Legend of the Invincibles

[Dugi]

I suppose you mean something like this:

Spoiler:

There is no way to do that in wesnoth.
Normally, you can only add a text, a list of clickable options (as you've seen in LotI), an image and a box to insert text. So the only other way to make an user interface for items would be to make some kind of command line, that would be probably worse.
If you are using lua scripts to enhance the possibilities, you can create imitations of the default windows in game, but it supports no drag&drop neither. You can add lists of groups of other objects, buttons, image boxes, texts, scrollbars and boxes to insert text, but that is all I think. As an odd side, it would not allow lists of item properties of variable lengths without looking awful (constant length in listboxes). It might be possible to list the properties of an item when clicked on it, but I think that seeing its properties on the list is better. Colours of text are also a problem. The closest approach to the thing I suppose you suggested is to place there a listbox for all items for each inventory slot. This has however no chance to fit the screen, so you would have to scroll through scrollboxes, resulting in a great chaos.

[vultraz]

Would you mean something like this? It's the Inventory dialog I made for my own campaign

Ideally, I would suggest some more advanced dialog, where unit and its equipment slots are pictured in some "arbitrary" way so you can see what slots of armor/weapons/other stuff are already equipped/missing/... and equip missing parts (if you have them), etc. Your current dialog does not gives any idea what else you can equip on that unit. You can see examples of such dialogs in dozens of RPG and strategy games implementing "artefacts" (items). Usually they're looking like picture of unit with equipment slots. So it's easy to, say, equip sword by putting it into hand of unit, or equip boots by selecting unit's feets and putting some boots on them, etc. Basically, Dugi has impletemted more or less common equipment system you can see in many games. The most annoying thing is lack of proper UI which would allow to manage things in more pleasant ways. Right now it's implemented as arbitrary dialogs called and created by scripts. As far as I understand, you can't create complicated custom dialogs with advanced custom layout from script?

My system doesn't care how much or where you equip items. You just equip them.

I doubt the devs would accept such a feature in mainline, however.

Well, as for me it's very stupid, since I've seen dozen and half of various campaigns/maps/scenarios where items (or "artefacts" or how else they call it) are used and items system is somehow implemented. So it looks like if there is noticeable demand exists. But since BfW core does not really supports items and lacks UI to do so, it's being implemented by dozens of authors in their own, hackish ways. Advanced scripting on it's own is okay. However it looks like if it would work better if core would provide at least some boilerplate. Most notably, proper interactive UI dialogs, etc. So you can, say, equip sword from your inventory by selecting "hand" slot in dialog and then get something like drop-down list of suitable items to equip to this slot. Right now it seems to be impossible to do in really good ways with reasonable efforts. At least I never seen any scenarios where I would really like items management UI. I suspect it's a way too hard to implement non-standard custom layout and most notably, custom controls dualogs from scripts, right?

You can pretty much do whatever you want, if you know how to code, and as long as it's within the restrictions of Wesnoth's internal graphics library. Have you seen an inventory system like mine before, that doesn't use [message]s and instead is a whole dialog? I'm willing to bet, no. I could, with a bit of effort, implement this "slot" thing you want.

EDIT: Dugi makes a lot of good points. Those ARE all limitations of the internal graphics library. So, no, you can't have World of Warcraft in Wesnoth, but you can have some stuff, and I think what I have is a heck of a lot neater than a lot of inventory systems.

[Astoria]

Would you mean something like this? It's the Inventory dialog I made for my own campaign

Ideally, I would suggest some more advanced dialog, where unit and its equipment slots are pictured in some "arbitrary" way so you can see what slots of armor/weapons/other stuff are already equipped/missing/... and equip missing parts (if you have them), etc. Your current dialog does not gives any idea what else you can equip on that unit. You can see examples of such dialogs in dozens of RPG and strategy games implementing "artefacts" (items). Usually they're looking like picture of unit with equipment slots. So it's easy to, say, equip sword by putting it into hand of unit, or equip boots by selecting unit's feets and putting some boots on them, etc. Basically, Dugi has impletemted more or less common equipment system you can see in many games. The most annoying thing is lack of proper UI which would allow to manage things in more pleasant ways. Right now it's implemented as arbitrary dialogs called and created by scripts. As far as I understand, you can't create complicated custom dialogs with advanced custom layout from script?

I doubt the devs would accept such a feature in mainline, however.

