Nuntar
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 4592
Registered: 02-20-2007
IP: Logged
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Re: Halph's interactions with temporal clones (0)
There are four other cases (that I know of) of entities treating the player and timeclones differently:
* The script command "Wait for entity Player" only responds to the player. This can be used to make custom monsters that track the player, or track timeclones but not the player. Hyperme has made some interesting puzzles with these in a hold in beta. Similarly, the variables _X and _Y always track the player's location.
* In TSS, temporal aumtlich, which are a scripted element, only attack the player. However, once 5.1 is released we're going to make a "fixed" temporal aumtlich for Entry Point, which chooses between the player, timeclones and other targets in the same way as regular monsters.
* As already mentioned, mimics respond only to the player.
* The brain pathmap only targets the player. Guards still choose whichever of the player and timeclones is closest, but if their target is a timeclone, they attack it with unbrained movement. Brained roaches only attack the player, unless there is no available path.
However, mimics can't respond to two entities at once, and similarly the brain pathmap can only have a single target, because of the way it's designed. (That's why the same behaviour is shown when guards / brained monsters choose between the player and a stalwart.) There's no similar reason why Halph couldn't respond to two entities, since he is only responding to one at a time (unless both tap him in one turn, but then we could just say the player takes priority).
It doesn't make much sense for anything to treat the player and timeclones differently, because timeclones are the player, a few minutes removed in time. But I'm okay with this being overridden for gameplay reasons in the case of entities that inherently have a single target, like mimics and the brain pathmap. Halph doesn't fall into this category.
So, yes, I'm uncomfortable with the current behaviour. I feel guilty for not highlighting it as an issue when AJTT was in Architecture. (That said, this was long before 5.1, and we had no idea that skell was going to come along and work like a Citizen at actually getting all the bugs people had found with 5.0 fixed. At that time, there were interesting discussions about what the behaviour should have been with things like tar growing over disabled force arrows, but there was a general feeling of "TSS is out now, nothing's going to get changed".)
I think... maybe... the suggestion of making Halph and Young Halph behave differently is a good one. The biggest problem with it is that, once players have seen a room with Halph + timeclones, they are likely to assume Halph and Young Halph behave the same. But they could play around until they discovered what the behaviour is. The AJTT room already requires you to either know the behaviour beforehand or figure it out by experimentation. And that's not necessarily a bad thing; recently rewatching Pearls' LP of Gigantic Jewel Lost, I've been reminded that experimenting to figure out aspects of behaviour you don't know can be fun and rewarding.
In favour, both "Halph responds to timeclones" and "Halph doesn't respond to timeclones" lead to interesting puzzles that you just can't make with other elements. On the "doesn't respond" side, there's using Halph as an obstacle, as in the AJTT room. On the "responds" side, I had this idea last night: when recording, Beethro bumps Halph for "follow me", then again for "stay put". After rewinding, the second Beethro bumps Halph for "follow me" and moves so that he is in the same place when the timeclone does the "stay put" bump, which thus changes to a "follow me instead" bump...
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50th Skywatcher
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