Spell range and Camera controls

[SplargaMan]

Okay, two things.

 

Spell range:

 

It seems that the range on spells such as remote heal and harm are so short as to make them nearly useless. They ought to be exteneded two or three squares around the player. Especially the offensive spells. With lag delay, it's difficult to even hit monsters until they finally stop wandering around.

Also, it would be nice if the spell did not have to be recast whenever you click on something that is out of range.

 

Camera Controls:

 

We have the arrow buttons, and can hold shift to fine tune the angle. It would be handy to have another combination that would halt all camera movement, so you could stop the view right where you want it to be. Something like ctrl+up.

Also it would be nice to be able to control the pitch of the camera when part of a message has been typed out. While the feature of scrolling through previously typed messages is handy, perhaps it would be best to do this using Shift+up or some similar combination.

Finally, the camera control using the mouse is rather clumsy. It should not drift when the mouse is stopped, but cease movement altogether.

[jhunlemon]

I like the range increased a little bit. Maybe not so much on the offensive as it will make running from pkers harder but remote healing the people you can see would be cool (people rushing out of the underworld can be pretty hard to catch).

 

As for camera control, I think a command to switch your view from east to west or north to south would be great. Like ctrl+<backspace> will quickly move your view from your front to back without having to rotate your camera angle 90 degrees.

[Learner]

If you have a three button mouse, or a scroll wheel ... press the middle button and move the mouse sideways.

[algunar]

I like the range increased a little bit. Maybe not so much on the offensive as it will make running from pkers harder

well i think it should be on the offensive cos magic is more of a ranged feature, i think. and running from pkers isnt meant to be easy. if it were then none of the higher level players would have a chance of killing a lower level player cos they would get away too easy.

[jhunlemon]

I didnt say it should be easy, I just said increasing offensive spell range would make running harder (and make life for non-pkers even worse). Anyways, if its possible, increase offensive spell range but keep the auto-engage range. Like now, from a distance one can mana drain a beaver (get 0 mana, i know but gets exp) but the beaver dont attack you, unlike it does when you cast and you're close enough to be within its attack range.

 

As for the mouse gesture, wouldn't it be better to have a keyboard shortcut? Not every mouse has a wheel or a third button and keyboard shortcuts could be faster for some people. Just a thought.

[Vanyel]

If you have a three button mouse, or a scroll wheel ... press the middle button and move the mouse sideways.

 

 

I have 5 bottons at mouse - none of them works like this.

[SplargaMan]

Learner, I'm not sure why you felt it necessary to post information on this thread which can be found on the Eternal Lands Official Website under Help, link Commands.

 

Vanyel, I believe that is more at home in the bugs section.

 

Playing off of jhunLEMON's idea, it would be nice to say crtl+click on the compass and have the camera look in the direction that you clicked.

[Roja]

 

I have 5 bottons at mouse - none of them works like this.

 

maybe you can configure them? If you have a middle/scroll wheel it will work this way.

[Aislinn]

Learner, I'm not sure why you felt it necessary to post information on this thread which can be found on the Eternal Lands Official Website under Help, link Commands.

Probably because it does exactly what you said you want to happen.

 

Vanyel, I believe that is more at home in the bugs section.

...*checks mod list*

[SplargaMan]

This is what my game does; you stop the mouse, and the camera KEEPS MOVING. It should STOP when the mouse STOPS. That is my suggestion for camera movement by mouse. That the camera should stop when the mouse stops.

 

If you don't understand what I'm saying, I don't know how else to say it.

 

If your game doesn't drift on the mouse camera movement, good for you, please let me know. Then I'll post this in the bugs or help section instead. Thank you.

 

As for my comment on Vanyel's post, this thread was quickly changing from a suggestion to a help session on mouse buttons. I feel that I am entitled to point out when posts stray from the topic since my idea was being pushed aside and I was being treated like an idiot.

Edited March 20, 2006 by SplargaMan

[TirunCollimdus]

Learner, I'm not sure why you felt it necessary to post information on this thread which can be found on the Eternal Lands Official Website under Help, link Commands.

Probably because it does exactly what you said you want to happen.

 

Actually is does exactly the opposite of what he said he wanted it to do. You and Learner should both try moving the camera in the game with a clicked third wheel and watch *very closely* so that you can see that the camera continues to drift in the direction that you were moving it after you let go of the third wheel and are no longer moving the mouse.

 

Vanyel, I believe that is more at home in the bugs section.