Well, as for me it's very stupid, since I've seen dozen and half of various campaigns/maps/scenarios where items (or "artefacts" or how else they call it) are used and items system is somehow implemented. So it looks like if there is noticeable demand exists. But since BfW core does not really supports items and lacks UI to do so, it's being implemented by dozens of authors in their own, hackish ways. Advanced scripting on it's own is okay. However it looks like if it would work better if core would provide at least some boilerplate. Most notably, proper interactive UI dialogs, etc. So you can, say, equip sword from your inventory by selecting "hand" slot in dialog and then get something like drop-down list of suitable items to equip to this slot. Right now it seems to be impossible to do in really good ways with reasonable efforts. At least I never seen any scenarios where I would really like items management UI. I suspect it's a way too hard to implement non-standard custom layout and most notably, custom controls dualogs from scripts, right?

If you really want it done, do it yourself.

[t3st3r]

1) I completely agree with you, but I think that somebody suggested this in Ideas and I supported it, but the developers rejected it. Maybe if more of them got to play this campaign...

I guess that at least some of those new units could really add to gameplay. Though it probably would need a lot of balancing and non-existing extra units to keep factions equal. Maybe that's why it has been rejected...

2) It would be useful to have some kind of native UI for items, yes. I was even thinking about making a resource pack for it. I have already created (though not finished) an RPG with a lot of stuff of this kind, native looking UIs for inventory, skills, advancing and so on, but I want to finish other things first. Also, it looks quite bad, because I don't know how to make it look graphically good.

Ideally it have to be quite custom dialog picturing unit and their available equipment slots. Though I suspect it's hard to create such custom-controls, custom layouts dialogs from scripts, right?

I have not used it in LotI, because these UIs aren't properly documented, crash frequently without logical reasons and are generally extremely frustrating. I didn't want anybody else to mess up with it.

That's probably why I suspect that somehing like this could be part of core and would work much better and require far less efforts from map-makers/scripters. It's really frustrating to see how map-makers are reinventing the wheel while being forced to start from some odd square designs and try to make them more rounded.

Regarding balance - in some scenarios, you will have to focus on some special recruits as a tactical puzzle, and the Army of Darkness scenario is an example of one.

Hmm, my primary problem has been very simple: preserved liches do not survive all those ghosts hordes if they walk in "bad" ways and getting circled. Then they last for turn or two but not more than that. And there is time pressure so I can't be very picky in directions. So my most daunting problem has been to keep Lethalia alive. I used her flight abilities to get rid of most distant ghost leader behind the lake and it's not easy to get there with someone else, since this area is far, behind hardly-passable lake and swarms with numerous ghosts. I only managed to stealth that leader by surprise, hiding Lethalia in deep water, waiting while crowd of ghosts moves away to attack other units and then getting leader by surprise. Yet it took a number of retries before I managed to invent how to make ghosts ignore Lethalia for some time.

Or in Battle for Ogira, you can make it easy by spamming Lancers. Some others were intended to be like that, but aren't.

As for me, on Battle for Ogira I had no major troubles withouh lancers at all. I just got rid of white (eastern) orc leader by sending about the half of elvish army to beat it "exclusively" whle remaining units were taking good positions to enter city from now-relatively-safe east side, etc. Then other orcs reached city and started fights with city guards. I entered city, mostly from safer eastern side. "Just in time" to help guards at west side of city (where guards started to be decimated by orcs) and shifting overall battle balance just in proper time. So it has been about taking proper positions and proper timing. And why white orcs first? Because I can outrun them with elves in forests and also quickly reach them with liches, forcing them to fight using my rules as they can't reach my units in proper time whie I would attack 'em on next turn for sure. And it's not like if orcs are good vs preserved liches either, so most daunting units like lvl3 trolls were either slowed down by elves in forest or just faced liches. Then east side of city has been safe entry point where I can enter and help city guards, killing some few nasties who dares to approach east side in process. Sure, it required good timing and sequencing - one or two turns late and west defence of city will be smashed and then city could fall. But with careful timing and positioning I was able to achieve that my army had virtually no loses: orcs mostly fought city guards and I finished off wounded orcs, quickly shifting battle balance in my favor and avoiding heavy loses.

Staves - their behaviour is intentional. ... A staff should not convert a fairy or lich into a shaolin.

That's why on second thought I think this behavior is okay. Though both liches and fairies could become quite good in melee "on their own". As for me, it just took some confusion when incinerate has stopped working after unit advance (I've created inferno staff to help weak unit to level up).

Flying - I don't know why can bats fly over void. Really no idea. Flying boots enable units to fly over unwalkable terrains (or only to move faster through hard terrains, I can't remember), even if they don't have a proper flying animation (btw, Efraim has one, but it is unlocked when he gets an advancement that lets him fly over unwalkable).

