"Pop-up battle"

[hunz]

Yo, wesnothians!

It's not a hard idea to implement, but very time-consuming to get it done.

Maybe a menu option to choose from: "In-map battles" and "Pop-up battles" (I didn't think in any better name for it).


"In-map battles" is the usual battling style of Wesnoth.
"Pop-up battles" is when two units are about to fight, a screen pop-ups in the middle showing both units fighting.
And in the end of the fight a status, like: "Exp: +1 - Hitpoints: -10" ...

The screen will be a bit bigger than 2 hex-tiles and will add a lot of detail to the battling scene.

Anyone played Fire Emblem?
Something like that...


The code implementation don't seem hard, the hard part is the new animations for each unit.
While not all animations are implemented, we could use the standard animations in a middle pop-up screen.
And, if both units has battling animations, then the hiper-mega-ultra-emotionating new battle animation comes in.

Anyway, I think it's a good idea.

Hugs, peace.

[megane]

the hard part is the new animations for each unit

Yep.

[hunz]

Wouldn't you mind in gaving some of your time to do some animations?
It's very time consuming to get all animations done, but as I said, we can use the old animations if the units have no battling animations [yet].

[turin]

I can guarantee with 99.9% certainty that this will not happen.


It's not a horrible idea or anything (though personally I find that particular feature of FE extremely irritating and turn it off), but it's way too much work for practically no benefit.

[Weeksy]

It might happen, but it won't be a priority for a long long time.

[Edward V Riley]

This has been one of the reasons that some Turn Based Strategies actually sold. Shining Force 1 and 2 broke the mold by actually selling well in the US. It included the "pop up battles" as you refer to it. If these were done with some speed, then it wouldn't be a burden. Perhaps a start for this could be fighting the "boss" at the end of scenarios.

[zookeeper]

A completely bad idea. Won't be done. For obvious reasons.

[JW]

A completely bad idea. Won't be done. For obvious reasons.

Agreed. The game mechanics need to be fixed before such minimal gain features are added.

[hunz]

Ok, so... Lock the topic?

[irrevenant]

A completely bad idea. Won't be done. For obvious reasons.

It's not obvious to me. I'm going to guess that the objection is that it would (a) slow down gameplay and (b) require a more powerful PC. But the above comment isn't spectacularly meaningful, so I'm not sure.

Personally, I'd lean away from it for those reasons, but I can see reasons for it, too.

Either way, it's not going to happen until someone creates said animations, and the current art team won't have the spare time to do so for a loooooong time.

Agreed. The game mechanics need to be fixed before such minimal gain features are added.

I've seen this argument before and it really isn't a valid reason.

Suggesting an idea doesn't mean "this should be Wesnoth's number one priority!". Sure, some ideas are low priority "chrome" features. That doesn't make them bad, just low priority.

[hunz]

I think it won't slowdown gameplay, or at least not much.
It's just the normal battle, won't require a lot of sprites.
Just bigger sprites (adding details to it).

Making it a menu option (on/off) will not change Wesnoth's Mainline, it's just an extra-option for those who like seeing the battles and status of both units going up/down in a nice middle-screen.
A pop-up like the "Advance to..." window.

By the way, if it's not developers wish to have an extra-option like this, there's nothing we - mortals - can do. And that's all.

I got some drawing skills, but not any in spriting, so I can't help a lot.
Maybe I could try to implement it on the code.

That's just my suggestion to Wesnoth.
I like to see vivid battling like in Fire Emblem.

Thanks, peace.

[thespaceinvader]

The limiting factor, as with so many things in this game, is the artwork - it's all very well to say "it's just bigger sprites", but when you consider that it's just bigger sprites for several hundred units, most of which have at least 2 attacks each of which will require a MINIMUM of 5 or 6 frames to look decent at a larger size, and must be shown attacking on a few dozen different terrains (which would probably require being shown differently from the way they are in the current game - i get the impression that you're suggesting a more side-on perspective, including sky, than the current top-down/isometric one), it's really REALLY not trivial, particularly when you consider that there are entire races (drakes, mermen, nagas) which still require updated, TC'd sprites and that most races still require upgraded (normal sized) animations etc.

[turin]

I think it won't slowdown gameplay, or at least not much.

/me laughs

[Dave]

I actually posted about this very thing in off-topic several months ago.

Basically when playing Fire Emblem, the 'pop up battles' as you call them looked mildly cute, but got very annoying and disruptive very quickly. So I soon turned them off.

I don't think this is a 'bad' idea as in if this were implemented, it'd make Wesnoth a nicer game for those people who enjoy this kind of thing, and anyone who doesn't can turn it off.

However, what you have to consider is the effort vs reward. Providing these 'pop up battles' would basically involve us drawing fully animated, zoomed-in versions of all of our units, and making them fight in these pop up battles. We have MANY more units than Fire Emblem. The amount of effort required would be incredibly immense. The reward would be.....very, very marginal.

Games like Shining Force and Fire Emblem could do this kind of thing much more easily than us because the eras these games are from used much lower resolution, lower color graphics, and so artists could draw the images more quickly. They also generally had less units than us. Modern versions of Fire Emblem on the Game Cube and Wii use 3D graphics which allow them to re-use many resources in the zoomed-in battles.

David

[hunz]

The attacking and defending sprites will be just 3-4 files, and not 3-4 files for every direction the unit is fighting. So this creates a new problem, and solves another one.

And about slowing down the gameplay, it just depends on how much sprites the attack/defendig have. It can just be equals velocity normal battle already has. So I don't get the point of you laughing at it, sorry. It all depends on the animations, if you want it fast, make it fast. If you want it slow, make it slow.
And by the way, if you think it's slow, just turn it off.

...

As I said on the first post, the main problem is the very time-consuming of generating the new animations.
But, if developers take it up as a side-task, some contributors that can't help in other things like small sprites for units, can use their skills in doing bigger-size animations.

It's just an extra-option for Wesnoth.
So, the only things prohibiting it to going into mainline is: Developer's wish, contributor's will.
It's like diferent themes for GUI, it's just a diferent theme for battles. Won't change gameplay.

Thanks,
Peace.