...*checks mod list*

 

Vanyel's post belongs in the tech help section or the bug section if there is nothing wrong with his mouse and pointing that out to him is actually helpful so that he knows there is something wrong that can be fixed. It also helps redirect the point of the thread back to the topic it belongs on.

 

You are not required to be a mod to do either of those things since A)mods do not have a lock on being nice and helpful and B)everyone has a right to try and keep their own threads on topic instead of raising their hand and asking mods to babysit their thread for them. Splargaman was right on the money on both calls and I hope that Vanyel at least appreciates it

 

TirunCollimdus I hope I cleared up the question about what Splargaman meant when he was talking about camera drift with the mouse. I would like to know why it was made to do that by the way if anyone has the time.

Edited March 20, 2006 by TirunCollimdus

[Learner]

I've found that a quick tap on the button without moving the mouse usually stops the drift.

[Aislinn]

I have, when I release the wheel, mine stops. It does drift if I stop the mouse and still hold the wheel down. I have a tiny bit of drift left/right, not worth commenting on. Absolutely none up and down.

 

Also you can set the speed of camera rotation in el.ini...that also controls the accuracy as well. You can also use your shift key to make those movements using the arrow keys even more minimal and precise.

 

I've found that a quick tap on the button without moving the mouse usually stops the drift.

Yep that works like a charm as well.

[Torg]

As for my comment on Vanyel's post, this thread was quickly changing from a suggestion to a help session on mouse buttons. I feel that I am entitled to point out when posts stray from the topic since my idea was being pushed aside and I was being treated like an idiot.

One post isn't "quickly changing". Anyway I think it was a comment on the previous suggestion of a solution (use the mouse) and thus actually meant to be helpful.

I think the discussion on mouse drift is far more off topic.

 

I hope I cleared up the question about what Splargaman meant when he was talking about camera drift with the mouse. I would like to know why it was made to do that by the way if anyone has the time.

I only get drift when I move the mouse fast... maybe I've just got a 1337 mouse. If I move the mouse at a controllable speed it is very sharp.

pfft. Keyboard is way better anyway. :-P

 

Anyway, there are currently alternatives to using the keyboard if you don't like it (mouse). I don't see the need for adding more functionality like this to the client yet.

 

 

/edit: Forgot something.

Edited March 20, 2006 by Torg

[kl4Uz]

I agree that the spell range should be increased. Just sit near the beam spot and try to click on newbies that move around to heal them. Really quite difficult. Maybe we could have a moving cursor or some other graphical indicator when the cursor is over a possible target. I think that would make the casting a bit easier too.

[MagpieLee]

I think you can set the camera speed control or mouse spinning speed (I can't remember the exact thingabajig).

 

As for spells, I totally agree on the extension of spell range. I thought it would have been extended after the server update but its still not enough. Such spells include Remote Heal, Poison, Harm, Life Drain and Mana Drain. If you're a bit anti about the negative spells then maybe just extend the range of Remote heal. (or increase them all depending on magic level).

[Learner]

As for my comment on Vanyel's post, this thread was quickly changing from a suggestion to a help session on mouse buttons. I feel that I am entitled to point out when posts stray from the topic since my idea was being pushed aside and I was being treated like an idiot.

One post isn't "quickly changing". Anyway I think it was a comment on the previous suggestion of a solution (use the mouse) and thus actually meant to be helpful.

I think the discussion on mouse drift is far more off topic.

Thats also why you shouldn't put multiple suggestions in one post because this thread does really have multiple topics and the mouse drift is related to one of them.

[Arnieman]

I wanted to say something that I did, that I fond helpful in camera control - I'm more a keyboard person than a mose person, if I can be - so much in EL wants yo to use a mouse, tho...

 

...back on the topic, though, you can better fine-tune yor camera settings - I found this out experimenting with the camera speeds. I decided to set my camera rotation speed to 45 (normal is 35), and set the fine-tune speed to 1 (normal 5). This allowed me to keep my camera set in the 8 main points of the compass with the arrow keys, while I had a highly accurate (but somewhat painful - I don't recommend this if you have a lack of patience) camera fine tune (Shift+arrow keys).

 

Why did I choose these? My experimenting found "speed" to correspond with the degrees in camera movement (personally, I'd like it better phrased that way, maye it made more sense to programmers the other way...). A circle has 360 degrees - to move around a circle in 2 jumps, you need to move 180 degrees (in 4, 90, and in 8, 45). The fine tune was knocked down to 1 degree, so I could make it more "fine".

 

On a similar note, yo can get some interesting effects if you bump the rotation speed by mltiples of 360 - I don't recommend this if you have epilepsy, or get dizzy easy.