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[cheatmods]ZC 2.53.1 Beta 40 - Keyboard Controls Error


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#16 Emily

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Posted 26 April 2020 - 12:03 PM

....It tells you EXACTLY what's wrong; you have a duplicate key. That's EXACTLY what is wrong, and that's EXACTLY what it tells you.

'Go into the other tab and erase all the controls' is ENTIRELY wrong; that can then lead to buggy behavior with cheats on, which is why the mods are there in the first place.



#17 Russ

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Posted 26 April 2020 - 12:27 PM

Rob, you're doing it again. The community is collectively telling you they have a problem with the program, and rather than acknowledging that, you're doubling down and defending your position rather than being open to suggestions.

 

This is a particular kind of issue that I hate. It's the kind where, if it were this way from the beginning, not a single person would have complained, because this is good design. The only reason it's even an issue is because it didn't used to be this way.

I disagree on this point in that, again, it's not like some gross and horrible bug was fixed and now people demand it be brought back. The old default behaviour caused problems and confusion for some people. You changed that default behaviour. Now it's causing problems and confusion for a much larger amount of people. Given that the underlying bug is no more (you can set cheat modifier keys if your controls overlap the cheat keys), I see no reason not to default to the behaviour that causes confusion for fewer people.

 

Furthermore though, the fact remains that people are used to the way things are. While I don't think this is such a case, I do agree that there are cases where people will complain about changes when they wouldn't have complained if the behaviour were always that way. That doesn't mean the change is a good thing, though. When people have been using a program for years, they expect it to continue working the same way. New features will be added, yes, but they don't expect existing features to drastically change or be removed. When that happens, they have every right to complain. It's similar to how Microsoft tries to reinvent the wheel with every product update and that tells angry customers "But this way makes more sense." It doesn't matter. You've inconvenienced and pissed off the people who you're trying to help. You're ultimately striving to make the program they want most, not some Platonic ideal form from a metaphysical realm. Part of that process is listening to what the community is asking of you and complying with their wishes.



#18 Emily

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Posted 26 April 2020 - 12:52 PM

Rob, you're doing it again. The community is collectively telling you they have a problem with the program, and rather than acknowledging that, you're doubling down and defending your position rather than being open to suggestions.

...I would love you to name me a game where controls can't overlap that does any different from what we do now? This is like, an extremely common thing? In a lot of games? All over the place? Why is it a problem in ZC?

 

Also, if cheats had always required a modifier, who would have complained? Like, really? Would you have complained if every cheat was always `Shift+[key]`? I can't imagine anyone would have.

 

Regardless, having ENABLING A BUG be the default behavior is absurd.



#19 Russ

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Posted 26 April 2020 - 01:16 PM

Also, if cheats had always required a modifier, who would have complained? Like, really? Would you have complained if every cheat was always `Shift+[key]`? I can't imagine anyone would have.

You're missing the point entirely here. It doesn't matter what would have happened in this hypothetical world. All that matters is what's happening here in reality. You made a change to the way ZC's worked since its inception. The change has confused people. People are complaining. And you're making no effort to effort to understand why.

Which moves into my next point, which also addresses this:
 

Regardless, having ENABLING A BUG be the default behavior is absurd.


I've pointed out before but it's worth repeating. This is part of a really frustrating and self-defeating pattern. Whenever the community complains about a change to the program, your go-to reaction is to point out why you're right. It doesn't matter what the issue is or why people are complaining in the first place. You seem to tune out all of this and go, "But there was a bug and I fixed it! I'm right and you're wrong!"

But that's irrelevant. It doesn't matter if you're "right" or "wrong". It is completely beside the point. Your job is to continue to develop ZC into the program the userbase wants. When you get into these fights, tell the userbase they're wrong for wanting something, and push ahead with a change anyways, you're failing at that job. You're ticking them off and pushing them away.

And again, I'm not speaking in hypotheticals here. I've had people approach me in private and tell me they don't want to develop in ZC anymore because they're tired of the attitude coming from the dev team. That is a serious, serious problem.

