Tales of Buggo: Chains of Destiny (Patreon)

i suppose as we're going through testing i can relate some of the warstories to you all. today i'll talk about one of the bugs i fixed a couple days ago from a forum report. 

the issue: when running downwards into the center altar of subseven sanctum the chains on the altar are initially misplace and slide into position.

the cause: so uh, just take a look at this.

each of those squares is an event. the problem with events is that you can't stack two of them on top of each other. anyway, that's a lot of events for such a small area. 

let's talk about those candles. those are events because at one point in the ceremony they light up so i need the graphic to be on a switch. the extra row of events on the side of the candles is actually the light effect (a la street lamps) that displays on top of them. unfortunately i can't put that effect on the same event because it uses a blending mode. so i need two events to be stacked on top of each other there basically.

in retrospect a better way to handle the candles would have been to use one very tall event graphic to cover the entire row. but. i didnt. so shucks. 

so we need those events on top of each other. well, you see that event floating event on the far left? that's a controller event. it's job is to move other events like the candle light on top of the actual candle. then it commits seppuku. never forget controller event. so it moves the lights there because we can't start two events in the same place but we can move them there.

the way movement works, it only happens when the player is within a certain distance of the area, since only that part of the map is loaded. since the light events are usually invisible, you'd never notice them moving. they're already in place by the time they turn on. flawless. strictly speaking I should have used Set Event Location instead of moving them manually, however I was under the impression at the time that that command did not work. It may have been fixed in an upgrade of essentials or something and I didn't know about it, so I avoided it for a long time.

Anyway that's the candles, but those aren't the problem here. The problem is the center altar. the center altar has a similar issue. on the sides the candles at lights need to turn on, but the center altar has: the glow pentacle effect, the chains, luna, and the chandelure event, that all need to exist there basically on top of each other.

so our controller does that too. the chandelure event and pentacle are in place properly, and the controller event scoots luna and the chains into place. the problem with this bug is that for the speed the player moves at, and the area of the map that is loaded, it is possible for a player who is running quickly to see the chains still being moved into place.

it's worth noting this only happens when you're running downward into the center and not upward because the chains start below the altar and are moved up towards it. if you're below the altar, that means that they're moving further offscreen, so you never see it, which is why it was done that way for the story event there. but if you're coming from the top, the chains are moving towards you, and moving closer onto screen, meaning it's possible to see them from that way.

the solution: well, going back to what i said before, i really should just use set event location now. and if we somehow continue having issues with these, i can. however it's best not to change too many things because the more that gets changed, the more there's room for error and can potentially create other bugs. soooo 

i dont know why i didnt do this in the first place, but i just set the chains to move at max speed. speed 6 is max, and it's pretty dangu fast. so i will be surprised if it is possible for the player to move fast enough to catch the chains moving even if they only move after being close enough to the altar that the map will load. this should be good enough that no one would ever know the difference. so that can be our secret. shhhh. 

and if you somehow can still see them moving... don't. 

...jk report it, but for real it should be ok.