Castle Paradox

msw188 · Joined: 02 Jul 2003 Posts: 1041

I am currently of the belief that the targetting selection 'recorded target' in the attack editor does not work on dead characters. That is to say, if I have stored a dead target earlier, and then have an attack that is set to target the 'recorded target', then the attack does not occur (but the character's ready meter is reset back to zero, so the action seems as though it is attempted). Or perhaps it may be that storing a target fails on dead targets. I don't know which.

Is this intended in this way? If not, then it is a bug and I will enter it into
Bugzilla. If it is, then I would like to suggest a new targeting option: 'recorded target (including dead)'. Or is there some way around this now that I am not aware of? I would very much like to be able to store a dead (hero) target, and affect it later in battle.

Any input, suggestions, possible corrections (I guess I can't be absolutely sure that this is the problem in what I am trying to do), etc. are welcome.

Bob the Hamster · Posted: Mon Mar 13, 2006 5:53 pm Post subject: Re: Bug or intended?

AdrianX · Posted: Mon Mar 13, 2006 10:11 pm Post subject:

..a hero targetting another hero(alive) using store target does'nt work either.

LeRoy_Leo · Posted: Mon Mar 13, 2006 11:36 pm Post subject:

I think that if a stored target dies;
a) it should become unstored.
or
b) the next enemy in line is hit instead.
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---msw188 ---
"Seriously James, you keep rolling out the awesome like gingerbread men on a horror-movie assembly line. "

msw188 · Joined: 02 Jul 2003 Posts: 1041

Well, perhaps this problem is just another symptom of what AdrianX is talking about (so we're saying that storing targets is useless when only heroes are concerned?). Maybe I should just add a comment to that entry in Bugzilla? Or should I add a whole new entry?

I have to lodge a severe disagreement with The King Leo. Why should attacks on stored targets be changed if the target dies? I have a specific attack that is designed to target stored, dead allies. Maybe the best idea would be to have two targetting options - 'recorded target' and 'recorded target including dead'.

Raekuul · Posted: Tue Mar 14, 2006 9:52 am Post subject:

And if it was an attack from one foe to another?
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Mike Caron · Posted: Tue Mar 14, 2006 7:29 pm Post subject:

Then it should fail. IMO, a target should not implicitly switch to someone else. If the target is a monster, then it means that dead targets should un-target, since the target doesn't exist any more. If it's a hero, it should still target, because they still exist.
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LeRoy_Leo · Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 11:36 am Post subject:

I see what you guys are saying now, and I couldn't agree more. Thanks for calling me out on that. I was thinking that the attack just stopping when the stored target dies could be a bit confusing. Players would be scratching their heads trying to figure out why the hero suddenly stopped before he could attack. I think a warning should be added for when this happens.
Something like, "Stored target is dead", and it can be modified in the Global text String menu.
_________________
Planning Project Blood Summons, an MMORPG which will incinerate all of the others with it's sheer brilliance...

---msw188 ---
"Seriously James, you keep rolling out the awesome like gingerbread men on a horror-movie assembly line. "

msw188 · Joined: 02 Jul 2003 Posts: 1041

Hmm, I'm feeling a general bitset for this one. After all, there are plenty of people who prefer the Final Fantasy system of, if you target an enemy with your attack and it dies, your attack is given to the 'next' enemy. Similarly with enemies attacking heroes. This is more difficult than I thought at first. It would be best to have this decidable on an attack-by-attack basis.

sigh

Since this is looking like it may be difficult to work out how we want this to work, and then implementing it, I would like to describe my specific idea and see if anyone can think of a way to do this. I have an attack where I want the player to choose a dead ally to revive. The attack then chooses a random enemy to kill, and gives that enemy's HP to the dead ally, thereby reviving him/her. Can anyone think of a way to do this without storing a dead target?

Mike Caron · Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 3:46 pm Post subject:

Eh, I think thats a different issue. If you pick a target ("Fight"), and it dies before you can attack, then sure, it should pick another target.

BUT, if you Target someone ("Aim"), and they die, then it shouldn't arbitrarily shift around. Like, if you're playing Counter Strike or something, and you're about to snipe someone, and then someone does the job for you, you don't start looking around for someone else to snipe, you go "Fscking killstealers!" and what not.

*Mike Caron has not played counter strike, and doesn't intend to
_________________
I stand corrected. No rivers ran blood today. At least, none that were caused by us.

Final Fantasy Q
OHR Developer BLOG
Official OHRRPGCE Wiki and FAQ

LeRoy_Leo · Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 11:02 pm Post subject:

I stand by my caption idea.
_________________
Planning Project Blood Summons, an MMORPG which will incinerate all of the others with it's sheer brilliance...

---msw188 ---
"Seriously James, you keep rolling out the awesome like gingerbread men on a horror-movie assembly line. "

msw188 · Joined: 02 Jul 2003 Posts: 1041

The problem is that not all game-makers may be using the target storing function in this fashion. Imagine an attack that is, essentially, an 'intelligent' berserk attack. The attacker randomly chooses a target, but then keeps on attacking that specific target until it dies, and then it moves on to the next. To do this, the first attack should choose a random enemy, but should also store this target, and then chain to a new attack that targets the recorded target (and stores its target - see next sentence). Then when the stored target dies, this attack will itself randomly choose a new target to begin bashing, and stores this new target to make sure that it is continually attacked until death.

That last example was thought of here on the spot. I'm sure there can be many more. Is there room in the attack data? This could take up an attack bitset, I suppose, and we would have to decide what the default should be...