Bazaar: bringing shopping malls to Tome

[Dao Zeti]

No, I screwed up the Infinite Dungeon by spelling a vault-name wrong, but its fixed now.

Thanks for all the feedback so far!

[Red]

Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Especially because I had a bug where my light radius was (and still is) broken, so I couldn't see him till he was two squares away. And had to manuever around shadows the whole time...

Also, I murdered every last Free Trader in their home town. There's, uh... Not much incentive to leave them alive once you beat the quest, especially since they had good items and were half my level. One of them shouting about his family was a nice touch, but didn't really work since it happened after he was hostile.

[spiralrazor]

No issues with this...the one thing i *dont* want to see is unkillable shopkeepers.....they are NOT supposed to be Linaril.

[Red]

Unkillable, no. But a challenge they should be, and largely, a challenge they are not. Perhaps it was just because I was running a pretty survival focused build, but only one ever posed a real threat.

The city getting slaughtered that easily gets a pass, since I was level 25 or so on the return and they spawn at level 12.

[tacobowl8]

Well... I seem to have got an infinite Lua error loop.
I was working on taking out a shopkeeper when this hit.


I'm currently using Doctornull's classpack
Weird Wyrmics
Bazaar

Lua Error: /data/maps/vaults/bazaar-2.lua:93: attempt to index global 'Map' (a nil value)
At [C]:-1 __index
At /data/maps/vaults/bazaar-2.lua:93 on_act
At /mod/addons/Spellsword/superload/mod/class/Actor.lua:493 act
At /data-grayswandir-weird-wyrmic/libs/current-actor-0.lua:19 act
At /mod/class/NPC.lua:54 act
At /engine/GameEnergyBased.lua:126 tickLevel
At /engine/GameEnergyBased.lua:62 tick
At /engine/GameTurnBased.lua:46 tick
At /mod/class/Game.lua:1181

[Dao Zeti]

I had this loop happen once when I was playing as a spellsword and a vendor teleported away from me (an older version, were vendors being bosses could gain extra talents from higher difficulties - in the recent version, they don't get extra talents anymore). I couldn't reproduce the error however and concluded, that the error happened because the vendor somehow disappeared from the map without being registered as dead, so that his on_act function would still trigger, but due to two now undefined variables (x,y coordinations of his location inside the shop) a loop error would occur. When I fought the same vendor again (after reloading), I could kill the vendor without problems however.

Do you remember, if any case of selfteleportation / relocation happened before your loop error?

Still, I am uploading a version with more safety checks before a displaced vendor tries to return home, also in order to circumvent them trying to return home when fearscaped (they would often jump into the bottom-right corner as the fearscape map is smaller than regular zone maps). Sadly, these changes will only work for newly spawned vendors, however, as their attributes are setup when they first spawn.

Thanks for your feedback and sorry for the trouble.

[tacobowl8]

Well, I had used the Telekenetic Core active to pull the Shopkeeper and his dogs on in to me just prior, so that could be it. Hope that helps!

Thanks and I like your Bazaar add-on quite a bit. It is a wonderful way to spend all that accumulated money.

[mkire]

would you be willing to release a version that doesn't have the game throw a fit if i pull or teleport a shopkeeper out of their vault?

[Dao Zeti]

would you be willing to release a version that doesn't have the game throw a fit if i pull or teleport a shopkeeper out of their vault?

If you could help me out with an error log, please. I tried my best to prevent hickups when the shopkeeper returns home, but if errors keep on happening - probably as a result of unforseen interactions with other addons - I need to change the whole 'shopkeeper returns home when being teleported' thing ('immunity to teleport' sadly only prevents being teleported from hostile sources; 'unmovable' only prevents you moving yourself). I would like to know, if the reason for the error is a missing reference to MAP.

[mkire]

I'm not really sure why you've got a complicated setup to teleport the shopkeeper back to the vault in the first place, it's not like you haven't made them really hard to kill already what with giving them all draconic body and a talent that regens 100 per turn for ten turns and that talent from conditioning that heals them and a high resist all (in the case of one of the shopkeepers in the halfling complex 75% resist all)

As for an error log, i think it had a mention of the map in there.

yeah, it looks like the error loop someone posted a bit ago

[Dao Zeti]

I'm not really sure why you've got a complicated setup to teleport the shopkeeper back to the vault in the first place, it's not like you haven't made them really hard to kill already what with giving them all draconic body and a talent that regens 100 per turn for ten turns and that talent from conditioning that heals them and a high resist all (in the case of one of the shopkeepers in the halfling complex 75% resist all)

As for an error log, i think it had a mention of the map in there.

yeah, it looks like the error loop someone posted a bit ago

Thanks for your answer. I try to explain my reasoning for the teleport:

A. Thematically: They are shopkeepers. It would be pretty antithematic, if you could teleport them to the pampas and they would simply stay there, or try - if I code an Ai to return home - to move back to their shops taking countless turns.

