Unlocking doors through dialogue options

thehuntress · May 2013

I've searched for this before posting but am unable to understand this. It's a basic thief interacts with a door with two options presented: Use the key or use thievery. I've been playing with it so I've just been focusing on thievery but how do I open the door when selecting this option? I'm assuming that I'll have the same issue using the key so I figure the same solution will work for that.

Thanks.

olegbl · May 2013

You can always make 2 doors:
First door starts a conversation, which leads to a dialog choice where the player picks the lock. This door can have a trigger to disappear when this dialog choice is reached.
Second door is just a regular, openable door which can have a trigger to appear when that same dialog choice is reached.

eriane · May 2013

Put an invisible wall infront of it and make into a contact, then have it dissapear after conversation ends.

levitateme · May 2013

I do the double door trick in mine as well. A few things I've noticed:

If you have multiple doors, be aware that pathing is not dynamic. If there is a door, but a barrier in front of that door, it won't try and 'go around' it.
If wandering mobs get too close to the door and aggro the player, the player will *not* be able to open it. Instead, you have to hope that the mobs will eventually all 'slip through' to end the aggro.

Making that last point worse is that collision detection is pretty terrible in tight spaces. I've had a lot of trouble trying to keep mobs from slipping through walls unexpectedly. Tune, tune, tune.

tilt42 · May 2013

Don't use two doors. Use a regular door (don't do anything special with it) with an invisible wall in front. Put all your dialogues and quest logic on the invisible door. When you want the player to be able to open the door, just hide the invisible wall. If you want multiple dialog options that lead to the door unlocking, just create a common dialog node they both converge upon (drag the response lines to the same box), with that node hiding the wall.

agentjaspor · May 2013

Yep, the invisible wall is the way to go here. Fo sho.

angrysprite · May 2013

Here's how I'd do it...

If I understand the OP, the goal is to have one door. The lock must be picked or the PC can use a key if they have it. This will use three objects:

Door
Invisible wall (blocking the door)
"Key" Object (switch, leveler, something that is activated to actually "open" the door).

Key object (switch, lever, whatever) requires a key and will also make make invisible wall disappear (unblocking the door) Only interactable if the player already has a key they picked up previously.

The lock-picking method:
Invisible wall is interactive - using a complex dialog tree to mimic picking the lock (some trees will lead to an unsuccessful completion.) On a successful picking of the lock, the final dialog will give the key (but not actually mention this in the dialog) and describe that the switch is now compromised and should work "without the key" (even though player now has the key).

On activation of the switch - "remove item" option will consume the key, removing it from the player's inventory.

NOTE: None of this will be in the storyboard and be an actual "goal" to allow the most flexibility.

//Smoke and Mirrors

tilt42 · May 2013

I'd say that method is far too complex for something that can be handled very easily. The method I described is the one I use in my own quests, so it's a proven method and one I find works very well.

Using dialog tree puzzles to simulate lockpicking is going to feel cheap, btw. The Thievery skill is supposed to represent just this, so taking that away from the player is going to make rogues feel bitter.

angrysprite · May 2013

tilt42 wrote: »

I'd say that method is far too complex for something that can be handled very easily. The method I described is the one I use in my own quests, so it's a proven method and one I find works very well.

Using dialog tree puzzles to simulate lockpicking is going to feel cheap, btw. The Thievery skill is supposed to represent just this, so taking that away from the player is going to make rogues feel bitter.

Sure - and I would have described how to handle rogues through the "visible for class" option, but wanted to stick with a pithy description.

tiamaster · May 2013

I would love to know how to do this on an outdoor map.

coanunn · May 2013

tilt42 wrote: »

I'd say that method is far too complex for something that can be handled very easily. The method I described is the one I use in my own quests, so it's a proven method and one I find works very well.

Using dialog tree puzzles to simulate lockpicking is going to feel cheap, btw. The Thievery skill is supposed to represent just this, so taking that away from the player is going to make rogues feel bitter.

For once I agree fully with Tilt42. His quest "The Hidden Blade" by far does this the best of any I've seen in the foundry and mimics or even out does similar interactions in 'Live' content. Nothing in this game is going to give you the Bethesda feel of the player actually picking the lock but not taking advantage of the thievery skill is definitely heavy handed and breaks the suspension of disbelief that has to exist with any "theater of the mind" interaction.

tilt42 · May 2013

tiamaster wrote: »

I would love to know how to do this on an outdoor map.

You're in luck! It's the same way as on an indoor map.

Now if you've got a specific problem that isn't solvable through the method I described, feel free to elaborate. There's nothing special about outdoors maps to invalidate my method.

Unlocking doors through dialogue options

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