Patch Notes: Enhanced Climbing

Climb onto ledges

Climbing now knows what a ledge is. Face a ledge and press Jump, and you pull yourself up onto it instead of jumping.

• From the ground: you can reach a ledge up to about shoulder height at Climbing 0, and a little above your head at Climbing 100.
• Narrow tops: you can stand on a wall top only about a foot wide. You land in the middle of it.
• Tables and shelves: thin tops count too, even with nothing but legs underneath.
• Pitched roofs: you can climb onto a roof from its eave, up to a 45° pitch.
• Low ceilings: if there's only room to crouch on top, you end up crouched. Pressing Crouch during the climb won't stand you up into the ceiling.
• No ledge in reach: Jump is an ordinary jump, the same as before. That includes on stairs, where Jump no longer turns into a climb two steps up.
• Holding Jump: the Jump that climbed a ledge is used up. You won't hop when you arrive; press Jump again to jump.

Climb over fences and parapets

Press Jump at a top too thin to stand on, such as a fence, a railing's top rail, or a roof's parapet, and you climb over it and step down onto the floor behind. This only happens when the floor behind is no more than about 1.5 m below.

Vault low walls

Press Jump while moving forward at a wall or fence with a thin top, no higher than about 1.2 m, and you vault over it and keep going. The pace of the vault comes from your Jumping skill.

• A vault never throws you into a fall that would hurt. Over a railing above a long drop, the press is an ordinary jump.
• A top deep enough to stand on is climbed onto rather than vaulted.

Catch a ledge and hang from it

Jump at a ledge that's out of reach from the ground, or press Jump while falling past one, and you grab it as it comes within reach of your hands. A tap is enough: the press lasts until you land.

• Holding Jump through the jump does more: it also steps you onto a low ledge in mid-air, and with Forward held it grabs a bare wall. A tap only catches ledges at chest height or higher, so jumping up stairs or about a room still just jumps.

• Hanging: a ledge at chest height or higher (about 1.2 m above your feet) is held. You hang under it with your eyes just below the edge. A roof's eave counts, up to a 45° pitch.

• Holding Forward as you catch it climbs you straight up, the same as before.

• A lower ledge (below your chest) is stepped straight onto.

• Hard catches depend on skill. At Climbing 0 you can only hold a ledge after a fall that wouldn't have hurt you anyway. At Climbing 100 you can hold one after a fall of about 15 m. Fall further than your skill can hold and you don't catch it; you keep falling and take the fall.

While hanging:

• Forward, or a fresh press of Jump, climbs up onto the top, or over it if it's thin. A ledge with no room above it, such as a window sill, just keeps you hanging.
• Left and Right move you along the ledge (a shimmy). The hands follow the ledge as it rises, falls and bends. You stop where it ends or breaks.
• Corners: the shimmy goes round the corners of a building, inside and out, and round towers and rooms of any shape: square, eight-sided or round. Keep the key held and you carry on round. Going round a corner uses your grip like the rest of the shimmy.
• Back climbs down the wall under you.
• Crouch lets go. You fall from where you were hanging, so the drop is shorter than it looks from the top.

Climb any wall

Hold Forward against a wall for a moment and you climb it. There's no dice roll any more and no random slipping.

• Forward climbs up, Back climbs down, Left and Right move across. Let go of the keys and you stay where you are.
• Jump with Forward held at a sheer wall grabs it straight from the jump.
• Climbing down to the floor sets you back on your feet. A ledge too narrow to stand on, such as a window sill, stops you on the wall above it. Crouch lets go.
• If you're crouched under something low, you can't start a climb until there's room to stand up.
• At the top, with Forward held, you pull yourself over the edge as soon as it's within reach. If there's no room up there, you climb on until the edge is at your hands and hang from it. Under a cornice that sticks out, you reach round it and hang from its edge.
• Your Climbing skill sets how fast you climb: slower than before at Climbing 0, faster at 100.
• You can still climb out of water onto a ledge the same way.

Your grip

Hanging and climbing wear out your grip. When it runs out, you let go.

• A fresh grip lasts about 6 seconds at Climbing 0 and 30 seconds at Climbing 100.
• It lasts less when you're tired: at no Fatigue, about a third as long.
• Holding still on a wall with your feet on it tires you half as fast as hanging or moving.
• It comes back in a couple of seconds once you're standing on something, or treading water.
• A Grip meter shows with the breath bar while you hold on, and while it comes back. It turns red, and you're told "Your grip is failing.", when it's nearly gone.
• With no grip left you can't catch or grab anything until it comes back.

Saving on a wall

Save while you hang or climb and the load puts you back on the wall where you were, with the grip you had left. Save in the middle of a climb onto a ledge and you load at the end of it.

Heavy packs

Carrying more than half of what you can carry shortens your reach. With a full pack, a ledge has to be about 30 cm lower to reach.

Your skills matter

• Climbing sets how high you can reach, how fast you pull yourself up, climb and shimmy, how long your grip lasts, and how long a fall you can still catch.
• Past 100, Climbing still makes you climb and shimmy faster, up to 1.4 times as fast at 200, just as it does for ordinary climbing.
• Climbing onto or over something, and catching a ledge or a wall, each cost about as much fatigue as a jump and train Climbing. A vault trains Jumping. Time on a wall costs fatigue as climbing always has, and trains Climbing as often as the old climb did.
• Khajiit and the Climbing spell help here too.
• With Roleplay & Realism on, you can't climb, catch or hang while holding a weapon, just as with ordinary climbing. Drawing one on a wall makes you let go. You can still vault. Sheathe your weapon (or use bare hands) to climb.

Where to find it

Enhanced climbing is under The world in Features. It's on by default. Turn it off to keep Daggerfall's own climbing.

• Offline, the classic UI always uses classic climbing.
• Online it's on for everyone, whichever UI they use, so every player can reach the same places.

Coming next

Leaping between ledges, the arms and camera showing all of this, and other players seeing you climb.

What's Changed

• Enhanced climbing: CLIMB1 + CLIMB2 (hang, shimmy, grip, free climb), each audited by @Lattymoy in #483

Full Changelog: app-v0.1.5249...app-v0.1.5270