Never seen this advancement. Liches/halfgods are slow to develop... probably I never reached that point.

And btw, I got weird error on 09_Underground.cfg:

20130527 19:46:15 error scripting/lua: game_error: unknown unit type: Mostrosity
stack traceback:
: in function 'cmd'
/usr/share/games/wesnoth/1.10/data/lua/wml-tags.lua:292: in function 'handle_event_commands'
/usr/share/games/wesnoth/1.10/data/lua/wml-tags.lua:307: in function 'if_while_handler'
/usr/share/games/wesnoth/1.10/data/lua/wml-tags.lua:313: in function 'cmd'
/usr/share/games/wesnoth/1.10/data/lua/wml-tags.lua:292: in function 'handle_event_commands'
/usr/share/games/wesnoth/1.10/data/lua/wml-tags.lua:307: in function 'if_while_handler'
/usr/share/games/wesnoth/1.10/data/lua/wml-tags.lua:313: in function 'cmd'
/usr/share/games/wesnoth/1.10/data/lua/wml-tags.lua:292: in function </usr/share/games/wesnoth/1.10/data/lua/wml-tags.lua:256>[/quote]It looks like a typo: Mostrosity.

[vultraz]

The final point I can make is that the devs simply won't accept such a feature request. The best we can do is a resource pack. I'm planning on putting one together, hopefully. Even if it were implemented, people would still make their own versions. A mainline one wouldn't be able to do specifically everything an individual campaign maker would want.

Wesnoth will never be able to look like World of Warcraft unless there was a massive overhaul of the internal graphics library, which is not likely to happen any time in the next decade, seeing as we're still not done with the first major upgrade.

The best we can manage is dialogs like mine, so until that becomes otherwise, there's no point complaining.

[t3st3r]

I suppose you mean something like this:

Exactly. Or smth similar in HMM II ... IV, or in some other RPGs/strategies roaming around. Many of them have similar dialogs. It's how it shold actually look to be convenient and eye-candy for players...

There is no way to do that in wesnoth.

That's what I suspected. That's why I suggested BfW core could provide things like that in some "native" way.

but it supports no drag&drop neither. You can add lists of groups of other objects, buttons, image boxes, texts, scrollbars and boxes to insert text, but that is all I think.

Better than nothing, but I suspect that decent implementation of dialog like you shown implies some custom controls, etc. And it's surely wrong if each map/campaign author who wants to use items system have to redo this job again and again. I guess BfW core could make it much easier and much better in appearance if BfW devs will do that part on their side.

you suggested is to place there a listbox for all items for each inventory slot.

I can understand why you did it in current way. I can't ask map-makers to implement some awfully custom info-dialogs, doh. It's just wrong...

[Dugi]

@Vultraz
It wasn't World of Warcraft, World of Warcraft has much worse graphics.

If you 'just equip items', with no limitation, then your nice UI would be utterly useless or even counter-productive in most campaigns that have more RPG-style features than a few artefacts. A system like this was in some earlier versions of LotI, it totally sucked, and I had to redo it.

@bumbadabadum
Have you actually read what he wrote, what I wrote after that, and what is on the pages you linked to?

@t3st3r

I guess that at least some of those new units could really add to gameplay. Though it probably would need a lot of balancing and non-existing extra units to keep factions equal. Maybe that's why it has been rejected...

How many times do you reach level 4 or AMLA with units when playing the usual PvP multiplayer? You reach it only in survivals and specific scenarios, that would be nicer with a feature like that. But persuade the devs about it.

Ideally it have to be quite custom dialog picturing unit and their available equipment slots. Though I suspect it's hard to create such custom-controls, custom layouts dialogs from scripts, right?

Showing the character sounds impossible. But it isn't, I know a trick.

That's probably why I suspect that somehing like this could be part of core and would work much better and require far less efforts from map-makers/scripters

And soon, many of them would try to edit it. And there is nobody I hate enough to want him to have the 'pleasure' to edit it. It is irrational and totally frustrating. Remember that list of items in vultraz's picture? It appears also in many of the windows of the game. When you remove the picture, it crashes without any specific reason, basically just telling that something went wrong. When you place there a picture of different size, it crashes too. If you remove the picture and number the options differently than from 1 to x, like from 30 to 35, it does not crash, but crashes after that you click on one of the options. I have spent an entire week trying to figure out the cases when in crashes and how to get around them.

Hmm, my primary problem has been very simple: preserved liches do not survive all those ghosts hordes if they walk in "bad" ways and getting circled...

I never relied on leaders here, because they are weak against arcane. I focused on a sorceress spam (now, you can choose also Elvish Lords, that are even better for this) and it was quite easy.

