Improving Bridge Building
issueid=1512 12-20-2012 05:09 PM
Member
Number of reported issues by Mekran: 2
Improving Bridge Building
Bridge Building should to be easier to use

Bridge building seems like a very lacking skill to me. The biggest problem I have with it is the bridge must be crafted at the river itself. Gathering logs and bringing them to the river only to have the creation fail several times, resulting in another logging trip. The other methods of dealing with rivers, freezing the water and teleporting across, have no uncertainty, no additional effort learning a skill, and are common enough to be relied on as your main method of crossing rivers. Even swimming across with a waterproof blanket and iron items unequipped has less of a cost to the player (in my opinion) as spending the time trying gathering logs and bringing them to the river.


My idea for improving bridge building is to be able to create the 'bridge pieces' anywhere. You would create a bridge piece instead of using the hatchet on a log at the river. The bridge piece could either be a 100% chance to make a bridge space when used at a river, or simply be lighter than a log, so that you can carry more of them on a single trip when attempting to build a bridge, giving you fewer log gathering trips.
Issue Details
Issue Number 1512
Issue Type Feature
Project ADOM (Ancient Domains Of Mystery)
Category All
Status Suggested
Priority 8
Suggested Version ADOM 1.2.0 pre 8
Implemented Version (none)
Milestone (none)
Votes for this feature 16
Votes against this feature 0
Assigned Users (none)
Tags (none)




12-20-2012 06:23 PM
Ancient Member
A much simpler solution would be to tweak the success rates so that building a bridge segment no longer requires an average of ten logs.

12-20-2012 06:59 PM
Ancient Member
I would prefer rafts being creatable with bridge building. Would need to limit them somehow - maybe use up on crossing if weight is low enough.

04-24-2014 11:04 PM
Junior Member
Apologies for resuscitating an old suggestion, but I would definitely like to see the skill receive a bit of a facelift too.

Silfir's solution would work great. An alternate idea would be to not have the log used up on a failed attempt, or at least lower the odds of it happening from 100% to, say, 20-30%. If that makes the skill too easy (doubtful, as you still need to lug around 1000s of stone's worth of logs in the first place), the skill could take longer to use.

04-24-2014 11:16 PM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by Silfir
A much simpler solution would be to tweak the success rates so that building a bridge segment no longer requires an average of ten logs.
If you still want skill to matter (and I'm not sure how this skill matters *other* than success rate - perhaps energy cost/moves but you're not normally building them in hostile situations), then allowing people to spend skill points on bridge building without carrying the manual around would help as well. I don't think it's a skill that's going to get to 100 but if your success rate were basically exactly equal to your skill amount, then putting one or 2 skill-ups into it could double the success rate at the bottom end.

04-24-2014 11:26 PM
Ancient Member
I suppose we should just ask outright, how many folks have used bridge building in a game, ever. Other than on a lark, that is.

And yes, I have used it about 4 games, over hundreds of games. Slightly more often than woodcraft.

04-24-2014 11:37 PM
Ancient Member
Well, I used it when I just started playing, before I knew about other methods of crossing rivers safely. I even used it once to get to the ring. But, yes, I don't see myself ever using it again in its current state.

04-26-2014 02:45 AM
Senior Member
I usse it fairly regularly. Probably on almost every game that I'm not trying to speedrun.

04-26-2014 06:07 AM
Ancient Member
Never used it. And even with the suggested tweaking, i would still not use it unless i don't have any other methods. I usualy spend some time in the ID, which gives me a fair number of blankets everytime, then i dive into the river without even knowing how to swim, although ID usually provides me with some carrot juice too, very convenient :).

04-26-2014 09:19 AM
Ancient Member
I used it while I was unspoiled and I didn't know about the alternative for getting to the RotHK. Once I found out, I didn't use it anymore. It's too tedious.

04-26-2014 11:26 AM
Senior Member
Never. I figured out frost bolt did the same thing before I had even figured out how to use bridge building. As useless as haggling

04-26-2014 12:54 PM
Senior Member
I use it sometimes in the early game, and rarely for the ToHK; but sometimes that wand of cold just doesn't drop.
Still, it is massively frustrating when your skill is at 50% and you go through eight logs withough building a single segment. Over many games, I still feel like there is a big penalty to the skill being applied behind the scenes because the opposite case never happens.
I think just increasing the chance of success would be sufficient.

04-26-2014 12:55 PM
Senior Member
Quote Originally Posted by YourMum
Never. I figured out frost bolt did the same thing before I had even figured out how to use bridge building. As useless as haggling
Haggling gives you a pretty good discount now, and you can do it repeatedly. Definitely worth trying again especially if your skill is over 50%.

04-26-2014 04:58 PM
Senior Member
If it only took 1 turn (and a small amount of time) to cut down a tree, this would be a more important improvement, to me, than having a high success rate. Could the time to cut a tree and build a bridge be considered? (Both in turns, and in ingame hours)

04-26-2014 08:13 PM
Senior Member
Personally , it's not the time to cut that makes BB not worth it, but the need to make several round trips between the wilderness and a low dungeon level toting 4000s of logs...where each trip might get me one bridge segment, with luck.

04-27-2014 06:06 AM
Ancient Member
I have no idea how much time does it take ingame to cut a tree, but in real life, you can do it in about half an hour easily.

04-27-2014 04:59 PM
Senior Member
Bridge building is no fun at all right now; I'll always hunt a wand or frost, water breathing, or just powerlevel so I can tank the river as opposed to trying to use it.

I like the idea of using it on logs to creates lighter (200s?) bridge pieces that have a guaranteed success.

04-27-2014 06:54 PM
Ancient Member
I think Mekran has hit on a key idea here: for bridge building to really work, you need to be able to assemble bridge pieces (hopefully lighter) in the wilderness when you cut down trees. This saves you the tedious part of going back and forth to the dungeon, which is what most people really dislike.

I think that idea really could save bridge building.

04-27-2014 09:16 PM
Senior Member
Quote Originally Posted by SirTheta
I think Mekran has hit on a key idea here: for bridge building to really work, you need to be able to assemble bridge pieces (hopefully lighter) in the wilderness when you cut down trees. This saves you the tedious part of going back and forth to the dungeon, which is what most people really dislike.
I really think it also needs the amount of game turns it takes reduced. You can easily lose 5000 turns just getting 4-5 successful contruction attempts (for training) in a wilderness forest square. That's too much for most speedy playthroughs.

04-27-2014 10:08 PM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by sylph
I really think it also needs the amount of game turns it takes reduced. You can easily lose 5000 turns just getting 4-5 successful contruction attempts (for training) in a wilderness forest square. That's too much for most speedy playthroughs.
I had no idea it took so long, my goodness! Yes, the amount of time needed certainly needs to be reduced, then.

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