[Ohrrpgce] Odd battle caption behaviour

[James Paige]

On Fri, Apr 28, 2017 at 9:30 AM, Ralph Versteegen <teeemcee at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
>
> 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?
>

Just the idea of animation sync points in general :)


>
>>
>>
>>> 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.
>
>
That would be reasonable.


> 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.
>

I often feel like death goes too quick, and I am sometimes left wondering
what killed me-- but that is probably a job for a separate feature, like a
simple option for a global delay after death-in-battle, or maybe an option
to change the speed of the death fade (do we even have any custom-length
fades yet anywhere?)

---
James
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