Look at the last few posts again. Take a break first, think about something else, come back with a clear mind, and look again. This is how the conversation played out.

Community: We're confused by this change.
Rob: But it was the right thing to do. Nobody would've cared if it always worked this way.
Russ: You're ignoring the community's complains Rob. It doesn't matter if it makes more sense to you, it's confusing people.
Rob: But I'm right! Find one other case where somethings work this way! It's a bug and it's dumb!

You're making absolutely no effort to engage with the people bringing up issues with you. Your post doesn't even address any of the things I brought up in mine. It's the same old thing again: Ignore, double down, insist upon being right. You're not even bringing up new points. You're just repeating yourself endlessly. I mean... seriously, look. I quoted a question from you about whether people would've complained if it always worked like this. I pointed out that that's irrelevant. And in response... you paraphrased the question.
 

This is a particular kind of issue that I hate. It's the kind where, if it were this way from the beginning, not a single person would have complained, because this is good design. The only reason it's even an issue is because it didn't used to be this way.

Also, if cheats had always required a modifier, who would have complained? Like, really? Would you have complained if every cheat was always `Shift+[key]`? I can't imagine anyone would have.


What do you think you're gaining here by repeating yourself over and over? Do you think people, upon hearing the argument the fifth time, are going to go, "Of course, Rob's right, it was silly of me to ever be confused by this,"? All it's doing is lowering people's opinion of you.

If I know you well enough, you're already thinking up your response. And it likely involves pointing out that THIS IS A BUG AND DOES NOT MAKE SENSE in all caps, similar to the last paragraph of your above post. And that is why I'm making a sincere plea to you to break this habit. Please. If you want to resolve an issue, you have to listen to people's complaints and address them. That doesn't even necessarily mean reverting whatever change you've made. But you need to show that them that you're listening and understanding. Nothing you've said up to this point has accomplished that. Your repeated insistence, both here and in other arguments in the past, only serve to show that you're making no attempt to understand where the community is coming from. And if that keeps up, you may quickly find you no longer have any community left.



#20 Emily

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Posted 26 April 2020 - 01:30 PM

Firstly, my "Show me where anything else works any differently" was specifically in regards to the "Keybindings must be unique" message, which was what the last several posts had been specifically talking about. In what game would it say "You have a duplicate keybind. To fix this, go to tab 3, and delete everything"?

 

Another thing is, I've heard complaints (and made them myself) about how it worked BEFORE. I *CONSTANTLY* had issues with this bug, and upon hearing it was fixed, I was overjoyed. So, people complain if we fix it, people complain if we don't. That's a lose-lose situation, where we have to choose a side, and this argument basically boils down to "We're right! The people who complained before are wrong!". SEVERAL issues recently have been like this; someone complains about a bug, we fix it, immediately someone complains that we fixed a bug. There isn't a good solution to that. We need to pick a side, and whichever side we pick, people will complain; therefore, we will always pick the side of fixing a bug.

 

I'd be glad to further change it to help people out, but, ASIDE from ENABLING A BUG by default, what would you suggest? Saffith's suggestion is interesting to me, though as he pointed out, it would be difficult to fully implement. Do you have any other ideas for how to fix this? I really would love to hear them.

 

The problem is, I get a lot of people complaining basically saying "You fixed a bug! Why did you do that?" and that is not helpful at all. The response to "You fixed a bug! Why?" will ALWAYS be "Because that's our job." If a complaint gives honestly more than that, it may get a different response.



#21 Mani Kanina

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Posted 26 April 2020 - 05:03 PM

God, what's even the bug in question that is so god damn contentious anyway?

The fact that the modifier key for cheat features is mapped by default, and by doing so fixes some other buggy behavior?

This seems like a rather petty thing to fling contempt over. The original post in the thread is not a bug, it's a user error. It's arguably if it's worth doing something about in the first place, but if we want to do *anything* about it then solutions have already been posed in this very thread (aka, having the error list at least one binding overlap to clue the user in).