It looks like a typo: Mostrosity.

Yeah, a typo.

That's what I suspected. That's why I suggested BfW core could provide things like that in some "native" way.

The only practical use for it is this one. And as vultraz said, it is hard to implement.

[Raijer]

Got an error in "River of flame" ( chap 8 ): At the start, after the dialog's end, the computer says:

20130527 22:38:12 error scripting/lua: game_error: creating unit with an empty type field
stack traceback:
: in function 'cmd'
...noth.app/Contents/Resources/.//data/lua/wml-tags.lua:292: in function
<...noth.app/Contents/Resources/.//data/lua/wml-tags.lua:256>
[C]: in function 'fire_event'
...noth.app/Contents/Resources/.//data/lua/wml-tags.lua:122: in function 'cmd'
...noth.app/Contents/Resources/.//data/lua/wml-tags.lua:292: in function
<...noth.app/Contents/Resources/.//data/lua/wml-tags.lua:256>
[C]: in function 'fire_event'
...noth.app/Contents/Resources/.//data/lua/wml-tags.lua:122: in function 'cmd'
...noth.app/Contents/Resources/.//data/lua/wml-tags.lua:292: in function 'handle_event_commands'
...noth.app/Contents/Resources/.//data/lua/wml-tags.lua:307: in function 'if_while_handler'
...noth.app/Contents/Resources/.//data/lua/wml-tags.lua:317: in function 'cmd'
...noth.app/Contents/Resources/.//data/lua/wml-tags.lua:292: in function 'handle_event_commands'
...noth.app/Contents/Resources/.//data/lua/wml-tags.lua:307: in function 'if_while_handler'
...noth.app/Contents/Resources/.//data/lua/wml-tags.lua:313: in function 'cmd'
...noth.app/Contents/Resources/.//data/lua/wml-tags.lua:292: in function
<...noth.app/Contents/Resources/.//data/lua/wml-tags.lua:256>[/quote]

[vultraz]

]That's probably why I suspect that somehing like this could be part of core and would work much better and require far less efforts from map-makers/scripters

And soon, many of them would try to edit it. And there is nobody I hate enough to want him to have the 'pleasure' to edit it. It is irrational and totally frustrating. Remember that list of items in vultraz's picture? It appears also in many of the windows of the game. When you remove the picture, it crashes without any specific reason, basically just telling that something went wrong. When you place there a picture of different size, it crashes too. If you remove the picture and number the options differently than from 1 to x, like from 30 to 35, it does not crash, but crashes after that you click on one of the options. I have spent an entire week trying to figure out the cases when in crashes and how to get around them.[/quote]

Only one dev has the knowledge to effectively work with the internal graphics code - mordante/SkeletonCrew. As for the bug you speak of, it's a known, and I make sure to avoid it in my inventory. No rows are ever directly removed. Instead, the entire dialog is refreshed, so it's safe.

[Dugi]

Got an error in "River of flame" ( chap 8 ): At the start, after the dialog's end, the computer says

It is not related to the scenario. The error means basically that something went wrong, so I will need more information. Can you please attach the save file?
By the way, when reporting errors of this kind (lua/game error), just write the first line, most campaigns including LotI aren't using any special lua codes and lua errors appeared in them are resulting from other problems.

Only one dev has the knowledge to effectively work with the internal graphics code - mordante/SkeletonCrew. As for the bug you speak of, it's a known, and I make sure to avoid it in my inventory. No rows are ever directly removed. Instead, the entire dialog is refreshed, so it's safe.

The told me that the only person who knows it is mordante, but it took me months to learn his forum name is SkeletonCrew. When I finally learned it, I was already aware of these bugs (after days of frustration).
Can you please give me the code you used for that GUI? I need to learn how to arrange these things graphically, because it looks awful when I try to make a similar menu.

[vultraz]

Can you please give me the code you used for that GUI? I need to learn how to arrange these things graphically, because it looks awful when I try to make a similar menu.

Here. Look under lua/gui.

[Raijer]

Here's the save file:

[Dugi]

@Vultraz
I downloaded your add-on, I found that easier. However, I see there nothing unusual, but still it looks better...

@Raijer
I was able to replicate it, thanks.

[vultraz]

@Dugi
I assume you got the download off 1.10. I don't recommend doing that, as I haven't uploaded a release in 10 months. Please get the very much updated version off GitHub, which is only for 1.11 and works much better and has much improved code.

[Raijer]

Same problem in the next scenario:
<Lua error> game_error: creating unit with an empty type field

I hope i'm not being annoying reporting this twice just because it's not the same scenario.