Creature Hunt II (0.1.7)

[Todge]

Jun 21, 2019 18:10:15 GMT -8 fennecfyre said:

Jun 21, 2019 17:56:05 GMT -8 Todge said:

As for adding a tag to a post once a creature appears, the plugin does not currently add content to a post, as you saw in your previous thread, but it may be able to be added, as the plugin works out if a creature is due to appear while a post is being authored. But another way is to use a key and add a pop-up as an alert to the admin, though, ideally, this would require another key, and the plugin already uses 3.

So, does it add in another post after a player makes a post that triggers it, or is it meant to be a scenario where an admin posts a creature hunt event thread and other players reply? Either way though, I can understand not wanting to load keys onto it

I have no issues with adding extra keys, I'm just thinking of those that want to use it and may not want to use up 4 keys on a single plugin. But, there have been suggestions that plugin keys are more available after V6 arrives, so in the future, you never know..

The plugin functions like this...

An admin creates a thread in board that is set aside for creatures to appear. During the thread creation the admin has options available, to add a creature, and if so to chose a creature group, after which post the creature should appear, and the chance that said creature does appear after that post. So, if post 3 was selected, and the chance set to 50%, then there would be a 50/50 chance of the creature appearing after every reply AFTER reply 3.. But the creature can only appear once, so once it does appear, it is open to attack by every member that posts in that thread.

Attacks are made via posting. When a member posts in a thread that a creature has appeared in, they have the option to attack or retreat. Attacking the creature can obviously cause damage to that creature, but will also open you up to receiving damage in return. Retreat and you will not cause damage to the creature, but the creature can still attack you, but with less chance of being successful.

This continues until the creature is dead, after which the thread continues as a standard thread.. No more creatures, unless the admin edits the first post and replaces the dead creature.

The plugin keeps track of users hit points, which are displayed in the ini-profiles, and a few other stats that are displayed in the users' profile pages.

Members can recover hit points, or heal, by posting in a creature thread and not receiving any damage.

There are an array of options in the plugin that are way too much to detail here, but are listed elsewhere, and everything is explained in the plugin settings pages.

[fennecfyre]

Jun 21, 2019 18:39:37 GMT -8 Todge said:

The plugin functions like this...

An admin creates a thread in board that is set aside for creatures to appear. During the thread creation the admin has options available, to add a creature, and if so to chose a creature group, after which post the creature should appear, and the chance that said creature does appear after that post. So, if post 3 was selected, and the chance set to 50%, then there would be a 50/50 chance of the creature appearing after every reply AFTER reply 3.. But the creature can only appear once, so once it does appear, it is open to attack by every member that posts in that thread.

Attacks are made via posting. When a member posts in a thread that a creature has appeared in, they have the option to attack or retreat. Attacking the creature can obviously cause damage to that creature, but will also open you up to receiving damage in return. Retreat and you will not cause damage to the creature, but the creature can still attack you, but with less chance of being successful.

This continues until the creature is dead, after which the thread continues as a standard thread.. No more creatures, unless the admin edits the first post and replaces the dead creature.

The plugin keeps track of users hit points, which are displayed in the ini-profiles, and a few other stats that are displayed in the users' profile pages.

Members can recover hit points, or heal, by posting in a creature thread and not receiving any damage.

There are an array of options in the plugin that are way too much to detail here, but are listed elsewhere, and everything is explained in the plugin settings pages.

Ahhh okay, I understand now. It's definitely an awesome mechanic, though not quite what I need, then.

[Todge]

Jun 21, 2019 19:01:52 GMT -8 fennecfyre said:

Ahhh okay, I understand now. It's definitely an awesome mechanic, though not quite what I need, then.

No worries.

Good luck on finding what you are after.

[Skyeforge]

Todge  

Okay, so I have a few questions for you or anyone that can help, if you're available to answer them!

I have a few of test threads for this plugin here, here, and here and have been working with making things more customized for the first creature (Kalyth).

