attack button is rarely disabled (enough AP available)

[space-rover]

attack button is rarely disabled (enough AP available)

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Happened around 4 times.

Original comment by [email protected] on 20 Nov 2010 at 7:55

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I think its a timing problem.
It seem happen when I move after I engage the combat. (by clicking very fast on 
the screen)

Original comment by [email protected] on 21 Nov 2010 at 2:00

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Thanks for the report.

I think I've managed to recreate the circumstances. Please let me know if this 
is the same thing you experienced:

1. Engage in combat with a monster
2. Longclick a tile that is next to yourself and also next to the monster.
3. Notice how the "Attack"-button now changes to "Move".
4. Move.
5. Now, you have no monster selected (red indicator) and thus, the attack 
button is disabled.

Is this the same thing you saw?

If it is, the you can resolve it by longclicking the monster again (a red 
indicator will appear over the monster), and then the attack button will be 
enabled.

Regardless, I think the combat system is a bit complicated for new players. We 
should be looking at some way to teach this in a better way. We should have 
some way of teaching the basics of attacking, moving and "action points". 
Either by some in-game help that you can read or some tutorial before you begin 
the "real".

See issue #14 for more info (and hopefully progress) on the question of how we 
should move forward. Your comments are very welcome!

Hope this resolves your issue! Please let me know otherwise.

Original comment by [email protected] on 22 Nov 2010 at 8:36

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I could reproduce the described behavior.
It seems to be the behavior that caused the bug. Workaround does work.

I think the most of the combat system is intuitive.
Only how to flee or how to change the targeted enemy was not clear to me. (not 
needed because I was usually stronger :-D)

Some thoughts:
1) Perhaps you could change the popup opening when I click on the "end combat" 
button from "there is an enemy around so its not possible" to "there is an 
enemy around, you first have to move by clicking on a field with no adjacent 
monster, before you may end the combat."

2) All in all you should remove interaction that always leads to the same user 
action. (because there are no negative effects)
 - pick up all items > change to: you picked up the following items (otherwise add a weight limit)
 - do you want to rest here > change to: you have rested and regained full health (or add a small fee for using beds in the tavern)
 - there was a similar question I do not remember.

3) If I attack a monster and kill it with the first hit, then two popups 
appear: "Do you want to attack?" and "Victory, you survived and got xp and gold"

4) It says "pick up all items", although there were no items dropped by the 
monster.

5) There is no way to fasten up attacks in the turns of the monsters. I would 
suggest to let the monsters attack faster when clicking somewhere instead of 
writing: "Not enough AP left this round".

6) Sometimes I manage to open two popups both saying "pick up items" by 
clicking very fast on the monster until it dies and perhaps shortly afterwards. 
(you see I'm the fast one ^^)

7) There could be a "sell everything" in shops. BTW if I sell very much, then I 
often did left the shop and it still shows: "sold this", "sold that"

8) You should overthink the combat system. When I have 76% AC and 44% BC and 
the monster has 30% AC 80% BC then we do not harm each other. What is not fun 
if you don't know how to escape. (Now I know it.)

You may do it like:
AC for an attack = ownAC * otherBC

Or like this: (advanced)
BlockChance is converted to Armor / AttackChance could be removed or converted 
to negative Armor

BC for an attack = Armor * Factor / (1 + Armor * F)

Armor  F=0.03  F=0.05  F=0.07  F=0.1
    1      3%      5%      7%     9%
    5     13%     20%     26%    33%
   10     23%     33%     41%    50%
   20     38%     50%     58%    67%
   30     47%     60%     68%    75%
   40     55%     67%     74%    80%
   50     60%     71%     78%    83%

I would suggest a F around 0.5.
You may use any other asymptotic function that never reaches 100%.

9) There is no info how much health or AC, BC, AD an Level up would provide. I 
have to try it. You could add the info to the level up screen

10) Monsters only respawn if I sleep in a bed. (and far too unfrequented 
randomly) If I want to kill them to make money I have to go to tavern each time.

I would expect when I leave the screen that the monsters reappear. (especially 
the ones at the side of the way.)

11) Add more expensive Items. I got everything worth buying. :-P

Hope the unordered thoughts help you making the great game better.

Original comment by [email protected] on 23 Nov 2010 at 12:06

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You could add a tip of the day section to explain combat system and further non 
intuitive game mechanics.

