Feature proposal: Sight from Corners

[Scottbert]

In some games (D&D) cover and such is determined by corners rather than from the center of the square. How hard would it be to implement a vision option where each token's vision originates from the corners of their square rather than the center? At worst it would quadruple the processing involved and maptool runs fine on my 9-year-old computer, so it seems like that wouldn't be an issue at least.

Does anyone else want this feature?

[palmer]

Yes, it's been requested several times.

It's also NOT easy to add to the system, so you'll be waiting a long time.

[galneweinhaw]

Hey Scottbert, weclome to the forums =)

Check out this thread for a bit of discussion on it. There are some partial work-arounds in how you place you VBL to get closer to D&D type LoS.

http://forums.rptools.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=8814

There are a lot of users who would love this option. And palmer I wouldn't dismiss it so quickly!

I just might see if trevor will let me try and implement this once we start 1.4 development =D

Another option of course is to donate a couple bucks and get it up on the Wall of Features:
http://rptools.net/wallOfFeatures/wof1_3.php

I could throw a few behind this one.

[plothos]

I would really love for this to happen. I of course have no sense of how any of this works, but it seems to me that the vision is not linked to the grid first of all, but to the token, and the fact that it's the center is an arbitrary stipulation built into the code.

Seems to me that if MT can handle four tokens and their individual vision, it could handle having four tokens' worth of vision in one token.

Maybe we could code it into the tokens somehow, and have the option attached to the token - where you can pick the points on the token you want to have vision coming from - or pick from some fixed set of arrangements like
1. center only
2. four corners
3. corners and center
etc.

I wouldn't mind having light options like this too.

[Brigand]

MapTool is becoming way too complex with all this crap everyone keeps wanting to add just to tailor the program to their specific game. And there's very little clear documentation on how all this stuff works. You have to come to the forums and either do extensive searches and hope you hit on the right terms or post a question that's been answered a hundred times before.

There should be a step back from all these feature additions and just see what MapTool needs at a bare minimum to be a fully functional online battlemat that has clear, concise instructions on how to use the features included. Those features need to be as simple to use as possible.

Right now, it's a headache for someone new trying to figure out how to use MapTool. Even with the frameworks.

[palmer]

And yet all the things YOU want added, like paks and javascript, would make it even MORE complex. Arbitrary much?

[Brigand]

Whatever. The asset.paks are simple. Builder exports used assets into a .pak file and associates it with the campaign. Uploads .pak file to some website. Players download it and stick it into a \Pak folder. Very simple.

[palmer]

5 steps... That's more complex, and more to learn and do, than the current system.

What do you have to do for the current system?

NOTHING! It just works.

[Brigand]

Haha yeah, it works 100% the time... sure. I've seen plenty of posts where players have technical issues and I even know firsthand of groups that have stopped using maptools because of the download time when it comes to a moving to a new map and the technical problems they've had.

The asset.paks would simplify the process of using repositories and transferring cached asset files.

[galneweinhaw]

MapTool is becoming way too complex...

I agree with you that the documentation is extremely poor, it's unfortunate that no one from the community has taken to creating a user manual.

I disagree with it being too complex. MT can be as simple as you want it to be. Drag and drop tokens and move them around...voila! I think it is awesome that it has so many different options that you can play so many different systems on it if you want to. But if you want simplicity, ignore them, that's why these things are hidden away in preferences dialogs and menus =)

[Azhrei]

MapTool is becoming way too complex with all this crap everyone keeps wanting to add just to tailor the program to their specific game.

Agreed. I think this is one of the things Trevor has on his mind ... getting MapTool stable so that documentation can be finished, so that external pieces can catch up (FAQs and whatnot) and so frameworks can be solidified.

I think it's fine the way it is if some of the bugs were squashed. I'm willing to sit in the lotus position and chant, "No new features... no new features..."

[Rumble]

MapTool is becoming way too complex with all this crap everyone keeps wanting to add just to tailor the program to their specific game.

Agreed. I think this is one of the things Trevor has on his mind ... getting MapTool stable so that documentation can be finished, so that external pieces can catch up (FAQs and whatnot) and so frameworks can be solidified.

I think it's fine the way it is if some of the bugs were squashed. I'm willing to sit in the lotus position and chant, "No new features... no new features..."

I will chant with you. It's also helpful to have a release version so when I MapToolvangelize on other forums, I can say "the latest version is 1.3" rather than "well, the latest version is technically a development version but it's really good!"

[plothos]

I agree that MT is really great and doesn't NEED any more features.
Then again, 1.2 didn't NEED any more features either. But the cost of the added complexity was totally worth what we've gotten out of 1.3.

Will adding a checkbox somewhere that changes the way vision works a little bit really make any appreciable difference as to how easy/hard MT is to learn or use? I think the answer is a resound "of course not!"

The benefits of this particular box would also be that, oh, I don't know, to actually accommodate a prominent (note, I don't claim critical) feature of what is almost certainly by far the single most commonly played MT game system.

If this can be accomplished without a major performance hit and without huge development resources, I think it's a no-brainer. This isn't fiddling with top-downs overhanging hexes or whether menus cascade in the right way. This is whether its even possible to play D&D by the rules without having to find a workaround. If MT can't do that, it's a major failing on the part of MT.

[Phergus]

This is whether its even possible to play D&D by the rules without having to find a workaround. If MT can't do that, it's a major failing on the part of MT.

By that logic MT is failing pretty much every system out there and certainly the majority of the most popular.

[plothos]

I don't see how that follows, first of all.
And I'd like to point out that "MT has a major failing" =/= "MT is failing"
... at least to my ear they are very different.

MT is a raging success, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have one or two places where it could be majorly improved.

And we all want it to succeed. Making it as accessible to the D&D crowd (without hurting its versatility) is in its best interest.