed and fumbled weapons go into the inventory instead of onto the ground.

[Andreas]

I'm not disagreeing that being disarmed in real life puts a weapon out of reach (usually), only that my opponent doesn't immediately grab it and, if by chance I should defeat them... it disappears!!

Like I said, sometimes the trade-off between realism and fun in a game needs to be fudged a bit so the players enjoy themselves.