Dungeon Master Forum

Now that I've reinstalled FTL-DM2 for comparison, all in all I'm glad we can play it now in the RTC engine, albeit there are maybe a couple of minor things that could be borrowed from the otherwise inferior FTL-DM2 engine.

0) I think no one would like this pseudo-half-tile movement of FTL-DM2. I mean, if you could at least actually move just a half-tile to make your ninja shoot 'round the corner after sidestepping a half-tile while your priest stays safely behind the corner, it would have been a cool feature, yet even then only if you could switch it on and off. Being forced to suffer these constant delays by watching your party take a double half-step just makes me mad!!! Long live RTC!

1) What's also very annyoing in the FTL-DM2 engine is the awkwardly cascaded action menu, that is just annoyingly inhibiting combat handling. So I prefer much the DM1/RTC approach of leaving the spell runes as they are. Same goes for the general weapon action. I mean, alone that the available combat actions do not appear in the same space where the weapon action icon is positioned makes me mad in FTL-DM2. In DM1/RTC you can simply trigger an attack action by double clicking the action icon on the proper height and swoosh, you strike. In FTL-DM2 you have actually to choose the weapon, then move the mouse to the desired action, and only then you can eventually click the desired action, that's just jamming combat handling, so, this too should absolutely stay as it is in RTC.

2) What I already noticed to be a bit annyoying in RTC, albeit only slightly, even before the first DM2 demo, is that while right-clicking character icons to turn their facing is a good and quick thing, you can only turn clockwise, so in order to have a 90 degree anti-clockwise turning you have to make a 270 clockwise turning. I would NOT like that stupid submenu of FTL-DM2, but I would like the engine to make a clockwise turn if you click a character icons right half, and a anti-clockwise turning if you right-click the left half, that'd kill 2 birds with 1 stone, making both directions available without introducing that impractical DM2-menu-system (I think no one would want the latter).

3) Doing push/pull left/right by having cascaded actions available in the action menu in RTC-DM2 gave me an opportunity to see how the action-submenus actually can be handled, and while I do not care that much about this aspect in regard to shoving tables about, there are aspects of that I do care about. I think it's a great additional possibility for custom dingeons to generally allow an item to have more than 3 actions. Yet, if I would want to improve an items worth by cloning it and adding a 4th action, like taking a wand and adding a 4th or 5th spell, I would actually make it much less practical, let alone adding manoevres to melee weapons. That problem however would entirely disappear if switching to the next menu would not be a command line instead of one of the 3 default actions, but either a 4th line or a small icon, so if you have a mighty staff with 3 defense and 3 attack spells, you could simply switch between them by clicking on that 4th line or icon. Just my oppinion.

4) I know I'm stretching it a bit, but I DO like the possibility to allow 2 active and usable weapons for a character, no matter whether in DM2 or EOB, but then I know, it's a different engine and so on, yet this issue just belongs here too, implemented or not.

5) I'm not sure about what 'd be better and thus would like to know what other people think: What do you like better, the classical DM1/RTC item stack where you can only take items on top of the stack, or the FTL-DM2-approach, where you can take out a chest directly from under a bunch of screamer slices for example, as long as at least a part of the desired items grafics is visible?

6) I'm sure there are other differences I did not yet notice (I just installed FTL-DM2 again and have not yet played very for by now): What other differences are there (aside from that the dungeon will need its time to be implemented completely)?

Err first one that comes to my head is that in the RTC version you can't rename your characters at will (or at all) as you could in the original DM2. Though I haven't played the latest release of the demo, only the first one.

I think no one would like this pseudo-half-tile movement of FTL-DM2.

you don`t even realise how much I hated it !!

0) As you say, I don't think anyone wants this and I have no intention of doing it.

1) Likewise

2) Fair enough - done for V0.41.

3) I think your assertion that "That problem however would entirely disappear" is entirely wrong! Instead, it just moves the problem. Firstly there isn't room for 4 line options (the space isn't big enough) and with the icon option, if you wanted a weapon with 4 actions, then it still requires 3 mouse clicks to perform the 4th one it so doesn't help at all.

4) This is covered on another thread, so won't respond here.

5) I don't think this adds anything at all to the game; in fact it detracts from it (e.g. some puzzles may want to dictate the order in which items are removed - alternatively it can be helpful to the player to force items to be picked up e.g. the key on top of the clothes which you might otherwise miss in the first part of DM).

2) Any chance of making an ignorable lockable option to the party facing?

If you explain exactly how it would work, there's every chance; right now though I'm not quite sure what you mean!

