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I've moved your post to the Pathfinder Second Edition - generic DLC issue thread, as this is the best place to report issues with the PF2 DLC products.
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Ah-ha! I knew I must be doing something wrong. I didn't realize that you needed to do a shift+click to unlock them. This program is awesome, but so many things to learn! I'll give that a try. Thank you.
I've encountered a problem in Pathfinder Adventure Path Age of Ashes, Part 3: Tomorrow Must Burn tonight.
Room J11 in the quarry slowed my system and those of my players to a crawl – it became next to non-responsive at times even. I was able to identify the problem as being the LOS occluders for the three cages in that room. Once you bring multiple light sources into the room, these occluders (48 altogether) and their shadows take up so much processing power that the game grinds to a halt. And my computer isn't slow or old. Once I identified the problem, I removed these occuders and then evrything was fine.
I guess the module was fine with only LOS, but now that light sources come into play, the setup of this rooms should probably. be reevaluated.
I know the devs are constantly working on the system to improve performance with dynamic lighting. That being said, I hear you. I didn't create the occluders - they were created by a community user before dynamic lighting was a thing. I went ahead and deleted the occluders for the cage bars for that map and submitted it for a hotfix to get it into LIVE asap.
Hey sciencephile: What did you decide to do with that? I bet I have a few LOS areas with multiple items. As cool as it is to have bars casts shadows, create small LOS blockages, my thought is that from a practical point of view, those might be better of just being Windows now. I would think that would cover being able to see through while not allowing PCs to walk through bars.
I agree with the coolness factor. At this point, however, there is enough reports of processing power issues I have heard that I just left the caged bars as open (no windows either). There is a point where a GM has to tell his own players, "hey, you can't go in there". I figure these small cages is an easy enough one to just tell players they can't go in, rather than the system enforcing it for the GM. Windows might be okay in a case like this but they would add a few more occluders to it. Plus, if we add window occluders to prevent people from walking through the cages, do we also put window occluders across tables to prevent people from walking across those too? It's another reason why I use sparingly - to fit the most obvious cases (like doors, windows, etc.) and not so much the ones where it might be questionable and dependent on the GM. I do put windows when it is an obvious cell door or a portcullis, but these appear to be cage boxes.
In time, when these sorts of issues go away, I think we can address things like this for potential "nice-to-have" improvements but for now, I'm trying to be a bit more sparingly on the "nice-to-haves" in order for the necessary LOS occluders to still work and not cause extra bug reports.
Honestly, I think it depends on the map so this viewpoint sometimes changes. When a map has very few occluders, then I tend to leave in the extras (like the cage bars). When there is a lot of occluders, like with this map, I think it best to minimize the extra occluders. I don't know what the magic number is so it's really just a judgement call.
It's a bit of a balancing act at times but that's the nature of new technology. Things get worked out in time and it is easy enough to add them back in once this issue becomes a thing of the past. They always do so I'm not terribly worried.
Ah! I was thinking sort of prison cages, etc. It's a tough juggling act with allowing freedom of movement to give that extra immersive feel and keeping some reigns held to prevent accidental reveals.
The LOS inclusion with FGU was an exciting selling point for us here. Having players lose sight of each other as they turn corners or go behind obstacles is fun for them. Puts them right into their characters. With lighting arriving, it adds even more depth.
Unfortunately, there are some growing pains in this process, but I expect those will ease over time as you said. In the mean time, I am always looking for the best approaches and love getting insight from others tackling these issues and especially feedback from the players delving into these adventures as it helps me evolve as a developer.
Got the APG today and found two small errors.
Feat:
- Elite Dracomancer: "Choose one 3rd?level..." -> should be 3rd-level
Ancestries:
- Kobold -> Draconic Exemplar: The heading of the third column reads "Breath Weapon Shape" but should be probably something like "Breath Weapon Damage Type".