Update released, and ready for Steam tomorrow

jasonrohrer · 2018-11-08 06:20:43

This week's update is a very long list of bug fixes and little improvements. Steam is tomorrow! Everything is ready to go.

The biggest changes are to the camera, movement, and clicking system. Thanks to Iestyn B. for tirelessly documenting all sorts of problems with the old system, and helping me come up with solutions.

The coolest new feature here is that you can now freeze the camera at any time using SPACE. Once you get the hang of using it in various situations, you'll find it to be very powerful.

People have long complained that it's hard to click things when the character is moving, because the camera follows the character, and it's hard to click things that are moving out from under the camera. There really is no way around this with an automated camera---I can't read your mind. Are you about to walk off the screen, in which case the camera better get out in front of you so you can see where you're going? Or are you just walking near the edge to pick something up, with the plan to come right back to the center? In that case, the camera shouldn't move at all. But in both cases, your character walks toward the edge of the screen in exactly the same way. Identical inputs, totally different ideal camera behavior.

The only way to handle it is to give you some power over the camera. You can read your own mind. If you're planning to come right back to the center, you can hold SPACE to freeze the camera. If you're planning to keep walking, let go of SPACE.

Thus, if you're working in one small area, walking back and forth (for example, when forging), you can hold SPACE the whole time, keeping all relevant tools on the screen, allowing you to accurately click back and forth between your work targets without mousing against the camera movements. Try it. You'll like it.

This also allows for some crazy new power moves. If you're walking a long distance to find food, and a berry bush suddenly comes into view, hit SPACE to freeze the camera. Now you can easily click the bush (even though your character is still finishing up their move into the area), allowing you to accurately click on the bush and redirect your character right to it. Gobble until full, then release SPACE and keep walking with the usual auto-camera following you.

And if you don't want to mess with freezing the camera, the camera works just like it used to when you're not pressing SPACE. So beginners can just not worry about it. But there is a new section in the tutorial that explains it.

Long-distance held-mouse pathfinding has always felt a little squirrelly. It's generally doing the right thing, but it's hard to understand what it's doing, because its decisions are invisible. Now a dotted line is shown whenever you're in long-distance-travel mode, so you can see and understand what is going on with the pathfinding. Once you understand it, you will be able to control it, and long-distance movement becomes a lot less frustrating.

Some right-vs-left clicking inconsistencies have been fixed. You can now use the "drop" action (right click) to start a stack, for example.

When you click a berry bush from afar, you now default to standing right behind it instead of next to it when you arrive there. This is a much bigger deal than it seems to be.

And the biome ground tiles have been moved down and over a bit, so they actually line up with the grid. They were 32 pixels off before.

On top of these improvements, something like 50 reported GitHub issues have been fixed. Thanks to all of you who have been keeping the reports coming.

Tramax · 2018-11-08 11:26:07

Thanks Jason. Camera controls like that are a welcome addition! And good to hear we can expect the dotted line to be a bit more present!

jasonrohrer wrote:

You can read your own mind.

Yes but who owns the voice that I hear when I read it? It doesn't sound either like how I think I sound nor how I actually sound... :s

Stormyzabeast · 2018-11-08 14:12:33

Behind the berry busy is awesome! I've died many times at the very last second X-D

jasonrohrer · 2018-11-08 15:15:47

I'm currently having second thoughts about showing the dotted line so much. I don't think it looks great to have that on the screen constantly. It's really great when it appears when needed (the old way) to explain a round-about path (like it does in the very beginning of the tutorial). That's very elegant and a nice surprise. But seeing it constantly.... gets visually old or something.

Iestyn made an excellent point about players needing to understand an automated system in order to control it.

The long-journey pathing is doing a few counter-intuitive things:

1. It waits until you walk close to the end of your current path before it "auto-clicks" where your mouse is located to extend your path. This happens at some interval based on path length, etc. But it can result in your character changing direction by surprise. And there is some lag when moving the mouse around before your character changes direction (your character finishes their last path before changing direction).

2. If you release the mouse, your character walks to the end if the last auto-clicked path. Where that end is located is hard to predict. Wherever the last auto-click happened.

3. Sometimes, during auto-pathing on journeys, your character has to walk around objects. This results in the camera moving away from the straight-line path to follow your character in these deviations. If an auto-click happens while the camera is still off-center, then it will land in a deviated position, relative to the last path. I.e., if you're walking W -> E horizontally, but your character needs to walk north for a bit to go around a clump of trees, the auto-click might happen while the camera is still a bit to the north, resulting in your next auto-path being on the next tile row up, causing your character to walk diagonally up in a surprising way.

The solution with showing the auto-path as a dotted line is that we make the player explicitly aware of the fact that 1,2, and 3 are happening. 1 and 2 become understandable and controlable. 3 still remains pretty uncontrolable. You can see it happening, and try to compensate by moving the mouse back to your intended path, but it's frantic and unreliable.

There's probably some better fix here, where the camera, in the case of 3, doesn't deviate from the direct-line path (maybe confusing, if the character auto-walks off the screen as part of a long deviation). Or maybe some auto adjustment to where the next auto-click will happen, to compensate for deviations.

And 1 and 2 can be improved as well in some ways. Your character could truncate their path as soon as the mouse is released, for example, solving 2. There's probably also something that can be done to improve 1.

Lum · 2018-11-08 16:17:29

You can spy on people by freezing the camera when moving around automatically. I'm gonna have fun.

Izzytok · 2018-11-08 23:19:15

Love the new camera feature, it feels a bit odd that you can walk out of your own sight range though. It gives me hope that we may someday be able to look in the direction we're walking and/or look around at will.

The dotted line seems a bit silly, flying around all over the place, but I never really relied on it so it doesn't bother me all that much. Good job overall!

voy178 · 2018-11-09 00:56:16

Love the bugfixes. Some of them were long-awaited and now the new players will have a mostly seamless experience.

Thank you, Jason.

Anshin · 2018-11-09 14:25:58

Thank you for all the bug fixes!

MeIsZ · 2018-11-09 21:19:31

Once OHOL hits, steam be ready for anything.

Last edited by MeIsZ (2018-11-09 21:19:42)

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2018-11-08 06:20:43

Update released, and ready for Steam tomorrow

#2 2018-11-08 11:26:07

Re: Update released, and ready for Steam tomorrow

#3 2018-11-08 14:12:33

Re: Update released, and ready for Steam tomorrow

#4 2018-11-08 15:15:47

Re: Update released, and ready for Steam tomorrow

#5 2018-11-08 16:17:29

Re: Update released, and ready for Steam tomorrow

#6 2018-11-08 23:19:15

Re: Update released, and ready for Steam tomorrow

#7 2018-11-09 00:56:16

Re: Update released, and ready for Steam tomorrow

#8 2018-11-09 14:25:58

Re: Update released, and ready for Steam tomorrow

#9 2018-11-09 21:19:31

Re: Update released, and ready for Steam tomorrow

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