2) I'm not exactly sure how Beo is meaning that, but I'd think that some button to switch the auto-turning of character-facing toward an attacking monster on and off could be a good idea.

Alternately, there might another solution for the problem that you often only notice on the third or so failed attack that you're missing because you want to strike the monster ahead of you, while you're character got auto-turned to the side and is still facing to the side: If you're character is facing to the side or back and the only monster in range of that character's attack is in some other facing (i.e. the front), let that attack hit normally.

Maybe even both would be nice. You still couldn't shoot missiles sidewards, but while that latter had been possible in FTL, simply implementing that would only increase the incidences of accidentally blowing up yourself with a Mon-lightning (which can on the highest level do more than 999 damage and thus produce pretty bad suicide accidences). So I'd prefer the latter as it is now in RTC, unless it was a function that could be turned on and off separately.

Probably Beo meant something still different, but anyway the above might be worthwhile considering.

3) George: Good point! Right, so it would improve things for the 6 actions example, but actually not for the 4 actions example, that's true; I didn't consider that because I primarily had in mind to customize weapons in making kick, throw and warcry permanently available, which would make such a button or line act as an armed/unarmed switch. So I would still like it, although there would still remain some minor problems not solved by it.

It's an old suggestion somewhere, and basically yes - there is no point in being able to intelligently face your party if the first monster attack turns your party member in a fdifferent direction. And I mean ignorable in that DM purists should be screaming 'you can't right click for the inventory now over the partyicons cause it does somehting else!)

I thinjk originally i can a suggestion how it would work but I think later changes invalidate it and i think it might have been stupid.

0) Without that, look how easy is to beat the rams... I think that the mid-step was both to smoothen out the movement and as a balance issue to prevent the "quick hit & run" tactic. If you cast "SPEED" the mid-step would be removed. So yeah... it was a balance thing.

1) I think it would be sheer impossible with the 2 weapon combo

3) Again: Balancing. Making weapons too powerful (too much actions) would kill the purpose of having varied weaponry.

4) Nothing to add here

5) The latter approach is harder to do, but somehow better when it comes to handling larger objects... when you try to do the same trick with coins... good luck

0. Am I the only one in the world who liked this feature then? I agree with Suule the Rams are much to easy to beat without this. Though you can just cast a speed spell in the original DM2 anyway...

5) I'm not too bothered about this, though I do think its quite usefull and I do miss it. But more importantly I'd really like the option of opening a chest/bag whilst it is on the ground, to allow you to add/remove itemslike in the original DM2. It can make it much easier to arrange many items, and allow you to quickly remove everything from a container without having to pick it up first.

6) I also like the DM2 interface for moving heavy items around & spinning objects, i.e. tables. so much more intuative.
Also in DM2, when you open curtains in a room the light level went up a notch, kinda useless but still cool
Oh and one last thing, in DM2 you used to be able to see interactive items on the wall next to you, and were able to interact with them. I.e, fit keys into locks, drink from fountains etc. This is also a handy function and eliminates the need to have toturn to a lock to unlock a door, then turn back etc.

Edit: Oh and I really miss not being able to see the magic map & money box in the attack window, transfering money between players & seeing where you are going on the map is very difficult
Edit2: Oh and the seperate sections in the moneybox would be nice, keeps things neat & tidy;)

Oh I notice that the lanterns in the hall to the main door to skullkeep cannot be moved! There's a switch behind one which opens a secret...

rubjonny wrote:Am I the only one in the world who liked this feature then?

Probably just about, yeah.

rubjonny wrote:0. Am I the only one in the world who liked this feature then?

Yes

rubjonny wrote:I agree with Suule the Rams are much to easy to beat without this. Though you can just cast a speed spell in the original DM2 anyway...

Quite - the rams are only easy if your unencumbered and uninjured and know the optimum route through it. Same with the original DMII...

rubjonny wrote:6) I also like the DM2 interface for moving heavy items around & spinning objects, i.e. tables. so much more intuative.

*More* intuative?

Really? I found the original the exact opposite. The first thing I did when playing the original DMII was click on the table, then when the new menu came up tried to click on the arrows (which is the most intuative thing to do beacause it's like the interface for moving the party about).

Maybe I was just being dumb but it took me several goes to work out what to do - certainly not more intuative than written instructions that you can click on to do what you want to!

I agree that it's different, but it's certainly not less intuative...

rubjonny wrote:Oh and one last thing, in DM2 you used to be able to see interactive items on the wall next to you, and were able to interact with them. I.e, fit keys into locks, drink from fountains etc. This is also a handy function and eliminates the need to have toturn to a lock to unlock a door, then turn back etc.

