Requests for improvementes to the main engine

[Gargaroz]

As now we've again with us Mok, with his deep knowledge base of the engine, let's discuss here what we could improve / add.
Here are my personal requests :

- Adding the support to "hexproof" (AKA "This card could not be the target of spell / abilities controlled by your opponents") to the targeting function.

- Still on the targeting function, adding "Illegal subtype" (introducing a specific subtype for Enchantments, we could solve the many bugs of spells that destroy Planeswalkers ever if they shouldn't).

- Expanding the "subtype" range : could it be expanded over 232 ? And over 255 ?

- Implementing the "counts" and the arrays actually handled by Deadbox / Rules Engine in the main engine (number and type of spells played by each player, number and type of permanents that goes in the graveyard in a turn).

- Implementing some kind of "event" for cards that have activated / triggered abilities in the graveyard. This is currently done by the Rules Engine, but tends to slow down the game a lot. Perhaps doing it via the Main Engine is better.

I think these could be achieved without changing the source too much.

[foolosopher]

One thing which I don't know if it's doable, is if the exe or the code could be separated into some parts, which may be recoded and ported to a dll or something and fixed/optimised a bit in the future. Take for instance the online part of the game, which still has problems.

I would also suggest to take some considerations on improving the AI, if possible, but that probably goes through definitions of the card_data_t struct, as well.

Something similar that I read in a thread is that the game was slowing down because some code or dll was reading/affecting directly the exe or the dat. I believe it would be useful if we could isolate that part so it may be fixed in the future too.
Same applies to the graphic part, although Snacko has started this with recoding some dlls, although I don't know if all graphics code can be moved.
Some other of Orions suggestions in the "2000 cards limit" if we can agree on them.

[0rion79]

Gargaroz, hope that some of the things I've listed in the previous days may be done, as well! Is there the need to copy & paste that list here, for easy of use?

[KrNeki]

If possible, I would like to see activated abilities effects and instants behave like in regular play, aka. being able to respond to them with spells, stack them, etc.. (an example would be Counterbalance - Sensei's Divining Top interaction)
In general, I would like to see rules in the game as close to those in real life.

[gmzombie]

If possible, I would like to see activated abilities effects and instants behave like in regular play, aka. being able to respond to them with spells, stack them, etc.. (an example would be Counterbalance - Sensei's Divining Top interaction)
In general, I would like to see rules in the game as close to those in real life.

that is something that i dont believe is attainable without heavy recoding of the engine. That is one of the few things that i think everybody would love to fix but would have to recode the entire engine to do so.

[0rion79]

Is it possible to reserve a space of any kind to explain the AI about how to use some cards? I'm really tired of how it uses Diamond Valley or Zuran Orb!

[gmzombie]

i think and again if we are just talking main engine and not deck builder or anything else i would like to see if possible that is besides some of the other things that have been discussed like online playability restored and the things that Gargaroz has already said i would like to see the sealed deck challenge fixed up so that it could use more sets and different pics of packs and starters. Ive always liked playing the sealed deck challenge but it would be cool to be able to work with the new cards too.

Edit: The more i think about it it would be great..not sure if it is possible to be able to take a larger resolution size since the screen gets filled up quick with cards..

[0rion79]

Please, fix interaction among Rules Enigne and Sylvan Library!

[KrNeki]

If possible, I would like to see activated abilities effects and instants behave like in regular play, aka. being able to respond to them with spells, stack them, etc.. (an example would be Counterbalance - Sensei's Divining Top interaction)
In general, I would like to see rules in the game as close to those in real life.

that is something that i dont believe is attainable without heavy recoding of the engine. That is one of the few things that i think everybody would love to fix but would have to recode the entire engine to do so.

Just a thought that I know has been put forward before but have never seen addressed in detail: would it be possible to change all instants and abilities that can be activated at a time you could play instants to interrupts? Functionality would be very close to rl rules and as far as I know you can respond to interrupts with other interrupts in the game, so there would seem to be no new coding needed specifically for that. If someone knows why this should not be done or why it is a bad idea please write it here so we can put this matter to rest once and for all.
Thank you.

[gmzombie]

i was thinking about this again and if the res size cannot be changed would it be possible to shrink the size of the card in the playtable. i mean they are huge in comparison to the table and a smaller card size would give us more room that is if we cant get a bigger res size

[gmzombie]

Mok said

If at some point in future someone will be determined enough to do it the right way, drop me a mail (my old @ at op.pl is valid) as I might be tempted to help. What I mean by right way is simple: ignore the whole C code (not remove, just ignore and let the people willing to work on it continue), dump the magic.exe into ida, make a list of all available functions, slowly add names to all functions and all globals (DISCUSSING it), at some point when most of it is done start to move cards and engine functions into C, one by one, replacing old functions with hooks to the rewrites, checking for regressions. At some point most of the engine should be running from C code with possibly gui stuff left in the exe, then modify the engine to support things that were unavailable or were plainly not possible (real effect priorities, switching targets and so on) then and only then add more cards. But simple as it sounds, it's a long tedious work that also requires people with strong knowledge of both C and asm

We already know the card code lists due to the sources and the ct. i have already made a list as most of the card code was in the 0x4xxxxx and the new code was after 0x1xxxx through 0x2xxxxx so with that said what about it? why stop when there is alot to still do. Im thinking about all the little things that could also be done. getting sealed deck to work properly, if we could find the area in magic.exe that controls that we could probably fix it up real good. i dunno what do you think?

[LinkLothar]

It would be nice to have an option where the AI 'thinks quickly'. To implement the feature painlessly, it could be a binary option, where you have it thinking slowly like it does now, or a quick thinking option where there are no dealys in the AI. Later, it could be a scalable option where the delay has more granular settings.

I am assuming that the AI and the Manalink rules engine incorporate delays, so that the user can read what it is doing and follow along. This is great when a new card is played for the first time. But it is not useful whenever the rules engine comes up several times in a single turn. If you or the AI have a lot of cards in play, it can multiply this problem. If this is the case, you can get a game that lasts 20 minutes or more. Without the long delays, the game would only last a minute or two. If this is an easy fix, it should really be considered for development because faster Manalink games would be a much better user experience.

[gmzombie]

Ok here is something that has been bugging me for a while. when you dont use 1 of the 3 resolutions either 640x480 800x600 or 1024x768 it just defaults to i believe 640x480. could we change this to at least goto 1024x768 for a default? im so sick of having to manually change my res as i have an older 40" lcd and i always have to auto adjust screen as it dosent like other resolutions than 1366x768 but thats another story. if this is possible to would be cool. actually it would be cool to be able to have screen res at higher than what we have now. even if it is just 1280x1024. anyone know what it would take to change that. Also i found this xls file that tells us where each card code is in the system. i believe this was before the implementation of manalink 3 so maybe this can help us remove card code clutter from game and into dll files? anyways heres the file

[Gargaroz]

Well, the problem is that I've almost zero experience in the graphic department, and modify that part would require some notable skills. Try asking Snacko.

[Althuna]

Really love this game now! So many cards, good AI, and it is very stable now. The fine tuning you are doing will make it perfect.

One thing I would LOVE though, is to be able to play with friends in multiplayer. I don't know how hard that would be, but internet or LAN would just be so amazing.

Only other thing I can think of, is that it would be really useful to have scroll bars on the board like in Magic Online so that if you have hundreds of tokens, you can scroll through and see each one and pick out a specific creature if you need to.