new time limit mode: "explorer"

[ketmar]

as far as i can see, there are only two time limit modes in the game now: "respect time limit" and "ignore time limit". i suggest adding the third one, "explorer" (the name is not important, of course .

the idea is that when the time is out, cave score is reset to 0 (and not changed anymore), but the game continues. this way the player can keep "exploring" the cave, figuring out the best way to finish it, and so on — and there is no need to constantly change time limit setting. that's why i called this mode "explorer".

i even think that this mode could be the default one, and "respect time limit" can be named "hardcore".

[Holger]

Hi ketmar, welcome to the R'n'D forum!

I have a question regarding your proposal: As far as I can see, the current option "time limit: off" already does more or less what you want (without resetting the score), or am I wrong? You can regularly play a cave (when solving it within the time limit), and you can keep on playing after you ran out of time -- even being able to solve it and see it in your local "hall of fame" (although the resulting tape and score will not be approved by the high score server, and will not be listed when limiting the hall of fame to only show scores from the high score server).

The only advantage I could see would be that resetting the score to zero would result in a local high score list where you cannot have a higher score than those playing with time limit. But then, if people decide to play without time limit, they might still want to see which score they were able to reach that way (even if it is then treated as "invalid" on the high score server).

Therefore, I think that simply playing without time limit by setting "time limit" to "off" should give you exactly the optional explorability you are looking for, without the need for a third (potentially confusing) new time limit option.

[TheOnyxGuy]

For now I don't exactly see a point in that since, first, you can just disable the time limit in Game & Menu settings, second, for the levels you create you can just set the time limit to 0 and will be basically infinite anyways, because instead of counting down, it will be counting up from 000 to whatever how much time you want to spend on a level. I just think you can practice the level with time limit disabled and once you found a good tactic just turn it back on. Plus you have snapshot mode and saving feature (F1 and F2) to practice it even more.

Although there may potentially be an idea basing off this... There's quite a few ways we can complete the levels, whether it's slowed down game speed, snapshot mode, saving and loading, disabled time limit, disabled level list handicap, even TAS snap buttons... But what if there was a specific mode that handicapped all of these for that "hardcore" mode? Basically as legitimate as possible. I mean, I know I can do that manually, but what if, perhaps, there was a separate mode (maybe even with it's own leaderboard) where people HAVE to complete the level without any kind of additional tools that the game provides? No saving, no TASing, no slowdowns, no pruning, just pure human skill.

[ketmar]

resetting the score is the main difference from "no time limit". the idea came from my playing expirience: i am not a good player, but i love to "compete with myself". usually i prefer to explore the level without paying attention to time limit first, and later try to beat it with the time limit turned on. but i am too lazy to constantly switch the option. i am also rarely playing the whole level set at once, it is more like "play some levels from one set, then some from another, then maybe continue the first one". so if i want to play some new levels, then return to old ones to beat them "in time", i need to go through the options time and time again. and "half-failed" levels (finished, but not in the given time limit) still pollute the highscore table, which lowers my desire to play the level again.

maybe i am the only one who plays like this, but i thoght that i still may suggest the feature. if it will be rejected, i will not lose anything, and if it will be implemented, i'll get the feature i want. basically, win-win situation.

in Miho Dash the game will still remember the score (and overall time used to beat the level), but it will not show "overtimed" levels in the score table. as RnD doesn't have such statistics, i thought that resetting the score will be easier to implement.

[BryanFRitt]

Idea: Instead of these modes, do something like the "time limit" mode but instead of death of level playing at the end, how about a pop-up message saying something like "times up" asking if the player if they would like to 'continue level?', or 'restart level?', or if there is a tape save point, 'go back to last tape save point?'. This pop-up message should be set up in a way that minimizes accidental choice choosing due to still trying to play game.

[filbo]

Idea: Instead of these modes, do something like the "time limit" mode but instead of death of level playing at the end, how about a pop-up message saying something like "times up" asking if the player if they would like to 'continue level?', or 'restart level?', or if there is a tape save point, 'go back to last tape save point?'. This pop-up message should be set up in a way that minimizes accidental choice choosing due to still trying to play game.

This would make life annoying for anyone who just wants hard time limits, and also anyone who wants to be able to play past the time limit but not save their score (OP @ketmar). While also acknowledging that he may have a point.

So I feel like it is established that he has at least a small point. Why not do what he asked? Basically, offer tri-state choices in the time limit option:

At time limit:

( ) players die
( ) tape not saveable
( ) ignore time limit

[ketmar]

(thinking loudly) i guess that if i'll make the patch, Holger will be way more interested — because then he'll have almost nothing to do. now i need to find some time to make that patch. ;-)

[Holger]

After reading the last few posts, I thought about this again, and maybe changed my mind (now knowing some new thoughts about this)!

resetting the score is the main difference from "no time limit". the idea came from my playing expirience: i am not a good player, but i love to "compete with myself". usually i prefer to explore the level without paying attention to time limit first, and later try to beat it with the time limit turned on. but i am too lazy to constantly switch the option. i am also rarely playing the whole level set at once, it is more like "play some levels from one set, then some from another, then maybe continue the first one". so if i want to play some new levels, then return to old ones to beat them "in time", i need to go through the options time and time again. and "half-failed" levels (finished, but not in the given time limit) still pollute the highscore table, which lowers my desire to play the level again.