That there is a modifier key for cheats now and that it's bound by default? This seems like a good change to me, even outside of any supposed bug fixes. From the sound of things you can still get the old behavior by using the options to remove the key mapping. There really doesn't seem to be anything to complain about here on the feature itself: the desired behavior for old users who don't want to use mod keys still exists. How often do people change ZC version and need to re-configure the options anyway? And even then, the default key bindings are shit not for everyone anyway, so you're most likely going in there to change something else anyway.
 
Frankly there is only thing that I do see as a problem here: That the feature was implemented and people like me try to use the cheat hotkeys and they don't work because you didn't know it's now a feature.

But the solution to this problem is hardly to rollback the changes, that's absurd. The old behaviour still exists, after all, but the requirement of a mod key as default makes way more logical sense than not. (Otherwise it's *very* easy to trip up cheat features on accident when not intending too). If anything this suggests maybe a need for a better pipeline to inform users of changes that might be less obvious? Something to consider. I really do feel this is an information problem, not a feature issue; the feature people want still exists.
 

All things said though, I do think the name of the settings in the options menu are not clear enough: They are labeled Left and Right. Which frankly don't mean anything in this context? A more clear naming scheme should probably be used, such as, maybe: Modifier key set 1 & Modifier key set 2, respectively. If a set of two keys are needed to be held down, etc.
 

Your job is to continue to develop ZC into the program the userbase wants.

Is it? Last time I checked no one in the userbase is paying the devs to do anything. :P
That may sound facetious, but really, the devs are not obligated to take the program in any one specific direction on the whims of any individual or group. And I think this is important context to have here. I for one don't 100% agree with the direction development is taking or what it's trying to do in some regards, but when speaking broadly of an entire userbase you're not gonna find a consensus. Especially when considering the opinions of users in the userbase that *aren't* the loudest and most prominent.
 

And again, I'm not speaking in hypotheticals here. I've had people approach me in private and tell me they don't want to develop in ZC anymore because they're tired of the attitude coming from the dev team. That is a serious, serious problem.

Last time I checked there is nothing stopping anyone from forking ZC as a whole (which no one is doing because no one wants to), nor is there anything stopping people from just ignoring newer releases and make their quests in older builds instead. That's not to say I don't condemn some behaviour, it should be rather evident that me and zoria have some mutual dislike for one and another. If people don't want to dev in ZC due to that then that's completely fair, but I do think the option is there to just ignore the devs, the direction ZC is going, and just make your quest.

However, no matter how you put it though, these all meta ZC dev issues feel like they should be their own topic rather than elevating this bug report thread that was resolved in short order as soon as it was posted.



#22 Emily

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Posted 26 April 2020 - 06:40 PM

God, what's even the bug in question that is so god damn contentious anyway?

The fact that the modifier key for cheat features is mapped by default, and by doing so fixes some other buggy behavior?

This seems like a rather petty thing to fling contempt over. The original post in the thread is not a bug, it's a user error. It's arguably if it's worth doing something about in the first place, but if we want to do *anything* about it then solutions have already been posed in this very thread (aka, having the error list at least one binding overlap to clue the user in).

That there is a modifier key for cheats now and that it's bound by default? This seems like a good change to me, even outside of any supposed bug fixes. From the sound of things you can still get the old behavior by using the options to remove the key mapping. There really doesn't seem to be anything to complain about here on the feature itself: the desired behavior for old users who don't want to use mod keys still exists. How often do people change ZC version and need to re-configure the options anyway? And even then, the default key bindings are shit not for everyone anyway, so you're most likely going in there to change something else anyway.

I change like, all of the controls. And, my control scheme would have me constantly enabling superspeed or view solidity with cheats enabled, so that was a CONSTANT frustration through my first 3 quests.

Having the error list overlapping bindings, as I mentioned before, is a logical thing; though, as Saffith said when he suggested it, may take a decent chunk of work. Even something that seemingly simple, takes a sizable effort in the code. Hell, it'll take more effort than it took me to add double- and triple-jumps to the Roc's Feather in 2.55. (technically, any number of jumps you want). It'll take FAR more effort to add that to the cheat dialog than it took me to add perm secrets on NES Dungeon dmaps in 2.55. ...It probably WILL get done, once college is done for me, but, it is notably an amount of effort. (Given, once I do it, I'll probably go insane as I usually do and write a whole SUPER fancy thing for it listing all of the conflicts, because.... I get carried away easily, when I have time to do stuff)

Frankly there is only thing that I do see as a problem here: That the feature was implemented and people like me try to use the cheat hotkeys and they don't work because you didn't know it's now a feature.

