Feature - Implemented improvements to quest tracking

[Bale]

if people agree i'll keep working on it, if not i'll stop!

It makes me happy, so please don't stop.

 

[GValko]

Karmic Balance now readilly available

It's in the Quest Log under Other Accomplishments

"Your current Karmic balance is 74."

 

[Veracity]

This probably belongs under roippi's "refactor what we do with the Quest Logs" project.

 

[matt.chugg]

This probably belongs under roippi's "refactor what we do with the Quest Logs" project.

Good Reminder, I meant to look at the stuff I started on that this weekend, i'll link this thread from that one, although i'm probably not going to go over the top until after sspd, possibly until after the new basement disapears, i'm doing solo runs and need to do at least 4

 

[matt.chugg]

also:

http://kolmafia.us/showthread.php?8...readilly-available&p=61521&posted=1#post61521

 

[lostcalpolydude]

Easier to just merge the threads.

 

[GValko]

This probably belongs under roippi's "refactor what we do with the Quest Logs" project.

I suppose it does, but Mafia does it's own (potentially wrong) estimation on how much karma you have. But if replacing it with a quick text hook to provide 100% accuracy belongs here, so be it.

 

[slyz]

Mafia doesn't do an estimation, it just remembers what was shown in the charpane when you were in Valhalla.

Of course, it can loose track if you change the bankedKarma preference yourself, or if you go through Valhalla outside of Mafia.

 

[xKiv]

My bankedKarma shows (or yesterday showed) more than my quest log ... possibly the quest log doesn't account for discarded instant karma?

 

[Veracity]

My bankedKarma shows (or yesterday showed) more than my quest log ... possibly the quest log doesn't account for discarded instant karma?

Yes, over on the G-D thread about the trivial update, people have reported that bug. Presumably KoL will fix it, by and by.

Of course, until they do, KoLmafia's setting is more accurate than the Quest Log, so we shouldn't hasten to add code to update our setting from the Quest Log, seems to me...

 

[GValko]

Mafia doesn't do an estimation, it just remembers what was shown in the charpane when you were in Valhalla.

Of course, it can loose track if you change the bankedKarma preference yourself, or if you go through Valhalla outside of Mafia.

So, in other words, it gives an approximation of what it thinks the answer is based on the information it knows. Or more plainly, an estimation. Just like what Mafia does with spleen and can/may do with stomach depending on your login state. (Estimation isn't a dirty word especially in a case where you have to deduce values based off of unknowns. I don't know why you would split hairs)

And Veracity: That's interesting. I'm not really so sure it's a bug with the tracker so much as it is how KoL set up karma to actually be awarded. You don't actually get the karma until you go through the gash and there's never any sort of thing to indicate another case is possible. So as far as the game and karma tracker is considered, you have whatever you did when you started from the last run. Maybe they'll change it so the counter goes up after breaking the prism or discard karma.

And that's also a fair point, I was unaware of the implementation issues at the time.

 

[Veracity]

I'm not really so sure it's a bug with the tracker so much as it is how KoL set up karma to actually be awarded. You don't actually get the karma until you go through the gash and there's never any sort of thing to indicate another case is possible.

Look at it like this:

I want to know how much karma I will have available when I jump the gash so I can plan skill perming and such.
I know that I will be granted some karma when I arrive in Valhalla, based on the path I just completed.
Additionally, you might have some karma left over from last run. The Quest Log tracks that. So does KoLmafia, in bankedKarma.
Additionally, you discard Instant Karma and have some extra karma appear when you enter Valhalla. The Quest Log does not track that - but KoLmafia does in bankedKarma.

So, for planning purposes, if I'm running KoLmafia, when I jump the gash, I know I will get a path-specific amount of karma + bankedKarma extra.
If I am NOT running KoLmafia, I know I will get a path-specific amount of karma + what the Quest Log says + some amount extra, which I hope I wrote down or otherwise remembered, from discarding Instant Karma.

Until and unless KoL changes the Quest Log to include discarded karma, I believe that there is nothing for KoLmafia to do with the Quest Log's report of karma. If you ascended through KoLmafia - and discarded from within KoLmafia - bankedKarma will be correct and the Quest Log will be incorrect.

In retrospect, it would have been nice to have two settings: bankedKarma and discardedKarma. Then, the Quest Log could be used to set the former one and correct for ascending outside of KoLmafia.

 

[GValko]

Look at it like this:
In retrospect, it would have been nice to have two settings: bankedKarma and discardedKarma. Then, the Quest Log could be used to set the former one and correct for ascending outside of KoLmafia.

Hindsight is 20/20, although fixing it to a non-existent counter as it got implemented much later probably wouldn't have been the best design choice. Though I suppose there's nothing preventing anyone to change it now, aside from Jick inevitably updating the karma system's backend in a few months.

