OHRRPGCE feature requests/suggestions

[SwordPlay]

Could we make it so that a hero's spell list can run scripts (instead of attacks) in a slot? If it had functionality like opening a textbox, it could use textbox conditionals.

[Bob the Hamster]

@tmc:
switching to items.reld is something I would like to do pretty soon. And yes, the reload format will be flexible enough to allow things like more equip slots, and items that can go in multiple equip slots. I also want to do some stuff with incremental spell-learning and stat-bonus-on-level-up from equipped save slots, Similar to what Final Fantasy 6 had with materia equip slots.

@Virtuous Sword:
Yes, scripts or textboxes from a spell list should totally be a thing. I would love to make it easy for people to script out-of-battle spells similar to Dragon Quest's "Return" and "Escape", and I am sure that people would find other cool uses for this.

As always, no promises on any timetable :)

[SwordPlay]

---

[SwordPlay]

(sorry for all the requests/suggestions. I can put this on my userpage in the wiki if you'd like.)

For menus, I would like it if a caption could display a line of text somewhere on screen when highlighted, similar to an item description.
It could be fairly complicated, depending on display options.

Frankly, I would like the ability to display slice collections from more places in the engine, which would do all of the above and more

I would love to see a command using pathfinding to get the distance between 2 tiles.

(questions)
Is there a way to count how many steps an NPC or hero has taken?
Is there a way to trigger a script based on number of steps taken, or something like that?
Is there a way to loop through each tile of a zone?

EDIT:
Oh! Please make it so that menu items can have display options, like colour.

When loading a new project, could we have the "date last modified" visible?

sorry for all the requests, but, could there be an increase in the number of timers?

EDIT:
In-game, could we have the size of the inventory visible to the player somehow?
What about inventory size of a few lines? Players have no way of seeing how big their inventory is without highlighting the slots

EDIT:
Could zones be connected to tiles in a tileset?
Many zone effects are paired with a tile, or tiles.
Maybe this could be per-map?
It could be added through the zone editor.

EDIT:
Sorry. Again.
For Alter NPC, could we have a missing argument interpreted as setting it to the default setting (as set in the NPC editor)?

Such as:
"Alter NPC (who,NPCstat:picture)" sets it to default picture? or could we have a new argument "default"?

EDIT: Could we have a new menu option that can be acted on by the player?
It could be used to alter the argument of the script run by that menu option, and could be interpreted in different ways, such as slider/knob, number counter that can be incremented or decremented.
I realise this could be done better by slices, but it would be a neat thing to have built-in.

EDIT:
I would like it if the tile a hero is standing in is determined by their centre point rather than their top-left point.

[Pepsi Ranger]

To piggyback off of Virtuous Sword's pathfinding requests, is there a current way, or a potentially added plotscripted feature way to calculate the number of tiles it would take to cover the distance between two points using the most efficient path between them (which might include going around corners)? This would greatly help me to produce a sensible "skip" feature that would take into account the time it would take a character to move from any point a to any point b off-screen or at the click of a button.

Actually, that would likely have to take a lot of metadata into account, including walls and move zones. Hmm. Maybe that's too hard of a pathfinding request. Maybe something like "test path" and "calculate tiles in path" or some kind of one-two punch?

Either way, it would be cool if we could have a means to find distances between two points using the most efficient existing travel path (not necessarily the straight line through walls and buildings, which is what I'd imagine current plotscripting could give us). I'm also thinking edges of map to edges of map, even if the line taken has to weave through obstacles, which would allow for syncing with adjacent maps and continual path tracing and measuring to an ultimate destination.

[TMC]

switching to items.reld is something I would like to do pretty soon. And yes, the reload format will be flexible enough to allow things like more equip slots, and items that can go in multiple equip slots.

OK, but we're doing that anyway, so what about the rest my suggestion?


---

Pathfinding is a work in progress. That's why obvious features and commands are missing. Nice to know people care, anyway.

For menus, I would like it if a caption could display a line of text somewhere on screen when highlighted

That's a good suggestion.

Is there a way to count how many steps an NPC or hero has taken?
Is there a way to trigger a script based on number of steps taken, or something like that?
Is there a way to loop through each tile of a zone?

Yes: you can script these yourself. Actually I did want to add a command to loop over the tiles in a zone once we extend HamsterSpeak to include iterators. But that's just for efficiency.

sorry for all the requests, but, could there be an increase in the number of timers?

allocate timers

What about inventory size of a few lines? Players have no way of seeing how big their inventory is without highlighting the slots

Oops. We'll have to figure out how to fix that while allowing the slice collection to be edited.

Could zones be connected to tiles in a tileset?

