Question on the timing of attack

[Grimacer]

Does attacking "on the move" work well in Grimrock 1 and 2? Let's say an enemy is on the move and I am stationary. If the enemy is about to move to the square in front of me, should I attack it when it is actually, fully in the square and has stopped moving? If I do attack it while it is not fully in the square but still moving (and 90% of its body is already in front of me), will I suffer loss of accuracy and miss more likely? Conversely, if I'm on the move attacking an enemy, how does my accuracy and chances of missing figure into it? Do I have to pinpoint the exact right moment when I'm supposedly directly facing the enemy in order to achieve optimal accuracy? Also, does all this affect range attacks and magic attacks also? I've played 1 and 2 for 10 hours each and still am not clear about this particular mechanic. I just want to avoid the dreaded misses in the most opportune times, even if I need to pinpoint the exact moments of attack.

[Sir Tawmis]

I am not as "twitchy" as a lot of players I have seen; but it seems the hit/move tactic works very well at also avoiding damage that's coming your way. There's a lot of videos for both LOG1/LOG2 showing players able to move, hit, move, hit and repeat, with great effectiveness. I personally, however, lack those motor skills. So I usually stand and take hits.

[Grimacer]

My question is more about the situations when enemies are only "partially" in front you, and whether that affects accuracy or not, and whether the "degree" of partially in front you matters (e.g. would you be less accurate hitting an enemy that is only 80% in front of you as opposed to one that is 100% in front of you). In the old days of Ultima, enemies don't get "partially" in front of you, because they move instantly from one square to the next. But in modern tile-based RPGs, enemy movements are fully animated. There are "in-between" moments when the enemy has left one tile but has yet to arrive at another tile. So my question is, if you hit them during these in-between moments (which can last for seconds if the enemy is very slow), what happens? The last tile-based RPG I played was "Anvil of Dawn" in the mid-90s, and I also had the same question about this issue and never found an answer.

From what I've seen in both Grimrock games, It seems that an enemy's body has to be "substantially" in the tile in front of you to get hit. When an enemy only had a small portion of its body in the tile, even though it is technically in the tile, I always seem to miss. So my question is how "substantial" does its body have to be in the tile? 70%, 90%, etc.?

[Isaac]

I am not as "twitchy" as a lot of players I have seen; but it seems the hit/move tactic works very well at also avoiding damage that's coming your way. There's a lot of videos for both LOG1/LOG2 showing players able to move, hit, move, hit and repeat, with great effectiveness.

This is why I would like it if certain monsters [like the Ogre for instance] could hit on the diagonal; not attack on the diagonal, but hit if the party is there during the attack.
It could mean that one or two of the champions might take damage during their retreat [depending on direction and their position in the party].

[minmay]

Monsters in Grimrock with the default shape only occupy one square at a time, period.* There is no concept of a monster (or anything else) being "partially" in a square. At the beginning of the move, the monster instantly stops occupying the square it was in and instantly starts occupying the new square. There is not a single frame where it is in both squares and there is not a single frame where it is in neither square.

In the old days of Ultima, enemies don't get "partially" in front of you, because they move instantly from one square to the next.

This is exactly what happens in Grimrock.

There are "in-between" moments when the enemy has left one tile but has yet to arrive at another tile.

This never occurs in Grimrock.

(But don't confuse the square the monster is in with the capsule, which is the collider for projectiles and firearm attacks, and does move with animations.)

*Monsters with the cross shape only occupy five squares at a time, and monsters with the 3x3 shape only occupy nine squares at a time.

[Grimacer]

Hi minmay, to your point about the monster instantly occupies the next tile as soon as it moves, from my observation that is not exactly true. It seems that it starts occupying the tile *some time* after it starts to move towards it, but not as soon as it starts to move towards it. Here is a screenshot of Grimrock 1 showing what happens. As you see the snail is well inside the tile of its destination, I would say 30-35% inside, and yet my attack does not occur. Note that it doesn't even show the word "Miss.". It is as if the attack never occurs because the game doesn't think the monster is there. I can repeat this over and over and it happens every time. But if I wait until it moves just a little further into the tile, my hit occurs: I see either the damage amount or "miss." So my question remains how much further the monster has to enter the tile of destination before it actually occupies it. Should it go in 40%, 60%, etc.? That has got to be a number right? It probably doesn't matter if we know this or not, but we all want to know as much as possible about the mechanics of a game as important as this. From my observation it seems the monster's body has to be at least 50% inside the tile, give or take.

[minmay]

Oh, my bad, I was talking about something different. There are two things that "occupy" could mean:
1. The square the monster's object is in, i.e. its level, x, y, and (in Grimrock 2) elevation. This determines whether melee attacks and tile damagers hit the monster. It's what you were talking about. It changes halfway through the monster's movement animation. The object is still always in one square at a time - entities and GameObjects cannot possibly be in multiple squares at once. There's no concept of being "between" squares.
2. The square the monster blocks. This changes at the beginning of the move (because otherwise you could move into the square that the monster is about to move into, utter chaos) and is what I was referring to.
Everything I said in the previous post appears to be true of both of these items, except for the part about it changing at the beginning of the move (which is true for 2., but for 1. it changes halfway through the animation instead). It also doesn't appear to have changed between Grimrock 1 and 2. I'm quite certain that there is no accuracy penalty or similar mechanic involved.
This does mean there is a brief period where the monster blocks one square but its object is in another square.