Recommend me a better approach to draw walls

Discuss the fourth game in the series.

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upstream99
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Recommend me a better approach to draw walls

Postby upstream99 » Mon Sep 01, 2014 9:47 am

Newbie here. A game automatically draw floor tiles, but not walls. I think that walls are extremely important because labyrinths created in such a way that you THINK that this path is direct and DRAW it accordingally only to realize later (a few hrs ago) that there was a hole/subpath on the left/right side of the main path and you simply did not notice it.

My current approach to drawing walls is:
1) Turn left, try to move further. If fail - there is a wall. Draw it on a map.
2) Turn right, try to move further. If fail - there is a wall. Draw it on a map.
3) Only on this step I move 1 step ahead. And a process repeats with steps 1-2

This approach is a frustrating one for me. Instead of moving through labyrinth (enjoying a game) and marking on a map only interesting for me tiles/squares I have to recreate a whole map step by step using a process above.

What would you suggest me except forget about this game (I really want to play it, but this drawing thing driving me nuts).

********
ADDED LATER: (After playing 5 more hrs)
>I think that walls are extremely important because...
No, they are not so important. I just completed a whole labyrinth floor using only floor tiles and just 2-3 drawn walls. :)
Last edited by upstream99 on Tue Sep 02, 2014 3:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Recommend me a better approach to draw walls

Postby Fluffernuff » Mon Sep 01, 2014 10:08 am

Yeah mapping is something youre going to have to get used to. and as a newcomer, its pretty foreign if you havent played some of those classic dungeon crawlers of old back in the 90s.

theres a few different mapping styles... though ive never really looked any up... so ill try to explain how i go about it..

i genrally use auto-map only to save me the trouble of filling in the floor. i have a general use of the colors;

Green; the default color they use for auto-map. its the floor.

blue; Water. it blocks your path like a wall does, so i suppose you can ignore that and draw it as a wall instead, but i prefer my map looking more filled in.

red: i use this for floor hazards. tiles you walk on that cause damage

as for drawing in walls, my method is to pay attention to the top screen and draw in as im moving along. most LARGE rooms are symetrical, OR theyre long 1-tile passages, so youre genrally fine in advancing a while, stopping, and filling in the walls.

EO4 did something great with secret passageways as well, theyre obvious, but subtle. what i mean by that is in the first foresty areas, the WALL(meaning the top screen here) will have a nice bright purpley blue flower on it. those are the shortcut passages. and there are arrows there to mark those. Note that this will change in the later dungeons to match the new areas (you wont find a flower one a cave wall, for example)

in essence;
walk down a long hallway until i reach any sort of intersection or corner. fill in both walls up to my position.
if there are multiple pathways, mark each wall extended outward to show i havent been there for later. if anywhere was blocked by water, mark it down.
explore chosen pathway, repeat step 1 as needed.
if entering a room, repeat 1 if possible (i.e a symmetrical room), only expanded as needed. (instead of a 1-tile wide passage, make it 3 wide, for example)

another thing to note is youll never experience kiddy-corners. and 2 walls will never connect. meaning a wall will ALWAYS be AT LEAST 1 tile wide on the bottom screen. and the few EDGE of the mapping area (the very corners and edge of the map/grid) will NEVER be mapped. this is because you cant mark any walls there. if youre close the edge/corner of the map, its safe to put a wall there.

Explaining mapping is rather difficult without showing it, though generally you DONT need to drive yourself mad by ONLY looking at the bottom screen. try mapping as you go, focusing on the top screen. it should ease a BIT of tension.

it also never hurts to try watching playthroughs online to get a sense of how other people map as they play as well

upstream99
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Re: Recommend me a better approach to draw walls

Postby upstream99 » Mon Sep 01, 2014 11:11 am

>try watching playthroughs online to get a sense of how other people map as they play as well
This is a great advice. Will do, thanks!