Use the Paint tool.
It doesn't make much sense to having something like the default tile passability editor to assign zones to tiles in the tileset, because zone definitions are per-map rather than global.
Hmm, zones that have the same data on all maps could be useful. Maybe IDs 20000-29999?

Could we have a new menu option that can be acted on by the player?

Oh, a widget like the volume meter.

I would like it if the tile a hero is standing in is determined by their centre point rather than their top-left point.

For what purpose, just herox/y commands?

[SwordPlay]

thanks for taking the time to reply. It's hard to keep up with new features.
An extensive documentation is needed (probably).

The hero x/y thing? Yes, all tile based commands. I would love to see weighted options for moving that point while walking. Probably more stuff. I don't even know if it would make much difference or sense.

[TMC]

I would have to think hard about that. Using top-left corners for everything was a mistake, but I don't know if a general bitset to change that is a good idea, as then forever I will have to ask whether the bit is on when someone posts a script.

For the purpose of zone triggers, once they're implemented, I will use the center point (or maybe center of the bottom edge) rather than the top-left corner.

[SwordPlay]

What about "step-on" and "touch" NPCs?

[TMC]

Oh, that's different. That's part of a far bigger mess called grid-misalignment. At some point we hope to fix that.

[Bob the Hamster]

switching to items.reld is something I would like to do pretty soon. And yes, the reload format will be flexible enough to allow things like more equip slots, and items that can go in multiple equip slots.

OK, but we're doing that anyway, so what about the rest my suggestion?

Oops! You have exposed my secret that I don't actually always read this thread, I just skim it ;)

I like allowing items to be equipped in multiple different kinds of slots.

I like allowing heroes to have more types of equip slots, and more than one of each type (or zero of a type). I would want this to be customizable per-hero. Like, a centaur gets extra boot slots. An Ettin gets 2 helmet slots. Headless Larry gets no helmet slot.

I was wary of having different state bonuses, etc for each slot an item can be equipped in when I first read the idea... But upon thinking about it, I think it is a good idea, especially if we have one default set of equip data, and then each slot could have per-slot optional overrides. I feel like that wouldn't actually be too difficult, and could be added incrementally.

The scripting interface would be a bear--- until plotscripting supports objects, then it wouldn't be bad.

As for the shop interface, I was thinking of allowing focus to switch over to the info panel, so you could scroll it up and down. Hopefully that won't be hard after I have converted the shop screen to a plank menu

[TMC]

I can understand not wanting to read this whole thread!

I was wary of having different state bonuses, etc for each slot an item can be equipped in when I first read the idea... But upon thinking about it, I think it is a good idea, especially if we have one default set of equip data, and then each slot could have per-slot optional overrides.

I wasn't exactly suggesting different stat bonuses per slot, but rather different stat bonuses per "equiptype"/"equip record"/"equip entry". (I think equiptype is bad name, so how about "equip usage".) Sure you could use multiple usages to make the stat bonuses vary by slot, but if you just wanted the stat bonuses to be the same regardless of where it's equipped, you'd just define a single usage.
That said, making parts of a equip usage optional, such as the stats, with a default set of stat bonuses, would be a nice convenience when you want to use multiple usages for some other reason (like a tag condition before a certain hero can equip something)

I think Sword of Jade had a scripted equip system which let you equip anima in different slots with different effects?

We could extend unequip, forceequip, and checkequipment with an extra argument, the slot copy number, in order to support multiple copies of a slot fairly comfortably.
But doing the same for multiple equip usages seems pretty messy. Yes, with OO the interface could be nicer.

Oh, and the "Disable slot X" feature I mentioned seems suspiciously like requirng more than one slot to equip. Like gloves which require two empty hand slots, or a full suit of armor which fills head, torso, legs and feet. I assumed this would be too complex, but I guess it could just be a single bitset: either the item can be equipped in any of the specified slots, or it fills all of them. (Something like requiring multiple hand slots is a lot more difficult and maybe going too far)

[SwordPlay]

I can understand not wanting to read this whole thread!

I could try to manage a page, or pages, on the wiki, if that would help and people are interested. (Sorry for spamming).


EDIT:
Will equips get set bonuses? Like bonuses and penalties when equipped in certain combinations?

[TMC]

I didn't think of set bonuses. But you could accomplish it with local flags and an extra equip usage on one of the items in the set which is enabled only if all the other parts of the set are already equipped.

It's too bad we're no longer using bugzilla; it let you vote on bugs and feature requests. Knowing what people actually want most is useful, a giant list of feature requests is not useful. I already have my own TODO list.

[SwordPlay]

could we please have the option of individually setting hero and npc animation settings?
namely, "use walk in place animation when idle"?
And could we set a custom speed for this animation?