Hmmm yes, I agonised over that one.

The way I eventually saw it was that although gave continuity for large wall items, it substantially slowed down performance, looked a bit odd because of the scaling up in resolution of graphics and would break a few puzzles in DM (e.g. Time is of the Essence and Hit and Run).

So, more bad than good.

As you say, the most it would gain you is saving you a mouse click; not the end of the world!

rubjonny wrote:Edit2: Oh and the seperate sections in the moneybox would be nice, keeps things neat & tidy;)

RTC remembers where in the coin box you put the coins. If you want it tidy, then you can just put them in in whatever location you want...

rubjonny wrote:Oh I notice that the lanterns in the hall to the main door to skullkeep cannot be moved! There's a switch behind one which opens a secret...

That's just an oversight - they'll be moveable in V0.42.

George Gilbert wrote:Yes

fair enough

George Gilbert wrote:*More* intuative?

Really? I found the original the exact opposite. The first thing I did when playing the original DMII was click on the table, then when the new menu came up tried to click on the arrows (which is the most intuative thing to do beacause it's like the interface for moving the party about).

Maybe I was just being dumb but it took me several goes to work out what to do - certainly not more intuative than written instructions that you can click on to do what you want to!

I agree that it's different, but it's certainly not less intuative...

I found it much easier and quicker in DM2, you click the table then move the mouse to where you want it to go, rather than scrollng thru lots of menus. Also you can't spin the table atm, and if you added it would add even more menus!
Perhaps you could just have a set of arrows appear that you click on, like you wanted when you first played dm2

George Gilbert wrote:Hmmm yes, I agonised over that one.

The way I eventually saw it was that although gave continuity for large wall items, it substantially slowed down performance, looked a bit odd because of the scaling up in resolution of graphics and would break a few puzzles in DM (e.g. Time is of the Essence and Hit and Run).

So, more bad than good.

As you say, the most it would gain you is saving you a mouse click; not the end of the world!

Fair enough, perhaps you could allow it to be switched on/off on certain dungeons? So off for the DM1 engines and on for dm2... Its not a huge problem though. It looks all blury & odd in the original DM2 I notice as well

George Gilbert wrote:RTC remembers where in the coin box you put the coins. If you want it tidy, then you can just put them in in whatever location you want...

Oh ok, but I still would like my nice neat dividers

George Gilbert wrote:That's just an oversight - they'll be moveable in V0.42.

Ok Cool

Any chance of being able to see the moneybox & maps in the 'action' window to the right as in DM2? It would make certain things you can do later on with the advanced maps a bit harder to carry out without this. For example one of the maps allows you to see monster locations, which is very handy when fighting invisible monsters. But having to go into the menu, equip the map, check it out, unequip the map equip vorpal blade etc would make the feature essentioally useless.
Having 2 hands like in DM2 would be very handy for this reason also, even if the second hand can only use non-weapon items such as the map or money box.

I don't know, perhaps I'm just a DM2 purist!
I loved all the extra things you could do with DM2 over DM1 when I got it on my Amiga all those years ago!
Though I figured out how to get the DOS DM2 working well in DOSBox last night, so may just use that for my original DM2 fix

If I remember from when I had a go on the RTC-DM2 demo, getting your money changed up in the money box caused the coins to be put in random locations, so you could spend ages moving all your coppers etc into specific piles, hand your money box to a merchant to get it changed up, and receive it back with the contents all messed up again.
Mind you, since I've got the original DM2 and it works for me in DOSbox, I'll just be using that anyway .

must have been a bug in the demo then, either that or he didnt like the look of you

Well I haven't downloaded v0.41 yet so it's probably been changed by now. I was just mentioning it. I'm pretty sure he messed up my money box anyway...

Is he the only one?

Well, depends on - I would welcome half-steps if they could be switched on and off; manadotory half-steps I don't want, like almost everyone else.

I would welcome half-steps if they could be switched on and off

that is, as I guess, a lot of work for GG (in developing that "half-step" feature), wchich would be usefull MAYBE for one person (I think nobody liked this in original version; at least that`s why I never liked DM2).

Adamo: I'm aware that it would be much effort, that's why I never made a real suggestion post about this.

Ok, turning is handled better now than it used to be, but if you command a turned character to perform a melee attack he still doesn't turn to the one and only available target in front of the party, therefore I suggest again to implement this into the RTC engine.