Auto-targeting. This is really nice for attacks, but for buffs and heals it's quite annoying. Cannot tell you how often I have checked the range on something, gone "Okay, cool, I'm good" and used a buff, only to have it autotarget the wrong character because the one I wanted to target was behind a column or something. Also frustrating when your healer can't reach the guy you want to heal and instead heals... himself. Even though he's at full hp :-( FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, MONTRESSOR! Why can you not show me my ACTUAL RANGE, accounting for gear and debuffs? SO FREAKING ANNOYING to choose a move card, and then have it go "uh, no. You're caught in a net, remember? But you can change your facing!" For that matter, what is with the "no take-backs" design? If I pick a card to play, and then go to the target selection phase, why can I not go back from there? Why can I not opt to choose another card right up until I commit? So that probably seems really negative... but I wouldn't be so annoyed by these things if I wasn't otherwise enjoying the game so much!
There is an Auto Target toggle in the options. Not sure what all it affects, just attack cards? There are a number of situations and cards which could reveal more information on hover. There are still cases where you select a card and then realize it won't work the way you thought. A number of these cards do have a cancel option. Hopefully, there will be more cancel options and/or more grid options showing how the card can be used. For those that like to "handle" their cards by single clicking on them but not play them, maybe a "double click" option could be added. A toggle for "single or double click" to play a card.
First, as irongamer says, you'll notice that you CAN take back non-Move cards. Move is special, and, as you guessed, those two questions are related. From Jon: Think about the sequence of play: A) you hover over a Move card and see range highlighting B) you select the card C) you choose your destination Now run through all possible points in that sequence where you COULD apply card information. Revealing cards is something you can't take back, so the programming has to be careful. The computer can't do anything with range highlighting at A, because it cannot tell whether, say, your Demonic Miasma WILL reduce your range on this Move, or whether an unrevealed Reactive Trip WILL completely negate your card. It CAN apply them at B, which is the current code. You commit to a card at B, it checks all cards everywhere, and the game moves on. The computer cannot wait until after C, because it's too late. You might have chosen a destination only to find that Reactive Trip stopped you in your tracks. For that matter, suppose you had an unrevealed Flight Aura: you'd WANT it to apply back at B (or A, sure, but we just established it can't do A). I'm a proponent of making all cards everywhere have the "no take-backs" rule. That way there's no risk of confusion, either now or in some future where they add yet MORE triggered effects.
Hmm. Of course the range highlight can't show effects from unrevealed enemy cards but showing a better highlight based on your own cards should still be possible. - If you're already encumbered: show the reduced range directly (possibly by showing the squares that could be reached without the encumbrance with another color or with an additional symbol) - If you have cards that may reduce your range (such as Demonic Miasma), show the squares that you may not reach with a different color. Or with the same color but with a little dice symbol in addition to the arrow.
I believe it was Jon who told me specifically that, Maze Of The Mind is the reason movement cards cannot be taken back.
Can't speak for MrTact, but I was thinking more along the lines of move cards showing the reduced grid for cards like Entangling Net. For example if I mouse over a dash card it shows that I can move 4 spaces, even though I have an Entangling Net on my character. As soon as I play the card then the grid reduces down to 2. This is where there is room for improved feedback to the player. I would not expect cards like Maze of the Mind or Demonic Miasma to be included, as they are triggers. Another example is Ember Spray or any cone attack. The mouse over grid shows only the current facing of the cone. If selected you are forced to select a direction with no option to back out. A more friendly interface would have this flow: Click Cone Attack. The 4 arrows show up around your character. Mousing over the different arrows shows the cone for the different directions. Click cancel to back out or click one of the arrows to perform the attack. The cards that lay down a straight path of terrain changing titles would really benefit from this. The cone attack is simple enough that most people can visualize how the cone will work in a different direction. The straight line attacks when done at various angles are a bit more tricky. I'm not saying people can't figure it out, I'm just staying the interface would feel more polished (which may be further down the development pipe anyhow).
Yup, Zalminen, I thought about multi-colored tiles for this sort of thing: but I'm not sure how one could implement it well. They'd have to choose "logical" colors for each possible status, and then figure out how to communicate this to new players. It might be enough "visual clutter" that they'd refuse to do it on principle. (Remember how much they like simplicity.) And irongamer: that's a different issue, being an actual failure to communicate (and to behave like literally every other Attack type). We've been pestering Blue Manchu about it for awhile. They say:
True. I've done enough programming that I have a tendency to automatically start thinking how something could be solved. The devs know better whether it should be solved
Turning off Auto Targeting does indeed remove ALL automatic targeting. Attacks, heals, buffs, debuffs, the whole works. I've had it turned off since the very first tutorial map my very first day in the beta a long time ago. A couple times an update has for some reason defaulted back to on, and after briefly attempting to tolerate it both here and on the test server in those instances, I've always turned it back off. I'm not a fan of the computer doing anything for me that I don't have to let it do. But I will admit, it does make turns go significantly faster if you have Auto Targeting turned on.
Yes, Entangling Net and encumbrance were the specific movement-related issues I was thinking of. I completely understand that the game shouldn't show you movement-limiting effects you aren't aware of or which might require a roll. Just ran into a related issue that dialed my crankiness up to 11: I played one of the lunge-type cards (forget which one, exactly), which lets you move and then attack. Misjudged whether I would be able to attack (no line of visibility around a blocking square), so in order to progress, the game required me to ATTACK MY OWN GUY. Yeah, I restarted that encounter.
really useful thing to note is that hovering over an enemy will bring up their Line of Sight. If you want to move somewhere you can hit them then generally (corridors and corners get tricky) moving into a highlighted square will give you LoS. Of course then the bastards run before you can hit but. Also hovering over any card will highlight who you can hit with it, what squares it can hit into and who the auto-target is gonna choose. Holding Ctrl while selecting overrides auto targeting for that cast only. Although personally I'm with Zoorland, don't you tell me what to do computer.
Where this distinction between move and regular cards breaks down is the "step and attack" cards. Unlike regular attack cards, I couldn't cancel the attack if it had a move attached to it. In one particular instance where I had mistakenly triggered a step and attack card, I had to step 1 and then ATTACK ONE OF MY OWN CHARACTERS because I had no way of canceling the card. That's just wrong.
We know. (Also, also, also, also, also, also.) In short: Though also: And I still maintain: And also:
