ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Hmm, it looks as though there's a rather substantial change to the way line of sight works in beta 9. Maybe this is part of the "archery rewrite".





This is how you used to be able to target things with archers in beta 8 and earlier. You'd hold Shift and move the cursor until there was a blue-highlighted path to the monster, as in the second image. Then shooting would put the projectile in the monster's square. You'd either hit or miss (and you really, really want to hit, so you pump Weapon Combat as much as you can).

In beta9, you neither hit nor miss the monster. The projectile never makes it that far. It just sort of vanishes. Presumably it's hitting the trees/walls.

It actually seems reasonable that you can't hit the snake from where you are.

There's a reason I posted here instead of in bugs. I just wanted people to be aware of the change, because it's pretty significant.

I also think there's something else weird going on with line of sight calculations, perhaps cached values being used in the wrong context or ... I don't know what. But I've seen situations where I had a totally clear shot at a monster, with nary an obstacle anywhere near either of us, and I was still lobbing arrows without getting any "misses" or "hits" messages. But I haven't been able to reproduce that or pin it down.

So, just so you know.

OK, another weird thing. No screen shot, since the monster in question has already moved, so I'll try ASCII art:
The a was a hornet swarm, I think. The j is a blue jelly. I'm a skeleton archer.

I pressed '1' to start targeting, and the cursor chose the swarm, which did not have a clear path. (That's possibly a bug in its own right, but anyway.) I moved the cursor to the jelly by pressing the down arrow a few times, I believe. Then I pressed Enter to fire.

Surprisingly, the hornet swarm was hit and killed. Even though I didn't target it. It seems they somehow moved into the line of fire and took the shot that was aimed at a totally different monster. (I think I might have seen the swarm graphic actually move into the tile to its left before erasing, but I can't swear to it.)

The second thing you're seeing sounds like the projectile/travel speed system. In beta 8 I've had snakes dodge projectiles and move into the path of projectiles. If the hornet swarm moved into the line of fire while the arrow was mid-flight it very well could have been hit.

Hmm... how can I tell (predict) when my arrows are going to travel all the way to a monster after they're fired, and when they're going to stop one tile short of a monster, hovering in mid-flight, waiting for me to take a step (and for the monster to take a step) before continuing along their trajectory?

As a veteran of roguelikes, all I can say is that that behavior is really freakin' weird.

Maybe the monsters are all real humans in the matrix or something. Is this what Agent Smith felt like?

What you describe sounds like a bug, if the engine tells you the projectile will follow the highlighted path it really should do so.

As for being in the matrix, hehe yes, and ther will be a spell/talent/.. later that slows projectiles in your vicinity