Castle Paradox

Rimudora · Posted: Fri Sep 22, 2006 12:07 pm Post subject: Problem with attack settings

In short, I had it so that a battle always starts off with a certain enemy using an attack which chains (100% chance) to a self-targetting attack that has the "store target" bitset turned on. Afterwards, another enemy would use an attack that chains (100% chance) to another attack that boosts the "recorded target"'s attack. For some reason, the Atk boosting attack isn't getting used at all when if I use the "recorded target" option. It works fine if I have the boost attack target a hero instead. This conundrum is simply vexing the hell out of me >:(

I'm using hasta+ for all of this, if that makes a difference.

msw188 · Joined: 02 Jul 2003 Posts: 1041

See bug 74:

http://gilgamesh.hamsterrepublic.com/cgi-bin/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=74

I know the summary sounds a bit different than what you are doing, but see some of my comments. I am also quite annoyed with this bug, which has been a bug for a long time. But I believe the programmers are working on cleaning up the battle code, so perhaps this will be fixed relatively soon...

For your specific case, are you sure that you need the chains? The chaining is necessary to make this bug occur. Can you put the attack that targets the recorded target first, and have it chain to the other? That might work.

Actually, this also ties into the problem that, as far as I can tell, each character on screen has his or her (or its) own unique recorded target store. You may need some advanced trickery to pull off what you are trying to do, or you may just have to wait out the bug.

Mr B · Joined: 20 Mar 2003 Posts: 382

Hmm...

What I believe is going on is this: each agent (hero or enemy) has its own "stored target" variable. All attacks that refer to a stored target refer to that specific agent's stored target. One agent cannot access another's stored target.

At least, that what I think is happening...can anyone verify/deniafy?

Camdog · Joined: 08 Aug 2003 Posts: 606

Why bother with the extra step anyway? Can't you chain the original attack to a stat-boosting attack that targets self? No need to store any targets that way.

Moogle1 · Posted: Fri Sep 22, 2006 3:45 pm Post subject:

msw188 · Joined: 02 Jul 2003 Posts: 1041

It is certainly true that if two heroes store separate targets, then they can each target ONLY THEIR OWN stored target. See my last reply on bug 74 (link is earlier in the post). This is easy to verify for heroes. It is not quite as easy for enemies (how can we be sure that the enemy is not simply picking the target that makes it APPEAR as though that is the only one it can pick?). When I was testing this, I never saw an enemy target something that it itself did not store, but I wasn't really trying to pinpoint this aspect, so I didn't go about constructing scenarios that would FORCE (or at least, make likely) the situation.

Mr B · Joined: 20 Mar 2003 Posts: 382

I'll test it tonight and let you know sometime tomorrow.

I really shouldn't go around making untestest assertions anyway...

Mr B · Joined: 20 Mar 2003 Posts: 382

Okay; I tested it.

I created two heroes; one hero has an attack that targets an enemy, the other hero has an attack that damages the stored target.

I created two enemies; one enemy has an attack that targets a hero, the other enemy has an attack that damages the stored target.

The attacking hero was not able to make an attack, despite the targetting hero having successfully saved a target. Ditto with the enemy.

It seems that targetting data is individual per character.

Wait...I did have the "target" attack store a target...right? I'll go check that again.

Bob the Hamster · Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 10:31 am Post subject:

For clarification:

Each hero has their own stored target. Each enemy has their own target. They can only store their own targets. They can only use their own stored targets. There is no sharing of stored targets of any kind (although I am open to listening for proposals on how to best support that in the future)

TwinHamster · Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 10:34 am Post subject:

Speaking of targets, is anyone else having troubles with the "attack target slot" bitset? I tried giving an attack using this bitset to an enemy so that it would only attack the hero in slot 1; however, it freely attacked any of the available heroes. Then I tried the inverse and gave one of my heroes an attack that only targetted an enemy in the first slot. Still a failure.

msw188 · Joined: 02 Jul 2003 Posts: 1041

I think that it might be cool to have three more 'target stores': one for all heroes (affected by a bitset 'store target for heroes'), one for all enemies (affected by a bitset 'store target for enemies') and a global one (affected by a bitset 'store target globally'). The current bitset could be renamed 'store target for self'.

Or it may be better to scratch my bitsets above and replace them by 'store target for allies' and 'store target for foes', so that when enemies use the attack with 'store target for foes', it stores the target for the heroes.

Another cool feature would be 'store user for target', sort of the inverse of the current setup. This sounds (to a non-programmer) like it would be fairly easy to implement, or at least, easier than the above.