B. Technically: As shopkeepers are initially not hostile, they are prone to alot of abuse. Even though they are teleport-immune, teleport works on them as a friendly spell. I could have superloaded some general actor functions, like the one that is being called by teleport-like-talents and make sure it doesn't stick on a shopkeeper. However, I try to superload as few functions as possible to not endanger addon compatibility. I had thought that adding a return-home teleport as part of their acting would be a clean solution. Something seems to go bad though. I sadly can't reproduce it neither offline nor online - or, could only once before I patched it, and it happened when I was playing a Spellsword (never again had that glitch). Whether it is related to certain addons or certain online play conditions I cannot tell. I am uploading a version with an explicite reference to engine.Map inside the on_act function of the shopkeepers. If the error still occurs, I will rework the whole system and kick teleporting out of the window.

C. Why are the guys so hard to kill? I don't think I have the right balance formula, I give you this. Shopkeepers are intended to be too rough to kill in the beginning of the game - so that their vault marks a difference to conventional vaults. They are malls, not battlefields. I could have gone wih 90% res all, huge HP - or huge regeneration, as I tried to do. Huge regeneration in my eyes has the advantage, that shopkeepers are rather easily to overcome in the later stages of the game. Many character setups can dispatch a Boss with 2000-3000 hps in a few hits, if not even oneshot them (on normal). More easily done, as you can prepare next to them by activating all offensive buffs - and then go all out on them before they know what hit them (100 hp regeneration / turn is alot in the beginning, more like a drop into the bucket in the midgame).

D. Solutions? I am all ears for ideas how to do better. I could for example drop the whole "Do you want to steal this item"-theme, as I don't think it is implemented in an interesting way. I also could turn those vaults into real malls by making combat with the vendors impossible. Or, I could make you have to fight some guardian for just the one item you don't want to pay for: "Want to cut lose this belt of higher magery and take home without paying? Well done, alas, it was guarded by bottle gnome of doom. Get ready to rumble!"

[mkire]

I have an idea for the teleport home, though i don't know how feasible it is; Can you have the shopkeepers check to see if they're at full health before they try to teleport home? that way if i'm in the middle of fighting one and i yank him to me so i can beat him up in melee he won't just teleport back to the middle of the vault?

i don't have a big complaint about how hard they are to kill, other than that i find them more difficult to kill than an equivalent level story boss, and a bit of 'if they're this powerful, why are they running a shop in the middle of a dungeon?'

a solution to that would be reducing how tough the shopkeepers are and giving them more elite guards, Like the corrupter shopkeeper in the halfling complex had five golems, and taking care of those were two-three engagements by themselves. if he had five more of those, i don't know if i'd have been willing to fight him when i first encountered him at level 20, and given he didn't give me the dud treasure map, i don't think i'd have come back to kill him later on.

I do like the idea of trying to steal just one item and having to fight a guardian for it without needing to kill everything in the whole vault

I will be downloading the new version and intentionally seeing if i can trigger the error within the next few days.

[Dao Zeti]

Uploaded a new version, as the newest version of Ashes could lead to an error when entering the Bazaar main zone for the first time - it wouldn't generate because of an empty event.lua file inside the archive of the zone. Just updating Bazaar fixes this problem however.

--

I have an idea for the teleport home, though i don't know how feasible it is; Can you have the shopkeepers check to see if they're at full health before they try to teleport home? that way if i'm in the middle of fighting one and i yank him to me so i can beat him up in melee he won't just teleport back to the middle of the vault? ...

I will be downloading the new version and intentionally seeing if i can trigger the error within the next few days.

I am still not sure how/when/if I am going to modify the current system. I will think about it after the christmas time. Did any more errors occur to you?

[mkire]

Uploaded a new version, as the newest version of Ashes could lead to an error when entering the Bazaar main zone for the first time - it wouldn't generate because of an empty event.lua file inside the archive of the zone. Just updating Bazaar fixes this problem however.

--

I have an idea for the teleport home, though i don't know how feasible it is; Can you have the shopkeepers check to see if they're at full health before they try to teleport home? that way if i'm in the middle of fighting one and i yank him to me so i can beat him up in melee he won't just teleport back to the middle of the vault? ...

I will be downloading the new version and intentionally seeing if i can trigger the error within the next few days.

I am still not sure how/when/if I am going to modify the current system. I will think about it after the christmas time. Did any more errors occur to you?

It's fixed, (Or my getting rid of infinite500 fixed it)

[Dao Zeti]

Glad to hear this and thanks for your answer.