But the solution to this problem is hardly to rollback the changes, that's absurd. The old behaviour still exists, after all, but the requirement of a mod key as default makes way more logical sense than not. (Otherwise it's *very* easy to trip up cheat features on accident when not intending too). If anything this suggests maybe a need for a better pipeline to inform users of changes that might be less obvious? Something to consider. I really do feel this is an information problem, not a feature issue; the feature people want still exists.

I mean, if you want to get technical here, there IS a changelog, that lists ALL of the changes. With a build-specific list of changes posted with each build download. There are probably a LOT of things you won't know without reading that, but, that is EVERYTHING there is to know, perfectly available to read. Probably a lot of them are 'less obvious'.

All things said though, I do think the name of the settings in the options menu are not clear enough: They are labeled Left and Right. Which frankly don't mean anything in this context? A more clear naming scheme should probably be used, such as, maybe: Modifier key set 1 & Modifier key set 2, respectively. If a set of two keys are needed to be held down, etc.

Yes, better naming on that WOULD be good. I personally have no clue what 'Left' and 'Right' are supposed to mean here. The basic idea is, "one key from each pair"; ala 'Left OR Right CTRL, Left OR Right SHIFT'. ...but that 'left/right' doesn't line up with the actual 'Left' and 'Right' pairs, so that's... confusing. Definitely needs to be fixed.

Last time I checked there is nothing stopping anyone from forking ZC as a whole (which no one is doing because no one wants to), nor is there anything stopping people from just ignoring newer releases and make their quests in older builds instead.

Indeed; if you want to make your own ZC, it is open source. Good luck wading through the shitfest that is the source, though; there's a reason we only have 2 active devs. No one else is willing to put up with how bad the source is. (We are trying to make it better, but, there's only so much that can be done without breaking old quests. If I could, I'd rewrite how water works entirely from scratch; but, I can't, without breaking every old quest in existence.)



#23 Deedee

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Posted 26 April 2020 - 06:43 PM

I think "Cheat Modifier" is a confusing name, and the way the menu is presented is confusing. Do you hold down both keys in the same column? Do you hold down both keys in the same row? It's actually a bit confusing, and I feel like it could be fixed with a different layout and different presentation. I can't think of any good replacement names for "Cheat Modifier", but seriously, it needs to change, and it's one thing where I feel like possibly being more verbose might be needed? Cause right now, it's unintuitive and people need to ask "hey, how does this work?", which is not good GUI design, or even good program design.


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#24 Emily

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Posted 26 April 2020 - 08:09 PM

I think "Cheat Modifier" is a confusing name,

...it's a modifier key that activates cheats? What else should it be called?



#25 Lüt

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Posted 26 April 2020 - 09:26 PM

God, what's even the bug in question that is so god damn contentious anyway?

I think it's the one where directional inputs would get stuck, so the player would get locked into moving in a certain direction, until they mashed the directional keys enough to break free and regain control of their movement.

...it's a modifier key that activates cheats? What else should it be called?

Strictly linguistically speaking, the phrase "Cheat Modifier" is structured such that 'modifier' is being applied to 'cheat,' making it sound like the cheat itself is the thing being modified. "Cheat Key Modifier" is the probably the most accurate literal phrase to use.


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#26 Emily

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Posted 26 April 2020 - 09:59 PM

I think it's the one where directional inputs would get stuck, so the player would get locked into moving in a certain direction, until they mashed the directional keys enough to break free and regain control of their movement.

