blorx1
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File: Bug - Fun.hold (1.1 KB)
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Apparently some funky stuff happens if the player steps onto a potion and is then pushed off onto a time token in the same turn.

Specifically, if you use a mimic potion you place the mimic in each timeline, so you get some interesting control over where it is in each timeline.

For clone potions it's probably broken, but you start recording from the placed clone, which seems wrong. I think if it just didn't switch to the clone it would be "usable"

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hyperme
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This is technically a logical consequence of how a various turn processing systems are set up. The chain of events is something like this:

1. Player moves onto a tile with a double potion.
2. The potion is used, setting a flag in the player object so that the double placement will happen.
3. Other reactions to the player's move happen.
4. Monsters get to move.
5. The player is pushed onto a tile with a Time Token.
6. The Time Token activates.
7. Other things happen.
8. The temporal split's validity is checked. If the player was moved after activating the token, the recording is cancelled.
9. The turn ends. The room state is recorded. This includes the player flag for double placement.
10. Since the player's double placement flag is set, double placement happens.
11. If the double being placed is a clone, it becomes active when placed.
12. Moves are recorded for the temporal split.
13. The player rewinds, undoing everything to the state it was in when the token was activated.
14. Since the player's double placement flag is set, double placement happens.

The end result definitely funky and non-initiative, especially with clone potions. There are a few options for dealing with this.

The first is to stop the Time Token from activating when double placement is pending. This seems consistent with how potions and Time Tokens currently interact. It's also the neatest way of fixing this, but some people do really enjoy weird interactions.

The second is to prevent auto-switching to a clone if a temporal recording is ongoing. This will only affect this specific case, which makes it potentially undesirable. However, it does mean we get to keep the interaction, if that is considered a good thing.

Finally, nothing could be done about this. All the turn processing is happening correctly. It's just that the end result is unexpected. If we call it 'emergent behavior', this becomes a feature and not a bug.

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Dragon Fogel
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I think the clone issue should definitely be fixed, as normally you can't switch to a clone mid-recording. In all other situations, it's irrelevant whether you switch to the new clone or stay as the one who drank the potion because you can immediately switch back, so the fact that you switch isn't really a "rule".

No strong opinion on whether recordings should be cancelled for double placement in general. I think it would make more sense if they were, but it's not a strong preference.

Nuntar
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The behaviour with mimics is exactly what I'd expect to happen, given that double placement happens at the end of the turn (and this is a widely known fact that is okay to use in puzzles). It's true that starting a recording and then stepping on a potion cancels the recording (which feels strange enough already), but here the sequence is reversed.

With clones, since this hasn't been explicitly spelled out, I'll first describe the current behaviour. If Beethro steps on a clone potion and then gets pushed onto a time token, he gets to place the clone and is auto-switched to it and can't switch back (switching by clicking is disabled during recording). When the player hits Tab, they can place a clone again (as with mimics) but are not auto-switched with it, and the player and timeclone are both on the time token so the timeclone starts making the recorded sequence of moves from there even though the recording starts wherever you placed the first clone.

This is really counterintuitive and has high potential to break rooms if the architect doesn't know about it, so I think the best solution is (as hyperme suggested) to disable the auto-switching in this specific case.

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bomber50
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Nuntar wrote: When the player hits Tab, they can place a clone again (as with mimics) but are not auto-switched with it, and the player and timeclone are both on the time token

Not auto-switching, to me, might be a bug.

Everything else makes sense, doesn't feel buggy.

Doom
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Not activating the time token sounds like the most intuitive option to me. Double placement can be considered part of the potion usage action, which already cancels recordings. Much easier to explain than the alternative.

And anyways if the intent is to allow placing doubles during a recording, why wasn't it done the easy way by just letting players drink potions? I'd assume the potions-cancel-recordings rule was a deliberate design choice supposed to prevent this type of thing.

Finally Mike said a thing once that's possibly relevant:

mrimer wrote:
Having interesting emergent behaviors via element combinations is good, but I don't want a bunch of fiddly rules I need to remember in obscure cases. DROD has enough of those already, and I don't want to keep introducing more whenever an oversight in the game logic is encountered.

mrimer
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Thank you for the analysis and feedback, everyone!

Hyperme has fixed this to prevent activating a time token while placing a double for 5.1.1.

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NiroZ
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I can confirm that this is fixed in 5.1.1.alpha.2020-09-23 on windows 10. The timetoken does not activate, but can be activated later.