Request: monster cannot spawn in player view

[quietlyquietly]

Been using the scythe (+75).
Someone helped me get the short sword +100, going through a sea of spiders.
I noticed that the game inventory information (hover) does not agree with the F2 extended stats.
The supposedly better short sword (+100), hits at 144 is worse than the scythe (+75) which hits at 153.
Despite what the inventory information says, the short sword reach is 1. and the scythe reach is 2.
I have been told that practicing with the weapon does NOT improve it usage, yet I am told to practice with the bow to become an archer.
I like looking like the grim reaper, and would just like that I am not mislead so much.

Will using the short sword ever make it better than the scythe.
Will practicing with the bow ever make it hit any better (or is that just a matter of buying more dexterity).

Oh, and the speed of the scythe is slightly faster than the short sword, at least according to how I read the "delay" in the F2 extended stats.
A two-handed weapon is just as fast as a sword, so do not go adjusting the scythe down.
It is only slower if you attempt to wield it one-handed.
I just keep wondering why the descriptions disagree and is there something I need to improve, or is it just buying settings.

Note: that the blade on the scythe is just as big and nasty as the short sword, so it hitting at 153 is perfectly OK.
What am I to believe about the +100 and +75 in the information listing. Is there something more to this that I have not found in the docs, yet.

[quietlyquietly]

Just got some magic ability, learned the heal spell, and now have problems.
Fights get messy, and I have to flail about trying to hit the monsters that have gotten close.
If I miss and by accident click on myself, it auto-heals me using magic and using up a life-stone.
This uses up a life-stone healing a insignificant amount of damage.
I really disagree with the idea that this particular magic, which involves a complicated procedure and incantation, should now be invoked automatically, without my control, using up resources.
I really do NOT want this to happen, and have been searching for any way I can to turn it off.
I tried to disable the quick-heal key press, but that had no effect.
I cannot find any input settings for the mouse clicks.
I have been forced to put all my life-stones in the bank to stop this, as they cost me too much to be wasted like this.

Any way to stop this.
If I have to keep the life-stones in the bank, they are not very useful during battles.

I am OLD, with one eye that can focus, so my aim is not going to get better. The map moving does not help my aim either.
This is something that I need to turn off, and I believe should be off for most everyone. The quick-heal would be quick enough, and has the advantage of being voluntary.

It also seems that the quick-heal does not work with potions. I suspect it only works with magic. That is a bit biased not allowing fighters a quick heal (at least I could not get it to work).

[quietlyquietly]

Feature Request:
Prevent monsters from spawning within the view range of any player.

Why:
In any tight cave situation, I can work for hours trying to clear a path to some distant part of the map I have not seen yet.
This is futile as the respawn time is only 90 seconds and the monster you just killed, will respawn right under your feet.
As you work a little further down the passage, the monsters you have killed are now respawning behind you.
Now you get attacked from both sides, and will often get killed.
This makes any care taken about entering caves when you can survive the monsters you see, be irrelevant. The real danger is surprise monsters spawning under your feet or close behind you. A situation that was reasonably under control, with an escape route, is suddenly a death trap.
This is not a chance event, as it will happen every time, you only have 90 seconds.

Note: I fight by backing up to keep the distance good for my weapon, and just out of reach of the monster. As most swings seem to MISS, this most often backs me up, and backs me up, and backs me up, so that any monster that has respawned behind me becomes a real problem.
This happens in every passage that has many monsters down the length of the passage. I cannot not possibly kill them fast enough to keep them from respawning on top of me, or just behind me.
The same thing happens EVERY TIME, so I can spend hours trying to clear a passage, and make no progress.

Implementation:
I assume that there is already a respawn queue that is available.
If any monster would respawn within the view range of a player, then that monster is put back in the queue with a longer queue time.

This will not affect any players or groups that have been already successfully playing by any style. As soon as they move to any other part of the passage, the monsters will be able to spawn out of their sight. If they want, they can move back again and kill them again.

[quietlyquietly]

I have not been able to configure the keyboard attack keys, nor the mouse click, to not throw my player at the monster trying to get me killed.

If I click on the monster, my player will run up and onto the monster, giving it the first bite.
This should be fixed so that it runs up to MY weapon distance, and hits from there. The game knows how to do this, it is in another quick-key setting.

I have moved the attack-move key to the "delete" key, because that key is right above where the default keyboard arrangement forces my hand to be.
The default movement forces me to use the arrow keys, so a key entirely across the keyboard cannot be reached in the midst of battle.
A more normal hand position would be useful, if we could use the "wasd" movement keys that other games allow. But that would require moving any other uses of the "wasd" keys, and all the documentation only refers to them by their keyboard.
Also, any attack keys would need to be right next to those keys, as that hand cannot move from that position in the midst of battle.

