Tracking skill
issueid=3948 10-22-2015 01:46 PM
Ancient Member
Number of reported issues by auricbond: 264
Tracking skill
Inverse of survival.

Apply the skill to roll an improved chance of finding an encounter on the square you're currently on, with the luxury of ambush for you if all goes well, and for them if the die rolls the other way. With higher skill levels the chance of discovering an encounter increases, and the amount of game time it consumes decreases.

*EDIT Should perhaps make you choose a direction, which can be 5.

For balance reasons and to possibly provide incentive to consider finding encounters the old way (without making the skill suck), have whatever+luck_score chance of adding 1d10 levels to each of the enemies in the encounter (with no exp bonus), or 1d10 to your effective level for determining encounter type. Maybe also have the value of 'whatever' decrease the more you use it on a single tile without moving. Maybe also slight xp-drop penalty on any enemy for using the skill.

Yes, you could use this to turf out kranach, but you might get a suped up kranach.

I believe such a skill could present some extra race/class variety when it comes to picking which of those get it to start with.

Yes, it could mess with steel man. Maybe if there's a deluxe-mode that forces those rules it can block that skill. Or not; hell, it just removes a bit of manual labour from the equation.

Issue Details
Issue Number 3948
Issue Type Feature
Project ADOM (Ancient Domains Of Mystery)
Category All
Status Suggested
Priority 8
Suggested Version ADOM r61
Implemented Version (none)
Milestone (none)
Votes for this feature 4
Votes against this feature 5
Attachments 0
Assigned Users (none)
Tags (none)




10-22-2015 03:43 PM
Member
Sounds cool, even if it does pander to Steel Man. As a matter of fact, I commend it for pandering to Steel Man. I love the thought of ultrajackals tearing me to shreds on command. I like the fact that it gives a little more control over a semi-random aspect of the game. I'm all in favor. We could give this to Ranger, at least, for certain, as they ARE the go-to class for Steel Man. Let's do it.
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10-22-2015 06:18 PM
ixi ixi is offline
Junior Member
I'd say this skill could be even more useful then Survival (which I use mostly for fish meat when have no music but wish to tame something). Finding a suitable encounter fast and killing it generates more food then just applying Survival.
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10-22-2015 06:44 PM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by ixi
I'd say this skill could be even more useful then Survival (which I use mostly for fish meat when have no music but wish to tame something). Finding a suitable encounter fast and killing it generates more food then just applying Survival.
That's a worthy point, although probably not true without food pres? I don't wish to be too heavy on pre-empting abuse of the skill or stopping it from being too good, but maybe diminished corpse drops on encounters discovered in this way could be under consideration, since I certainly don't wish it to be better at doing something than a skill actually designed for that purpose. (although most likely i'm against this idea, for the other reasons one would want to hunt corpses).

On a tangential note, I hope the wilderness time inconsistencies get looked at at some point.
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10-27-2015 03:37 PM
Ancient Member
I'm trying to imagine a circumstance where this skill would ever actually be useful. Wilderness abilities in ADOM are mostly junk under the best of circumstances. Survival isn't a particularly good/useful skill even for Steel Man.
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10-27-2015 04:17 PM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by JellySlayer
I'm trying to imagine a circumstance where this skill would ever actually be useful.
Farming corpses (black unicorn, quickling raids, undead).
Finding kranach quicker.
Frogs for frog quest.
Getting kill counter up for old barbarian if the appropriate enemy is a wilderness encounter.
Spending less game clock to achieve the above, at the price of greater risk of death.

Maybe also we could have more quests like the kranach one where you have to hunt someone down.

Wilderness abilities in ADOM are mostly junk under the best of circumstances. Survival isn't a particularly good/useful skill even for Steel Man.
That sounds like a reason to make it useful, not to write it off as a lost cause.
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10-27-2015 04:47 PM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by auricbond
Farming corpses (black unicorn, quickling raids, undead).
Finding kranach quicker.
Frogs for frog quest.
Getting kill counter up for old barbarian if the appropriate enemy is a wilderness encounter.
Spending less game clock to achieve the above, at the price of greater risk of death.

Maybe also we could have more quests like the kranach one where you have to hunt someone down.



That sounds like a reason to make it useful, not to write it off as a lost cause.
The problem is that the vast majority of play time is spent in dungeons. It creates a fairly substantial barrier to how good any wilderness skill could possibly be. Aside from finding Kranach, which isn't that hard (and players are unlikely to have high scores in this skill at that point anyway...), all of the other uses you give for this skill are basically just to make scumming easier.

If this was a feature that really needed to be added, I'd just roll it into Survival.

Yes, if there were a bunch more wilderness quests/areas, then having some more outdoor specific skills might make sense. I don't think adding new skills in the hopes that a reason for their existence will appear later in development is a good way to go.
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10-27-2015 04:56 PM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by JellySlayer
The problem is that the vast majority of play time is spent in dungeons.
First of all, playstyles vary. And there's also no reason habits can't change if the game makes it worth ones while.

It creates a fairly substantial barrier to how good any wilderness skill could possibly be. Aside from finding Kranach, which isn't that hard (and players are unlikely to have high scores in this skill at that point anyway...),
Maybe some r/c combos can start with a higher value. Maybe also one day the skilled talent tree would be a worthy investment. And the tracking still should be decent to use even at a middling score. And certainly, I've been in situations where the game has been very stubborn to produce Kranach, setting me behind 10 days of game clock just due to back luck.

all of the other uses you give for this skill are basically just to make scumming easier.
Yep. People do it anyway, so may as well take some of the pain out of it.

If this was a feature that really needed to be added, I'd just roll it into Survival.

Yes, if there were a bunch more wilderness quests/areas, then having some more outdoor specific skills might make sense. I don't think adding new skills in the hopes that a reason for their existence will appear later in development is a good way to go.
I never said where this should be inserted into the game's development cycle, though, or that it should be implemented ahead of other wilderness improvements. Maybe on seeing an idea such as this one, it will prompt the developer to think of ways to justify its existence. Sometimes an idea is more than just the presently suggested idea, it's also fuel for inspiration.
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11-12-2015 06:42 PM
Junior Member
I voted yes, but I think this and Survival should be combined into one useful skill (and Tracking is perhaps the better name for it) rather than two near-pointless ones.
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