Why Clicking Trees Is So Difficult - And a Mod to Fix the Problem
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- Опубліковано 30 вер 2024
- Clicking on Trees can be difficult. Let's figure out why and make a mod to help fix the problem.
Mod link: www.ageofempir...
Or search for "Clickable Felled Trees" in game.
Patreon: / twest
Discord: / discord
Twitch: / twestaoe
Twitter: / traviswestura
Age of Empires II © Microsoft Corporation. This video was created under Microsoft's "Game Content Usage Rules" using assets from Age of Empires II, and it is not endorsed by or affiliated with Microsoft. www.xbox.com/en...
Another mod for people who like textures on their cubes: www.ageofempires.com/mods/details/20805/
you need to be logged in to see the mods, look for "Improved Small Trees" in the game, does just that
Pacifist, AOE scientist, streamer, mod maker... what is next?
He's not T-west he is T-sins
UA-camr
AOE developer is next 11
PRO PLAYER!
Speed runner?
Rubenstock exposed.
Jupe exposed
Yes cube mod is the solution you are looking for you are welcome.
Edit: I actually was joking and didn't expect you to take it as an example. I love the cube mod it looks so clean
I imagine that the chopped down graphic is on top of the other tree because it is the newer one. I wonder if they could add a layer below for the tree graphics so that whole tree have highlight priority. The base of the tree, chopped down or otherwise, should remain unaffected by this.
I think It could be a building kind of situation. Old tree is swapped with a fallen one but instead of being swapped it is built(in a broad term). So it has a higher priority than it should have(perhaps intentional because nobody wants to fall another tree that happened to be close to a fallen tree).
So what he said in the video is true but it was intentional or so I thought.
I’m surprised they don’t just all have basic rectangle/cube shaped hit boxes. Surely using the sprite for collision/clicks isn’t ideal?
@@toastybatch565 kinda but then there is elephants and other buildings.
Using a large rectangle is problematic too
THIS. The whole tree in the example is clearly in front of the felled tree. There is absolutely no reason for the felled tree hitbox to take priority
I use the CubeTrees mod, so I get cube trees but all other resources look like normal. For me this is the best compromise of playability and graphics. Not only does it make clicking easier, but it's also much better for seeing where to wall.
How difficult is it to do modding for Age 2? There are a bunch of suggestions I've made for new civilizations on the steam forums, complete with tech trees, bonuses and unique units and techs, and I'd actually like to put a few into practice if I can. How would I go about doing such a thing? I'd love to start with the Tibetans if I can.
Right click Aoe2 DE in your Steam library, go to Manage > Browser local files. Then inside of the Tools_Builds folder, open the Advanced Genie Editor (AGE). This program is the one for modifying Aoe2 data files. Check out AoKHeaven for modding guides: aok.heavengames.com/
Once u finish lemme know I wanna try them ;)
It's actually quite easy to make a mod for aoe2. T-west's mod is literally just replacing a few graphics and is quite simple, the hardest part being making/changing the graphics themselves. First step is to look in your steam directory, you can find tools in Tools_Builds folder as mentioned by T-West and the important files you will need to copy are in resources. Next find your local mod directory, this is where you'll place and edit your files.
Now for what you want to do it will be quite difficult. To make a new civ, you basically have to replace an old one. So first decide what civ you want to replace.
The second question would be how many new graphics do you want to add. Once you have graphics, it's not too difficult to add them, but making graphics can be extremely difficult, especially in DE since the graphics are better. If you are just using already established graphics, then this part is quite easy: just search up what number the graphic is and change the graphics to the correct number.
The stats are the easiest part. Make sure you understand how armor/attack works because it can be quite overwhelming the first time you open up AGE (Advanced Genie Editor). In AGE, some things might not be written out correctly (for example, it still says camels/ships armor, but since DE, camels are no longer ships) so look up the armor classes on the age of empires fandom wiki.
