Forge 01/28/2011 (unofficial BETA) version

[Chris H.]

With the new quest UI, is it possible to add to what gets listed in the available battles section? The decks that Forge comes with for the quest mode make up about 20% of the possible opponent pool that I like to use, and those extra decks don't show up, which frequently means that I don't even have an entry in the available battles area. Is there an editable file that lists what will show up? Or can the new UI be set up to use the easy, medium and hard text files like the old quest UI?

`
A lot of work was done to the quest mode by Fnoed. I have been busy with other parts of the project and have not had much of a chance to check out the new changes.

The actual opponent deck description is probably still a part of the code rather than being contained in a text file. I am not sure if the old easy, medium and hard text files are still being used.

[timmermac]

With the new quest UI, is it possible to add to what gets listed in the available battles section? The decks that Forge comes with for the quest mode make up about 20% of the possible opponent pool that I like to use, and those extra decks don't show up, which frequently means that I don't even have an entry in the available battles area. Is there an editable file that lists what will show up? Or can the new UI be set up to use the easy, medium and hard text files like the old quest UI?

`
A lot of work was done to the quest mode by Fnoed. I have been busy with other parts of the project and have not had much of a chance to check out the new changes.

The actual opponent deck description is probably still a part of the code rather than being contained in a text file. I am not sure if the old easy, medium and hard text files are still being used.

They are being used for at least the old UI, as that's what I use to add opponents to the quest mode when I play. I'm wondering if there is a user-editable way of getting decks other than what comes in the package to appear in the new UI, as I want both more variety in the opponent pool and the ability to play against decks that I make.

Edit: After a bit of testing, I think the new UI only displays a deck as available if there is a description for it. I'm not entirely sure that I like that idea, since there are at least a couple of hundred decks that I want to play that aren't available to the new UI with this restriction.

[Chris H.]

They are being used for at least the old UI, as that's what I use to add opponents to the quest mode when I play. I'm wondering if there is a user-editable way of getting decks other than what comes in the package to appear in the new UI, as I want both more variety in the opponent pool and the ability to play against decks that I make.

Edit: After a bit of testing, I think the new UI only displays a deck as available if there is a description for it. I'm not entirely sure that I like that idea, since there are at least a couple of hundred decks that I want to play that aren't available to the new UI with this restriction.

`
Yes, I agree and understand. Having additional quest opponents to face is a good idea. Fnoed may still be working on the quest mode and may be open to suggestions.

Ideally, as new cards are added to forge, people would create new AI decks using different themes and these decks would be added to quest mode for everyone to enjoy. Granted, the cards have to be added, any bugs have to be found and fixed and the AI has to be able to make good use of the cards that are included in the deck.

A killer deck that would be a lot of fun for a human to play is not always usable by the AI. Adding random decks that other people have made can lead to situations like watching the computer cast a Cavern Harpy and then targeting this very card. Ugh.

[friarsol]

Edit: After a bit of testing, I think the new UI only displays a deck as available if there is a description for it. I'm not entirely sure that I like that idea, since there are at least a couple of hundred decks that I want to play that aren't available to the new UI with this restriction.

It's probably not that it doesn't display decks without descriptions, it just tries to display them, but without a description it just displays a blank 1 pixel line. I noticed this in a dialog where if there was no description you could still select things, you just didn't know what they were and you had to be precise to tell the difference.

[Murkbeard]

Some things I've noticed: (Will edit as appropriate)
- Sanguine Praetor will sacrifice itself when sacrificing a 1-CMC creature to its ability.

[friarsol]

Some things I've noticed: (Will edit as appropriate)
- Sanguine Praetor will sacrifice itself when sacrificing a 1-CMC creature to its ability.

An odd issue. But will be fixed for the next beta.

[Fnoed]

Edit: After a bit of testing, I think the new UI only displays a deck as available if there is a description for it. I'm not entirely sure that I like that idea, since there are at least a couple of hundred decks that I want to play that aren't available to the new UI with this restriction.

I have committed a fix to SVN that should allow decks without descriptions to be played.

Right now the deck metadata (image, description, difficulty etc.) is hard-coded; it is not possible to add new decks that integrate with the UI without making code changes. My plan is to move the metadata into the deck files so that everyone can create quest decks with just a text editor.

[Sloth]

Right now the deck metadata (image, description, difficulty etc.) is hard-coded; it is not possible to add new decks that integrate with the UI without making code changes. My plan is to move the metadata into the deck files so that everyone can create quest decks with just a text editor.

That would be much better.

[Chris H.]

