Some small suggestions for UI [V]
Timo Pietilä
I just accidentally destroyed Crown of Lordliness (+3) {telepathy}
because I had macro for destruction mapped at "-" and I tried to wear it
right from the floor and there was still -more- prompt which I didn't
notice and game didn't take "W" as a command, but clear -more- prompt.
This brings me to the point: how about removing entire "kill" command
and replace it with "squelch this particular item" and add something
that can turn entire squelching off as long as someone wants it off (buy
store empty and sell items in another store without majority of items
being squelched). Make it a option that can be turned off and on during
game if not direct UI command.
That would prevent this kind of accidents and would be useful sometimes
when you need something that you usually squelch.
Timo Pietil�
Bill
For sure the whole squelching system could use some refinement. The
particular example that bit me once is that you can't squelch armor
with one low resist without squelching armor "of resistance" as well.
Lucky for me squelching doesn't really destroy, just makes it
invisible.
Turning all squelch off/on is a really good idea. Your example is
good, and here's another: unexpected things can and will happen that
might make you want a scroll or potion that you've been squelching. It
would be nice to have a quick and easy way to see if one is nearby but
was squelched.
I can't agree with completely getting rid of the destroy command. I've
made a similar mistake to yours, in my case mapping ID and destroy to
adjacent F-keys. But you can't make the UI completely idiot proof. If
you want some protection just don't put 'y' at the end of your destroy
macro.
I'm a bit sensitive about putting more load on the developers, but
AFAIK you're one of the contributors. If you can implement your
suggestions, by all means do.
Timo Pietilä
> I can't agree with completely getting rid of the destroy command. I've
> made a similar mistake to yours, in my case mapping ID and destroy to
> adjacent F-keys. But you can't make the UI completely idiot proof. If
> you want some protection just don't put 'y' at the end of your destroy
> macro.
That was the first thing I did. IMO destroy changed to "squelch this
item" would make more sense to me. It is pretty hard to really destroy
large plate mail, so in fact you are in reality ignoring items. Maybe
you kicked it into corner or something, but using energy to actively
destroying it would make no sense.
> I'm a bit sensitive about putting more load on the developers, but
> AFAIK you're one of the contributors.
Not really. There are some small ideas taken from my patch I made at the
stone age and some ideas I have presented here, but I'm not coder and
have not directly made any contributions to development of this game.
> If you can implement your
> suggestions, by all means do.
Can't. Would, but can't. I can only hope that real contributors have not
abandoned this newsgroup.
Timo Pietil�
Magnate
> Bill wrote:
>
>> I can't agree with completely getting rid of the destroy command. I've
>> made a similar mistake to yours, in my case mapping ID and destroy to
>> adjacent F-keys. But you can't make the UI completely idiot proof. If
>> you want some protection just don't put 'y' at the end of your destroy
>> macro.
>
> That was the first thing I did. IMO destroy changed to "squelch this item"
> would make more sense to me. It is pretty hard to really destroy large
> plate mail, so in fact you are in reality ignoring items. Maybe you kicked
> it into corner or something, but using energy to actively destroying it
> would make no sense.
Personally I always thought that David Blackston's purple dots were the
ideal mechanism for letting you ignore squelched stuff while being able to
check quickly and easily if there was (e.g.) a !restoreSTR that you wanted
to unsquelch when needed. For some reason that makes me feel rather like
Eddie, everyone else seems to hate purple dots.
>> I'm a bit sensitive about putting more load on the developers, but
>> AFAIK you're one of the contributors.
>
> Not really. There are some small ideas taken from my patch I made at the
> stone age and some ideas I have presented here, but I'm not coder and have
> not directly made any contributions to development of this game.
>
>> If you can implement your
>> suggestions, by all means do.
>
> Can't. Would, but can't. I can only hope that real contributors have not
> abandoned this newsgroup.
Takkaria has been taking a bit of a break, I think. As am I, though mine is
entirely attributable to a recent addiction to EU: Rome rather than for any
sensible reason. The most active developer at the moment is d_m, who follows
Oook but not sure if he reads this ng. I think Eddie still follows this
group pretty reliably, so there are enough of us to pick stuff up from here.
CC
Wally the Grey
> Bill wrote:
>
>> I can't agree with completely getting rid of the destroy command. I've
>> made a similar mistake to yours, in my case mapping ID and destroy to
>> adjacent F-keys. But you can't make the UI completely idiot proof. If
>> you want some protection just don't put 'y' at the end of your destroy
>> macro.
>
> That was the first thing I did. IMO destroy changed to "squelch this
> item" would make more sense to me. It is pretty hard to really destroy
> large plate mail, so in fact you are in reality ignoring items. Maybe
> you kicked it into corner or something, but using energy to actively
> destroying it would make no sense.
If you do this, then a) destroy shouldn't take a turn, and b) it
shouldn't treat artifacts specially.
Timo Pietilä
Good point. The latter especially. It removes easy and fast way to
figure out if item is an artifact. But now that we have this whole new
ID system question is should artifact be treated any differently anyway?