The last part is the strings. imo, this is the most annoying part. For me, the text file they have for mods doesn't seem to work, so what you'll likely have to do is copy the entire string text file into your local mod directory and then edit that file directly. I recommend putting all your stuff at the end because you might have to copy-paste this every time the game updates. The format is straightforward, just a number followed by a "" string. In age, when you hover over the language file name number, you'll notice some numbers. The number ranges themselves aren't important, but the +numbers are and the difference between the numbers for each unit are important. This is a little hard to explain but is self-explanitory once you see it. As an example, "Archer" is 5083 and "Create Archer" is 6083, whatever number you want to use isn't important as long as the number isn't being used for something else, but the difference of 1000 between these two numbers is important. So if you have a unit named "Overpowered Unit" at 40301, it will look for "Create Overpowered Unit" at 41301 _regardless_ of whatever number you actually put in the text box for that unit. So in order to add a unit name, you have to make sure #### is available, ####+1000 is available, as well as a whole bunch of others if you plan on using them (so ####+10000 and ####+11000 usually as well).
An important thing to note, the techs tab is used for much more than just the techs available in-game. Understand how that works. If you just edit an existing character you won't have to worry much about this, but it's very likely you'll want to make your own units or change what civs they're available to. In that case you need to make sure to add a tech to enable/disable the unit *and* add an effect for that tech that does whatever action you wish. There's a lot of cool stuff you can do with these techs that you don't really see in vanilla aoe, so it is fun to play around with.
I recommend starting with just one unit to get an idea on how it works before taking on a large task like a new civ. Another thing before you start making plans, there are a few hardcoded things you can't change. For example, the minimum damage done will always be 1 no matter what you put in as armor and at this point there is no way to change this. Have fun modding!
@@annaairahala9462 Wow! Thanks for the detailed response. Luckily most of the civ suggestions I've made so far don't require entirely new graphic designs. I was planning on using some of the more miscellaneous hero units as the UUs for some of them (it is just a mod after all). Otherwise I guess I'd have to find designs online or find someone to collaborate with since I have zero talent for any kind of graphical design and I don't have much time anyway. I'll see how far I get!
That makes me think: if cubes mod makes some things easier than relying on ingame graphics, why not program click-"hitting" considering resource units are cubes instead of complex graphics? Of course that might lead to some visual weirdness, but still it could help a lot to think of cubes so you only focus on resource's base instead of graphics.
I just want to replace my fish with the cute red cubes!
There is a mod for that.
I had so many misclicks on the tree...never realized this was the culprit...or maybe I am just bad at aiming. LOL
AOE2 the tactical shooter
I'm no expert, but it does sound like you could easily solve it. You could prevent the player from being able to interact with the leafs (so not being part of the hitbox you can click on).
Or since the leafs are usually behind behind non-chopped trees, make the unchopped trees have higher interact-priority, so clicking on those areas will reseult in highlighting the tree and not the leafs.
Now modding? Damn this channel does everything!
These kind of issues are unacceptable in a modern game, tbh.
They're charging good money for a >20 year old franchise with the pretense of continuous development, yet the game continues to be plagued with these small issues and glitches.
Microsoft should do better. It's shouldn't be up to modders to fix bugs if you're charging money for it.
While I agree with your sentiment I feel the urge to mention that Microsoft does so much better than any big company competition. Hit their forum and tell them nicely. They might listen.
Bill doesn't care about us, Bill only cares about money and world domination :(
He protecc
he atacc
but most importantly
he has our bacc!
You do a lot of LSD, huh
The loss you get from not being able to click on the exact tree you want is probably trivial and won't determine the result of any game but, still, It'll bother the AOE community.
This game really messes up your mind...
Picky unit system.(transportation vessels)
Converting does quickly with incomprehensible chant.
Spanish villagers
Forever burning houses.
Self propelled (that has faith?) Siege weapons
A monk able to move a relic( really aoe units are body builders)
Kings able to run at the speed of sound
Insta building (99% isn't enough to be considered finished and villagers cramming it to a single second)
Only male villagers and somehow town center produceces more villiagers.
Wolfs have meat, elephants have meat if you killed them with villiagers shouldn't they drop it.
Sacredness of construction???
Michael Jackson horseman go!!!
Villiagers having bows not using them.
(Old but) desert ships Camels l!!!
Cannoneer, Janissary why need chemistry.
Patrolling is better than an attack order.
Fabulous Teutonic Knights walking slowly.
One unique ship( forgot) shooting backwards after hitting a foe too close to it.
