[Ohrrpgce] Odd battle caption behaviour

[Ralph Versteegen]

On 29 April 2017 at 03:07, James Paige <Bob at hamsterrepublic.com> wrote:

>
> On Fri, Apr 28, 2017 at 7:50 AM, Ralph Versteegen <teeemcee at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On 29 April 2017 at 02:08, James Paige <Bob at hamsterrepublic.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Fri, Apr 28, 2017 at 6:24 AM, Ralph Versteegen <teeemcee at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I was trying out attack caption delays, and noticed two odd things.
>>>>
>>>
>> Now I finally understand how caption delays and dramatic pause work. But
>> I still don't understand how attack delays, interrupting attacks, chain
>> delays, the several attack and chaining bitsets, and active-time/turn-based
>> mode all interact! Maybe I should read the HOWTO again! I wonder if there's
>> something that can be done, like displaying the sequence of events visually.
>>
>
> Some kind of visual debugger for the sequence of delayed events sounds
> like it would be very useful. That is what I had in mind when I was making
> the F11 attack queue debugger, but I did not take it far enough to be
> useful for much other than attach chain delays
>

I was actually thinking of something in the editor, but an in-game view
would also be good/better

>
>
>> (And add in animations: I was thinking of adding sync points to animation
>> definitions specifically so an attack animation can start before and end
>> after when an attack is actually inflicted, or for a hero pause for an
>> attack animation. Potentially there could be further sync points for the
>> attack delay and pause afterwards... or probably I should split it into
>> attackstart, attack, attackend animations.)
>>
>
> I like that idea!
>

Which one?


>
>
>> The first, I'm pretty sure is a bug.
>>>> In active-time mode, if an enemy uses an attack with a long-time
>>>> caption (and "Attack captions pause battle meters" is on), but it's the
>>>> player's turn next (with battle meter already full, I guess; this is easy
>>>> to reproduce in test.rpg by giving attack 0 a long caption), then battle
>>>> isn't totally paused: the player can go through the menus and pick an
>>>> attack even while the caption is still up. But once they try to actually
>>>> perform an attack, battle pauses for the caption to finish.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Hmmm... That sounds like intended behavior to me-- but it might still be
>>> something we should change. Even though I might have intended it, I might
>>> have been wrong to intend it ;)
>>>
>>> Should captions pausing battles prevent the player's menu from opening
>>> up? I would be okay with that, and it probably isn't a compat break.
>>>
>>
>> Oh, now I'm not so sure it's a bug. I was surprised by it, but I guess it
>> does actually make sense and is convenient.
>>
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Secondly, in any battle mode, whether waiting for captions or not, if
>>>> the battle ends the caption is immediately removed. I would argue that not
>>>> pausing is also a bug, since it easily means a caption is gone almost
>>>> immediately. RMZ complained that he has to use workarounds to prevent the
>>>> battle from ending. I would argue that this is also a bug. Fixing it
>>>> shouldn't be a backcompat problem, because it's only an extra delay.
>>>> Alternatively, we could make the caption continue to display during the
>>>> victory messages, which is useful in case that general bitset wasn't set
>>>> (e.g. in all games before Zenzizenzic), and I guess pause screen fadeout if
>>>> we're still waiting for a caption, in case there are no victory messages.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Ah, yes! I do like the idea of pausing captions delaying the end of
>>> battle. That should happen for both victory and death.
>>>
>>> I never thought of it before, but it totally should be fixed.
>>>
>>
>> OK. But if the caption doesn't pause battle, should we keep the caption
>> onscreen while the victory messages are up, or keep the current behaviour
>> of dismissing it?
>>
>
> Hmmm... I think that keeping up the caption while victory messages display
> is reasonable. It will be the right thing to do most of the time, and even
> if it isn't, it will just be cosmetic, and never game-breaking. Maybe we
> can have a per-attack bitset to clear the caption on victory if anybody
> asks for it.
>

I think a caption during victory wouldn't be strange or unwanted, as long
as it disappears soon. Does any game actually use long caption times? I
can't think of any reason to have a caption last more than a few seconds,
other than to annoy... or perhaps for a slow countdown.
I think I would cap the caption time to about 2-3 more seconds once victory
is triggered.

Hmm, delaying the end of battle on victory is one thing, but when the
player loses a battle the screen fades out immediately once the animation
is done. I actually like that it's so sudden, although missing captions can
be annoying. So I'm still a bit cautious about changing it.

---
> James
>
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