And thank you for typing out an argument that if it wasn't clear, I was in full agreement with in lieu of the information I was lacking when I filed the report.

 

[xKiv]

In retrospect, it would have been nice to have two settings: bankedKarma and discardedKarma. Then, the Quest Log could be used to set the former one and correct for ascending outside of KoLmafia.

Well, you can always have the kludge of:
bankedKarma = what it is now = quest log karma + discardedKarma

 

[Rinn]

Hey matt.chugg how are you coming along with the quest tracking? I'd be interested in seeing a patch of your progress if you don't mind.

 

[roippi]

Bump for some thought.

useful reference for all quest log text

Example quest log entry:

    Ooh, I Think I Smell a Bat. 

        [Current] The Council wants you to make your way to the chamber of the Boss Bat, and slay him. 

        His chamber can be found deep within the Bat Hole, in the Nearby Plains.

            (In between) You're getting closer to the Boss Bat's chamber. Keep searching the Bat Hole until you find it.
            (In between) You're getting very close to the Boss Bat's chamber. Keep exploring.
            (In between) You've discovered the Boss Bat's chamber -- now go in there and clean his clock. Then beat him up. Unless he doesn't have a clock, in which case just go straight to the beating.
            (In between) Now that you've defeated the Boss Bat, you should go back to the Council for your reward. 

        [Completed] You have slain the Boss Bat. Huzzah!

Preference naming scheme: I like "questLxxyyyy" personally, where xx is the two-digit level associated with the quest and yyyy is some sort of description (not necessarily 4 letters). The preferences will be naturally sorted by level, and levels with multiple quests will be grouped together. Quests that are not ascension-essential can get "misc" or some other descriptive in lieu of the "Lxx" format. I'm open to suggestions, though, if that sounds terrible.

Values: is [ unstarted | started | step1 | step2 | step3 | step4 | finished ] (with the various stepX corresponding to the in betweens) more or less useful than [ unstarted | started | finished ]? It is almost literally the same amount of work to code, since we'll need to know how to parse all those intermediate steps anyway. It seems wasteful not to have access to that data, in my mind.

 

[Bale]

Naming scheme is acceptable, although odd since many quests do not have an associated level. (There are 22 non-level related quests! 22 is twice as ridiculous as 11!) That does make me feel that the level designation is odd.

I prefer [ unstarted | started | step1 | step2 | step3 | step4 | finished ] since it is good to know exactly where we are in the middle of a quest. It would be a shame to waste all that useful information.

 

[Bale]

I think some more categorization is called for. G for Guild. S for Sea (Jick says there will be more in the future). F for Familiar. I for Item. M for Miscellaneous since some things are odd.

questL02Larva
questL03Rat
questL04Bat
questL05Goblin
questL06Friar
questL07Cyrptic
questL08Trapper
questL09Lol
questL10Garbage
questL11MacGuffin
questL11Worship
questL11Manor
questL11Palindome
questL11Pyramid
questL12War
questL13Final

questG01Meatcar
questG02Whitecastle
questG03Ego
questG04Nemesis
questG05Dark
questG06Delivery

questM01Untinker
questM02Artist
questM03Bugbear
questM04Galaktic
questM05Toot
questM06Gourd
questM07Hammer
questM08Baker
questM09Rocks
questM10Azazel
questM11Postal
questM12Pirate
questM13Escape
questM14Bounty

questS01OldGuy
questS02Monkees

questF01Primordial
questF02Hyboria
questF03Future
questF04Elves

questI01Scapegoat
questI02Beat

 

[Theraze]

Do the level 6, 7, 11, and 12 quests need extra 'official' tracking due to their potentially non-linear natures? Especially when people are manually going through them, they won't always do the same quests in the same order, though it all ends up in the same spot. If their cases, maybe stepX can be how many stages are completed, and a comma delineated list of which areas have actually been done so it can be split later? So if you're in the macguffin quest and you've unlocked the black forest (step 1), gotten the diary through the vacation (step 2) and you're now on the Staff collection part where you've done spookyraven but not the hidden city, that might be step3,spookyraven.

Or am I overcomplicating this? I'm just trying to see if there's a good way to avoid needing to server hit to see which stage of a quest we're on, just like we want to skip the server hit for if we're on the quest at all.

Oh, and one more "sea" quest: questS03Skatepark (or just Skates if you want it shorter). Since that affects which of the buffs are available to daily deeds (if they've ever been officially included), I'd think that would be a nice one to know internally.

 

[roippi]

Thanks, Bale. Saves me some work.

Do the level 6, 7, 11, and 12 quests need extra 'official' tracking due to their potentially non-linear natures?

Nothing so fancy. Check the wiki page I linked; there are 5 different branches, which Bale all named:

questL11MacGuffin
questL11Worship
questL11Manor
questL11Palindome
questL11Pyramid

..and those 5 states should be sufficient to fully describe our position in the quest.