skell
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 3734
Registered: 12-28-2004
IP: Logged

There have been a bunch of different suggestions regarding demo playback and I'd like to collect them all in a single thread. I'll include all ideas I remember, can think of from my own experience and link them whenever I can find the threads:

1. Demo playback should not stop by pressing any key - preferably it should be limited to Escape key. This is mentioned in probably every thread. (1)
2. Speed up demo playback the longer you hold left/right arrow - this reply
3. Use number keys 0-9 to skip to the position in the demo, akin to how skipping in Youtube works.
4. Pressing enter should open a dialog where you can input the turn number you want to skip to - an extension of this thread
5. Do not automatically stop demo playback on the last move
6. Arrow key + Ctrl/Shift skip 10/100 moves at once - this reply

I am not so sure about #6, I think the rest is sufficient but, as usual, feedback is welcome.

____________________________
My website | Facebook | Twitter

---

[Last edited by skell at 11-23-2020 09:46 PM]

Rabscuttle
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2460
Registered: 09-10-2004
IP: Logged

Remember the speed adjustment in between playing demos. Not automatically ending a demo (#5) should mean that being unable to slow down a short demo at superhigh speeds shouldn't be a problem. Or alternatively, if speed is set to high, add a one second pause before starting the demo.

As an extension to #4, being able to trim a demo might be useful.
Set start and endpoints, click a button and you create a new demo of the appropriate bits. Might be useful for creating title screen demos.

Multiroom demos with stairs. It would be nice if you didn't need to hit a key to go from the stairs demo to the next one.

Rabscuttle
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2460
Registered: 09-10-2004
IP: Logged

Map screens for multiroom demos: it'd be nice to have something to indicate show the map and what was clicked, but I think that's a more major change.

Rabscuttle
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2460
Registered: 09-10-2004
IP: Logged

A thought: setting uniform time demo playback is currently done via 7 (on the numpad) - is this going to change?

skell
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 3734
Registered: 12-28-2004
IP: Logged

Changes from the commit message:
- Demos no longer end when pressing almost any key or pressing mouse, the latter allowing to right click squares to inspect them or check room interactions
- Use numbers 0-9 to navigate to demo's fractional time
- Demos no longer end automatically
- Scroll text shows information about current demo turn and if it has ended
- Dying effect is disabled during demo playback and you can now navigate back from it
- Restart command can be used to move the demo back to the 0th turn
- Actions: next, prev, speed up, speed down, toggle uniform speed, toggle turn count, toggle puzzle mode - take their value from keymap now
- The longer forward/backwards key is held down the faster demo is skipped through
- Pressing enter during demo playback will open a dialog that allows entering the number of the move to go to
- Dedicated help prompt for Demo playback

Now what to pay attention to when testing:

1. Everything.
2. Victory demos.
3. Challenge demos.
4. Demos that start in the middle of the room.
5. Demos that resulted in death.
6. Demos that did not result in death but now result in death because room has changed.
7. Ditto + started in the middle of the room.
8. Multi-room demos.
9. Demos that end by leaving to a different room which is a secret room, or conquering the current room caused the level to be cleared
10. Everything.

@Rabscuttle - Not changed. I decided to ignore the rest of your request because the scope was already fairly large and the suggestions were fairly difficult to implement, but maybe all/some of them will be included in the future.

____________________________
My website | Facebook | Twitter

---

[Last edited by skell at 11-18-2020 01:24 PM]

Dragomir7
Level: Goblin
Rank Points: 19
Registered: 07-07-2019
IP: Logged

Some musings from me:

1. Make the demo consistent in speed with each step taken, rather than follow the user's actual gameplay speed; the demos I'm watching on the current version (5.1.0.6545) have some steps going very slowly, while others go past in a blur.

Drinking a potion and planting a decoy/mimic can be treated as two separate steps here, even if they share the same counter.

2. Remove the "victory" and "challenge completed" demos automatically, if the "room exit" demo is recorded (in the same room on the same run). This eliminates duplication and redundancy.

3. Have a function (spacebar?) that pauses and unpauses the demo.

4. Show the descriptions of what the useful buttons do (pause, speedup/slow down, exit demo etc) on the demo menu.


Update: Thanks for the clarifications -- 1, 3 & 4 are already in place!

---

[Last edited by Dragomir7 at 04-02-2021 05:58 PM : updated]

averagemoe
Level: Smiter

Rank Points: 488
Registered: 03-22-2012
IP: Logged

I've got one. Let the player use their mouse to scan things during playback. Like, clicking an orb to see it's effects, or a citizen to see it's destination.

____________________________
There are two types of sheep in the world. Those who jump off a bridge when told to, and those who jump off a bridge when told not to. Don't be either.

Dragon Fogel
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 2434
Registered: 06-21-2014
IP: Logged

skell wrote:
- Demos no longer end when pressing almost any key or pressing mouse, the latter allowing to right click squares to inspect them or check room interactions

It looks like that's in there already.

navithmastero
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 597
Registered: 01-03-2012
IP: Logged

Dragomir7 wrote:
3. Have a function (spacebar?) that pauses and unpauses the demo.

You can sort of already do this. You can scrub through with the left and right arrows and use the up or down arrows to have the demo playback automatically again (up arrow speeds up demo and down slows it down)

____________________________
Member of the Snake Appreciation Society

One of your local HAs.

My stuff:

---

[Last edited by navithmastero at 04-01-2021 12:46 PM]

Rabscuttle
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2460
Registered: 09-10-2004
IP: Logged

Dragomir7 wrote:
Some musings from me:

1. Make the demo consistent in speed with each step taken, rather than follow the user's actual gameplay speed; the demos I'm watching on the current version (5.1.0.6545) have some steps going very slowly, while others go past in a blur.

Press keypad-7 to toggle replaying demo moves at a uniform speed instead of the author's original playback speed.

3. Have a function (spacebar?) that pauses and unpauses the demo.

This should already work?

---

[Last edited by Rabscuttle at 04-02-2021 02:06 AM]

JLE
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 46
Registered: 09-10-2006
IP: Logged

I wish it was possible to get demos of a room you hadn't conquered yet, WITHOUT having to spam the board begging for someone to post one (and sometimes be disappointed that nobody does), if you're completely out of ideas.

Suggestion: If you yourself haven't completed the room yet, you can download a demo but the list does NOT include the top half-dozen (or, if there are less than six available, does not include the top 50% of them). So you can't just copy one and jump from not knowing the room to equalling the best time by copying it, but you can at least get past it and go further into the hold.

This may not, of course, work for those rooms which have to be passed through multiple times in order to complete (e.g. the final couple of rooms of "King Dugan's Dungeon, 1st Level" in "The Second Sky" where you have to do the rooms multiple times just to start from different points with different weapons until you finally can access the weapon that you can actually clear the room with.) For those, you'd still have to rely on player advice.