COGG BBS

Per the changelog: Climbing mechanics have been updated. See the "climbing" helpfile/wiki article for more details.

The primary aim for this update was to make climbing an auto-repeating action, so we could then add more to the experience as we have ideas. The hope is to make further additions such as adding little quicktime events and such to the climbing experience that the player has to respond to in order to progress, or at the very least not fall. For now though, it's just a repeating action that you wait out, and the only real decision to be made is whether to turn back on a particularly difficult climb rather than risk running out of energy and falling from way up high.

We will be going through the existing climbs and updating some of them. Some might be very challenging skill-wise but quick to climb, others might have a low skill challenge but take a long time to finish climbing. Adding the height property as well as the challenge property allows us to get a little more creative and vary things up a tad more.

These changes look great! Almost makes me want to create a new character just for climbing. LOL

Tested the stuff out. I have a really good idea of how to make the soundpack interesting following the change now. There's a mud with a bit similar climbing system, not a mud, a moo, that I had a set of sound system for. I can literally use the same sound system on here with relative ease.

It may also mean the next release is shorter than almost a whole year long wait of the last one too, yay!

Cheers for the change! Love you Rias!

Love the update! I was planning on playing around with it more on some of the trickiest climbs in the game, but then the new area was released (and the new changes genuinely saved my character's life)! I like that it's not instant, and being able to reverse my climb is pretty great. Looking forward to all of the tricky future climbs and deadly quicktime events!

It'd be great if there was a way to assess the difficulty of a climb, maybe as an ability under the Climbing Skill Tree for the potential Skill Tree update (have it entail a skill roll, requiring maybe Perception and climbing, and have it on a 12 or 24 bell cool-down to prevent people from spamming it to get an accurate reading, to give us a suggest skill range with possibly inaccurate info if the hidden roll is low). We can do that, sort of just by looking at the climb - but one of the problems with having a capped climb is that when people ask my character how difficult a climb is, it's tricky to tell anyone because the relative difficulty is skewed so much. It's a bit easier to do with the new system, but it'd be a nice QOL thing for people that want to invest deeply in the Climbing skill.

With the new update, can we get some more areas to practice climbing in?
[Edit: Double post]

Per the changelog: The Climbing skill no longer auto-practices when trained. Climbing now grants experience and skill practice based on the challenge of the climb versus the climber's skill.

The practice increase rate is faster than the usual practice-per-experience rate, so we'll see how that feels, keeping in mind that literally anything is going to feel more tedious than the previous lack of any need to practice at all.

ThresherAle wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 12:04 pm can we get some more areas to practice climbing in?

Yep, we've been looking over the current climbs in the game and noting which might be adjusted a bit and where we should add more, particularly to fill in some of the larger skill range gaps.

This is a very cool change. The only trouble is, I don't know where to practice, and I struggle finding places that I don't have routes written down for. There are a couple I have in mind, but am not sure how/where/whom to ask for help, especially since this is an OOC change.

Can we get a list of some places and certain climbing threshholds? Would that be too wrong to ask for? Feeling stumped, though excited.

Firerose, if you're still low skill like I am, here are some spots I've found so far that are easy but provide practice:

- Hanging Tree out on the road north of Shadgard
- Rope hanging from the roof of the Hearth & Home
- Hole in the Tarueka barn roof (get to it from the hayloft)

Not sure about up north by Mistral, I don't get there very often. We have mountains everywhere, so it shouldn't be too hard to add a bunch of climbing hideaways for the climbers to get to while they practice. More nooks and hideouts is always a good thing. I'd love to see some in the abandoned canyon village. I've always liked that area and it seems like it could have a little more added to it. A higher level of the cliffside that can only be reached by climbing? If Mistral doesn't have any climbs in town like Shadgard does with the inn rope, they should get one in town itself for people just getting started. Having more climbs between areas would also be a nice bonus for people who have the skill. Shortcuts, ways to bypass some of the dangerous creatures, stuff like that.

The ones I've tried so far are pretty short climbs so you have to go up and down pretty rapidly still. I wouldn't mind some longer climbs that give more skill rolls each way, just for practice.

ThresherAle, thank you. I'll check these.
I don't feel comfortable giving my specific skill in climbing here, but I will say that the sea caves decline/incline is not risky. I don't know how that compares to the other places you mentioned. I'll check those out now--had completely forgot about the hanging tree! Thanks!