Halfing LOS radius & attack ranges

[darkgod]

Currently the default LOS radius & attack range is set to 20.
This is really really huge.

What would you think about switching it to like 10 instead ? It would allow to play with big tiles without the risk of death from afar.
It would probably nerf archmages a little, but that's not bad
Archers are less affected since they don't hit that far for a good part of the game anyway

[shwqa]

Yes please

[PowerWyrm]

Watch out for such radical change. Some talents have properties based on range, if it's decreased to 10, there sure will be much balance to do. No need to pump talents that can increase their range to 15, if it's limited by a hardcoded value of 10...

[darkgod]

well obviously it means more than replacing two values I agree

[Zonk]

I assume this would apply to both the player and NPCs? If so...I think it would be interesting, although from 20 to 10 *IS* a radical change.
Could do this in 2 steps, by making a release where the range is 15, then seeing the feedback/how it actually works in practice, and if appropriate, switching to 10.


Oh, also: I read Halfing(which should have been halving I guess) as 'Halfling' earlier and was wondering what they had to do with this

[Grey]

I definitely think it crazy big as stands. Most roguelikes have a vision radius of around 6. 10 sounds good for ToME. Would make some dungeons look aesthetically nicer (Trollmire in particular).

Would be nice if there were items in the game that could change it - egos and randarts too, of course.

The gameplay changes would be quite interesting. It would make some of the prides easier for example (assuming NPCs get the same change).

[Zonk]

Would be nice if there were items in the game that could change it - egos and randarts too, of course.

The gameplay changes would be quite interesting. It would make some of the prides easier for example (assuming NPCs get the same change).

I actually should have mentioned this, having thought about it time ago...but yeah +LOS should definitely be added to the game as a valid effect/enhancement.

Not just for items - it fits as a passive/sustain talent(especially for ranged classes) and as a racial ability(maybe Elves have keen eyes and have +1 to their LOS or something like that).

[darkgod]

If the prides become too easy I'll harden them, but deaths from offscreen as it is currently is not very fun anyway

PS: bonus point, performance gain as creatures will have a smaller LOS radius to parse

[Grey]

Yeah, the performance gain may well be dramatic with less screen updates as well. Halving (note the spelling) the LOS will reduce the number of visible squares by at least 60%.

Having said that ToME seems to redraw squares even outside player LOS (noticeable in the sand lair).

In terms of gameplay changes it'll also make skeletal mages less of a threat from distance, though I doubt that'll stop people whining about them... ;)

If the idea is to have larger tiles for the main display then it'd be nice if the minimap could be made a bit bigger so one still has a good feel of the general dungeon - perhaps one could hover the cursor over it to get an expanded display, or there could be a keypress to overlay the main view with a shrunken full map.

[darkgod]

Yeah displaying a better minimap is planned

And yes it's to make room for bigger tiles but also because 20 is just really huge.
BTW a small teaser: http://te4.org/images/tmp/newgfx.png

[Grey]

Um.... WOW!

With such nice graphics though the rest of the interface suddenly looks ugly. The squareness of the tiles especially - any way to smoothen out the LOS differential? There should be a dithering around the edges of the out of sight squares so they blend in better. And maybe have a greyish smoothness to the corners of the black unexplored squares.

Oh, and I still want an "@" character option! Possibly an at with a hat...?

[coffee]

I will do a Facebook page against this. I will invite Bieber friends. I... I...

Let's put at least 15+variable range according player/npc capacity of vision.

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PETITION: MY RITCH FLAMESPITTER HAVE RIGHT TO BE A FIRE-SNIPPER!
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[escargot]

I love the ancient look of that!
Great tiles!

And yes, Grey is right, there's a dichotomy now between the tiles and the UI/fog of war. I also think that some of the particle effects we now see differ from this new style.

And I support the LOS changes, I think it will give the game a more tactical approach to fights and encounters. The large LOS right now diminishes that a bit.

[coffee]

BTW a small teaser: http://te4.org/images/tmp/newgfx.png

darkgod "You got mail"!

[darkgod]

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