I guess the root of those clicking problem is that the click-box is coupled to the bounding box of the graphic. It should be a separate setting.
You have 30 minutes to move your tree
You have 15 minutes to move your tree
Your tree has been modded and turned into a cube
You have 30 minutes to move your cube
For me an even more common problem is when i task vills or set tc gather point to straggler trees, they just stand around the tree and some times it takes many tries to be able to actually click the tree.
As a programmer I'm astonished that the texture is in any way connected to interactions with the mouse. The most obvious way to program clicking on trees would be to just use existing "click on the ground" mechanic, so clicking on a ground tile occupied by tree would just click on the tree. It would also make clicking on a tile behind the tree trivial.
I use the cube mod since hidden cup 3, and I also appreciate the moving fish cubes. However thanks for a mod, so that non Minecraft players can queue tree chopping.
T-west is nothing short of amazing
Thanks, i'll try this mod.
cool, ever since you explained how leitis attacks ignore armor it would be interesting to know how all Sicilians land units ingore bonus damage. I'm having a blast with "first crusade".
the update that introduced the sicilians also added a new unit attribute - forgot the name but its something like "bonus resistence". I don't know exactly how it works but it is likely something along the lines of this: Basically, that attribute reduces the damage of all attack classes that aren't 3 (pierce), 4 (melee) or 31 (leitis) by the specified value. The sicilian civ bonus then simply gives 50% (or rather 0.5) bonus resistence to their non-siege land units. Another interesting thing to note is that the percentage reduction of this bonus resistence is applied BEFORE unit armor. So if you were able to create a sicilian elite cataphract (e.g. through the scenario editor, conversion doesn't work), that unit would take NO bonus damage from halberdiers (the 32 bonus damage is cut in half to 16 and then calculated against the Elite Cataphract's 16 cavalry armor which nets 0).
@@IschmarVI that's so cool man. OP cata for sure
Every. Single. Game! Will definitely test out your mod. Thanks for sharing
Hello 4: Release date Delayed
cube mod is the best
Congrats to 20k subs bro I Remember when u had below 1k keep it Up ✌️✌️✌️🔥🔥
I can already tell the title of the next video: I got tired of the AoE2 graphics so I remade the whole game in UE4 with 8k crisp graphics and minimal bugs
They should really look into separating the clickbox from the graphics.
The solution to this would actually be to have a second (black low res) texture which defines the clicking area. At least for some more problematic Entities. If I remember aoe2 de's data format correctly this shouldn't be too difficult. And the code is already there they just have to use a different texture for click detection than for displaying.
Some of DE’s issues seem to be the easiest to fix: resources should be bound to a tile, not a graphic... Literally as long as you click on the original tile for a resource, it should affect that resource, even if its graphics spawn 100 tiles away visually.
Sometimes I wonder how much my improvement comes from knowledge or trainingand better versions and how much is just using helpful mods and better versions of the game. 11
Please do a mod in which Sforza is honourable ONCE, it irks me to know that he wasn't considered a rogue.
Oh boy. I have been spoiled by DE.
Looking at those HD graphics was a snapback
Doesnt matter anyway, Burgundians And Sicilian are so busted that i don't play the game anymore until these are fixed
Why did they make collisions for the trees sprite based in a game that's already grid/tile based?
Well, this was a problem yesterday and solution today t west reads my mind lol
Btw today is my bday t west I just wish playing with u but that can't happen :'(
And this is why I play AoE1 sometimes, where all trees are social distanced and is very easily clickable.
The Suomi team will be proud their years of super optimization are being proved correct
This was just a convuloted way of telling us that the "T" in "T-West" stands for tree isn't it? lol
yeah the updated graphics messes with aoe logic so much lol. Aoe 3 hitboxes are bizarre now
who is the 1x unlike I really wonder? actually it is awesome video.
Cube mod, aka AoE minecraft style
TheMax would like you to know the cubes are the most beautiful
Or order first villager to chop left tree, and the second one right tree (leaving untouched tree in middle of them)?
I thought the tiny tree mod was the best we could do for this glitchy diddly! I now have hope there is hope.
Now how do Sicilians produce 900 food with 3/5 of a tree?