Err, no, but technically related?
The original issue, present in 2.50.2, is that if I say, have 'Q' set as my 'L Button', then with cheats on, if I want to quickswap items left (L Button), I will also toggle superspeed (Q key).
The input getting stuck was caused by an attempted fix (I want to say it was Saffith's, but don't quote me on that) which did some weird things with allegro's 'key[]' to try to... IIRC prevent the cheat key from working at all if the button was assigned to an actual button?

Strictly linguistically speaking, the phrase "Cheat Modifier" is structured such that 'modifier' is being applied to 'cheat,' making it sound like the cheat itself is the thing being modified. "Cheat Key Modifier" is the probably the most accurate literal phrase to use.

It's 'Cheat Modifier Key', in that it is a 'Modifier Key' that affects cheats. 'Modifier Key' is the term for keys Ctrl, Shift, Alt, etc. It's an actual term for the type of key. And, it specifically tells you how it's used; a modifier key, by definition, is held while you press another key, to change what the other key does.
Ex: 'Ctrl+S' saves a word document; 'Ctrl' is modifying what 'S' does. These are actual computing terms, that are really used, and the naming is consistent.
https://en.wikipedia...ki/Modifier_key

 



#27 Timelord

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Posted 27 April 2020 - 05:16 AM

ZC Version: 2.53.1 Beta 40 Build 33

 

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I think I had this problem with Beta 36 as well (sorry for not mentioning before). So, when I try to reassign the game buttons to different keys on my keyboard, this error shows up; even if I press "OK" and leave everything as it is. I found that the culprit is assigning the "B Button" to the "left control" key. Assigning it to any other key is fine. 

 

It might not be a critical bug, but it is annoying considering I used the B button on the left control key. In case of need of further details, I'm running ZC on Windows 10. 

 

I have reduced the base / default config to use either left, or right shift as a modifier for cheats. The Control and Alt keys are no-longer in conflict.

 

Thank you for reporting the issue.

 

I was unaware as my key configs do not normally use alt or control for an action button, so I hadn't experienced the symptoms. 

 

Future versions of 2.55 and 2.53.1 should be good for you: If you need help configuring any controls, please let me know.

 

I should probably add a help button to that dialogue that explains what each key binding does, in the future.


God, what's even the bug in question that is so god damn contentious anyway?

The fact that the modifier key for cheat features is mapped by default, and by doing so fixes some other buggy behavior?

This seems like a rather petty thing to fling contempt over. The original post in the thread is not a bug, it's a user error. It's arguably if it's worth doing something about in the first place, but if we want to do *anything* about it then solutions have already been posed in this very thread (aka, having the error list at least one binding overlap to clue the user in).

That there is a modifier key for cheats now and that it's bound by default? This seems like a good change to me, even outside of any supposed bug fixes.

 

This is my fault. I had forgotten that the key used for the first set of modifiers was mapped as 'B' by default--I use 'X' for that.

 

I don't understand the reason for heated debate here, nor for prolonged discussion, nor arguments. (I won't even begin to dissect those parts of this thread.)

 

The new solution unbinds it from a modifier (if there is no custom, user config present for it). There are no requirements for cheat modifiers: They can be disabled, or set to any otherwise unbound key that we reconise; and you have two options for them that can be unique in and of themselves; e.g. left shift or right alt and 'k'. They are arbitrary, and any pairing from zero to two keys can be created for one of the two sets.

 

I pushed this change for the next public builds of both versions, so, if you rely on the default config files, there will no longer be a conflict. We sadly only check for conflicting control bindings inside the control panel for them, rather than at system launch. I suppose I could add a warning dialogue if user .cfg settings create overlaps, but I may forget to do this, due to being an old bugger.

 

Anywsy, the present default is either left shift, or right sift, rather than left control+left shift, or right control+right shift.

 

The purpose of this change is to prevent conflicts between keys, so that you do not accidentally use cheats because of key bindings to keys such as 'A', which is used to replenish Arrows if cheats are activated; not to compound them.

 

Clearly, no default mapping should overlap, and this was an incidental oversight. The only ting that surprises me is that no-one ad mentioned it before now, as it is clearly an error.

 

Sorry for that.

 

P.S. Please try to confine new issue tickets to the actual issues, and not to debate the purpose of changes.

 


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