Andor's Trail

Wow, a lot has happened in a day. I just started my new semester and might be busier than usual, but I will try to be active as much as possible.

twirlimp, I'm glad you took this idea. You have done a excellent job thus far. Btw, I have to say that the shield icon looks fantastic. I was going to ask about using the preset button in combat, but it looks like Zukero asked it first. I would assume it would cost some AP.

I like the idea of naming your presets, would help mentally organize strategy. Not absolutely necessary, though.

Overall, it sounds quite intuitive to me from what you described. When you explain stuff the way you do, it helps me somehow to think of more ideas. So, basically, this was all you bud.

Voom wrote:Wow, a lot has happened in a day. I just started my new semester and might be busier than usual, but I will try to be active as much as possible.

Don't worry about it. Once my semester starts I'll be happy if I can focus on coding in the weekend.

Voom wrote: twirlimp, I'm glad you took this idea. You have done a excellent job thus far. Btw, I have to say that the shield icon looks fantastic. I was going to ask about using the preset button in combat, but it looks like Zukero asked it first. I would assume it would cost some AP.

During combat its going to use up as much AP as it can until there isn't enough.
I'll make it equip the weapons first because currently there's nothing stopping it from loading rings then shield. (it's according to which ones you added to preset first).

Voom wrote: I like the idea of naming your presets, would help mentally organize strategy. Not absolutely necessary, though.

I'll try it out and see where it goes.

Voom wrote: Overall, it sounds quite intuitive to me from what you described. When you explain stuff the way you do, it helps me somehow to think of more ideas. So, basically, this was all you bud.

Thanks XD

Here's my take on the latest questions:
- For custom named presets, I'd suggest simply adding some "save" button next to the equipment sheet above the inventory, popping up a text input box to select a name. Some Preset management UI would be needed to delete old sets. Maybe a warning when selling/dropping an item (last or last two of its kind) used in a Preset could help too.
- Unless the player has enough AP to perform the full set change (two sets may only differ by one item), display a "Not enough AP left" in the log when trying to select a set during battle instead of performing part of the reequip. Showing the AP cost on the Preset UI during battle could be fine.

Zukero wrote:Here's my take on the latest questions:
- Unless the player has enough AP to perform the full set change (two sets may only differ by one item), display a "Not enough AP left" in the log when trying to select a set during battle instead of performing part of the reequip. Showing the AP cost on the Preset UI during battle could be fine.

Yeah that makes more sense I'll do it in the next few hours.

Zukero wrote: - For custom named presets, I'd suggest simply adding some "save" button next to the equipment sheet above the inventory, popping up a text input box to select a name. Some Preset management UI would be needed to delete old sets. Maybe a warning when selling/dropping an item (last or last two of its kind) used in a Preset could help too.

I added a new button above the gold/attack/defense boxes.
Like the one in the toolbox, you click on it to auto-switch between presets.
If you long-click on it, you get edit boxes for the preset names.

Currently it opens and edit box for each preset, but I think I'll make it only open one edit box to rename the current preset.
The other two boxes will be used for deleting a preset/ showing AP cost.

Maybe, when the button is set to "None" preset, long-pressing will add three buttons to switch to each preset inventory quickly instead of using the category spinner.

What do you think?

Here are the newest pictures, with optional notes after them

Zukero wrote:Here's my take on the latest questions:
- For custom named presets, I'd suggest simply adding some "save" button next to the equipment sheet above the inventory, popping up a text input box to select a name. Some Preset management UI would be needed to delete old sets.

I added these.

It saves preset names, and deleting is supported. Initially there's only one preset button in the inv, and it loads next preset when you press it.
Long-press on it, and the three boxes that are under it (attack, defense, gold) are replaced with 3 other buttons, one for each preset.
If you press on it then ti will takes you to the preset item list, which is faster than using the spinner (which has 5 other items before the presets).

If you long-press on any one of those three new buttons, then they are replaced with a 1) edit field for changing the name 2) a box showing AP cost 3) a delete button that needs to be long-pressed.

Zukero wrote: - Unless the player has enough AP to perform the full set change (two sets may only differ by one item), display a "Not enough AP left" in the log when trying to select a set during battle instead of performing part of the reequip.

I made it show a combat log message with how much AP was needed.

Zukero wrote: -Maybe a warning when selling/dropping an item (last or last two of its kind) used in a Preset could help too.
-Showing the AP cost on the Preset UI during battle could be fine.

These two I'll postpone till later.
They don't seem very urgent :p

The preset names are now saved in the inventory instead of in UI Selections.
This should allow different characters to have diff presets.


One thing I haven't changed yet is the preset name in the spinner. It seems irritating to change, and since the player has a more accessible preset list (by long-pressing the switcher button) then I think this is ok.

Absolutely, I like it much more than spinner. That's within the inventory screen. Outside the inventory screen, I wouldn't mind having to press the shield button and out pops all three presets for you to choose from quickly. Let's say that you are in combat and you have on preset 1, but you want to put on preset 3. Using a spinner, you would go through preset 2 before you can get to preset 3, whilst it eats up AP.

Voom wrote:Absolutely, I like it much more than spinner. That's within the inventory screen. Outside the inventory screen, I wouldn't mind having to press the shield button and out pops all three presets for you to choose from quickly. Let's say that you are in combat and you have on preset 1, but you want to put on preset 3. Using a spinner, you would go through preset 2 before you can get to preset 3, whilst it eats up AP.

Actually spinner refers to the drop down list of categories, but anyway I get what you mean.
Let's refer to the quick-switch button by the name "switcher"

so yeah outside the inventory screen, I'm thinking a normal press on the switcher would change selection and it equips when you long-press.

twirlimp wrote:

Voom wrote:Absolutely, I like it much more than spinner. That's within the inventory screen. Outside the inventory screen, I wouldn't mind having to press the shield button and out pops all three presets for you to choose from quickly. Let's say that you are in combat and you have on preset 1, but you want to put on preset 3. Using a spinner, you would go through preset 2 before you can get to preset 3, whilst it eats up AP.

Actually spinner refers to the drop down list of categories, but anyway I get what you mean.
Let's refer to the quick-switch button by the name "switcher"

so yeah outside the inventory screen, I'm thinking a normal press on the switcher would change selection and it equips when you long-press.

Oh yes, switcher. You got the right idea about it, though. I'll comment more later when I've finished counting sheep for the man near Loneford.

Voom wrote:Oh yes, switcher. You got the right idea about it, though. I'll comment more later when I've finished counting sheep for the man near Loneford.

Well I hope you have a good night's sleep.
Here's some newer snapshots.

It also tells you when loading fails and how much AP you needed.

I think it's cool that the aim button directly disappears when you load a preset that removes your ranged weapon.

I want to add a long-press to the aim button too, maybe maybe all monsters in range glow or maybe toggle autoaim.
I'm not sure yet.

Making presets would be way easier if it just saved the currently equipped set, instead of assigning items to it. That would also help in making unarmed/unarmored presets.
Then, in the inventory, when you press the Preset button, you get three buttons below (like what replaces the stat boxes): save Preset, load Preset, delete Preset. All of them pop up a box similar to the load/save game one, for Preset selection.

Long presses and other of its kind are not user friendly, and hard to discover. I don't like them. Actually, it took me a while to discover that long presses allow to target a different mob.