Would it be possible/hard to somehow make the game only register clicks on static objects (i.e. the ones that "occupy" full cells of the grids) if you click inside its grid cell? I feel like that would fix all clicking-related issues...
EDIT: I mean, achieve this through a mod. They could obviously easily build it into the actual game.
I don't think that's possible through a mod.
why my tree cutter always like el cid allies in his lvl 6 campaign? :(
Quick and helpful. Good job!
Wait... why is this based on the Tree's Sprite to begin with, instead of... you know... the *tile* you click on?
I guess because a tree is tall enough grows out of the tile a the top, so if you could only select a tree by clicking its tile you could only select the tree by clicking on some parts of it.
Damn those floating cubes are really nice
no i want my leaves :P ... thx for your vids
So basically, it't not DE's fault, the Genie engine is is just way too 90s for our standards
Also, is anyone else irked by the fact that in your mod the tree trunk appears to move when the tree is chopped down? :D
That's how the trees worked in the original game too 11
That's a bug! I thought i wrong click smh
Ooooh... So all this was just a scheme to promote your mod ? ^^
That mod is great news. Thank you!
Hi T West,
I'm a big fan of your videos and especially like your sense of humor.
Would it be possible to bring some attention to the fact that restoring a game with ai players in it breaks the AI (they stop doing anything)? This bug has existed well over a year now and it is just a huge bummer that me and my friends cannot reliably practice any games against the AI. As soon as any person drops we have to start over since the AI will just stand around and do nothing.
I can try to look into that at some point.
Ok I'm gunna give cubed mod a go and see how well it works when I next play forest prison :) no more horrific acacia trees ( I hope... I mean yea doesn't exactly look nice but imagine how much easier it could be when cutting )
I'll add for anyone taking this seriously while it's more accurate than the normal tree's it's more nasty than the video suggests cubed mod looks terrible... As someone who plays for fun the swap wasn't nice. .. I did only actually play 1 game though with it so can't say I gave it enough time to get used to before deciding it wasn't for me
Couldn't they just limit the chopped tree area to the tile it's in ?
There should be a mod whereby the felled tree takes into account where the villagers make the first chop/strike, to fall in the opposite direction, like how gravity works.
It probably is possible for a mod to add falling animations to trees, like units have animations when they die.
I always felt it was easiest to click the top of a tree since classic Age2.
Is there anything this man cannot do? ❤️
that's why i use cube mod Kappa
Another reason of why I don't like trees
Justo change the collision box
Slowly de devs will start putting mods in patches
They should just a texture additive that dictates(tree leaves, small trees) makes a lot more sense. Plus people wouldn't use third party things to have knowledge they should able to get normally.
I 'm going to grab your mod straight away!
In shorts always aim for base of 🌲
They had two decades to improve a nearly perfect game and choose to make it worse instead.
You are a smart boi but spirit of le law is destroying you. I guess its admirable that you keep trying.
the youTube algorithm prioritizes regular uploads over quality of content. This is why SotL is so much more sucessful (or at least a major contribution)
Is it me or i never had this problem
Link doesn't work when I open it. What's the mod called?
Clickable Felled Trees
Will it work with Chunky Tree Tiles 1.3? Have you had a chance to test it for that mod as well? Also, fantastic work lately, keep it up!
I haven't heard of that mod before.
@@T-West Hm, strange, for me, it is maybe the best Tree mode in the game, as it helps noticing holes in the wall. So wanted to check will your mod help with those issues on him as well.
from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
So sometimes the hit bozes change due to graphics? What about stone and gold mines?
The same thing should happen with them.
When you want to assign single villager. Me a low elo player: nobody has time for that
Me:Go seed the farms
Villiager1: Okay this one is good, no it's already taken! Is there any more?
Villiager2: Go to your own farm you hobo.
Villiager1: There isn't any!
5min later.
Me:Managing troops
Villiager1: It is sure nice to take a vacation
Villiager2: You're hopeless
Villiager1: And you are exhausted.
Villiager2: Shut your trap go somewhere else
Villiager1: Don't wanna.
What kind of freak actually uses cube mod. That is terrifying 😰
someone whose username starts with R and end with k
I mean, most people use a mod that makes trees as tall as humans, so...
@@alanbareiro6806 That's not unreasonable though, a lot of trees are as tall as humans. Doesn't turn them into a horrible tetris looking mess.
