Better Fall Events

[LucidFugue]

Something I've been thinking about lately is the abrupt way falls are handled. Sometimes I'll be wandering along a fairly steep incline, the view jerks for a moment, and I receive notice that I have sprained both my wrists and an ankle, and I continue moving on. In my imagination that means I likely twisted my ankle, fell to the ground, and caught myself awkwardly with both hands. But the short animation that plays and the fact that I barely stop for a moment before I continue moving is incongruous with this image. 

Of course, the design so far has been fairly strict about not taking control of the camera away from the player, and I respect that. But I think a slightly more dramatic falling animation would be warranted to make this event feel more than just a temporary nuisance. Hence, my suggestions on expanding the fall event to be a little more dramatic:

1. Animation improvement. The player is put into a crouch position and the camera shifts down sharply, before rising back up, with the player returning to a standing position. Accompanying audio for the initial injury grunt, and then an "effort grunt" for standing back up. This gives the impression of having hit the ground, and having gotten back up. A custom animation could be designed, but I expect this is a lot simpler to implement? Correct me if I'm wrong. 

2. Inventory item drop chance. I like that injuries are rolled randomly, but much like wolf struggles have a range of potential events, this could be one "minor" event that is rolled on a fall, where some items fall from the inventory and hit the ground. 

3. Item damage chance. Another potential event, similar to torn clothing, but focused on specific equipment damage. Your lantern might cop a beating, for example, or one or more arrows get bent out of shape, losing condition.

4. Condition loss. Minor scrapes and bumps that accompany such a fall, but aren't specific injuries (e.g. lacerations and bruises). 

 

I think this could apply both to fall events that occur from navigating rough/uneven terrain, and from fall damage events. 

[Dirmagnos]

Never thought that my char actually falls during those events. I thought that my char just slipped or miscalculated his weight to snow ratio and foot fell thru the ice deeper or that he hit something under the snow.

Sprained wrist is a bit different thing. Since it always happens in the wind i thought that its similar to ankle, but in regards to wind. As you try to protect your face and wind changes, misplacing force that is used to keep you hand in front of your face.

[LucidFugue]

9 hours ago, Dirmagnos said:

Never thought that my char actually falls during those events.

I suppose if you only sprain your ankle that's quite possible, I'm not wedded to every injury event being considered a fall. For me, sprains only ever seem to occur walking on sloped terrain, and it is the same event whether I receive 1 or 2 sprained ankles, and/or 1 or 2 sprained wrists. I haven't noticed wrist sprains only occurring in high winds, but I would assume that would be a legitimate factor attributing to the likelihood of an injury event. Maybe there are multiple separate injury events and I've not noticed, rather than a single event that has a number of factors increasing its likelihood of occurring, as I have assumed.

In any case, I think this somewhat strengthens the concept that this should be expanded. If we have ambiguous injury events with multiple and varied causes/factors, it would be worthwhile to add detail to this system. It's a kind of environmental hazard that is ripe for expansion, in my view.

[cekivi]

Like this idea as a whole since it adds more depth to the injury system without (hopefully) too much extra developer work.