Linear skills hitting out of LoS

Thats an evil situation, the target square behind the character being impassable terrain.
So full line of sight indication yes, but it gets a bit suggestive when theres suddenly highlighted "this tile might be dangerous IF the guy has something linear".
I think the main point to take away from this thread is that linear spells take some getting used too, but once you understood, you are good.

 

I actually ended up posting at your in-game request and linking of this thread, and more in response to -how very rather upset you were-, and it's nice to see you able to approach this in a calm, respectful manner that doesn't assume hostility from those replying.
That's not intended in any way to be anything other than complimentary- such a level of maturity is all too rare.. and certainly appreciated.

I justify it by way of arcing gaseous substances working differently than heavy fluid substances. It still makes perfect sense to me-
Your analysis of arcing spark, however, bears further consideration. And the skill may actually do better for the loss of LoS restraints..
However, there is still a perfectly good explanation for it, unfortunately: The wizard, just like the player proceeds to do, marks each target with a 'counter-electric' charge, making them more susceptible to the following electrical current.
In fact, since there's no chance to hit an allied unit unintentionally, as is the case with some electric spells in other games, that above is the only way to explain how the spell reasonably functions.
As such, any creature outside of LoS wouldn't be able to be 'marked', and thus is safe.
Again, makes perfect sense to me :X

I want a skill that shoots enraged, flying gnomes out of the middle of my square.
Come on devs, make me happy.

As far as your explanation, I'm entirely uncertain as to why a spell that you originate near you on a linear path, has to follow the same rules as a spell you originate far away from you. That seems to be the most counter-intuitive thing mentioned in this thread so far, but perhaps I'm misunderstanding?

Magma is a fairly lumpy thing, if you've ever actually seen it sprayed. It'd have nearly no chance whatsoever of going around a corner. As far as my fire jet example, I was directly referring to the relevant spell in the game. Imagining a gaseous flame jet twisting and turning is super intuitive to anyone that has worked with fire before [or at the very least, to my experiences]- nevermind anyone that has ever seen a representation of dragon fire [eg from The Animated Hobbit] twisting its way down corridors.
Magma, on the other hand, just kinda sputters and drops, absolutely no curve, and nearly no splash. It's comparatively boring!

Similarly, there's a certain concept of what acid 'is supposed to be', but undiluted vinegar is a remarkably strong acid- and not viscous at all. So just imagine water being shot in a spiralled funnel similar to a twisting waterspout, and it should be relatively easy to imagine a linear acid jet twisting its way down corridors as well.

Agreed; I find the alternative pathing to be a meme-worthy level of counter-intuitive thinking, and its implementation would be quite frustrating and confusing and stressful to play with.

On the flip side, if that's the level of stress jagr is going through, at least we can understand why he's so visibly frustrated by it all.

See, I never had any problems judging where linear spells hit- which I say merely because it hadn't occurred to be that others may have more difficulty estimating the pathing.

As far as offense goes, it's easy enough to quickly scroll around and see if there are any paths you hadn't considered- though looking at your linked 'this' pages, I feel there's something I'm missing to your point, but unfortunately, I'm having trouble understanding what the difficulty [which is being addressed in the linked pages]. If you're saying that impassable terrain is incorrectly blocking spell pathing, then yeah, that's an issue, though not really one that relates to how spell pathing is calculated.
Not that I'd argue you 'bumping' the topic up, but if it doesn't relate to the current topic, that'd be one of the reasons I'm coming in confused

 

I don't know why people keep approaching this from a pseudo-realistic angle (physical properties of the substances involved etc).

This clearly has very little to do with that, it's just a matter of building a system of rules which showcase a given set of desired properties under all the inherent constraints.

You have to keep in mind there are two very important factors at play here:
1) Geometric/spatial properties of the simulation (things like, is a tile corner/border part of the tile itself, do we allow tiles overlapping, etc)
2) The specific definition of LoS and LoE.

(1) is very important, as everything else is gonna be heavily influenced by it (in other words, things behave very differently from a mathematical standpoint when you analyse the continuum/analog case and when you do the same in a discrete, quantized space).
(2) is more obvious, though unexpected results will indeed bite you in the back if you don't pay enough attention to it.

Hopefully I didn't bore too many people with the long preamble, but I feel like this needs be realized in order to approach the matter from a solid angle.

Specifically, @jagrpoker offered an alternative solution without further realizing all the implications, I feel. (I edited the image adding letters/numbers in order to more easily refer to individual tiles).


On the left is the current implementation, on the right @jagrpoker's proposed solution.

In the current implementation, LoE is determined by the red line, LoS is only required to the target square (tile 2C). Tile 3C gets affected because it lies under the red line .

Let's look at the alternative approach. @jagrpoker suggests that, in addition, LoS should also be possible for a tile to be affected (hence 3C not being affected in his solution). But wait, why is 3B affected then? The caster has LoS to it, sure, but does it fall under the red line? This involves questioning what "falling under the red line" means".

This is incredibly important: if "the red line meeting a tile at its corner" was sufficient for a tile to be considered for LoE considerations (which is not the case in the current implementation) things would be wildly different.



Let's see what would happen to the current implementation (LoS only required to the target tile) if we modified it so that "the red line meeting a tile at its corner" would suffice to make a tile be considered as affected by LoE: on the left we have the same example as before; on the right, I removed the blocking terrain to show an important point.

LoS only required for Target Square. LoE intersecting at tile-corners count.



Interesting uh? How a tiny adjustment to the underlying rules can cause unexpected results.

Unsurprisingly, @jagrpoker would also suffer from the same

LoS required for all tiles "under the red line". LoE intersecting at corners count



My point being, don't simply assume changing stuff around is easy. And I don't mean it from a "how hard would this be to implement" standpoint at all.

 

I appreciate the confusion that the linear mechanic has caused,
however, any advantage deadly spark and acid jet have is most welcome.
Take such properties away from these cards, and maybe that small minority who play
mages without fireball or arcane burst will be converted to the dark side

 

@Bandreus : Thank you for your comment.

I had no intention of providing a very developed alternative at this point. I could suggest an algorithm for the pathing, but that would be a phase two. My goal was only to scout if more people saw this as a problem. Being that most people don't, I agree with Flaxative on there being no need to change something that pleases the masses.

 

I used the messy flamethrower comparison to help people "warm" for the idea that those linear spells don't always hit whats seen from the casters position.

 

Seem pretty intuitive to me. It's just drawing a line from the center of the caster to the center of the destination square. Any square it passes through is affected.

 

I'd like to be able to aim my line at any square of my choice (in LOS or not, in range or not) and then have it only hit the first X squares of the line, so I have more options about what squares I can hit.