[Reported] Top left color wheel is full but still 1 mana missing

Bug Reports
1

Platform, device version and operating system:
Windows 10, steam

Game version: 7.0 0r50224

Screenshot or image:
image

What you were expecting to happen, and what actually happened:
If a troop needs a lot of mana ca. >20 the color wheel on the top left shows full but there is still mana missing.

How often does this happen? When did it begin happening?
when mana ca. >20

Steps to make it happen again
see screenshot

1 Like
2

I suspect this might have always existed (especially for Troops with higher Mana costs) but it only becomes apparent now that they are displaying the current Mana Level separately from the Mana Orb itself.

For example:
gemsof.mana.isitfull

Is that single row of darker pixels highlighted simply graphical antialiasing caused by the curves at the top of the Orb, or is it actually the 1 unit of mana you still need before having a full Mana Orb? We can’t really tell for certain, and that’s the issue.

For comparison, here’s a screenshot from v6.9:

gemsof.manacosts.fill
gemsof.manacosts.fill1280Ă—720 183 KB

While it’s hard to judge the size reserved for the Mana Orbs internally, it is still the same between 6.9 and 7.0. Let’s break it down:

  • This screen was rendered at 720p, making each Mana Orb approximately ~43 pixels high. It’s hard to say for sure due to internal antialiasing, but conveniently enough, for my Guild Guardians used here (Mana Cost = 11) this means each single unit of Mana should correspond to about 4 screen pixels.
  • A Mana Level of 2 /11 is measured at ~7 screen pixels – not exact due to antialiasing, but that calculates to about 3.5 pixels per Mana.
  • A Mana Level of 3 /11 is measured at about +4 screen pixels higher – nice.
  • A Mana Level of 10 /11 leaves about 3 pixels from the top of the Mana Orb – again, not exact due to antialiasing, but fairly close.

So you can see the problem developing: If at a Mana Cost of 11 each Mana unit is only about 4 screen pixels tall, then at a Mana Cost of 24 each Mana Unit is only about 2 screen pixels, and at a Mana Cost of >30 each Mana Unit is approaching single pixel heights. (e.g. the Mana Orb on a Daemon Gnome with 49/50 would appear basically full, as the difference is less than a single pixel at 720p).

But it IS still an issue overall. I suspect the internal rendering logic for the Mana Level works something like this:

  • Fill height = 100% * (Mana Orb size) * (Mana Level / Mana Cost)

Which is mathematically sound and all (fill height ranges from 0 - 100%), but doesn’t account for the intrinsic “border” of the Mana Orb graphic itself. I might suggest the following logic instead:

  • If (Mana Level) <= 0, fill height = 0;
  • Else, if (Mana Level) >= (Mana Cost), fill height = 100% * (Mana Orb size)
  • Else, fill height = 100% * (Mana Orb size) * (0.98 * (Mana Level / Mana Cost) + .01)

This essentially shrinks the fill area by 2%, helping to make the first (and last) Mana units a little more visible while maintaining the expected correlation to the actual Mana level.

3

Hello :slight_smile:

Thank you for the screencapture.

I have let the development team know about this issue, and I’ve also submitted a Quality-of-Life request for the dev team to take into consideration to help with visibility issues.

1 Like
4

In the meantime, here’s an animation of EVERY mana level on Infernus (Mana Cost = 24 same as Phoenicia) :

gemsof-mana-24

Note that a mana level of 1 / 24 and 23 / 24 is VERY difficult to tell apart from 0 (empty) and 24 (full).

I’d kinda like to make an annotated version sometime…