Will we have scripting in the future?

[SuperMunch]

I was reading the latest updates to Layonara and the eating and drinking changes are a great idea.

Doing some tasks (emotes, saving, eating and drinking) is a little better than hunting down the item in your inventory and using it but I ask...

Are we gonna have simple scripting in the future?  For example, could we map a hotkey command that will allow you to do some simple tasks (like drink 4 times in a row or do more complex tasks such as equip/unequip an item)?

[Dorganath]

Well, if you quickslot a command to drink, you could just click it 4 times in a row.
  And Equip/unequip...you can already do that in a quickslot.

[SuperMunch]

Yeah, I wasn't too clear on that, it was the rush to get back home...

What I was going to say is that, for example, I equip my helmet and armor before combat.  Right now I have two hotkeys that I have to press once for each item.  What I was wondering is if, in the future, I could just and, violà, both would be equiped.  Imagine I wanted to go into full battle mode, other than the armor and helmet, I wanted to...  say... equip my rapier, shield and use my amulet of shield.  Right now, the whole procedure, which in game time is done quickly (armor, helmet and weapon/shield are all swapped within the same game round), takes 4 hotkeys, that's not counting if you hide some commands under the CTRLs or SHIFTs.

As a matter of fact, if I could just reference anything I have on my character through the command line it would be great.

I know I'm stretching the feature that was built in but hot keys are a precious commodity in NWN, not to mention the amount of hot keys some players use up just to buff up for battle.  Luna Moonchaser has a VERY neat buffing up sequence and I imagine the player hitting a few sequences of hotkeys before each battle just to have a tough fighter take every enemy down in a few quick blows.  Must be a little frustrating.  

Well, those are my two cents and my wishlist.

[Deacon]

You can put the shield and rapier in the same hotkey and they will apply themselves at once, I'm not sure about the Helmet and Armor though.  You might could try it and see if it works..

[SuperMunch]

See, that's the thing, armor and helmet don't stack.

Weapon and shield or any two objects you can hold in each hand are stackable but the rest isn't - it's an engine thing, which I'm fine with but my point is, since you can use food through the talking interface, why couldn't you use equipment?

Mind you, I'm a Counterstrike player and half of what I do is through the typing interface and I missed this in NWN but could live with it, but since you can now use food through the typing interface, why not use other stuff?

[Dorganath]

That's certainly a more thorough description and it makes more sense.
  Now...consider that the more text processing we do, the more potential for lag, so we have to balance out such things. Not that this will kill the server or anything, just something we look at.
  Allowing a string of spells from a single click..hmm...well that sounds an awful lot like a poor-man's spell sequencer, which is a pretty high-level thing...especially if that first spell is Haste or the caster has Quicken Spell or something. I'm not sure we want to do something like that.
  For my own use, armor and helms are changed so infrequently that I don't bother wasting a quickslot on them. *shrugs*

[Talan Va'lash]

Dorganath - 3/16/2006  2:40 PM

Allowing a string of spells from a single click..hmm...well that sounds an awful lot like a poor-man's spell sequencer, which is a pretty high-level thing...especially if that first spell is Haste or the caster has Quicken Spell or something. I'm not sure we want to do something like that.

Spell casting time is balanced by how much of a round it takes to cast a spell, not by how long it takes the player to hit quickslots.

[Leanthar]

Regardless of the balance...

I do not want any commands that can stack that will allow for feats/skills/spells etc. to be used in combo--just isn't going to be approved.

[errk]

Imagine if one could script the population of spells in the spellbook.    One could have one script for defensive, offensive, support, buffing, traveling, heal, summons, general?

Wizards/clerics dream. Save countless erm.. minutes staring into the forest while switching around spells when the party or quest take on a different form.

[OneST8]

Now this is a great idea as I know this lags parties up from time to time and any spellcaster would benefit big from this...

However... we do not have the ability to do this and so... well.. it's just not possible.

[Talan Va'lash]

Leanthar - 3/16/2006  3:52 PM

Regardless of the balance...

I do not want any commands that can stack that will allow for feats/skills/spells etc. to be used in combo--just isn't going to be approved.

Oh, of course it wouldn't let you apply multiple metamagics to the same spell, that isn't even possible in NWN without doing something really weird, also not allowed by the D&D rules.

The suggestion here is just to automate the process like... If I was going to cast 3 spells on myself, I could write it up somehow like... "cast bull's strength, protection from alignment, mage armor" and then it would have your character cast bull's strength, then wait till the next round, then cast pfe then wait then cast mage armor.

AssignCommandCastSpell() not ApplyEffectToObject() or whatever the apply effect function is called.

[Leanthar]

*nods* understood, and that is not what I want to have happen. Sorry, I just do not want that.

[Talan Va'lash]

Fair enough

[SuperMunch]

With all the talk, I thought of a client side solution that might just work but with the added goodness of not taxing the staff or the text parser.