TestRunnerSRL
Expand "Open Door of Time" setting to allow different requirements
Me and my friend just attempted an OOTR playthrough together. Like most people, we got stuck, and consulted the spoiler log for help, but we did not like what we saw. Apparently we never needed to collect all three spiritual stones or obtain the Ocarina of Time in order to travel to the future time period. I went through the settings on the randomizer and couldn't find anything that would tip us off about this change, or any kind of setting to make it so that the original requirement from the game is preserved, I think you should add an option in the setting that makes it so that you do need the Ocarina of Time and Spiritual Stones in order to go to the future, because that is how it was in the original game, and keeps the normal story progression intact.
in the vanilla game, you do not need the ocarina of time or the spiritual stones to go adult. You only require the fairy ocarina and song of time, so it functions the same as rando. As for vanilla story progression, that would significantly reduce the amount of randomization options, to the point where it's almost not worth it. If you'd like to talk about this further, I suggest you bring this idea to the discord where more people will see it, rather than posting here on github
Maybe we should explicitly mention in the tooltip that the stones are not required.
Vanilla story progression/being how it was in the original game is completely thrown out the window so it's not really a good reason for doing anything, but a setting to require stones + OoT to open the DoT isn't a terrible idea on different merits.
Different settings for Door of Time have been discussed a few times, but I don't remember why it's never been done; whether there was a technical reason or was just a design decision
I apologize if this was the wrong place to suggest this. I looked at the Discord, but it didn't seem like the right place. That place just seemed to be for people who were stuck or trying to learn how game patching works.
I'm just saying that from the perspective of someone who knows the original game by heart, not needing the spiritual stones or Ocarina of Time to open the Door of Time seems jarring. It feels off to see all three spiritual stones on the altar when I don't actually have all three. Maybe in the actual code for the game, you only actually need the Song of Time to open the door. However, that is an impossible situation to be in under normal circumstances. and so I think it should have been corrected. There is a similar option for making the rainbow bridge to Ganondorf's Tower to appear (Apparently, only the Shadow and Spirit Medallions are needed). The randomizer already has that issue covered as both options the original way and to require all the Medallions are available to choose. I think that there should be an option to require all spiritual stones as well.
There's a suggestions channel in the discord but github is also a fine place for feature suggestions.
However, that is an impossible situation to be in under normal circumstances. and so I think it should have been corrected.
So is 99% of what happens in rando...
Again, different settings for opening DoT isn't a terrible idea (3DR actually has an intended DoT setting that does exactly that) but these aren't good reasons for doing so
My point is that the randomizer seems to treat the Door of Time from a "this is how the game was programmed" perspective, whereas I think there should be an option to make it play by a "this is how the world of the game works" perspective.
Here's another way of putting it. The whole concept of a randomizer, at least to me, is to swap the locations of items and other aspects around, yet the conditions for obtaining them remain the same. For instance, while King Zora in the future will now give a different item upon being saved, you still need to unfreeze him first in order to obtain whatever he gives you. Not needing the Spiritual Stones to open the Door of Time breaks this concept because it dumbs down the conditions. And I'm not saying that people shouldn't be able to play it the way it is now if they want to. I just want there to be an option to make the stones necessary.
On a side note, is there an option to make the entire game completable? As in every area and every item can be accessed? Though I didn't complete my playthrough, I noticed some concerning things such as entering the Shadow Temple as a child through an entrance only accessible as a child. That basically means that the entire Shadow Temple in my spin could not be done as the child cannot use the Hookshot.
yet the conditions for obtaining them remain the same.
That's exactly what's happening by preserving the vanilla Door of Time requirements. Needing the stones to get the OoT to open the door is a certain order in which you get items, which the rando, as you said, swaps around the order in which you get items.
All Locations Reachable is on by default. Dungeon ER opens many dungeons as the opposite age to make it more open/interesting, so that's likely what happened here. You can hover over the setting to see what all dungeons it opens.
The problem is that there is no option to require the stones as of right now. As stated here previously, the only two options are to just require the Song of Time, or to require both the Ocarina of Time and Song of Time. On my playthrough, I got stuck because I could only acquire one of the stones, and only found out that just the Song of Time was needed when I looked at the spoiler log.
From what I understand, the way the original game was programmed was that it only checked for the Song of Time. However, this is irrelevant. How the game was programmed doesn't matter. What matters is how the game world is portrayed to the player. In the original game, the player is told that they need all three stones to open the Door of Time. This is how the world of Legend of Zelda is supposed to work, so there should be an option added in the next version of the randomizer that will preserve this condition.
There is already a fix for something similar with the medallions. In the original game, it was apparently programmed to only check for the Shadow and Spirit Medallions to make the rainbow bridge to Ganon's Tower appear, Thankfully, there are options to keep that original requirement, or change it to require all six medallions. This was another discrepancy between what was actually programmed and what was portrayed to the player. This received proper option support, so I think the stones should receive option support to.
From what I understand, the way the original game was programmed was that it only checked for the Song of Time. However, this is irrelevant. How the game was programmed doesn't matter.
And that is the basic disagreement we and most of the devs have
Current the Door of Time has two options: open and closed (SoT). I would be okay with upgrading that to match Rainbow Bridge somewhat in having more choices: open, stones, SoT, stones+SoT, etc.
How does this sound for possible options?
- Open (equivalent to current “Open Door of Time” setting)
- Song of Time (vanilla; might want to call this “Fairy Ocarina + Song of Time” to clarify, though this would technically be inaccurate for glitched gameplay)
- Ocarina of Time + Song of Time
- 3 Spiritual Stones
- 3 Stones + Song of Time
- 3 Stones + OoT + SoT
The “X + SoT” options would need a hack for the code that runs when SoT is played in front of the pedestal to add the relevant conditional, maybe adding a Navi text box when the check fails.
The “3 Spiritual Stones” option would need to be implemented differently, maybe with a once-per-frame check similar to how ToT Reward from Rauru works.
