Announcement: Be excellent to each other.


Caravel Forum : DROD RPG Boards : RPG Feature Requests : Mouse movement should path around monsters
New Topic New Poll Post Reply
Poster Message
kieranmillar
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 4040
Registered: 07-11-2014
IP: Logged
icon Mouse movement should path around monsters (+2)  
Cross posted form Tactical Nexus discord

People using mouse movement would like it to avoid fighting monsters as part of the path finding.

I suppose it should let you fight monsters if your end destination results in a fight, or you're not using smart pathmapping because you clicked an inaccessible square...
06-27-2025 at 11:43 PM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Show all user's posts High Scores This architect's holds Quote Reply
kieranmillar
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 4040
Registered: 07-11-2014
IP: Logged
icon Re: Mouse movement should path around monsters (+2)  
I quickly scouted out what might be involved in this feature request, and it seems more involved than I had hoped, so will be making it to something to think about post-release.

The quick travel pathfinding is good at avoiding triggering fights and picking up items, so the logic already exists somewhere. CMonster::FindOptimalPathTo already has an argument to make moving to the adjacent square good enough, so moving to the adjacent square of a monster you clicked on then making the final move to attack it also wouldn't have been all that hard.

But in reality it's more complicated than that. Especially when considering if the player has a sword. What you wouldn't want to do is have the player sidestep stabbing the enemy just so it can get closer, then body kill it, which would make you take more damage. OK, you can adjust the goal square if the clicked on square is a monster, but then what if that goal square has a collectible item on it, do we still want to pathfind onto it or are we trying to avoid those?

There's a lot of edge cases which would require careful consideration.
07-08-2025 at 05:16 PM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Show all user's posts High Scores This architect's holds Quote Reply
Dragon Fogel
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 2926
Registered: 06-21-2014
IP: Logged
icon Re: Mouse movement should path around monsters (+1)  
And that isn't even considering that there's a monster ability to deal damage to you when you're adjacent to it. Just plopping the player next to a monster with that ability would not be ideal.
07-08-2025 at 05:47 PM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Show all user's posts High Scores This architect's holds Quote Reply
kieranmillar
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 4040
Registered: 07-11-2014
IP: Logged
icon Re: Mouse movement should path around monsters (+1)  
That's a point, even now quick travel pathfinding doesn't consider enemies that hit you when you step next to them. It cancels the pathfinding, which is OK, but I wonder if it would be worth the work to try and improve that too.

Although sometimes with goblins it's helpful to start quick travel, then abort it when you pass one goblin, adjust your sword, and quick travel again.
07-08-2025 at 05:53 PM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Show all user's posts High Scores This architect's holds Quote Reply
Dragon Fogel
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 2926
Registered: 06-21-2014
IP: Logged
icon Re: Mouse movement should path around monsters (+1)  
I wonder if it would be worth doing something like making Shift+click into an alternate (probably less safe) pathfinding method. It makes it easier to say "do this all the time" if the player has some way to override that which is still more convenient than full manual movement.
07-08-2025 at 08:41 PM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Show all user's posts High Scores This architect's holds Quote Reply
New Topic New Poll Post Reply
Caravel Forum : DROD RPG Boards : RPG Feature Requests : Mouse movement should path around monsters
Surf To:


Forum Rules:
Can I post a new topic? No
Can I reply? No
Can I read? Yes
HTML Enabled? No
UBBC Enabled? Yes
Words Filter Enable? No

Contact Us | CaravelGames.com

Powered by: tForum tForumHacks Edition b0.98.9
Originally created by Toan Huynh (Copyright © 2000)
Enhanced by the tForumHacks team and the Caravel team.