Shortcomings with conjured arrows

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pango
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Shortcomings with conjured arrows

Post by pango »

  1. if you conjure arrows several times, they're all stacked with the existing time-to-live; So newly created arrows disappear sooner than they should. I think only arrows with the same TTL should be stackable.
  2. When shooting arrows, real arrows take priority over conjured arrows, that's most likely never what the player wants. If 1. is fixed, conjured arrows with the shortest TTL should be picked first, and real arrows last.
  3. Arrows counter could then benefit from some indicator telling whether you're about to shoot real or conjured arrows, or display separate counters.
  4. Arrows counter doesn't work with classic HUD. But hey, that's not a classic feature, so it's not really a bug.
  5. You may retrieve a mix of arrow types off a corpse, that will probably need some adjustments.
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pango
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Re: Shortcomings with conjured arrows

Post by pango »

About 5., it seems that if you hit an enemy with a conjured arrow, the arrow becomes real in the loot :) Whoops!
https://github.com/Interkarma/daggerfal ... er.cs#L547
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pango
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Re: Shortcomings with conjured arrows

Post by pango »

The latter is probably harder to fix than I thought. I think summoned items are only handled specifically in player's inventory.

Simplest fix may be for summoned arrows to vanish after use, does it look acceptable? They have a limited lifespan in the first place...
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Re: Shortcomings with conjured arrows

Post by pango »

I submitted a PR

I didn't try to fix point 4. (displaying arrows counter with classic HUD). I saw a comment about that in the code

Code: Select all

// TODO: Find a spot for arrow counter when large HUD enabled (remembering player could be in 320x200 retro mode)
so I'm not sure what to do about that.
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Interkarma
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Re: Shortcomings with conjured arrows

Post by Interkarma »

This is nice work Pango, thank you. :)

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pango
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Re: Shortcomings with conjured arrows

Post by pango »

And thanks TalonHatesNames for bringing those issues to my attention :)
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/937492345
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Re: Shortcomings with conjured arrows

Post by pango »

(watching more of his stream)
He also expected Create Item spell to have an icon while active.
Which would have the benefit of being compatible with the large HUD, or disabled arrow counter...

I don't know how to do that though.
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Interkarma
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Re: Shortcomings with conjured arrows

Post by Interkarma »

I wonder if rather than multiple stack of arrows with different TTLs, if the conjured arrows should instead always stack with each other and reset the stack TTL with latest cast. This saves the inventory being cluttered with multiple arrow stacks, and user is just "topping up" their stack occasionally.

Create Item in DF is an instant cast spell and has no icon in classic either. The timer is handled as a countdown on the item itself while the spell is transitory. But then again, we only did it that way because that's how classic handled it. The effect could be refactored so that spell persists for life of item, then either sets item kill timer when spell expires or deletes item directly. Then there would be an icon on HUD so long as magic rounds remain.

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Hazelnut
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Re: Shortcomings with conjured arrows

Post by Hazelnut »

I doubt many people who are playing 320x200 retro mode with the large HUD will want enhancements like the arrow counter, so I wouldn't sweat it too much on this QoL feature guys.
See my mod code for examples of how to change various aspects of DFU: https://github.com/ajrb/dfunity-mods

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Interkarma
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Re: Shortcomings with conjured arrows

Post by Interkarma »

That's a fair point Hazelnut. :)

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