This attack key still seems to implement an attack distance only if the weapon is a bow.

I have moved the attack-designate key to the "insert" key.
It lights up the monster with the health bar, but does nothing else.
The monster seems to be able to walk right up to me and my player does not fight back.

I have changed the quick-keys attack setting through every position, but this does not seem to be honored by most attacks.
Either I am still missing something, or this attack system is ineffective.
I believe that it is NEVER correct for the player to run up and stand on top of a monster that was just clicked, not for any setting.

[WildX]

I have moved these feature requests in the feature requests section, where they should have been posted. They've also been merged into one thread because there's no reason to open 4 separate threads in the space of one hour when it's all about requesting changes to the game.

[jesusalva]

Bows have an odd behavior in TMW. This is why they encourage you to practice, to get used to it. No one will care if you complain that when you are using a bow you die too quickly.

Short Sword is a 1 hand weapon, while Scythe takes both hands. In progression terms, they're somewhat close, so damage-wise they're also close. Not to mention that their attack speed is different, so how you invest your stats (agi vs str) will also have different results. Last and not least on this, do not trust ManaPlus damage per second calculation. Actually, don't trust anything the client says, it is often wrong, outdated, or simplified.

In this specific case, the difference of +25 will only be perceived if you have enough strength points and get lucky, with minor effects from dex points. The weapon attack reflects the maximum damage it can output, not how much it'll be outputting normally. (And the maximum points in str you can put before the weapon damage no longer scales up)

Delay is measured as ms-per-hit. Lower is better.

If you by accident click on yourself it auto heals? That doesn't happens with me. It is a ManaPlus setting, just disable it. I forgot where because it is TmwAthena specific and I'm not so involved with TMW Classic any more (as a player). Someone else might know. But likely will be in "Player" tab of settings. You should also be able to change default healing spell in the Yellow Bar settings.
The magic also stops using life stones at some point, but I'm not sure said point can be attained as the development on that stopped years ago.

No idea what "quick heal" is or means. ManaPlus has far too many options, not all of them useful or intuitive.

Monsters respawn within their designed areas (sometimes the whole map, though). When they respawn, the only calculation is to make sure that's not a wall. That's also what makes Candor Cave difficult. There's not much to do other than hoarding monsters and keeping on the move (which is also why people prefer archery until they're strong enough to no longer need to worry with this ─ you're more frail, but is always moving, so easier to get out of a pickle).

Respawn code likely doesn't check for anything besides if the random coordinates it just came up with are valid (and if they're not, it just generates new random ones and repeat. If it fails X times, it forcefully spawn within the invalid tile).

This is done in a blocking fashion (the engine is not threaded), which is why it usually avoids needless calculations. The only things which interact over all players and then triangulate... used to be kaflosh, and it was known for being remarkably laggy back then (to the point you could have three bots casting it non-stop to make the game impossible to play). It is not something to be committed lightly, it requires adequate stress tests and balance changes in several places. I don't see this happening, to be honest, you're not the first person to ask for this.

TMW Classic is designed so you outrun monsters in some cases. Gear up, walk forward, don't waste time killing monsters there. Otherwise, aggro them (#itenplz), move them to somewhere they won't bother, and let them kill you. Go back to the now clear passage. If you're missing too much, raise your dex or your level. Some places are designed to be impossible to cross if you don't do either one of those options (and in some places you can't lead them to somewhere else "safe", to force it to act as a level gating. In this case, get someone with higher level to run ahead of you, drawing all aggro. TMW Classic has several maps, quests and fights designed to not be doable alone by a mid-level player ─ including Hurnscald Mines).

Don't complain about ManaPlus defaults and excess of options (and shortcuts), or russian~ish english which makes no sense (e.g. "special diagonal speed" instead of "quadratic diagonal speed" which is actually a fix as some servers use quadratic diagonal speed while others ─ that is, TMW Classic ─ don't care). We've been trying to fix that for years with no luck. Attack key is not useful unless you already targeted the monster (another key). There's another key which does both at same time (by default, 'Ctrl').

Anyway, development lead is Ledmitz, I just can't care anymore .

[quietlyquietly]

The first two were questions, where is the control for this. They were not Feature Requests.
They all got done on the same day because that was the day when I finally got a forum account, to deal with all the issues that had accumulated over several weeks.