My first question relates to the first thread linked. The second and third thread linked seemed to work perfectly fine? [EDIT: And every thread I've made after that to test it with different creatures have worked.] But on the first one, for that creature specifically, I have a bunch of customized notes for each tab (App, Miss, Low, Moderate, High, etc.) and it keeps leaving blank spaces in between. I've noticed that it also leaves it blank for whenever I "Retreat". That doesn't happen EVERY time, but a majority of the times. Is there a way to fix that or did I mess something up when it came to that creature? Also here is what the creature's stats look like. And 3 (coincidentally the last three) of my notes for the "C. Hit" tab haven't made it to the board after 50+ posts for that creature.

[EDIT AGAIN] So I have tested this out with multiple creatures. The bottom 4 on my creatures list all have the same issues. Here...at first I thought it may be some sort of character limit (as the four had the longest "C. Hit" notes lol. But even when I trimmed the word count down a bit it didn't fix it...

The second question I have is: is there a way I can reset everyone's health on the board to 100 at once? Or do I have to go into everyone's profile manually to do so? Like I'm thinking at the end of each month, I'll reset everyone back to 100 and would love to just be able to do it at one time with a click of a button instead of manually going into everyone's profiles and updating them.

Another question I have is what does retreating actually do aside from not attacking/hoping to get a dodge? I mean, I can instantly come back into the fight or retreat multiple times in a row if I want to. If that's just a way to continue being in the thread while not being able to attack (because HP is 0 or something), then I understand. But can I rename "Retreat" to "Dodge" or something else that makes more sense for the board if that's the case?

The final question (for now) that I have is, can I reset everyone's stats to being 0 once I've started messing with the plugin. When I was testing things out, this happened, LOL! How do I make it go away back to 0 for everything? Hahaha.

Thanks for all of your help if you're able to help me with this!

[Todge]

Aug 17, 2019 18:12:24 GMT -8 Skyeforge said:

.....can I reset everyone's stats to being 0 once I've started messing with the plugin. When I was testing things out, this happened, LOL! How do I make it go away back to 0 for everything? Hahaha.

You can reset everyone's stats, except Current HP, to 0 by resetting the 'user_hits' key..

In your admin panel, click 'Plugins' > 'Manage' > 'Keys' and scroll down until you find the user_hits key. On the right you will have 2 options, 'Clear' and 'Delete', click 'Clear' then 'Yes' to confirm. Everyone's stat will be reset, including their Hit Points.

.....is there a way I can reset everyone's health on the board to 100 at once? Or do I have to go into everyone's profile manually to do so? Like I'm thinking at the end of each month, I'll reset everyone back to 100 and would love to just be able to do it at one time with a click of a button instead of manually going into everyone's profiles and updating them.

see above..

.....what does retreating actually do aside from not attacking/hoping to get a dodge? I mean, I can instantly come back into the fight or retreat multiple times in a row if I want to. If that's just a way to continue being in the thread while not being able to attack (because HP is 0 or something), then I understand. But can I rename "Retreat" to "Dodge" or something else that makes more sense for the board if that's the case?

If you retreat, you are essentially dodging. You will not inflict any damage on the creature (obviously), but the creature will also find it harder to hit you. If you post in a creature thread and the creature misses, you gain health, so if you are low on HP you can opt to retreat in the hope that the creature misses and you can recover a some HP.

.....on the first one, for that creature specifically, I have a bunch of customized notes for each tab (App, Miss, Low, Moderate, High, etc.) and it keeps leaving blank spaces in between. I've noticed that it also leaves it blank for whenever I "Retreat". That doesn't happen EVERY time, but a majority of the times. Is there a way to fix that or did I mess something up when it came to that creature? Also here is what the creature's stats look like. And 3 (coincidentally the last three) of my notes for the "C. Hit" tab haven't made it to the board after 50+ posts for that creature.

[EDIT AGAIN] So I have tested this out with multiple creatures. The bottom 4 on my creatures list all have the same issues. Here...at first I thought it may be some sort of character limit (as the four had the longest "C. Hit" notes lol. But even when I trimmed the word count down a bit it didn't fix it...

