Update to Death Echo

[Dorn]

The mental image fades, leaving your vision clear once again.
(You can use the esp rescue command to send a pulse of your personal ESP color in response, in order to alert the dead that you're attempting to rescue them.)

So that's the death echo. Would it be possible to update this little bit of text so it mentions the whole "esp rescue 2-4" times ability? I had no idea about it myself until it got pointed out to me from someone else that it had been adjusted.

[Jirato]

Any suggestions on a way to word this that doesn't sound too clunky? Even though it's clearly an OOC message already, pointing out the exact syntax of the esp rescue command seems kind of jarring.

[Dorn]

Hmph.

Perhaps just a helpfile for ESP Rescue with the # part commented in on in there, because I'm drawing a blank on how to make it sound decent and simple myself as well.

[Jirato]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking too.

[Noctere]

Since this whole pulse business is a bit OOC until we have the death mechanic worked out more, how about just flat out saying what the pulse is intended to be instead of beeping a sort of morse code which everyone upon death seems to understand? How about something like this?

esp pulse looking:
- 1st person - You send out a pulse of emotion giving the sense that you are looking for the remains of the recently departed.
- 3rd person - You receive a pulse of emotion from the color <color> with the sense that they are looking for the remains of the recently departed.

esp pulse found:
- 1st person - You send out a pulse of emotion giving the sense that you have found the remains of the recently departed.
- 3rd person - You receive a pulse of emotion from the color <color> with the sense that they have found the remains of the recently departed.

esp pulse resurrect:
- 1st person - You send out a pulse of emotion giving the sense that you have found the remains of the recently departed and that they are being treated.
- 3rd person - You receive a pulse of emotion from the color <color> with the sense that they have found the remains of the recently departed and that they are having the body treated.

esp pulse failed:
- 1st person - You send out a pulse of emotion giving the sense that you cannot find the remains of the recently departed.
- 3rd person - You receive a pulse of emotion from the color <color> with the sense that they cannot find the remains of the recently departed.

[Dorn]

Personally, I'd really love that. The established players all know about it all, but I imagine for new Players with no notes placed it can seem very vague unless someone ends up explaining in Question while they're dead.

With the wait time for raises in Churches, chances of having someone actually look for you... while I prefer death being something that should be a trial, the less opaque to new players the better I imagine instead of having them get frustrated.

[garith]

I second what Dorne Said.

[Akila]

I also really like Noctere's idea. It's simple and informative.

[Jirato]

I too agree with Noctere. Feel free to make it so. If not, I'll try and work on it when I can.

Let's quit the separation of esp pulse and esp rescue too, and add in esp pulse greeting, esp pulse farewell, and esp pulse presence (As an "I'm here on this color channel" thing) as options.

Though I'd like to see the messaging be a bit more vague, describing the intent or emotion rather than just flat out saying what's going on. Kinda like the commune and distress messages. Like esp pulse looking or esp pulse searching would convey a sense of searching for something lost, but wouldn't explicitly say "This person is looking for a corpse.". Found could convey feelings of finding something that was missing. Resurrection could show feelings of rest and relief, and so on.

[Dorn]

Funny, I considered that when looking at Noctere's. After all, there may be several corpses and so forth.

But the general sentiment, I love.

Sure it will change when death goes through final revamps and such, but for now, be great. While on the topic of death... any chance you can have a look at Rook Raising compared to Monk? The waiting time for Rooks seems *hugely* ridiculous compared to Monks.

Dakhal and I have also been noting that the depart penalty seems really easy to remove these days, not sure why, but just a feeling.

[Jirato]

Depart penalty is pre-skill acceleration and probably needs to be re-addressed (along with ASP).

Monk and Rook raiser NPCs are on the exact same timer. I'll double check the code to see that it's counting ticks rather than looking for specific second counts in the current timestamp (sometimes the loop skips a beat and misses a second count - such as the Mistral Lake barge before about 3 months ago)

[Dorn]

Hmph. I've been working it away with my skills at normal (which is probably above the curve) so maybe I'm imagining stuff. Maybe it is factoring in some how anyway.

And fair enough. Might be something going on. Rook/Familiars tend to glance at each other a lot, and at the current state it often seems like you could wait the time to depart, wait to lose your penalty, AND work off the non-temporary penalty in the time someone could get you, drag you, and wait for a rise.

[jilliana]

I really like Noctere's idea. As someone else said, it's definitely more informative and far less frustrating then trying to figure things out as far as death mechanics.

[Jirato]

Both Soul Retrieval and Beacon NPC loops were looking at the current second in the timestamp rather than tick count. I've changed the logic to match that of the Mistral Lake barge. We'll see how that works. Though do keep in mind this is the part that affects how the raising NPCs spawn, not the AI behind the actual raise mechanics. Those work differently and could vary slightly between one another. You should see the NPCs spawning quicker now though.

[Akila]

Thanks for checking the Soul Retrieval and Beacons, Jirato. It was something I noticed myself but just figured it was an RP thing, like the familiar taking a while to locate your soul of something.

[Noctere]

The new ESP rescue command is ready for use! Please expect further changes as this new feature is tweaked and adjusted.

For proper syntax please type:

esp rescue

[Dorn]

Neat! Now to kill someone to try it out. Kidding. Wait for someone to die.

[Kiyaani]

Can we get a different wording for the failed message? The current messaging doesn't really seem to get the point across:

Your sense of awareness is briefly tinged with the color Bellflower-Blue. The sense of awareness pulses with the feeling of failing to find what you were searching for.

Failing to find it means there's still a chance someone else will. I'm not sure how I would word it, but in cases where someone is unrecoverable for other reasons it might be better to make the message a bit more fatalistic.

[jilliana]

Thought I posted or asked about Kiyaani's idea some time back, but I can't remember where. But yes, I agree with it completely. Maybe saying something along the lines of the body being difficult to retrieve. Not impossible as depart is supposed to have us think ICly that a someone got us somehow, just not a PC.