A-EftP - Route planning algorithm problem

[trinko]

Generally speaking the algorithm for getting to where you click the mouse works very well.

 

But I don't like its behavior when leaving or entering an area is involved.

 

I have many times ended up in a city when I'm trying to go from one non-city point to another. If I wanted to go to a city I'd click on the city.

 

I'd suggest that if the end point, mouse click location, is >some small distance from a city, cave, etc, that the algorithm treat cities caves etc as inaccessible terrain. Since the player has to exit the city and replot his path anyway there's no advantage to including cities, except perhaps for computational efficiency.

 

Also I was fighting Lord Chuckles near the entrance to the gremlin area. I clicked on him to get one of my fighters to attack him. The route planning algorithm took my fighter to the exit area and my whole party was suddenly outside. Since I was winning that wasn't nice. When I went back in no Lord Chuckles. I didn't bother to search for him in that maze and I fortunately had a recent save.

 

Must be a good game that I can be bothered by little things.

[Erebus the Black]

Think about it touch screen wise. If you meant to click/press/push on a city but the machine identified the click as if you clicked a square near it, you would still enter the city hence saving you a lot of grief. The proper solution would be to either add an option in the options menu for auto moving for PC or automove for tablet/smartphone or release two different install files. But indie... time cost money... yadda yadda...

[trinko]

But I'm not using the game on a touch screen. it's not even out for the iPad is it?

[A less presumptuous name.]

No, but Jeff, like any real programmer, is lazy. Now that he ports his games for iPad, he takes that platform's limitations into account when writing the game. He doesn't want to have to change any more than he has to change.

[*i]

Anyone who can write games of this scope with himself and a couple of people helping out is hardly lazy. It's more as to what makes business sense in terms of minimizing costs (his time) versus maximizing profits. There's a sweet spot somewhere and Jeff probably is pretty close to it these days.

[Soul of Wit]

I'll give Master1 the benefit of the doubt that he meant lazy as a compliment, like efficient. Any competent/experienced person is lazy, in that sense. Work smarter, not harder--as the motivational poster writers say.

[A less presumptuous name.]

I suppose I should have been clearer. I meant what Soul of Wit said. Jeff doesn't want to do more work than he needs to. Jeff makes a living on these games, and spending another few days of programming a little tiny feature and making sure there are no bugs with it may not be worth his time.

[Erebus the Black]

hence the yadda yadda

[trinko]

Well I've been playing Jeff's games since the first exile and I'm a programmer.

 

I'd say that a "feature" that regularly makes the user angry is worth a bit of time to fix.

 

When I'm outside of a city and I click on another point outside of the city I shouldn't end up in the city. It shouldn't be the users job to outwit the route planning algorithm.

 

This has happened to me many times and it's irritating.

[Fael]

It is annoying, and I did it about a million times, but the problem is, it's not that annoying. I wouldn't call this a feature that "regularly makes the user angry;" more like a feature that "regularly makes the user mildly annoyed." Are you going to ask for your money back over this? Will you not buy Jeff's next game because of it? Yeah, me neither.

 

Not saying I wouldn't like to see it fixed. I just get why it probably won't be.

[Slawbug]

I agree as far as clicking into cities goes.

 

The problems with the combat pathfinder -- how it activates when you don't expect or want it to, and then does self-destructive things -- are way more annoying, IMHO.

[Fael]

Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S

The problems with the combat pathfinder -- how it activates when you don't expect or want it to, and then does self-destructive things -- are way more annoying, IMHO.

Indeed! Now there's a bug that could really use some work.

Also annoying is the difficulty of moving to the square above and to the left of an enemy without clicking on the enemy instead -- especially if the enemy is something big like a giant. At least there's a work-around for that by enabling keyboard movement. But I'd still rate it as more annoying than the city entering bug. Although I don't expect it to be fixed, either, since there is that workaround.

[Slawbug]

Yeah.

 

That is actually a worse problem with AoE spells. Usually, if you are patient and painstaking, it is possible to get the target centered on the square of your choice. However, if there is a mob of enemies in certain particular configurations, it is possible for there to be some squares in the middle (the ones you are most likely to target) that have no enemy and literally CANNOT be targeted; there is not even a pixel free.

 

The funny thing is that different enemies seem to have different sized "highlight me!" areas... and the sizes do not always correspond to the height of the enemy icon.

[Erika Maroonmark]

Also, sometimes when there's a large group of enemies close together, it's hard to find the right mouse position to target a certain one…for instance, the enemy will be standing "up" from its neighbour, but to target it, you have to move the mouse "down".

 

I haven't really played the later Avernum games (I don't really know when this changed), so I'm used to spellcasting and ranged attacks where selecting a spell or whatever means "cast this spell from where I am". It's pretty convenient just to be able to press M-A-A or whatever and have my mage go up a couple of spaces automatically to be in range, but too often (indoor battles, mostly) I'll pick a spell, they'll run, and they can't get far enough and I've just wasted their turn.

 

It would be nice if there were some kind of warning, but I guess I just have to get used to this new-style combat (I remember the good old days of Exile where Bless Party and Heal All really meant "bless the party" and "heal the party", not "bless everyone except the lead fighter, who is around a corner fighting the boss" and "heal everyone as long as they're within a certain radius"). Man, those indoor battles…

[Erebus the Black]

Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S

Yeah.

That is actually a worse problem with AoE spells. Usually, if you are patient and painstaking, it is possible to get the target centered on the square of your choice. However, if there is a mob of enemies in certain particular configurations, it is possible for there to be some squares in the middle (the ones you are most likely to target) that have no enemy and literally CANNOT be targeted; there is not even a pixel free.

How would you solve this? This is the real problem with isometric games, I believe I had the same problems also in Alpha centaury. Most isometric games don't allow you to spin the screen, which would have helped solving this.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Erasmus

How would you solve this? This is the real problem with isometric games, I believe I had the same problems also in Alpha centaury. Most isometric games don't allow you to spin the screen, which would have helped solving this.

The simplest way is probably to overlay the grid on top of all the creature and terrain graphics when targeting an attack or spell, and target the spell on whatever grid space the player clicks (if it contains a valid target), rather than making creatures selectable directly.

[Slawbug]

Correct. That is the solution, and it is simple and easy. In AEFTP, the visual effect of highlighting the square works pretty well, so I'm not sure you'd even have to overlay the grid.

[Erebus the Black]

Originally Posted By: Fael

Also annoying is the difficulty of moving to the square above and to the left of an enemy without clicking on the enemy instead -- especially if the enemy is something big like a giant. At least there's a work-around for that by enabling keyboard movement. But I'd still rate it as more annoying than the city entering bug. Although I don't expect it to be fixed, either, since there is that workaround.

Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S

Correct. That is the solution, and it is simple and easy. In AEFTP, the visual effect of highlighting the square works pretty well, so I'm not sure you'd even have to overlay the grid.

But didn't you just complain (or acknowledged the complaint) about this still happening in AEFTP?
(also its funny how this also translates into area effect file transfer protocol)