Poison Darts

[Pyrokwah]

I was talking to John about if there would be intoxicants, such as poison darts in the games, to which he replied, "sounds like something rats might invent." I agree, and was wondering what the general populace feels about the whole idea.

P.S.: I am no coder, but with the already planned upon (or finished) knife throwing mechanics, this shouldn't be that much of a problem. However, a rat that can charge attacks and therefore throw 20 flaming knives might just be a little out of reach, so nothing like that please.

[Zhukov]

I have long been an advocate of rats with blowpipes and poison darts.

Poisoned knives sound pretty neat too.

[Pyrokwah]

Another idea, well two, actually.

A) To poison the knifes, darts, you would have to dip them (much like cleaning in lugaru) in the blood of some creature, or in something like a specific tree or such that would be easily recognizable throughout the level.

B) To obtain the darts, one must scavenge from one of your kills of from one of the skeletons that would be laying around.

[Glabbit]

I like all ideas thus far pronounced in this thread.

[Ragdollmaster]

Dip the knife, yay.

I do know that poisonous animals (no, not venomous ones like snakes or spiders, there is a difference good sirs) transfer poison through touch, so it would be fun to like chase down a tree frog and stab it to get the goody poison. I supposed poison would work as a damageovertime thing like bleeding did in the first game? And maybe it would make you start tripping out if you get infected

[Endoperez]

Poison as instant minor damage would be unrealistic. Poison as instant or very fast death/paralyzation wouldn't be fun. Just saying...

Do blowgun darts cause enough damage to be effective against protected human-sized mammals? By "protected" I mean armor and heavy clothing/fur. If they wouldn't have much of an effect but the devs deem they'd work in the game, poison could be used to explain how they cause damage.

[Sandurz]

Instead of poison, how bout deliriants?

[kehaar]

And maybe it would make you start tripping out if you get infected

oooh, cool. Maybe it it messed with your vision, timing and balance, and made you hear things a little distorted...

You could use it on a difficult opponent to confuse 'em before you fight-- a little bit of weaving and stumbling animation would look cool and tell you it was working.

In fact, since this is a violent adult game with killing and all, you could use some of the same effects to indicate drunkenness. (if you needed it for, say, a fight in a bar *cough* for example )

To differentiate between drinkin' and poison, I'd go with trippier sounds and more debilitating vision bits for the poison: possibly gradual draining of color so things start turning gray, gradual loss of focus for peripheral vision so you can't see attacks coming from the side...

For drunkenness, maybe you could just increase the volume 4 or 5 %.

Would you want antidotes in the game? Hangovers? Have it wear off if you can find a place to hide long enough? Have to kill your drugged enemy in the next 30 seconds or you lose the advantage of the poison?

[invertin]

I imagine that the screen waves around randomly, making it awkward to see, weakens the attacks and makes it hard to keep balance.

Sort of like if someone suddenly pumped a bunch of alcohol into you at once.

[Glabbit]

Narcotics and intoxicants!
Are you guys really going to want drugs in OG?
Happy Hippy Bunnies!

If I see a rabbit say "Far out", I'm going to crack up laughing.

[kehaar]

herbs and spices!

how about rabbitty Peyote vision quests! ...for that you'll need Coyote, but he's just a really tricky dog.

[Pyrokwah]

Hmm, this seems like a good idea so far, catching on well enough. and we got some good symptoms as uin color drains, wavy screen, volume changes, stumbling, and definitely the blurry vision from Lugaru has to be an effect in some way.

But we need to look at this from a developer standpoint. Where and how are the rats (and maybe even rabbits at this point, but much more rats) going to obtain poison and the darts? Also, should darts be allowed plain as well as poisoned? Also, I am pretty sure that most rabbits don't have the strength to punch right through a body and pull out a rib (although that would be awesome haha) and would therefore need something sharp and at least a few seconds (for a recent cadaver, a normal skeleton laying around would be quicker)

Also, what about puchasing (or like trading your knife) for some darts?

And to poison the knives, we had some good ideas too. Stabbing some animals, or static plants. This might go far.

[Ozymandias]

If enemies get poison darts it should either screw up your vision, deplete some health over time (permanent damage or temporary damage you can regenerate by resting?) but it shouldn't kill you. I don't think even if you had low health a dart shouldn't kill you, but that's just me. Darts themselves probably wouldn't do much damage by themselves which is why they would need the poison.

Also, the effects shouldn't take place immediately. If it's the vision blurring you should see symptoms of it that gets worse. Even if it's only your health draining some then you should get a cue like a vignette of some sort. Maybe additional darts would speed up the process and make the symptoms worse or lose some more health.

Enemies, in my opinion, should only get one of these each if they have a blowgun. It would suck really bad going through a whole level with drug-o-vision and there would be nothing you could do about it because every 3 seconds someone hits you with a dart.

As for poisoning knives, maybe it has a similar effect as the darts, except you have to find a (non-replenishable?) source of the poison, and if you hit something you didn't want to with the knife (like a corpse, tree, or the ground after throwing it) the poison wouldn't be there anymore. I don't quite know how you would make enemy AI react to the effects of poison because you can't exactly make their screen sway and stuff because they don't exactly have one... but there would probably be a way to code something in.

[Ragdollmaster]

You could screw up their attack paths so they're running all over the place trying to swing at you.

[TheBigCheese]

You could screw up their attack paths so they're running all over the place trying to swing at you.

I think for AI, it should cause them to take a few sidesteps now and then, and have them sway back and forth at a slower pace, while having a slower reaction time as well.

For the player, poison should warp the view, but not so much that it's impossible to see. Just enough to make you dizzy watching it. Also it should use some coloring effects to add to the sickness. The goal would be something that actually makes the player feel sickly to look at.