I deliberately avoided combining questions with requests, that have nothing to do with each other. I have been handling bug reports on another free game for about 20 years now, and have always encouraged keeping them separate so the bug report system functions could be used.

Sorry if that annoys anybody.

[Reid]

It doesn't annoy anybody
We just don't have a lot of activity in our forum so keeping everything within a single thread may give more visibility to all your questions and feedbacks!

Thank you for your posts

[jesusalva]

It doesn't annoy anybody
We just don't have a lot of activity in our forum so keeping everything within a single thread may give more visibility to all your questions and feedbacks!

Thank you for your posts

I'm not sure compiling it all into a 6,000+ characters text wall helps with visibility. But it does makes much easier to ignore, which is what I originally planned to do but I simply can't shut up, can I?

[ThinkSome]

Just got some magic ability, learned the heal spell, and now have problems.
Fights get messy, and I have to flail about trying to hit the monsters that have gotten close.
If I miss and by accident click on myself, it auto-heals me using magic and using up a life-stone.
This uses up a life-stone healing a insignificant amount of damage.
I really disagree with the idea that this particular magic, which involves a complicated procedure and incantation, should now be invoked automatically, without my control, using up resources.
I really do NOT want this to happen, and have been searching for any way I can to turn it off.
I tried to disable the quick-heal key press, but that had no effect.
I cannot find any input settings for the mouse clicks.
I have been forced to put all my life-stones in the bank to stop this, as they cost me too much to be wasted like this.

Any way to stop this.
If I have to keep the life-stones in the bank, they are not very useful during battles.

I am OLD, with one eye that can focus, so my aim is not going to get better. The map moving does not help my aim either.
This is something that I need to turn off, and I believe should be off for most everyone. The quick-heal would be quick enough, and has the advantage of being voluntary.

It also seems that the quick-heal does not work with potions. I suspect it only works with magic. That is a bit biased not allowing fighters a quick heal (at least I could not get it to work).

I can give you lifestones in exchange for bug legs (manpahil spell makes them). They're ridiculously cheap healing items.

Never saw this heal on click behavior happen to me, but I use keyboard to move and attack : WASD for movement + ; or ctrl to autoattack nearest + q to stop attack. You may want to explore a similar setup. This will also fix your (mouse) aim issues.

[ThinkSome]

I have moved these feature requests in the feature requests section, where they should have been posted. They've also been merged into one thread because there's no reason to open 4 separate threads in the space of one hour when it's all about requesting changes to the game.

This is going to end up as a mess of 4+1 conversations in one thread, just watch.

[ThinkSome]

Will using the short sword ever make it better than the scythe.

When you can get a shield and wield it, the extra defense boost from shield makes surviving so much easier. Regardless of your DPS being a little lower.

[Rill]

Will using the short sword ever make it better than the scythe.

Though I could be mistaken, I always thought of the Short Sword as a temporary weapon until reaching level 60 and doing the quest to improve it by turning it into a Setzer.

https://wiki.themanaworld.org/index.php/Setzer_Quest
https://wiki.themanaworld.org/index.php/Setzer

And by the way, welcome to the game.

[Ledmitz]

If I answer something already answered, its because its easier to answer as many as I can:

I noticed that the game inventory information (hover) does not agree with the F2 extended stats.

ManaPlus calculates from the DB and not the descriptions, but it also misses some things, like arrow bonuses. We recently made some description corrections, but many still need to be done, but waiting on some mechanics changes to get added. The work has been done for awhile. There are also new mechanics being added which will change a few things. I tried to make better use of ranges, but was educated on the limitations due to server and client sync problems if it changed. I'll be more specific in the following answers.

The supposedly better short sword (+100), hits at 144 is worse than the scythe (+75) which hits at 153.

This might be due to some changes having been added while we wait on others. I'm not positive though, but we'll know for sure in the near future and the descriptions will even need to be fixed again after those server changes.

I am told to practice with the bow to become an archer

Some odd things many players aren't even aware of... Though accuracy increases as you get closer to the target, the damage is increased when further away. The base dmg is from the closest to the target so the actual damage from arrows will always be higher than M+ reports. Also remember arrows bonuses won't show either. Most archers use speed(level 60+) to get faster exp, but they will have less range and accuracy compared to mallard and more dex is needed for accuracy with bows compared to melee weapons. Also the bow used matters a lot as you've probably seen already.

Will using the short sword ever make it better than the scythe.

