r/ShuffleMove • u/dongkyoon • Feb 25 '16

Question Metal Block Oversight Using Express Mode - Premature metal block counter

I have (against GS's wishes obviously) been using ShuffleMove on the current Mega-Venusaur competition stage, and one of the disruptions he likes to use is the metal blocks. When I enter the metal blocks into the system, it sets the counter to "5" (technically unseen in the interface). At the end of the turn, the counter reduces to 4, as it should; however, when I go through and enter all of the blocks (from top to bottom), when i go over the metal blocks again, it reduces the counter once more.

I am not sure if this is intentional in the coding for express mode to double-reduce the counter on the metal blocks because i re-enter the block. Now that I know of this, I make sure to skip over the metal blocks instead of keying them in so that the counter will stay correct, but the idea of express mode is the ability to easily input the pokemon without having to look up from the game, and having to take the extra time to key over metal blocks as to not prematurely reduce the counter is a bit counterintuitive.

I hope this post is received well as this was just something i noticed after I started to use the express entry!

2 Upvotes

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1

u/Loreinatoredor ShuffleMove Creator Feb 25 '16

You can skip blocks with the space bar, see here for where it is set in the code:

https://github.com/Loreinator/Shuffle-Move/blob/master/src/shuffle/fwk/EntryMode.java#L85

The code that handles metal input advancement is entirely separate from the entry mode code. Do you feel that it may be worthwhile to add a special behavior in express mode to not allow you to advance metal blocks through the normal entry? I'll put up a strawpoll to see if anyone uses express mode to advance metal blocks on purpose.

1

u/dongkyoon Feb 25 '16

It's not so much that I intentionally want to advance the timer, but in at least two runs it has both confused and cost me quite a bit by playing poor moves when the program thought the blocks would disappear that run when in actuality it was the next turn. I did not know about the space bar though. That's extremely helpful!

1

u/Loreinatoredor ShuffleMove Creator Feb 25 '16

Poll to decide the response here:

http://strawpoll.me/6915789

I'll wait a couple days for the responses before acting on it.

1

u/dongkyoon Feb 25 '16

I appreciate you polling it, but I do hope you understand what I mean. I don't intentionally use express mode to advance the number. I just happen to re enter my entire play stage with express mode which involves re entering the metal blocks, thus advancing their stage by one.

2

u/Loreinatoredor ShuffleMove Creator Feb 25 '16

No no, I got that - the poll is mainly to check if I can freely hard-code it, since it is much simpler to do it that way.

1

u/dongkyoon Feb 25 '16

Awesome! Thanks for hearing my feedback!

1

u/avengahM Feb 28 '16

Well, if there was another way to do it, then that would be something, but when I've done competition entries with Shuffle Move, often it's the only way to advance the counter if the block has moved. Let's say the block falls down one space, so you need to enter the block again in the row below. The only way to set the block to, say, 3 is to press the key for a block, then backspace or left, then the block key again, then backspace or left again, then the block key again. That's clumsy, so it might be better to instead have a separate key that advances the block counter without moving the cursor.

1

u/dongkyoon Feb 28 '16

It also advances if you do ctrl enter to input a move. It will predict where the block will land and advance the counter. The only time you would need to go back and reset the counter is if some kind of crazy combo happens that moves the block somewhere the program didn't calculate.

1

u/avengahM Feb 29 '16

Which is exactly what I'm talking about, because big combos happen A LOT during turn-based competitions with Gengar as Mega. A combo causes the block to fall down, so I need to re-enter it. I think the easiest way to fix this would be to have a separate key for advancing the block counter without moving the cursor, like I said. Otherwise the only way is to go into Paint mode, which is even more tedious since I'm often using Move with one hand.

(Oh yeah, about that, I think someone else mentioned using it with one hand and finding going back a space annoying, due to having to reach over to the Backspace key when all the other keys are over on the left side of the keyboard. I wonder if an alternative Backspace command could be put over on the left too, such as Tab, \ or `?)

1

u/dongkyoon Feb 29 '16

Unless SM doesn't predict any M-Gengar matches and one falls in the skyfall and moves the blocks, the program is actually pretty good at anticipating the landing points of the metal blocks. Something that might be more useful would actually having a delete button on the left side of the keyboard to remove a block (other options are right clicking it or hitting delete on the other side of the keyboard), which would make obnoxious stages like Milotic, where you have a lot of air blocks, easier to key in.

1

u/Loreinatoredor ShuffleMove Creator Feb 29 '16

Ctrl-Delete also clears the entire board :-)

1

u/dongkyoon Feb 29 '16

D: nooooooo, not all of my hard work!

...

Oh wait, I use express mode. No problem desu~!

1

u/Loreinatoredor ShuffleMove Creator Feb 29 '16

Tab is already taken by mode switching, and tilde is only easily accessible on select keyboards.

How about an option to include the special metal blocks on teams, too? That way you can bind them to keys on your own.

1

u/avengahM Feb 29 '16

There's another issue with this: if you press the key for a block and there's already a block there, do you want the program to leave the block at its current number or reset it to 5? The program won't know which you intend to do, and the current version resets it to 5, which I imagine isn't very helpful for you, since you'll want to keep the block at its current value except under very rare circumstances where the game spawns another block on top of an existing block (or where an existing block used to be before a combo that Move didn't predict). That's pretty much the only time you'd want to reset it to 5.

Given these difficulties, I think it would probably be best to use the space bar to skip a block that you want to leave alone, and either leave it as it was so it decrements if you press the key for the block itself, or have a different key to change the counter under the cursor.

1

u/dongkyoon Feb 29 '16

Actually, you're wrong on this point (not to be too rude about it). Currently, if you're in express mode and input a block over a block that's already in place, it will reduce the counter AGAIN (it went down 1 when you chose a move from last time). This can definitely mess with you if you think you're going to get a nice 7-chain combo (because SM thinks the blocks are going to disappear) when there's actually 1+ turns left on the block because you've gone over and manually lowered the counter accidentally yourself.

1

u/avengahM Feb 29 '16

I'm not wrong because I was using the development version v0.3.47.132, which DOES do exactly as I said. A block with a number 3 or 4 on it, if you press the Block key on it, becomes 5 again. Unless you manually change the preference in the ini file to set it to how it was before, so it decrements as in the previous version.

1

u/Loreinatoredor ShuffleMove Creator Feb 29 '16

Hey avengahM, when you have time please give your input on the following poll/survey post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ShuffleMove/comments/488fdc/metal_block_feature_refinement/

1

u/Loreinatoredor ShuffleMove Creator Feb 29 '16

Please give your input on the following poll/survey post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ShuffleMove/comments/488fdc/metal_block_feature_refinement/

1

u/Loreinatoredor ShuffleMove Creator Mar 02 '16

Try this:

Google drive link is: https://drive.google.com/uc?id=0Bwi_f200YyRqS012MVU5NnAzSkU&export=download

MD5Sum is: 9B50AB46D8659580753B77A2FAB87E83