Original comment by [email protected] on 23 Nov 2010 at 12:08

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Wow, thanks for all the excellent input! You really have a lot of valid points 
there. Good summary. Please comment more on things you find :)

I'll try to answer each of the above things, and my suggested approach to them:

1) Good idea. I've changed the wording to "You cannot exit combat since there 
are adjacent monsters. You first have to move by longclicking a place with no 
adjacent monster, before you may end the combat.". Hopefully that should be 
clear enough.

2a) I'm considering introducing a weight limit in a future version, so I think 
we should keep the option of not always picking up everything. At least, that 
was my thinking initially when coding it.
2b) There actually is a downside to resting, that not all players might want: 
all non-unique monsters respawn. If you've cleared an area you might want to 
return to it quickly to go through it, and then you probably don't want to 
auto-rest if you misclicked a bed. And even when just walking around a room 
full of beds, like the town hall, you might misclick and auto-rest that you may 
not always want. But I can definately see the upside to reducing the number of 
clicks, that's a very valid point that you bring up. The most common use-case 
would be that the player actually wants to rest. But there are misclicks too. 
Hm, tricky. Maybe we should make this as a setting? "Confirm rest", so that you 
can change to the behaviour you want. Usually that's the best way, to let the 
player decide what interface best suits the game style.
2c) Please give feedback if you find it :) I've though about the "do you want 
to attack"-dialogbox. Maybe we should have that as a setting too, so you can 
choose whether you want to always auto-attack or get that question before 
engaging combat. Currently, I think it serves a valid purpose: to display the 
difficulty of the monster. Attacking a tough monster could be lethal.

3) Yes, that's a bug. My fault :) It's a similar thing to what is described in 
issue #20. In the new version (0.6.6), this bug is fixed so you only can get 
one dialog box at a time.

4) Good point. I'll change that so there's only a "Close" button if there are 
no items to pick up.

5) Hm, I'll consider that. 

6) That's the same bug as 3 above. Thanks for noticing it though.

7) Later there will be items in your inventory that you will want to keep, so 
it could be unfortunate if the player happened to sell everything. I can 
definately see the upside to reducing the amount of required clicks though if 
you actually want to sell everything. 
Regarding the popups, that's a problem we'll have to live with unless we change 
the type of popup that we use. Currently, it's a "toast notification", which is 
an Android standard way of notifying the user, and handled completely by 
Android. The duration is currently set to "short", maybe we should reduce it 
even more?

8) Now this is a really good idea I think. Using an asymptotic function would 
be far superior, you're absolutely right there. Currently, the chance to hit is 
purely linear on AC and BC, which is a problem as you describe. I'll start a 
new issue about that since it's a big change in itself.

9) Good point, I'll add that right away.

10) On the other hand, if they respawn too fast you could get stuck in a 
dungeon with no way to get out if you've cleared it. Another way to increase 
the amount of monsters would be to add more maps, so the player can travel to 
other places to level up. That's definately something that we'll do. Do you 
think that will be enough?

11) Wow, did you buy those expensive rings as well? I'm impressed :) 
Absolutely, more equipment and content is coming. I'm planning the next town 
(Fallhaven), to the east of Crossglen village. Fallhaven will have more 
merchants available, with some expensive things. Any ideas for what the Thieves 
guild in Fallhaven should sell? :) 

12) "Tip of the day". Other games (in particular, the old Bioware games such as 
Baldurs gate) used to have tips on the loading screens. That's a very neat idea 
I think. However, our loading screen is barely visible (at least on my device). 
Maybe we could put tips on the start screen, would that work do you think?

Thanks again for taking the time to summarise your comments! This is exactly 
the kind of discussions we should be having in order to improve the game even 
more.

Looking forward to creating one of the best games on Android together!
/Oskar

Original comment by [email protected] on 23 Nov 2010 at 9:40

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8) See issue #22 for further discussion about this. This is definitely 
something that we should do.

