managing multiple hit messages

[hollywood]

One of my characters currently has 40 hits with his sun dagger. Melee has turned into a test of patience. Could you provide an option to roll up the hit messages? I know this will be a little tricky with the combat feats. Maybe something like:

miss: 10 hit: 3 X2: 2 X4: 1 left: 25 Use feat(Y|n)?


For now I've retired this character

[nork]

Currently the best option is to just hold down the space bar between attacks to make it go by faster I'm having a similar problem, but not quite as bad yet (only 26 attacks).

Another solution might be to make a macro for a common attack set for you. It could read some thing like this.

n n n ....(37 times to not use an ability) ya (to use ability a)

That could help make combat easier for you. Hope that helps.

Nork

[Variaz]

This is not an easy problem to fix... Problem comes with the Combat Feats... If you have 20 blows, you might want to use blow 4, 9, 17 and 20 as your special blows. Now, how would you set this up without going one by one? A macro for a preset attack... maybe. But since every monsters are different, you will probably want to vary the blows for every monsters. Redefining macros every times is even more tedious than holding down Enter or Space... not to mention it requires some coding, and not the fun kind of coding...

I admit this is a problem though... but an even bigger problem is that there is no simple solution for this problem... Perhaps 40+ blows is just too much, and there should be some ways of limiting them.......

[nork]

The real question is why would you want to use blows 4,9,17, and 20? I would assume that you would want to use them at the start or at the end of your combat round depending on the skills.

Macros are easy to do in this game, just hit @ and then follow the simple directions there. Nothing to code, just use a key press for a trigger (I use the F1-F12 keys because they are not used for any thing else) then enter the commands that you want that trigger to do. Here is a common one I use all the time.

*t mca

That will target the closest monster then cast my first spell at it.

[goombaboy]

Not a perfect solution, by why not make the combat feats an option on the 'U' menu? So if you have 20+ attacks and just run into a monster, you swing your weapon as normal without constant 'use feat' prompts popping up. If you WANT to use your feats, you simply select it from the 'U' menu, and you would attack with the feats prompt the way you do now. This way you don't get bogged down with the majoroty of monsters that don't need combat feats, but it is still available when needed for the tougher fights.

[nork]

I like that Idea but I think adding an option in the options screen (hitting = to get there) to leave them on by default or to use the U command would be a better idea. That way any one that wants to use combat feats can have them turned on by default and some one that does not want to use them for most monsters does not have to be bothered with them.

[Lipa]

Hm… Options seem like a nice idea, but perhaps it would get tiresome to change them constantly. Normal monsters – turn it off, elites – turn it on, etc. And so I propose another possible solution:

Melee attacks are performed simply by pressing a direction key (trying to move into the enemy) – I suggest that by default, these attacks should be performed WITHOUT any combat feats. Attacks WITH combat feats, however, could be performed by pressing SHIFT or ALT or CTRL *plus* a direction key!

Would this be possible to code? Because this way it would really be easy (and fast!) to choose your preferred type of attack: just use normal keys when fighting normal monsters, and when you require a feat, just press a special key before the attack…

What do you think?

[Variaz]

Hmmm... except that if you forget to hold down Shift or CTRL or anything, it will be extremely frustrating. Let's say you fight a melee returning. You want to use Element Strike, then Jump. So you attack... oops, forgot to use CTRL...you die.

Another solution would be to add an option when it asks: "Do you want to use an ability?" You can choose Y or N, but I could add another option to say "No" for the entire turn. Then, instead of receiving multiple hit/miss messages, you could have something like: "X out of Y blows hit (monster name)". Only one message at the end of the combat round. That could be a nice option, and rather easy to code.

But I haven't decided yet what I will do... There doesn't seem to be a "perfect" solution to this one...

[Lipa]

Yes, well, it would indeed be quite lethal to forget the special key – but would we really forget it? Remember that I only suggested this solution as an alternative to the “options” solution discussed before, and this one also requires some “remembering”:

In the “options” solution, we’d have to go to the options menu and turn the feats on every time we wanted to hit an elite monster. After that, we’d have to go in the options again, just to turn the feats off once more.

But if we remembered to do this time consuming procedure every time, wouldn’t we also remember to press the special key as an alternative? That would of course be much more convenient to do instead of fiddling around with the options each time…

But I agree that so far there really is no perfect solution to this problem. We’ll keep on thinking about it though!

[nork]

What I was suggesting in the options was to turn on/off combat feats and if they were off to do some thing like have a special key or use U to start the attack round. I know with my Zelar I use combat feats on normal monsters all the time.

Also you do currently have a way to turn them off for the round, when it asks you if you want to use a feat hit "t" for turn and it will not ask you any more.

[Variaz]

Oops, forgot I actually implemented the "t" command! I generally hold down Enter until the messages go away, and don't bother with the "t" key...

[tharkun]

't' is fine if you do your feats up front. I have a dagger and 108 strength, putting me at roughly 100 blows. I like to use my normal attack for the first 99 and then a jump for the last one. Is there anyway it could even just show what attack I was on? Counting them is a pain, or an extra option of "Normal attack until attacks remaining <= possible feat attacks"

[sekira]

I thought it would be a good idea that every time it asks you if you would like to perform a special attack for this blow to show the remaining blows this round and the remaining number of special attacks you have this round, and also to allow a new option that would automatically do no special attacks for each blow until the number of blows remaining equalled the number of special attacks remaining, lets call this key 's'.

For example, you have 30 blows per round, and a 50 combat feats skill giving 10 special attacks each round, you could watch the number of blows remaining and special attacks remaining and do your first 9 blows as special attacks, then hit s when you have 1 special attack remaining and 21 blows remaining, then it would do 20 of the blows as normal attacks, and then ask again when you have 1 blow and 1 special attack remaining.

What does everyone think?

Sekira

[Variaz]

Interesting idea! I have yet to decide which solution I will opt for, but this one is nice. You would still have to know whether or not your 20 blows did hit though.... I guess I could just say: "13 out of 20 blows hit the Kobold".... but I do think multiple hit messages adds a bit to the fun if there aren't 40+ of them... they add this nice little feeling of beating the monster with multiple hits!