Animation speed, dices and the time

Discussion in 'Bugs' started by Obernoob, Jul 31, 2015.

  1. Obernoob

    Obernoob Hydra

    In central processing alot of blocks and also cards which decrease the chance to block are involved. Today I lost a game, because my opponent had two blocks, which failed every time, because I reduced the dices twice. During that time my clock was running down. Every attack cost me five seconds. I had more than leathal, even if my opponents block would have worked. But we both had only a minute left. The only problem was, that it was my time how was ticking, while opponent blocked.

    My suggestion for blocks is, that it should be neutral time, as this is the case in other games.
     
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  2. Bandreus

    Bandreus Thaumaturge

    This is not how the game engine works and, while I think the suggestion is genuinely good, it's likely that implementing this would imply a major reworking of both the client's and the server's code.

    So yeah, I'm pretty much in favor of this (which has been suggested in slightly different forms many times before btw). But I do see how, realistically speaking, there's very little chance we'll see it get implemented in the foreseeable future.
     
  3. Xayrn

    Xayrn Hydra

    I believe as soon as you play a card, it shifts to your opponent's turn and begins taking from their time. In other words, the blocking animation triggered from your attack should solely reduce your opponent's timer, unless your animation speed is so much slower than theirs that they manage to play another card before the animation finishes for you.

    That being said, I feel like it wouldn't hurt to have a 10-second grace period for each turn, so that your timer wouldn't begin decreasing until you've spent 10 seconds without doing anything. If that idea is too unpopular, it would also be possible to just allow 10 seconds for each turn after your timer expires. I feel like something along these lines is necessary because there simply isn't much less satisfying than an otherwise great game ending with a time-out, and time-outs aren't always avoidable, even while playing at a decent pace (especially in 10-minute leagues). The obvious problems with this approach are stalemates and league durations. Stalemates could be solved by adding a round-limit to matches; whoever ends the final round of a match wins (or loses, either works). League durations could be maintained by disabling the timer extensions when a league goes into overtime, or more simply by forcibly ending any games that are in progress when overtime ends (but providing a few more minutes of overtime so that this is unlikely to be necessary or able to be caused purposefully).

    Whew, that got a bit longer than I anticipated. I may just have to devote a suggestion to that when I've thought it through more.
     
  4. Dwedit

    Dwedit Goblin Champion

    Maybe just make dice animation go faster when the animation speed is set high, seems like a bug in the first place that only dice animation isn't sped up.
     
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  5. Scarponi

    Scarponi Moderator

    Isn't it?
     
  6. Jarmo

    Jarmo Snow Griffin

    I claim the dice are sped up. I often play at animspeed 1000 and I don't recall seeing any dice rolls then. I could check, sure, but that would be work, wouldn't it?
     
    Sir Veza likes this.
  7. Xayrn

    Xayrn Hydra

    Normal dice rolls play at proper speeds. It's only when the roll is added to/subtracted from that there's an issue.
     
    Jarmo, Sir Veza, Pawndawan and 2 others like this.
  8. Flaxative

    Flaxative Party Leader

    This.
     
  9. Jon

    Jon Blue Manchu Staff Member

    I can fix this.
     
  10. Jarmo

    Jarmo Snow Griffin

    Thank you very much for the fix, @Jon!
    https://twitter.com/RudolphoCH/status/627389457449226240

    Seeing as it's a pretty similar issue, would it be possible to change also the Firestorm and other such damage animations to be affected by animation speed? They are rather slow to play out and it gets pretty old constantly waiting for them to complete after two years of playing.
     
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  11. Jon

    Jon Blue Manchu Staff Member

    Which part of the firestorm animation are you talking about specifically?
     
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  12. Jarmo

    Jarmo Snow Griffin

    @Jon, if you set the animspeed to something extreme like 1000, the issue is easy to see. The part that cannot be sped up is where a flame graphic appears over the affected character and then fades away. The other parts of the animation do obey the animspeed setting.

    The issue shows up the clearest in battles where there are a lot of monsters on the map, like battle 1 of the level 12 adventure Tomb of Tvericus. The flames appearing and fading slow down play a great deal when using a lot of Firestorm.

    All attacks which have a graphic effect have the same issue (all attacks, then?) The same part of the hit animation refuses to be sped up no matter the sprite drawn. Hitting someone with a ranged Acid attack, for example, shows an acid splash, with the same problem.

    Also, when damage over time or terrain damage resolves at the end or beginning of the round the same kind of animations play and are slow.

    In general terms, it seems the non-conforming animation is the "taking damage" one. No matter how a character takes damage, the animation is not affected by animation speed.

    Thank you for looking into this! It's one of the greatest quality-of-life UI issues left in the game.
     
  13. Obernoob

    Obernoob Hydra

    That is great. :)
     
  14. Jon

    Jon Blue Manchu Staff Member

    Damage and other effects will also be affected by animation speed in a future build (probably not the very next one though).
     
  15. Xayrn

    Xayrn Hydra

    Should be fun trying to keep track of what's going on at animspeed ∞ after this.
    Out of curiosity, does this include the card tearing animation when an attachment is replaced? It's probably as relevant as the damage animations for Firestorm spamming.
     
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  16. Jon

    Jon Blue Manchu Staff Member

    No.
     
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  17. Jarmo

    Jarmo Snow Griffin

    Wonderful! Thank you so much!
     
  18. Jarmo

    Jarmo Snow Griffin

    Anyone using speeds like that knows what they are doing. They're old hands who don't need handholding from the system. They know perfectly well what will happen when they e.g. cast a global spell. For anyone this is a problem to, they're welcome to use normal speeds. No one is forcing them to use console commands to make the game too fast for them to follow.

    A good observation. I didn't notice this as a significant component when I tested Firestorming to figure out the exact slowdown root cause. We'll see how it plays after this latest change is in. Off the top of my head, I'd say the card tearing takes only a small fraction of the time the damage sprite animation took. Speeding the damage animation up should be a huge improvement already. Jon can of course see the improved effect already and decide whether it needs more attention.
     
    Xayrn likes this.
  19. Jarmo

    Jarmo Snow Griffin

    I tested this on the test server and the faster animation is working great! The difference is absolutely amazing! Where before even at faster speeds some aspects of the animation dragged on, now they're very snappy and speedy.

    The card tearing animation is no issue at all. I can't even see it at animspeed 1000.

    What is most improved, actually, is the monster movement speed. In battle 1 of the Tomb of Tvericus, where there's a huge crowd of zombies, before they used to slowly shuffle forth but now they quickly snap ahead.

    Playing becomes very fluid and satisfying. There's no longer pauses all the time. The player can just click their cards at the natural speed of decision-making and the game responds quickly and smoothly. After a very quick test, I feel this is one of the greatest improvements to playing single player Card Hunter ever. It will be interesting to see how this affects e.g. multiplayer.
     
  20. Obernoob

    Obernoob Hydra

    You will not want to speed up a multiplayer game, will you?
     

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