Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Hiul]

is it also include the military schedule one? since some military maybe still in rest mode or training mode.

[ror6ax]

Perhaps the outlines and the friendliness and some other things could all be displayed in a "highlight mode" such as Baldur's Gate/Ice Wind Dale games have while you keep you holding Tab button? 

[Wokko]

They could also make some circular shadows under creatures to make them stand out more.
I forgot to mention, but the problem of "not noticing creatures on the screen" is the most troublesome in adventure mode, where most of the time you look at the static screen. Shadows like in Minecraft would probably help to notice creatures on busy terrain

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Doesn't need to be complex unique shadows for every sprite, just a circle under every creature would be helpful.

[ror6ax]

Yeah I've noticed distinct lack of shadows from dwarfs on the last update but it's most likely because the work on them has just begun.
Other things we've seen so far have nice shadows.

[Pillbo]

Toady saw the suggestion and thinks a small color-coded something below the creature, with friendly/neutral/hostile would be a good idea. With an on/off button.

Has he expressed an opinion about the skeletons/corpses/glowing undead conversation?

[Meph]

Has he expressed an opinion about the skeletons/corpses/glowing undead conversation?

Yes:

And the decayed stuff looks fantastic. We've had a few discussions about the workload, but if that's not a burden, I'm all for it. We're not doing our job if we aren't giving players nightmares, ha ha ha.

[Starver]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Mein Gott! I would have missed that block of log!

Doesn't need to be complex unique shadows for every sprite, just a circle under every creature would be helpful

An auto-mask of the sprite involved, slightly feathered, translated, scaled slightly sideways, subscaled down to maybe half vertically..?

[Shonai_Dweller]

Did we all just forget how to play the game in the excitement for pretty graphics? Just pick them from the list if you can't see them in your tileset for some reason.

That doesn't sound convincing. The graphics are both for those who know how to play, and who don't, so nobody here "forgot how to play".
And does that mean you disagree that creatures should be noticeable without using any lists?
Sounds like you prefer ascii, so don't try to apply ascii logic to graphics, using lists is not enjoyable, they require the player to pause gameplay just to get vital information.

I prefer graphics which look like graphics thanks. If a kobold running across the screen is invisible, you've messed up your graphics. But, a quick on/off overlay to highlight where bad guys are could be fun.

[Wokko]

I prefer graphics which look like graphics thanks. If a kobold running across the screen is invisible, you've messed up your graphics. But, a quick on/off overlay to highlight where bad guys are could be fun.

So you just dodged a question and said nothing of value. I don't understand why you would be against making creature sprites distinct, and don't know where you've read anything about messed up graphics.
Creatures are the most important sprites on your screen. They have to be very visible. There's nothing to argue about.

Mein Gott! I would have missed that block of log!

I don't think you read that clearly. That pic was just to show how those circular shadows look like.

An auto-mask of the sprite involved, slightly feathered, translated, scaled slightly sideways, subscaled down to maybe half vertically..?

Does that sound complex to you? Compared to a unique silhouette for every creature, a minimally adjusted circular shadow is a lot simpler.

[Shonai_Dweller]

I prefer graphics which look like graphics thanks. If a kobold running across the screen is invisible, you've messed up your graphics. But, a quick on/off overlay to highlight where bad guys are could be fun.

So you just dodged a question and said nothing of value. I don't understand why you would be against making creature sprites distinct, and don't know where you've read anything about messed up graphics.

Someone said they spent a whole lot of time searching for a kobold on their screen. I said their tileset probably wasn't good enough but in any case they should use the list. Seemed strange they should have forgotten how to play the game. Because that is how you play the game currently. And likely will continue to be the most efficient way of playing the game once people stop trying to spot the tiny, tiny, graphics in the high-speed mayhem.

Followed by "leave here vile ascii lover, this is for real fans" or something.

[Starver]

Mein Gott! I would have missed that block of log!

I don't think you read that clearly. That pic was just to show how those circular shadows look like.

So my decision that there was no smiley needed was wrong then?

An auto-mask of the sprite involved, slightly feathered, translated, scaled slightly sideways, subscaled down to maybe half vertically..?

Does that sound complex to you? Compared to a unique silhouette for every creature, a minimally adjusted circular shadow is a lot simpler.

Compared to the layers being used to (pre-build ) the unique dwarf(/other) sprites for usage according to cloth8ng, wealons, facial-hair, etc, it's trivial.

Just postulating saving time on a non-generic 'fitted' shadow that doesn't take up artist-time to make. At least make the oval adjust to beast-size (Raw-led or just coarse-grained for child/giant 'footprint'. Anyway, just pushing it out there.

[Hiul]

i can see shadow is use in adventure mode since adventure mode has shadow mechanism anyway, but i dont think it can help distinguish much in fortress mode who is who in the mess, i dont even know theres a list, but wont scrolling a bunch of list to find some enemy take time? it possible to miss it, not considering some enemy maybe not in the same area with the others or spread far away and so you need to search it to make sure.

[ror6ax]

I'm using Spacefox which is universally held to be one of the few best tilesets. I wouldn't been able to spot a kobold(or anything else) in whatever tileset or ASCII version either - after certain number of dwarfs/animals it's quite hard to be sure where is what in reasonable amount of time. Especially true if I have friendly kobold visitors - who of them is the thief? Dunno. Non-combat mode usually does not require you to find McUrist on screen - you either pick them on unit list or "they find you".

[ror6ax]

When there's a dwarf announcement, like a fey mood there is a path from announcement list -> fey mood for Urist -> zoom on him -> follow to see what's up. Thievery is an announcement, but unlike the dwarf one, I don't have a way to see where those thieves are. I've had a few cases where I send military to kill them via "pick from list of enemies" feature but military went "no reachable target" immediately. I'd like to be able to tell whether my thieves ran away/somehow hidden themselves on the map (in that case a last known location would be cool). A highlight of enemies would at least give me an information they are no longer on the map.

[MoltenIdol]

Toady saw the suggestion and thinks a small color-coded something below the creature, with friendly/neutral/hostile would be a good idea. With an on/off button.

Meph, that sounds amazing.

I Also agree with a uniform oval shadow under all units and creatures.
It wouldnt nescesarily make units easier to distinguish from one another, but it would make all units pop out of the terrain.
Both grounding them to the environment, but also just to help distinguish them from terrain in general, when the screen is paused/static.

Maybe, flying creatures Shouldnt have a shadow (or a much smaller one).That way it would also be easy to Tell if a creature is flying, or actually standing on the ground.