Right now the deck metadata (image, description, difficulty etc.) is hard-coded; it is not possible to add new decks that integrate with the UI without making code changes. My plan is to move the metadata into the deck files so that everyone can create quest decks with just a text editor.

That would be much better.

`
Yes, Fnoed deserves a thank you from all of us for the time and work he has put into improving the existing quest mode.

It might be a good idea to also move the opponent pics, the icons and the pet tokens out of the pics folder into a subdirectories located in /res/images/.

It might also be possible to have the code auto assign decks with names ending in " 1" to the easy decks, " 2" to the medium decks and " 3" to the hard decks. This would allow us to get rid of those three difficulty files. Quest deck files that do not match the naming convention could automatically be treated as a hard deck. Makes adding decks easier.

Just a few thoughts.

[friarsol]

It might also be possible to have the code auto assign decks with names ending in " 1" to the easy decks, " 2" to the medium decks and " 3" to the hard decks. This would allow us to get rid of those three difficulty files. Quest deck files that do not match the naming convention could automatically be treated as a hard deck. Makes adding decks easier.

Could we just add a metadata line in the deck files? And if they are missing the difficulty line we can just push it to hard?

Code: Select all

Barney Rubble 1
[general]
constructed
[difficulty]
easy
[main]


[Murkbeard]

I just got my board wiped by blocking creatures that shouldn't be able to kill mine.
Enemy board was Meng Huo, Barbarian King 5/5 , Baru, Fist of Krosa 6/6, Juvenile Gloomwidow 3/5. (Computer had played a forest, so they all have trample)
I block Meng with a Border Patrol 1/6, widow with a Wall of Water 0/5, and Baru with a Sea Sprite 1/1.

In this situation, only the sprites should die while I take 5 damage. Instead my entire board is cleared and I take 5 damage. There seems to be something fishy with the way creature combat/death triggers is handled.

Edit: Drelnoch does not function properly. If the computer blocks it with two creatures, it should trigger twice.

[Chris H.]

Could we just add a metadata line in the deck files? And if they are missing the difficulty line we can just push it to hard?

Code: Select all

Barney Rubble 1
[general]
constructed
[difficulty]
easy
[main]


`
I like the idea of having metadata located in the deck file if we can create the deck in the constructed mode deck editor. Anyone with an interest in helping to create or modify the existing decks will probably want to do so from the constructed mode deck editor.

If it is possible, I would like to see this done without needing to do the work from inside of a text editor. I feel that the strength of the forge project as an open source project is dependent on making things easier for people to contribute.

Your work to add a quest.preferences file is similar. It lets people modify some of the parameters and they can then test the results. If any of these tests results in discovering a great and interesting change, great.

[Fnoed]

I think we should add even more metadata, like
-Preferred AI behavior. (Offensive, stall, mill etc. )
-Reward (Right now the payout is based on the number of games played, changing this to a fixed number would encourage tackling "harder" decks)
-Creator (Crediting the deck's creator is always nice)
-Date (For sorting by date, and quick overview of what decks need to be updated when new cards arrive)
etc. etc.

[Accountancy]

I just got my board wiped by blocking creatures that shouldn't be able to kill mine.
Enemy board was Meng Huo, Barbarian King 5/5 , Baru, Fist of Krosa 6/6, Juvenile Gloomwidow 3/5. (Computer had played a forest, so they all have trample)
I block Meng with a Border Patrol 1/6, widow with a Wall of Water 0/5, and Baru with a Sea Sprite 1/1.

In this situation, only the sprites should die while I take 5 damage. Instead my entire board is cleared and I take 5 damage. There seems to be something fishy with the way creature combat/death triggers is handled.

Edit: Drelnoch does not function properly. If the computer blocks it with two creatures, it should trigger twice.

Not sure about any of the earlier stuff, but Drelnoch should only trigger once no matter how many creatures block it, if ten creatures block it, it becomes blocked once by ten creatures, not ten times by one creature each time.

[cc-drake]

I just got my board wiped by blocking creatures that shouldn't be able to kill mine.
Enemy board was Meng Huo, Barbarian King 5/5 , Baru, Fist of Krosa 6/6, Juvenile Gloomwidow 3/5. (Computer had played a forest, so they all have trample)
I block Meng with a Border Patrol 1/6, widow with a Wall of Water 0/5, and Baru with a Sea Sprite 1/1.

In this situation, only the sprites should die while I take 5 damage. Instead my entire board is cleared and I take 5 damage. There seems to be something fishy with the way creature combat/death triggers is handled.

Fixed, see
viewtopic.php?f=26&t=787&p=52291#p52291