I don’t wanna name names, but his initials may or may not be Ruebenstock.
@@Sholto_David Yeah there are, but not entire woodlines of small trees.
You are doing gods work
Hello !
Nice video, I'm getting the mod right now cause I'm so frustrated when it happens 11
Is the mod still working properly ? Cause it's not downloading
Try downloading using the in game mod browser, sometimes the website doesn't work.
@@T-West It's what I did but the Download doesn't wanted to finish 11
After restarting the game it's all working, thx for the mod !
@@guillaumesylenix Ah, yeah, I'd recommend restarting the game every time you download or activate/deactivate a mod.
Nice 1, been using it since you posted on aoezone. I've been wondering if it is possible to make the hitbox the same area as the whole tile instead of the tree outline? Maybe this cannot account for different slopes. However it does feel like the hitbox could be slightly larger at the base of the tree.
I'm don't think that's possible to do with a visual mod while still having the ground be visible and accounting for slopes. It's something I think the developers should consider adding support for, though. Both for the issue with setting the gather point between trees and to help with clicking on fish.
@@T-West I think building foundations showed that it is possible to have transparent hitboxes and perhaps these could cover overlapping areas between different slopes. Now I think of it, downward and away facing slopes would only leave a small area for this purpose.
It's also difficult to select trees that were not chopped down, specially when trying to place the flag of the TC on them. Is there any mod to improve this? If not, is it possible to create one?
There are a couple of mods that attempt to fix this by changing the tree graphics. One that I've seen people using replaces all trees with a single pine tree.
But I don't think it's possible for a mod to alter the behavior of the mouse click when clicking on trees. There seems to be some support for selecting trees behind other trees, but I'm not entirely sure how this works.
@@T-West Yes, i've seent identical pine tree mod in capoch's stream i.e, but i don't like it. It might be useful but looks weird specially when the map has other kind of trees by default.
FALLEN trees pls lol
Nice video! If it interests you, would you make a video on the least used tech's and maybe units?
I don't think that would be too helpful, pretty much all units end up being used.
Sounds like video sotl would makes
for the love of daut
So the next one would be about the fishes right?
Ohhh, that's a good suggestion too.
Why is it a problem NOW? XD Noticed that years ago and no one cared … wait … I had no internet back then
Edit: I want to say your mod is AMAZING though and I will get it ASAP 🤩
Was wondering why you use the original music and not the DE music?
I think the original music works better as background music. Generally I prefer it to the remasters.
@@T-West The nostalgia value is large, and you can't go wrong with a classic. I am not sure which I prefer.
Now that it's been explained, it seems so much easier to combat in game. Also, that cube mod is adorable and I'm 100% using it.
Cubes forever!
T west the best
Twest has such a high apm, he gives the comments likes before they get posted
Nah, they have to be posted before I can heart them.
I came for an explenation for this problem. What I got was a solution! Thank you man!
Nice work
Thanks for the mod twest, i have been using it for a while since you posted about it on aoezone. You already mentioned this
, but what do you know about the issue with the gather point of the tc? Why its so hard to setting it to the forest? i can believe how hard its to send villagers to trees.
You have to click directly on a Tree. If you click the ground in between them, then the gather point is placed on the ground instead.
@@T-West There is any way to change this? Any magical mod that covers all the ground? Or to make the gather point "less precise"?
@@amkathegod8422 Not that I know of. I think it would need to be an engine change to enable different clicking behavior.
Brilliant
Nice !
This is the closest we will get to a tree HP video.
Oh, don't worry, I'll have a tree hp video soon.
Wouldn't it make more sense that instead of needing to click on the image of the tree, you would just click on the tile where the tree stands to assign a lumberjack? There could be 3 tiles in total for the trees that relate with each other, such as the normal tile with the tree not being touched, a tile where the tree is chopped (the normal tile only changes to a chopped tile if assigned with a lumberjack) and a tile where there's only a tree stump (either normal tile changes to this tile with siege fire or when a chopped tile is exhausted on ressources).
It's quite funny that with DE trying to catch the original gameplay as much as possible they've meant it quite literal, even though they've made so many qol changes so this shouldn't be a problem as well on hindsight.