Could you please PM me either a screen grab, of if possible, copy/paste ALL of the stats for the Kalyth so that I can put them on my test forum and do some testing. Hopefully it's something obvious but I really need to see it working to have any real chance of finding any issues.

Thanks for all of your help if you're able to help me with this!

You are most welcome.

[Skyeforge]

Todge

You're amazing, thank you for your quick response! I have sent off a PM! If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask me about it. I love this plugin and it would work perfectly for what I'm wanting to use it for IF I can get It all squared away lol!

[Todge]

Aug 18, 2019 7:34:18 GMT -8 Skyeforge said:

Todge

You're amazing, thank you for your quick response! I have sent off a PM! If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask me about it. I love this plugin and it would work perfectly for what I'm wanting to use it for IF I can get It all squared away lol!

No worries..

I have copied all of the Kalyth's stats into my test forum and everything appears to work as expected.

During testing, are you using the Quick Reply to attack/retreat? Or are you using the posting page?

[Skyeforge]

Todge

I am using quick reply always, should I be using the actual reply posting page?

[Skyeforge]

Actually, I just attempted it with regular reply posting and the same thing is occurring, blank posts with just the little photo...

EDIT: I have noticed that sometimes it occurs when the creature has killed me/brought me down to 0 HP or when I have 0 HP...is that something that could be messing with it? It's not every time, but it seems to be doing that moreso whenever I lose all my HP or have nothing...

EDIT 2: I just tried reinstalling the entire thing and redid it all...it's still happening with him. I have to retest the others. But it's happening less often now. Before it was seemingly every other post. Now it's just like 1 or 2 out of 20 posts.

EDIT 3: So, I deleted all the extra things under him and tried making a new test thread. It now works perfectly fine. Do you think there's a glitch or a problem with a maximum number of C. Hit custom text boxes or something that could cause it? I did have like 10 customs for just him. But if it worked on your board, I'm not sure what's wrong with mine, LOL. I mean, I don't need all the extra flavor text, I just wanted to spice it up a bit more than having a couple simple texts keep repeating lol. But honestly if it works, that's all I care about.

[Todge]

Aug 18, 2019 14:44:08 GMT -8 Skyeforge said:

Actually, I just attempted it with regular reply posting and the same thing is occurring, blank posts with just the little photo...

EDIT: I have noticed that sometimes it occurs when the creature has killed me/brought me down to 0 HP or when I have 0 HP...is that something that could be messing with it? It's not every time, but it seems to be doing that moreso whenever I lose all my HP or have nothing...

EDIT 2: I just tried reinstalling the entire thing and redid it all...it's still happening with him. I have to retest the others. But it's happening less often now. Before it was seemingly every other post. Now it's just like 1 or 2 out of 20 posts.

EDIT 3: So, I deleted all the extra things under him and tried making a new test thread. It now works perfectly fine. Do you think there's a glitch or a problem with a maximum number of C. Hit custom text boxes or something that could cause it? I did have like 10 customs for just him. But if it worked on your board, I'm not sure what's wrong with mine, LOL. I mean, I don't need all the extra flavor text, I just wanted to spice it up a bit more than having a couple simple texts keep repeating lol. But honestly if it works, that's all I care about.

If your HP is down to 0, that will account for some of the blank posts... If you have no HP you cannot take part in the fight, that's why you can only retreat.

As for why other posts are blank, that could be for several reasons. For some reason the info is not being written to the post key in all cases, but why is the real mystery.

Either the plugin is failing on the posting page. Unlikely as you are still getting working Attack and Retreat buttons.

Or the plugin is failing to collect the data, and so is sending nothing to the key, hence it appears as blank. But this makes little sense too.

Or, your messages are simply too long, and the plugin is trying to send too much data to the key and the key is rejecting it... A key can hold 4000 characters, and none of your messages appear to be anywhere near to that limit.

Or, the PB servers are having an off day.. Unusual but possible, especially if the plugin is now working as expected.


The amount of option you give a creature shouldn't make a difference, so long as all options are listed correctly.. The plugin will simply have more to choose from, so at the moment I'm a little stumped, but I will continue looking.