Well, I totally understand that it makes things very confusing if you cannot see clearly which scores in the highscore table are "valid" and which are "invalid" (caused by levels played with "time limit: off"). That all makes sense to me!

On the other hand (having filbo's last suggestion with three possible "time limit" options in mind), I really would like to keep things as easy (and therefore user-friendly, hopefully) as possible!

So what about the following approach: When playing with "time limit: off", the program could be changed to effectively behave like you suggested for the new "explorer" mode, that is: As soon as the time runs out, the score is set to "0", so the local high score list won't be polluted with "invalid" entries (that look valid with a non-zero score, but won't be valid tapes to solve the level when applying the regular time limit). Additionally, the resulting tapes won't be sent to the high score server anymore (where they will be invalidated anyway).

The main difference here would be that you cannot find out which score you would have reached it you would have played with regular time limit. But setting the score to "0" once the time reaches "0" (without the player dying, as it would normally be the case) seems to make sense.

This would prevent the need for three (potentially confusing) options, and seems to work reasonable in both cases (with option set to either "on" or "off").

What do you think about it?

Then I would like to comment on this one:

(thinking loudly) i guess that if i'll make the patch, Holger will be way more interested — because then he'll have almost nothing to do. now i need to find some time to make that patch.

I think you are wrong here.

Although providing me with a patch ready to be applied to R'n'D is generally never a wrong thing, the real work is almost never in writing some new or changed code. The real, hard work (at least for me) is almost always thinking about it! That is, making sure that no bugs are introduced. Making sure that no existing behavior is broken, or changed in a way that is either incompatible or unexpected for the user (new and existing ones). Making sure that the usability is not affected in a negative way. Keeping things consistent. As the code base is really very old and very complex (at least I think so), it is very easy to break things by a quick change or addition. So thinking about changes is really important, and usually takes far more time that writing the resulting code.

[ketmar]

This would prevent the need for three (potentially confusing) options, and seems to work reasonable in both cases (with option set to either "on" or "off").

looks good to me. ;-) and maybe add some mark to the cave, which tells the player that they solved the cave, but not in time, so it would be easier to distinguish "caves i don't want to solve and skipped" from "caves i solved, but i want to do better next time".

Although providing me with a patch ready to be applied to R'n'D is generally never a wrong thing, the real work is almost never in writing some new or changed code. The real, hard work (at least for me) is almost always thinking about it! That is, making sure that no bugs are introduced. Making sure that no existing behavior is broken, or changed in a way that is either incompatible or unexpected for the user (new and existing ones). Making sure that the usability is not affected in a negative way. Keeping things consistent. As the code base is really very old and very complex (at least I think so), it is very easy to break things by a quick change or addition. So thinking about changes is really important, and usually takes far more time that writing the resulting code. :)

this is the part of my "patch writing" too, and that's why i haven't posted the quickfix yet. as i don't know the codebase, creating the good patch will take some time. for example, i have some quick patches to handle both normal arrows and keypad arrows as same keys both in game and in menus (because i use both of them), but the code is dirty and definitely not ready to be published.

[filbo]

I'm a bit torn. I think, being able to see what score you would have gotten without the pesky time limit is totally legit, and I'm imagining the dismay of, say, a 5 year old who was previously racking up a nice collection of scores, who now finds that their runs are all invalidated.

As to issues of high score boards, I would think that in most cases, a score / tape taken from a run which took longer than the time limit simply will not 'rate' as a high score. Now, the scoreboards for each level are quite long, so there would be entries on the list from overtime runs; but they would almost never be in contention for 1st place.

So, instead of forbidding them, why not just tag them? You know, the good old '(*)' or equivalent, on those entries.

I haven't actually looked at how the high score boards work in a long time. Aren't there a bunch of other potentially excludable characteristics, like 'used single-step', which the server knows about? So, really, many high score runs should potentially bear the 'asterisk of shame' :) -- and maybe the scoreboard displayer should let the user filter against those characteristics. In which case, 'ran off the end of the time limit' is just another minor fault characteristic like single-step or pause or -- whatever server-known characteristics one might consider 'unworthy'.

(IF such filtering exists or will exist, I would strongly recommend that the default mode be *UN* filtered! But with visible asterisks-or-whatever, of course. Then by hovering or clicking or whatever, the viewer should be able to see the list of faults for a particular run. And might choose to then filter against them, or not, purely up to the end consumer of the high score list...)

In this train of thought, I feel like I'm back to a 2-state 'stop at time limit, or not' setting. Runs which were allowed to continue past the time limit are tagged in the server data (well, it already knows, simply by comparing run length to level definition's time limit); and tagged in the display scoreboard display; and filterable against, if the user so chooses.

(To some extent I feel like the whole thing is silly, since 'scores' in these levels have never seemed like an interesting detail to me. The score accumulated for inhaling gems is pretty much preset by how many gems the level definition contains. The only other factor is bonus(if any) for time; so the only real 'score' of interest is completion time. Which is of course strongly influenced by things like single-step; and conversely, a guaranteed 'low score', poor place on the scoreboard, if you do actually exceed the level's default time limit!)