Whats the accepted "best" way to handle characters with lots of spells? Verbs, Objs, or other?

ID:1929316
 
Sep 1 2015, 11:39 pm (Edited on Sep 2 2015, 12:33 am)
Hey

What would be considered the best way of handling players with lots of spells, say between 20 and 50? And why is that method the best?

* There's the "give them a verb for each skill" method, which I find to cause game-breaking issues in some circumstances (e.g. changing the name of a verb).

* There's also the give them an obj with an attached verb. This method seems a lot more foolproof but I'm not sure if its efficient?

Not sure if there are any other methods, but would like to know about any.

Thanks

Sep 2 2015, 8:19 am
My personal preference is to break as many things down into objects as you can. Making skills actual datum structures themselves with usage procs helps you keep track of them better.

All in all, you can do many ways of handling them, but using verbs would be a horrible method. You have to juggle adding verbs to the verbs list, making sure they all get there and are saved and don't bug or do anything crazy, plus if you have things like cooldowns, you'd need separate variables to track each individual stat of each individual skill verb, which basically makes objectifying it the best solution regardless.
Sep 2 2015, 12:34 pm
How I do it is have 9 verbs. Each 1 of these verbs goes through one proc that decides which ability is being chosen. These 9 verbs symbolize your hotkeys 1-9. Though I don't really know of my way is the best.

Breaking things into objects is good as well.
Sep 2 2015, 12:54 pm
In response to DanteVFenris
changing the name of a verb
You can change the name of a verb without changing its path with the verb setting, "name":
mob/verb/ASDFGHJKL(t as text)
    set name = "say"


9 verbs
You only need one verb for any number of hotkeys:
mob/verb/hotkey(which as num)

/* macro commands:
hotkey 1
hotkey 2
hotkey 3
etc. 
*/
That's not the issue in this thread, though.

When you have a lot of skills, what interface works best?

I'd say the best way would definitely be the object-oriented approach (skill properties and behaviors belong on the skill object), and of course, not using verbs. If you look at any other game that has tons of skills (like any MMORPG), you might notice that none of them have statpanels of verbs, or really any verbs at all. You can drag and drop skill tiles from a skill window to the hotbar. Skills activate when you click them on the screen or hit a hotkey on the hotbar.
Sep 2 2015, 3:56 pm
In response to Kaiochao
I didn't know you could press buttons without verbs?

I see that's where I've been failing. I have no knowledge this macro thing even existed
Sep 2 2015, 4:16 pm
In response to DanteVFenris
press buttons without verbs
I'm not sure what this is referring to.

this macro thing
http://www.byond.com/forum/?post=1904614#comment16095822
Sep 2 2015, 4:22 pm
In response to Kaiochao
The way you worded it sounded like you could. My mistake.

Anyway thank you that link helped me a lot. That should be somewhere important. There's a reason why byond has the term verb panels. Cause no one knows how to use buttons unless asking where to find it
Sep 2 2015, 5:12 pm
I think objs would work better than verbs for this purpose. There's more flexibility and the verb system is rather hoary.
Sep 2 2015, 5:20 pm
In response to DanteVFenris
The way you worded it sounded like you could. My mistake.
I didn't say anything about buttons working without verbs, but it is actually doable. If you set the command of any macro or interface element to a topic link (e.g. byond://?a=b&c=d&e=f), it'll call client/Topic().