TaleSpire Dev Log 449

Hello everyone,

Since my last update, I've finalized a good number of things on the (creature) tags front and made a working proof of concept of the new search logic. It's looking promising, which is very relieving after so much time has gone into it. The tags are much more consistent, and tag synonyms work well (although we do still have to address the UI problems I mentioned in a previous post). Baggers has now taken this prototype to create a proper jobified implementation out of it, which... comes with its own trials and tribulations (for more info on that ongoing odyssey, read his previous post on that topic).

I've also reviewed our feature requests page and looked for some of the more anticipated tickets. Based on the insights from your votes, I've added the ability to add AoE markers to the initiative queue, which turned out to be both relatively quick to finish and, judging from your feedback, seemingly quite useful^[0]. Thanks again for all of you submitting and upvoting requests; they are extremely valuable to us!

As always, I'm also spending some time here and there not just combing through feedback you give us directly in places like Discord or our feedback page, but also dropping by some Streams and watching YouTube videos to note down more general feedback and sticking points in UX and usability. One thing I've seen often is that while the hide plane (the green slider used to hide upper floors/roofs) works, its automatic placement logic leaves something to be desired.

It works well in plenty of cases, but it just doesn't hold up when designing more "exciting"^[1] maps, as well as in more natural environments with trees overhead. This shortcoming is due to the automatic placement logic being really simple: When placing a mini, the game looks straight upwards from it to see if there are any obstructions - when it finds one, it sets the hide plane to be a bit below that obstruction. With that, structures with flat ceilings work well, but if there's even just a teeeeny tiny hole in the roof and you place your mini below that... well, expect a face full of roof. This system was generally fine and has served us well for a long time, but I think we can do better.

To combat this, I've been experimenting with a new, slightly more advanced placement logic for the hide plane that takes into account some of the surroundings of the mini. While it doesn't fundamentally fix the automatic placement being a bit janky, it should perform better in more edge cases while not regressing in situations the current system is already good at. I'll not go into all the details on how it works right now since it's not completed and we're not done with internal testing quite yet, but hopefully, in my next post, I have some good news and a more in-depth explanation^[2].

Finally, I've put together a ToDo list for what to work on next time we return to Symbiotes for a round of improvements and expansions. If there's anything in particular you feel Symbiotes could improve upon, now is an even better time than usual to tell us!

Disclaimer: This DevLog is from the perspective of one developer. So it doesn’t reflect everything going on with the team

[0]: I know when I GM, I tend to forget about environmental effects or longer-lasting spells oh so easily; being able to track them in the turn queue so TaleSpire's UI can go "Don't forget about me, you dunce" is very helpful.

[1]: "Exciting maps" is, of course, very subjective - what I mean here is maps that aren't just "equal-sized flat stacked floors" but, for example, houses with different ceiling heights on one floor, balconies, slopes, or other kinds of irregularities in elevation.

[2]: While I definitely prefer good news, in this case, bad news is just good news in disguise because it means we found issues that would otherwise affect you all, and that allows us to make a better system based on more information.