Let allies move out of the way if they can't switch with you

[Quazifuji]

I've just ended up in this rather awkward situation:



I'm standing on top of a plant. I can't leave the little passage I'm in, because Wandering Mushrooms can't walk on top of plans. If I try to switch places with the mushroom, I get the message "Your wandering mushroom cannot make room for you", but if I go the other way it's just a dead end. I can't use blink or any shouting commands to get past it because I can't see behind it because of the terrain. This leaves me with only two choices: kill the plants and/or mushroom, incurring penance, or teleport. These aren't the end of the world, but considering how stupid this situation was in the first place, I'd rather it not be a thing that can happen.

The best way to deal with this, I think, is to allow allies to move in a different direction to make room for you if it's not possible to switch with you. Another solution that would solve this particular case is to allow wandering mushrooms to walk over plans like Fedhas worshippers can, but there could still be other cases where similar things could happen, like a Beogh worshipper walker on water and being blocked by orc minions.

I realize this is a pretty rare case, but it' really frustrating to have this happen and doesn't feel like a good part of Crawl's gameplay at all.

[nilsbloodaxe]

I think if you shout for them to wait, they will eventually wander such that you can get out.

[Quazifuji]

I think if you shout for them to wait, they will eventually wander such that you can get out.

Tried this, didn't work.

It's also possible that there's another mushroom behind the mushroom blocking me, which would stop my original solution from helping either.

[crate]

It's not possible to escape this situation since tw only works on allies in los, and if you have more than 1 mushroom you're screwed since you can't get the others in los.

Really this vault should just not have plants like it does, since they just act as autoexplore traps for fedhas worshippers (and give "can't reach some places" autoexplore messages to other god worshippers, so they're still bad).

This is the second time in about a week I heard someone bring up this exact situation in ##crawl.

(Allowing mushrooms to move through plants somehow would be helpful anyway, probably, but the easy fix is to change the vault.)

[duvessa]

the lair generator can also cause this i think since it puts plants everywhere

[XuaXua]

I see no reason why wandering mushrooms shouldn't be able to pass through normal-sized plants.

[PleasingFungus]

I see no reason why wandering mushrooms shouldn't be able to pass through normal-sized plants.

the reason is that it's a technical nightmare (fedhas passthrough for players is quite bad enough as is)

I have no objection to Quazifugi and/or crate's suggestions, it's just a matter of someone implementing it.

[XuaXua]

I see no reason why wandering mushrooms shouldn't be able to pass through normal-sized plants.

the reason is that it's a technical nightmare

Well, that's the only reason I could think of; I meant gameplay-wise.

[duvessa]

I see no reason why wandering mushrooms shouldn't be able to pass through normal-sized plants.

the reason is that it's a technical nightmare (fedhas passthrough for players is quite bad enough as is)

I have no objection to Quazifugi and/or crate's suggestions, it's just a matter of someone implementing it.

I'll admit I haven't looked at most of the relevant code, but don't air elementals already work?

[PleasingFungus]

I'll admit I haven't looked at most of the relevant code, but don't air elementals already work?

kind of. they 'submerge', like trapdoor spiders & eels. you might be able to hack that to make plants submerge when mushrooms walked into them, maybe.......?

[phobetor]

Would it be possible to implement a dismiss ability for permeate ally gods? Using the ability would either temporarily remove allies from the game until you recall them, or send them to a preset location. This would prevent situations like this, and improve the interface, removing situations where you have to go up stairs, recall, then give the wait command. Of course fedhas would then need a recall command too.

[and into]

Would it be possible to implement a dismiss ability for permeate ally gods? Using the ability would either temporarily remove allies from the game until you recall them, or send them to a preset location. This would prevent situations like this, and improve the interface, removing situations where you have to go up stairs, recall, then give the wait command. Of course fedhas would then need a recall command too.

I think this would be a welcome feature for a wide range of reasons.

[Quazifuji]

I like that feature too. Both of the previous solutions in this thread might still have loopholes where you could still get stuck. Dismiss would guarantee it's not possible to get locked in by your minions in any situation ever (aside abominations from twisted resurrection, but in that case you could kill them without a penalty), in addition to helping with minion micromanagement in other situations.

The biggest issue could be making sure you can't use it to rescue minions who are about to die. But it could always be on a long enough delay, or interrupted by damage, or something else that makes it impractical/impossible to use for this purpose.

[Sprucery]

  Code:

You recall your oklob artillery.

[njvack]

Of course fedhas would then need a recall command too.

Not necessarily. Dismissing a shroom could effectively kill it with no penance.

[Siegurt]

Dismissing a shroom could turn it back into a plain old toadstool, then you could just walk through it like any old plant (And if you felt like it you could re-animate it afterwards

[twelwe]

Dismissing a shroom could turn it back into a plain old toadstool, then you could just walk through it like any old plant (And if you felt like it you could re-animate it afterwards

i support this idea because it introduces a new god ability to circumvent a movement bug

[njvack]

Well, you're right, kinda. But I think there are always going to be weird edge cases with permanent allies where they do something antisocial and you need (or really want) to get rid of them. Think, for example, of the dumb things you could do with water walking and recall. For everyone except Fedhas and Beogh, the answer is "kill them" but incurring penance to make that happen is kind of ridiculous.

So yeah, I kinda like the idea of an ability on gods who gift permanent allies to make them go away.

[johlstei]

Of course fedhas would then need a recall command too.

Not necessarily. Dismissing a shroom could effectively kill it with no penance.

I still don't think there should be vaults that make you waste a permanent resource entirely because you auto-explored into them.

[XuaXua]

Of course fedhas would then need a recall command too.

Not necessarily. Dismissing a shroom could effectively kill it with no penance.

I still don't think there should be vaults that make you waste a permanent resource entirely because you auto-explored into them.

Can this happen with ANY ally, or just shrooms since those don't move normally?

[stickyfingers]

Any allies that can't pass the terrain you're on. It only needs to have a dead end, and you need enough allies (or cramped enough terrain with as few as 2 allies, like here) that some of them are outside of LOS and block the ones inside. That means that there's no need for a this particular vault for this to happen, though it's rare otherwise.

[Quazifuji]

Any allies that can't pass the terrain you're on. It only needs to have a dead end, and you need enough allies (or cramped enough terrain with as few as 2 allies, like here) that some of them are outside of LOS and block the ones inside. That means that there's no need for a this particular vault for this to happen, though it's rare otherwise.

Which is particularly noteable because Beogh, the other permanent ally god who will give penance if you kill your allies, also gives water walking. So both gods who give allies you can't attack without penance give other powers that allow you to go to places where you can't switch with your allies.