Currently, the scythe is too fast as it is rated the same weapon type as the setzer, which happens to be the fastest knife. This work was done so we wait now on it getting added. There were come git pipeline complications. The scythe will be rated as a 2-handed weapon, though we may have added a bonus to its speed. I forget now. 2-handed weapons are slower than 1-handed since the range is larger. A weapon like the scythe must be swung wide so it takes longer, to answer a later question you asked. Many weapon ranges were incorrect from DB to description so we adjusted all weapons to the new weapon type table. Unfortunately, adding range to swords compared to fists and knives wasn't possible so we added 20 dmg to all swords to test. We reserved range 2 for the pole arms, which still reaches further than the animation can. Range 3 is still considered melee range though so we'll reserve that for some special weapons to come that will have a short range attack, like fire from fire sword for example. I should also mention that all 2-handed weapons were given a small amount of defense since weapons are also often used for protection from attacks. The short answer to your question is, we will know when its tested, but scythe will be slower, might have had dmg added, but keeps its range 2. A range 2 weapon could stun/freeze mobs that a range 1 cannot and the swords were all given 20+ dmg to compensate for the lack of ability to add range... if that helps any.
Current real stats of the scythe: 'Attack: 120, Defense: 5, Range: 2' < The original must have been 100 and we raised it by 20.
Current real stats of the short sword: 'Attack: 110, Defense: 0, Range: 1'
The short sword is mostly just used to make the setzer. Will simply made it a little better on its own and there are also attack delay changes not mentioned here. Also there may still be changes not yet added since these stats are from what's on git in stable (TMW), not necessarily live in game yet

Will practicing with the bow ever make it hit any better (or is that just a matter of buying more dexterity).

This is one of my biggest beefs actually... skills and how we level them. I saw this was answered so all I can say is yes to dex and mallard or speed skills. Spend the job points you gain to buy skill points in the skill you're trying to level.

If I miss and by accident click on myself, it auto-heals me using magic and using up a life-stone.

Settings/Players/Allow self heal with mouse click < Disable it by unchecking. We can't help the mess that the M+ settings are sorry, but would love to see it more organized myself.

The map moving does not help my aim either

I searched for a setting that doesn't exist, I think. I only found camera modes and free camera is not what you want, nor anyone. Again, this is a client issue and explaining those problems could get complicated. Simply put, there is a lack of developers and time.

It also seems that the quick-heal does not work with potions. I suspect it only works with magic. That is a bit biased not allowing fighters a quick heal (at least I could not get it to work).

I don't understand this one. What does quick heal refer to? In magic, only a target can be healed almost instantly with inma. A mage can't heal themselves that fast. For a mage to heal faster, they need to use a more expensive consumable, like any other class. however, and this is something I'd like changed if possible, if a mage heals a target player, they must wait for the cooldown period to end before healing themselves. The part I consider a bug, is that this includes food items. In short, mages can't heal right away after healing a target player by any means and this is a disadvantage, not an advantage ofc.

Prevent monsters from spawning within the view range of any player

I actually like this idea for most maps, because it seems a bit more realistic and less cheap than a mob spawning directly on you. However, the spawns are set on the maps themselves. I'm not someone to say something is impossible, but a change like that requires some know how. I will ask if it can be done. In reality, TMW uses a deprecated server that we keep making changes to for our current player base. The goal is to actually move to Evolved from TMWA, thus giving us more possibilities. A sync issue between the Evol and M+/MV are what make players hesitant. I still have faith this will get resolved... somehow... someway... someday. ( lyrics from a never known song called Dogs. )

I assume that there is already a respawn queue that is available.

Its more like spawn at this time within the minute if the mob isn't on the map within these tiles... not pretty, but it kept us running all these years, but yes it would be nice if we could achieve this here and there. I still like jump scares and a few cheap shots though, depending on where you're at.

I have changed the quick-keys attack setting through every position, but this does not seem to be honored by most attacks.
Either I am still missing something, or this attack system is ineffective.
I believe that it is NEVER correct for the player to run up and stand on top of a monster that was just clicked, not for any setting.

I change this often actually. You can encounter sync issues with some weapons more than others it seems. You probably want...
Settings/Quick/Move to target in attack range(3rd down) in conjunction with go and attack(6th down). I understand your frustration. I hit keys by mistake often, which changed settings so I removed all the key shortcuts to the quick bar and now do it manually in settings window. This is also another client beef more than the game itself, but I hope it helps.

Cheers and hope to see you in game... whoever you are. hehe

[jesusalva]

Probably worth noting that once a monster dies, it is removed from memory, yes. That's also why it'll not respawn exactly where it died ─ it is not saving any metadata.

(Another fun fact is that monsters could level up, but that feature was always one of sound-cool-works-terrible not-worth-it, so it was never enabled in any server)