List Field and shields

[RedAdder]

Hi,

I trained on the list field, and after I or Dupre get my items back, the shields worn are missing and don't turn up anywhere.

I wondered whether I could enter the cellar and look there, but that door is too hard to open. The list field clerk isn't helpful either.

Is this a quirk of Ultima/Exult or is it part of the story?

I did not encounter any other problems yet, good work there.

--RedAdder

[RedAdder]

Well I didn't check my back - it is possible that the shields were there all the time, as I was unaware of that place.

[William]

Yeah, your equipment almost never (always never?) comes back in the same way you had it on when you started.

[_Olarin]

Perhaps this should be viewed as a bug in the original that could be improved upon? Can't be *that* hard to remember the state of the equipment and restore it. (...says a guy who doesn't have time to dig through the code himself...)

In the original, your party members also will frequently put their weapons away, usually in their backpacks, when you sleep - at least in Serpent Isle (i haven't tested black gate on this recently). (even if they have to ignore capacity to do so, cramming an entire halberd into an already-full backpack.) I'm not sure this is worth recreating in Exult - if anything it could be a little annoying.

On a related note, I kinda find it annoying that (in both the original and Exult) should a party member be unarmed or run out of ammo for a ranged weapon or something in combat, they'll always grab a weapon out of their backpack before using anything on their belt or back (I told you to strap that powerful magic sword to your belt so you could get at it quickly, you dummy!). I think this is related to the fact that they put weapons away in their backpack - therefore they're more likely to get back out what they were last using this way. (Nevermind their tendency to use up glass swords at the first available oppourtunity, meaning all glass swords must needs be carried by the Avatar, always.) Of course, all this dredges up the debate of faithfulness to the original vs. improving upon it, and on the latter half of that, what belongs in core vs. what belongs in Keyring Mod or SI Fixes.

[Dominus]

Olarin, maybe make anote about that (weapon grabbing) on our feature request tracker. It's a good idea and should be recorded imo

[_Olarin]

(i didn't forget about this but i'm waiting until i have a chance to go back and verify the exact current behaviour of Exult and the original)

[_Olarin]

Okay, I didn't have it quite right before. I just did some further testing in the original (both games) and the most recent Exult snapshot, and here's the behaviour I'm observing:

- In both Exult and the original, if a character's weapon hand is empty when you enter combat mode, they will equip the "best" weapon from anywhere in their inventory (backpack or belt slot or wherever, doesn't matter). I have the word best in quotes because the order in which stuff is chosen is kinda odd - crossbow is preferred to sling (if you have ammo), sling is preferred to dagger, but dagger is preferred to two-handed axe (??).

- in Exult, any non-weapon items in your hands will be shoved into your backpack (ignoring space constraints if necessary) in order to equip you with a weapon. the original will not do this; if you have a non-weapon in your weapon hand you will enter battle unarmed; if your weapon hand is empty but your off-hand is full you will equip your "best" available one-handed weapon.

- in the original, some party members may randomly put their equipped weapon (and shield if applicable) away in their backpack while you sleep (ignoring space constraints if necessary). Exult will not do this (which is fine, in my opinion).

So I'm going to submit two seperate feature requests. The first will be for List Field to not put your stuff all out of order. The second will be my idea for preferring weapons in the belt or back slots to weapons in the backpack (allowing, mainly, for controlling which melee weapon an archer will fall back on when they run out of ammo). Could also potentially look into revising the order in which weapons are preferred since it seems kinda outta whack.

[N]

Can I also mention -- the last time I played SI and entered the list field, all the other characters on the list field ganged up on me and attacked. Not just the character I was supposed to fight/train with.

[Dominus]

N: http://exult.info/faq.php#bug_report

[RedAdder]

While we are at mentioning stuff:
When training at the list field, sometimes when leaving the field, the opponent manages to slip out as well and attacks you.

[Dominus]

@RedAdder: http://exult.info/faq.php#bug_report

[N]

Thanks Dominus.

I guess I ought to do that. It just seems so convenient to post it here instead! Bug report shall follow.

I recently replayed and kept a list of bugs in 1.4 with that in mind... just need someone to kick my butt and make it happen.

-N

[Dominus]

I recently replayed and kept a list of bugs in 1.4 with that in mind... just need someone to kick my butt and make it happen.

Yes, please make that happen
We *need* bug reports to iron them out.
I know it is convenient to post here but unless it is a real show stopper bug it is more likely that bugs posted here are forgotten really fast.
Also "hijacking" a thread is even more counter productive, true the thread mentions the list field but it is more about what happens after the training there than about the training itself

[N]

Here's a question then.

(and I'm very aware that this is a bit of hijacking... so relocate to a different thread if you'd like to... and I realise that I'm also new at this)

I find the bug tracker extremely difficult to use. I've looked at it several times, and it seems that there are so many items there that there's probably a high likelihood of me repeating a bug that someone else has already tracked.

[Dominus]

On the bug tracker you need to apply the filter to only view open bugs and then do a quick scan of the bugs to see whether it is already reported. We are not getting that many bug reports atm, so we can live with a duplicate bug or two...