Original comment by [email protected] on 23 Nov 2010 at 10:20

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1) I will confirm it with next release. Thx for implementing it.
2a) Ok, then keep it til the introduction of the weight limit.
2b) An option "dont show this dialog again" would be great (rest in bed)
2c) An option "dont show this dialog again" would be nice (attack)
    Or an option "dont show this dialog for this monster again" (perhaps too much)
3) I will confirm it with next release. Thx for implementing it.
4) I will confirm it with next release. Thx for implementing it.
5) I would really like to see that feature.
6) I will confirm it with next release. Thx for implementing it.
7a) I already sold something I wanted to keep once. Perhaps you could add a 
vault in each town where I can hide important items, or you lock items so they 
cannot be sold before they are unlocked again.
7b) I would like to see the "even shorter" version of the "toast notifications"
8) Your asymptotic function looks really nice. Looking forward to use it. 
Perhaps also boosted. ;-)
9) I will confirm it with next release. Thx for implementing it.
10) Adding more maps should work as well. Or adding a training dungeon where I 
could specify the "hardness".
11a) Yes I did buy that rings. Just sell the meat... (very often) ;-)
11b) I will tell in a new thread.
12) I thought of the start screen too.

Original comment by [email protected] on 25 Nov 2010 at 1:47

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2b, 2c) I'll start trying an implementation of that shortly.

7a) That's a very good idea, similar to what some Crossfire-clones do. A vault 
or "home" where you can place items would be nice. Actually, all items on the 
ground are saved as they are now, so currently you can just drop anything on 
the ground and it will stay there forever. This might change in the future 
though :)

Original comment by [email protected] on 25 Nov 2010 at 8:51

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2a, 2b and 2c are now implemented as preferences, so you can specify what 
confirmation dialog boxes you want to see and which should be automatic. I'll 
put up an updated v0.6.6 shortly.

Original comment by [email protected] on 26 Nov 2010 at 12:57

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I've moved the remaining thoughts from this issue to separate issue numbers:

5) Moved to issue #26
7a) Moved to issue #25
12) Added to issue #14

Having separate issues makes it easier to follow the development of each, and 
makes sure that we don't forget important ideas.

Are there any other things left in this issue that we should keep? Otherwise, 
I'm considering we close this issue since the original question is resolved 
(disabled attack button). Ok?

Original comment by [email protected] on 26 Nov 2010 at 1:55

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You moved everything important out of it. (and fixed / improved the bigger rest 
of this huge thread - thanks!)

One thing left:
If I show the loot dialog box for dropped items of monsters, then it should 
also close if I pick up all items manually.

After this you may close it.

Original comment by [email protected] on 26 Nov 2010 at 10:13

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Did you already shorten the sell toast time?
Otherwise you could show the toast delayed: wait a second and if no items were 
sold in this time show the Tooltip. Otherwise show "n items sold".

Original comment by [email protected] on 26 Nov 2010 at 10:36

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The loot dialog box has a different purpose as well: It should show up even if 
there are no items to pick up (unless the user has enabled the dialog in 
preferences), to display the amount of gold and experience was gained. 

I modified the merchant toast to cancel any old toasts that may be shown. If 
you sell (or buy) several items now, you should no longer see a long queue of 
toasts showing after you leave the store.

I'll close this issue now. All items are implemented or moved to other issues. 
Let's open a new issue if we think of something new.

Very good points Samuel, the above suggestions in this issue really make the 
game a lot better!

Original comment by [email protected] on 27 Nov 2010 at 10:09

• Changed state: Fixed

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I think you got me wrong on that:
   "If I show the loot dialog box for dropped items of monsters,
    then it should also close if I pick up all items manually.
    After this you may close it."

You said:
   "The loot dialog box has a different purpose as well:
    It should show up even if there are no items to pick up
    (unless the user has enabled the dialog in preferences),
    to display the amount of gold and experience was gained."

I really like this about this box. I have your opinion that it should be shown 
if I got no items at all.

I just wanted the box to close *after* it is shown with items, when I click on 
every item to pick them up. (instead of clicking pick up all) Currently if I do 
this, it still says "pick up all items" and "close". As I picked up the items 
manually it should just close.

Original comment by [email protected] on 27 Nov 2010 at 10:27

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I disagree. I think the dialog should remain open when you have picked upp all 
items. That's the way other Android dialog boxes usually work, and I think 
there is a point of following a consistent UI. Maybe we could make it a 
setting? :)

Original comment by [email protected] on 29 Nov 2010 at 9:50

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This would be great!
Perhaps also close an empty box (without items) by clicking anywhere.
You know me, I don't have time ;-)

Original comment by [email protected] on 29 Nov 2010 at 9:54