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Re: Recommend me a better approach to draw walls

Postby Kimiko » Mon Sep 01, 2014 11:23 am

Like Fluffer said, let auto-map fill in the regular floor tiles and only use paint for water or hazards. Drawing walls you have to do yourself, but usually it's enough to draw one or two straight lines every few steps. No need to update every single step unless you're in a really complicated area. Just give it a couple of floors, you'll get the hang of it soon.
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Re: Recommend me a better approach to draw walls

Postby Fluffernuff » Mon Sep 01, 2014 7:57 pm

its kind of weird/hard to explain how to map, haha.

but auto-map is your friend. it will fill in the floor so you can pay attention to where youre going (via the top screen)
and as garrett and i suggested, stopping to fill in what you missed at branching paths.

youll get used to it with time.

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Re: Recommend me a better approach to draw walls

Postby upstream99 » Mon Sep 01, 2014 8:02 pm

I just watched a video on youtube and noticed that a person moves a character with left hand and at the same time or a little later he draws paths on a map with his right hand. But I am left-handed and it seems it's the source of a problem. It's quite difficult to draw paths with non-dominated, right hand :)

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Re: Recommend me a better approach to draw walls

Postby Kimiko » Mon Sep 01, 2014 8:51 pm

1 Draw walls up to about three squares ahead of where you are
2 Move ahead about six squares
3 You can now draw the three squares you just passed plus the three ahead of you
4 repeat from 2

Of course the numbers aren't exact and there are also branching/crossing paths, but this way you have to stop to draw walls only every six or so steps.

Don't draw too far away even if you think you know what's there. If you have to leave the game for a while or have to go back to town, you'll lose track of where you have or haven't travelled yet.

Ah, you'll figure out what works best for you quickly enough.

I'm not sure left/right-handed makes a lot of difference. Right-handed you still need that hand for the action buttons.
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Re: Recommend me a better approach to draw walls

Postby zamisk » Tue Sep 02, 2014 2:07 am

Yeah I just don't draw the walls until I have a fair chunk of the tiles filled in from walking on them. I eventually fill in the walls, maybe every 1/4 of the map at a time? And I only mark water and other tiles if they are dangerous. For example, unless there are FOEs that walk on water, I don't mark it.

Keep in mind my lazy cartography has gotten me in trouble plenty of times. Misdrawn walls get me cornered by FOEs, I forget where stuff is that I didn't mark down, ect.

"Everyone else is idiots, Zamisk. And you am idiots. And I are idiots."
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Re: Recommend me a better approach to draw walls

Postby Wendigo » Fri Sep 05, 2014 8:59 pm

I...almost never draw the walls. Whoops. I should prob be less lazy and do it uhhhhhhhhh

Usually what each tile means differs on which maze I'm on, but I usually use red for hazards and yellow for "hey there's a forking path here and this is the path you didn't go down so come back and check it out"

I'd love to see a story about a group of adventurers who buy my guild's maps because ~OH THAT'S THE GUILD WHO MAPPED/BEAT THE LABYRINTH~~ only to die horribly

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Re: Recommend me a better approach to draw walls

Postby MeltingPenguins » Fri Sep 05, 2014 9:36 pm

I'm one of the people who almost obsessively maps the stuff. hell, I'll often even walk extra rounds to have all of the floor walked on.

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Re: Recommend me a better approach to draw walls

Postby Endra » Fri Sep 05, 2014 10:05 pm



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Re: Recommend me a better approach to draw walls

Postby Kimiko » Fri Sep 05, 2014 10:26 pm

Kimiko

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Re: Recommend me a better approach to draw walls

Postby MeltingPenguins » Fri Sep 05, 2014 10:35 pm

Seriously, it's to the point at which the inner monologue is this:
Me: I haven't walk down that corridor yet.
My brain: It's a dead end. you can see it from here. There's no passages or anything, it's a dead end.
Me: I HAVEN'T WALK DOWN THAT CORRIDOR YET!

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Re: Recommend me a better approach to draw walls

Postby Endra » Fri Sep 05, 2014 10:49 pm

Me: I haven't walked down that corridor yet.
My brain: What are you waiting for?
Me: Right.

The joys of being a completist-perfectionist.


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Re: Recommend me a better approach to draw walls

Postby zamisk » Sat Sep 06, 2014 7:09 am

Me:

Brain:

"Everyone else is idiots, Zamisk. And you am idiots. And I are idiots."
-PLA


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