Swine Thug tweaks

[DreadKnight]

I've added upgrades to the abilities and did a bit of tweaks the old abilities themselves https://github.com/FreezingMoon/AncientBeast/blob/master/development/src/abilities/Swine%20Thug.js Keep in mind as reference that currently only Abolished from that folder has the upgrades enabled.

Spa Goggles - this ability is passive. Gains temporary bonus regrowth and defense when staying in a mud bath. +5 regrowth, +5 defense bonus stat. Upgrade: Doubles the stat bonuses.

I've added a simple self explanatory upgrade to the ability.

Baseball Baton - costs 20 energy pts. Bashes baseball bat into a nearby foe, crushing it and pushing it 1 hexagon. 25 crush damage on hit & knockback. Upgrade: Causes target to mud slide.

The knockback needs to be added to the ability. Regarding the upgrade, the target unit will get moved across all the aligned mud tiles in the direction hit (inline or diagonally), the target unit stopping near an obstacle or on a non-muddy tile.

Ground Ball - costs 25 energy pts. Strikes a mud boulder towards a foe. Usable within one of the 3 inline rows. 15 crush + 5 burn damage on each hit. Upgrade: -1 meditation stat debuffed.

The upgrade will cause hits to indefinitely debuff the target, this debuff stacks.

Mud Bath - costs 30 energy pts. Orders a pile of mud over any hexagon, slowing any other units that walk over. -1 movement point, on free spot or self. Upgrade: 10 energy cost if used on self.

Mud Bath is now usable on self as well. When the upgrade occurs, self use will require way less energy, so the ability should be usable when Swine Target has at least 10 energy points, but it will only highlight himself as the viable target (clicking anywhere else will cancel the ability, as expected).

[cxong]

I'd like to take this on as the test.

[DreadKnight]

@cxong Alright, go for it :)

[cxong]

Does baseball baton knock swine thug back, its enemy back, or both?

[cxong]

Note that spa mud's trigger is onCreatureMove, so if mud bath is cast on self, the ability won't trigger. Is this ok? Or is there a trigger that is more appropriate?

[DreadKnight]

Just got back home. Baseball baton only knocks back enemies.

Regarding the trigger, there should be one to make the passive trigger instantly if there isn't one already. There's a feature so that when an unit can't move anymore and can't use any abilities so you're being helped out by having some "skip turn" text above the unit and you can click on it to skip directly, so it might be using a more proper trigger perhaps; otherwise this stuff could result in a new issue.

[cxong]

Thanks for the info; the mud bath ability exposed a number of other issues, I'll just note them but for the purposes of this issue, I'd like to leave them there.

• The onStepIn trigger also means that if you cast mud bath directly over an enemy creature, the trap doesn't get triggered, they have to walk off and back over it later. Is there a way to trigger the effects of a trap immediately, if they are cast over creatures?
• I can't tell when an ability is upgraded; it was especially confusing since I initially didn't know how to upgrade abilities. I think there should be at least a name change, e.g. "Mud Bath" changes to "Mud Bath (upgraded)", and all the information corresponds to the upgraded ability. It may be better to implement upgraded abilities as separate ones, so that ability upgrades results in replacing the original ability with a brand new one.
• The variable energy cost is a bit troublesome on the UI, like the estimated energy bar cost, the tool tip info and so on. My current implementation feels hacky, as I basically recalculate the energy requirements + cost in both the require() and activate() functions.
• Buff/debuffs aren't really visible in the UI, I had to click into a character's info screen, check the stats on the right, and seeing if (for debuffs) the numbers are in red; I also have to recall the base stat to see how far they have been debuffed. I think HOMM3's UI does it better: creature number badges turn green or red based on whether they are buffed/debuffed overall; the creature info screen has stat numbers for both base and buffed values; the creature info screen also has a list of effects.

[cxong]

Just to clarify, about the mud slide upgrade, if a creature is big (size > 1) then does it need to be completely over mud hexes to slide, or is at least one enough?

[cxong]

I've figured out how to do the baseball baton knockback, but note that because the ability uses queryCreature(), you cannot control the knockback direction for size > 1 creatures based on which part of the creature was clicked. If this is wanted, I think it should go into a separate issue - possibly as an extension to how queryCreature works.

[DreadKnight]

Pff, quite problematic. I'm not too happy when this kind of stuff happens for an ability, as I like to keep things simpler hmm.