In the mean time, could you try re-ordering your creatures, mabe have the Kalyth first in the list with the others after, and see if that makes a difference. Everything in the creature stats can be dragged and dropped, so you don't need to retype anything, just drag the lists into the new orders.

[Skyeforge]

Aug 19, 2019 12:09:51 GMT -8 Todge said:

If your HP is down to 0, that will account for some of the blank posts... If you have no HP you cannot take part in the fight, that's why you can only retreat.

As for why other posts are blank, that could be for several reasons. For some reason the info is not being written to the post key in all cases, but why is the real mystery.

Either the plugin is failing on the posting page. Unlikely as you are still getting working Attack and Retreat buttons.

Or the plugin is failing to collect the data, and so is sending nothing to the key, hence it appears as blank. But this makes little sense too.

Or, your messages are simply too long, and the plugin is trying to send too much data to the key and the key is rejecting it... A key can hold 4000 characters, and none of your messages appear to be anywhere near to that limit.

Or, the PB servers are having an off day.. Unusual but possible, especially if the plugin is now working as expected.


The amount of option you give a creature shouldn't make a difference, so long as all options are listed correctly.. The plugin will simply have more to choose from, so at the moment I'm a little stumped, but I will continue looking.

In the mean time, could you try re-ordering your creatures, mabe have the Kalyth first in the list with the others after, and see if that makes a difference. Everything in the creature stats can be dragged and dropped, so you don't need to retype anything, just drag the lists into the new orders.

I did try to reorder everything, putting Celestial first, but it just doesn't seem to work for me. It's still leaving me a couple blank posts now and again. 

I mean, I also do have the VDice (Standard Dice Edition) installed on the board too. Do you happen to know any if any code in there might mess something up?

[Todge]

Aug 19, 2019 21:31:18 GMT -8 Skyeforge said:

.....I did try to reorder everything, putting Celestial first, but it just doesn't seem to work for me. It's still leaving me a couple blank posts now and again. 

I mean, I also do have the VDice (Standard Dice Edition) installed on the board too. Do you happen to know any if any code in there might mess something up?

I don't see why the two plugins can't live happily together, but you could try disabling the vDice plugin to see if it makes a difference. If it does, try re-ordering the plugins themselves.

[Todge]

Skyeforge, can you please try version 0.1.2, I think I have found the problem.

Just install this version over your current version and chose to keep all of the existing settings, then, with your fingers crossed take a look at you test thread. Hopefully all of the missing notes will now appear.

Can you please let me know so that I can update the version in the library.

Thanks.

[Skyeforge]

Okay, I downloaded it, and this may be a stupid question, but how do I install it over a current version, keeping all my information?

Nevermind! Figured it out! I'll try a few tests and see what happens.

EDIT: Awesome!!! So far I haven't had any blank posts! I'll keep testing it out just to make sure!
Also, I realized there has to be a limit to how many creatures you can have, lol. I tried to save it and it said that I could only have 65000 bytes lol. So, I must have too much information in there for it, haha. 

[Todge]

Aug 24, 2019 11:34:46 GMT -8 Skyeforge said:

Okay, I downloaded it, and this may be a stupid question, but how do I install it over a current version, keeping all my information?

Nevermind! Figured it out! I'll try a few tests and see what happens.

EDIT: Awesome!!! So far I haven't had any blank posts! I'll keep testing it out just to make sure!
Also, I realized there has to be a limit to how many creatures you can have, lol. I tried to save it and it said that I could only have 65000 bytes lol. So, I must have too much information in there for it, haha. 

Thank you for getting back, and glad it appears to be working now.

And yup, there is a hard limit of 65,000 bytes for any plug-in, and to make things worse, this is a very data-heavy plug-in, and is probably the largest plug-in I have made to date.. It's a catch 22 situation, the more options a plug-in allows, the larger that plug-in tends to be, and this one is 57,000 bytes even before you add any creatures.

I do have an idea on how to improve that, but that is for a later update.