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81

Editing A&A / Questions regarding codebase

« Last post by Emre on October 21, 2016, 04:08:03 AM »

Hi, I will probably have some questions regarding the codebase, so I will be posting them here.

I think these are leftovers from some debugging? The function that is being called has an empty body.

https://github.com/ExiguusEntertainment/AmuletsArmor/blob/master/Source/FILE.C#L151

For some reason, I am unable to read RES files. It looks like reading the binary files directly to structs is failing somehow. The second element in the index gets garbled, its name field does not have the correct information, etc. My guess is that it is probably due to struct packing issues between different compilers.

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Editing A&A / Re: Peewee Mod Fork 1.3.1

« Last post by Emre on October 19, 2016, 04:03:55 PM »

Apparently too long class rank text does not fit into that text box? It seems to be truncated as"Sect Of". (see screenshot)

Also it seems possible to gain experience by repeatedly summoning and killing your wolves.

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General Discussion / Re: Multiplayer anyone?

« Last post by peewee_RotA on October 18, 2016, 08:43:51 PM »

Here's the latest EXE for the original game (with multiplayer fixes)

Version 1.05.03a
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B53xwpRlaEsdZTdxU0FacTdhN0k/view?usp=sharing&resourcekey=0-bKQxfXuYtICovvWFzoLvvA

Did you have a discord group in mind? Otherwise we could probably start a community AA discord.

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General Discussion / Re: Multiplayer anyone?

« Last post by brofin on October 18, 2016, 05:09:50 PM »

I would love to participate if it gets running again 
I think a Discord server could help!

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General Discussion / Re: Multiplayer anyone?

« Last post by peewee_RotA on October 18, 2016, 09:36:54 AM »

Unfortunately no, but I can get the server back up and running and we can find another time if there is interest.

There was a lot of good bug testing around quest rewards and the chat system the first go around. I think the new EXE is posted here somewhere.

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General Discussion / Re: Multiplayer anyone?

« Last post by brofin on October 17, 2016, 06:21:55 PM »

This still going on weekly?

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Editing A&A / Re: Peewee Mod Fork 1.3.1

« Last post by Emre on October 16, 2016, 05:22:34 PM »

The limiting factor is that a lot of neutral spells are very cheap, and there's going to be a tough balance between giving too much XP (so that blasting push before killing a monster is the best way to gain levels) and giving too little XP (so that spells like slow and dispell magic don't give enough of a reward for their usefulness). 

I slightly disagree with neutral spells being too easy to cast though. Unless you are playing one of the classes with good regeneration, it is not really possible to repeatedly cast spells to get experience.

I think poison should not give experience as well, as I stated in my previous post. I completely agree with your points - the tradeoff is easy combat versus experience, as you said.

Spells like Fly usually require lots of energy to cast, so there could be a small amount of experience gain I guess.

Some suggestions:
You might want to reduce the amount of loot in the new quests. I feel I received too much good equipment too soon. Some stuff that I would get around Q4-Q5 was in the first quests if I remember correctly. (e.g. the mage runes)

Also I managed to kill the big monsters in that town invasion quest using poison hands and a standard dagger. Took more than 20 minutes as a low level mage, but I think their AI needs to be changed slightly, because they stop hitting you if you push them into a corner and keep beating them.

Slightly off-topic (question also for Lysie): What is the current decision regarding a higher resolution option? I remember that there were some work done on it around 2013, along with Lua integration.

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Editing A&A / Re: Peewee Mod Fork 1.3.1

« Last post by peewee_RotA on October 13, 2016, 08:55:32 PM »

After some thought, I think that the idea of indirect damage is still a great idea for many spells. For example, pushing a monster off of a cliff. There's a rather ingenious way to do this that I remember from the old Action Quake II mod. Basically when you hit a monster with a push or pull effect, it could get an attacker value and a timeout of about a second. How this would work is that if the monster takes environment damage (such as falling damage) during that timeout the attacker that was recorded gets the XP. That would work if a monster was pushed into lava, pushed onto fire, pushed into a boulder.

While on the subject of indirect damage, Poison doesn't give XP in the original game and I think it was done really well. Poison weapons and poison spells are essentially the most powerful abilities in the game. For example, the poison bolt will grant some XP for the initial hit, but the periodic poison damage does not grant XP. But that periodic damage does a LOT of damage over time and it stacks. So a warlock's best strategy in a lot of fights is to blast a ton of poison, run away and charge up, then blast a bunch more. Same with a rogue and a poison dagger or the sickener. There are only a handful of serious threats that are immune to poison so this strategy can defeat danger, but it stunts XP. Which I think is a brilliant trade off.

As for the indirect XP from utility spells. I chewed over some options, and I think that there is a good middle ground without making a super abstract XP system. The XP award would have to be per spell type. Low level spells would give nothing or very small amounts. Most enchantments would give no XP because they are designed to make melee combat easier, and that carries with it its own XP reward. Spells like dispell magic and earthbind would give a reasonable amount.

The question for me at that point is whether stuff like fly, life water, and gaseous form should grant XP. They are not necessarily meant to help with combat, and they are relatively powerful spells. So it seems like they should have an award associated with them.

Just to keep in mind, pwmod has two major XP differences to the original game. The big one is that dying (after level 1) reduces your XP by a lot. The other is that since there are more sources of XP, and the base XP was increased for many activities, the players level marginally faster. So any of these improvements increases that margin slightly.

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Editing A&A / Re: Peewee Mod Fork 1.3.1

« Last post by peewee_RotA on October 13, 2016, 08:51:29 AM »

That's a good point.

No, the summoned monster's attacks do not give XP, because I wanted to put together a system where players were rewarded for things other than combat. But you do get about 1,500 XP every time that you use the skill. I kind of like the way it balances the character, because using the blood letting skill to gain mana back, and then continue summoning, is a big risk for the character. So it adds this interesting risk/reward dynamic.

There are other factors to try to spread around XP for other activities. Like gaining XP for picking locks as a rogue. I've always planned on going back and finding a good system for neutral spells. The limiting factor is that a lot of neutral spells are very cheap, and there's going to be a tough balance between giving too much XP (so that blasting push before killing a monster is the best way to gain levels) and giving too little XP (so that spells like slow and dispell magic don't give enough of a reward for their usefulness). One thought was to make every utility spell still cause a tiny bit of damage so that those kinds of spells become a bit more useful and always give back some XP.

If you have any ideas, I'd love to add them in to try it all out.

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Editing A&A / Re: Peewee Mod Fork 1.3.1

« Last post by Emre on October 13, 2016, 05:07:57 AM »

Looking forward to it.

Also, here is a suggestion: It might be a good idea to track indirect damage from player and give experience for that as well. I have tested out the necromancer and apparently the summoned monsters do not give experience, which makes them almost useless early game as you cannot level up.

I am not sure about poison experience though, as it might be possible to abuse it by repeatedly poisoning monsters and running away from them, killing them without any trouble.