1. The mud bath is not castable over other creatures actually; Only the upgrade will allow casting it on Swine Thug itself.
2. The upgrade stuff is new and still needs some improvements, like the tooltips having more info; there's a frame change at least, but not very noticeable. The upgrades won't be separate because that would duplicate a lot of code, an upgraded ability is still mostly similar to the initial one, but does something a little extra or better.
3. Understood, will see more after I test things in action regarding this.
4. The buff/debuffs are broken UI wise overall for a while now because of some changes I probably made; anyway, I changed the design specification, so there's a new issue for that now, which is more similar to HoMM4, meaning it will display icons under the unit cards, which will provide more details.

Just to clarify, about the mud slide upgrade, if a creature is big (size > 1) then does it need to be completely over mud hexes to slide, or is at least one enough?

Regarding bigger units, they would probably need to at least land will all their hexagons over mud baths after the knockback.

I've figured out how to do the baseball baton knockback, but note that because the ability uses queryCreature(), you cannot control the knockback direction for size > 1 creatures based on which part of the creature was clicked. If this is wanted, I think it should go into a separate issue - possibly as an extension to how queryCreature works.

Understood, will see in testing hmm.

[cxong]

Thanks; I've updated the PR, also note that for bigger creatures, unless they are already partially over mud baths, then knocking them forward/backward into mud baths won't cause sliding.

[DreadKnight]

Ok, here's the report:

• When Swine Thug has upgraded Mud Bath and can only use it on self due to energy requirements, having the ability selected should only show colored empty hexagon just under Swine Thug itself, as he's the only viable target
• like mentioned before, ability is not usable over other units, except Swine Thug itself
• if Mud Bath is not upgraded, it can still be used on Swine Thug, but it will require energy
• when targeting Mud Bath, only hexagons of viable target locations should be displayed
• the knockback speed of the target unit should be somewhat slower, as it rather slides
• after the knockback, the target unit will slide until stepping on the first hexagon without a Mud Bath on
• diagonal knockback seems to be done in the wrong direction, in this scenario, Uncle Fungus should stop with it's first hexagon at F7 coordinate, as the attack is considered coming from Swine Thug hex

[DreadKnight]

Make sure you pull first before making any more changes xD Also, I'm around here most of the time https://gitter.im/FreezingMoon/AncientBeast

[cxong]

In the latest PR

• Fix mud bath targeting problems, can't target other creatures, only target self if not enough energy for higher cost version
• What speed should the knockback be?
• Fix knockback direction problems

[DreadKnight]

Gonna test soon. Code looks alright besides that duplication I mentioned. Where is the knockback speed variable defined exactly?

[DreadKnight]

• the hexagons of other units shouldn't be displayed when targeting Mud Bath
• Spa Goggles should trigger when self-cast, even if it means tweaking abilities.js - otherwise the ability combo becomes semi-pointless

[cxong]

Ok, see latest PR

• I don't know what speed you want the knockback to be; I set it to 1000 (1 second) to start with. Since mud slide can go for many hexes, should the speed depend on slide distance - more hexes, longer slide?
• Not sure what you mean by hexagons of other units shouldn't be displayed, I'm just using the original getFlyingRange to calculate casting range for mud bath, note that you cannot cast mud bath on other creatures, as required.
• Spa goggles should auto trigger now if cast on self; please see the PR and see if the solution is ok or not.

[DreadKnight]

• I've found the variable, will fine tweak it myself eventually, so no worries; probably 1200 or so will do
• when you target an ability, usually the irrelevant hexagons should vanish for the duration, only viable targets remaining, in order to make things a bit more intuitive
• confirmed, the icon should also not be dimmed anymore after using Mud Bath directly on self

[cxong]

Thanks, in latest PR:

• I now understand you mean the hexagons under other creatures should disappear when selecting mud bath target; that's fixed now and I figured out it's the hideNonTarget argument
• I did a bit more testing of mud slide and fixed two bugs: the directions were wrong on size=1 enemies, and size>1 enemies would slide for too many hexes due to loop counter bug

If you've found other bugs please let me know

[DreadKnight]

I've tested it and looks good. Only one thing that could be added in the log, another message saying what actually happened to the target unit after being hit by Ground Ball, something similar to what Uncle Fungus does (top 2 messages):

Oh, and for the Spa Goggles passive as well, less confusion that way. The info should be single a line.

[DreadKnight]

Oh, and for the Spa Goggles passive as well, less confusion that way. The info should be single a line.

Don't forget that one xD @cxong

[cxong]

Sorry, I should read more carefully :sweat:

[DreadKnight]

Had a feeling that might happen. Single text right after images kinda has that effect.

[DreadKnight]

Alright, good job, moving along now :D