Timo Pietil�
Eddie Grove
> This brings me to the point: how about removing entire "kill" command and
> replace it with "squelch this particular item"
That's my viewpoint. You can't do it until all player knowledge is learned
correctly, so I have been holding off until the kinks are worked out of the
current learning stuff.
> and add something that can turn
> entire squelching off as long as someone wants it off (buy store empty and
> sell items in another store without majority of items being squelched).
The correct solution is twofold. (1) no selling and (2) single command to buy
and discard all remaining items in a store. Takkaria is religiously opposed
to (2) so that complicates matters.
However, I am sure he is equally opposed to people buying out a store and
selling the contents to another store. Maybe if you push for your agenda he
will accede to mine. :)
Eddie
pete m
> Hello all.
>
> I just accidentally destroyed Crown of Lordliness (+3) {telepathy}
> because I had macro for destruction mapped at "-" and I tried to wear it
> right from the floor and there was still -more- prompt which I didn't
> notice and game didn't take "W" as a command, but clear -more- prompt.
It seems to me that '-' is a bad choice for a destroy keymap, and that
this particular error is not worth designing for. (I sometimes invert
'd' and 'D', since I use destroy more often than disarm.)
Timo Pietilä
It works for me very well. But that was not my point. Point was that
entire destroy command (no matter how you destroy item) should be
replaced with "squelch this item".
There is one thing to consider, and that is that without destroy item
you can't anymore identify potential artifact by trying to destroy it.
Also giving a toggle to turn off squelch would be nice. Lets say you are
squelching restore and stat-potions because you do not have much use for
those anymore and then get hit by time-attack and suddenly you have all
your stats reduced. Instead of going into object squelch screen you
could turn off squelch and check "known items" "]" to see if you have
already found restore potion/mushroom/stat-potion etc. but haven't seen it.
Timo Pietil�
Timo Pietilä
Adding one observation: I have used quite a bit of time in 4950
collecting items using "clairvoyance - detect known items - alter
reality" -combo and noticed that even this deep Greater Vaults seem to
be *A LOT* rarer than they used to be.
I have already overkill gear and could go on and kill M whenever I want,
but I continue to do that combo for a while in order to see how rare
they really are. I have seen only one in entire game and I have already
used over two million turns (most of the time clearing dragon explosion
and demon explosion. Having all immunities (two as swap) and barring
nether all resists is quite helpful, Aule as a weapon and zero failure
on both healing-spells).
Timo Pietil�
Eddie Grove
> Timo Pietilä
Are you playing 3.1.1 or 3.1.2? Levels are a little smaller in 3.1.2, and I
believe that significantly reduces the likelihood of greater vaults. Oh,
never mind, in the most recent 3.2 I believe 4950' is special-cased to be full
sized.
I'll still post this since it might affect what you experienced before 4950'.
Eddie
Timo Pietilä
> Timo Pietil� <timo.p...@helsinki.fi> writes:
>
>> Timo Pietil� wrote:
>>
>> Adding one observation: I have used quite a bit of time in 4950 collecting
>> items using "clairvoyance - detect known items - alter reality" -combo and
>> noticed that even this deep Greater Vaults seem to be *A LOT* rarer than they
>> used to be.
>>
>> I have already overkill gear and could go on and kill M whenever I want, but I
>> continue to do that combo for a while in order to see how rare they really
>> are. I have seen only one in entire game and I have already used over two
>> million turns (most of the time clearing dragon explosion and demon
>> explosion. Having all immunities (two as swap) and barring nether all resists
>> is quite helpful, Aule as a weapon and zero failure on both healing-spells).
>>
>
> Are you playing 3.1.1 or 3.1.2? Levels are a little smaller in 3.1.2, and I
> believe that significantly reduces the likelihood of greater vaults. Oh,
> never mind, in the most recent 3.2 I believe 4950' is special-cased to be full
> sized.
>
> I'll still post this since it might affect what you experienced before 4950'.
3.1.1. Didn't know 3.1.2 is out.... Looks like it isn't yet, at least
rephial.org still has 3.1.1.1626.
Why did level size get smaller? It just makes teleport from one trouble
to another and back again more likely. Current level size isn't problem.
At least not for me.
Timo Pietil�
Eddie Grove
> Eddie Grove wrote:
> > Timo Pietilä <timo.p...@helsinki.fi> writes:
> >
> >> Timo Pietilä wrote:
> >>
> >> Adding one observation: I have used quite a bit of time in 4950 collecting
> >> items using "clairvoyance - detect known items - alter reality" -combo and
> >> noticed that even this deep Greater Vaults seem to be *A LOT* rarer than they
> >> used to be.
> >>
> >> I have already overkill gear and could go on and kill M whenever I want, but I
> >> continue to do that combo for a while in order to see how rare they really
> >> are. I have seen only one in entire game and I have already used over two
> >> million turns (most of the time clearing dragon explosion and demon
> >> explosion. Having all immunities (two as swap) and barring nether all resists
> >> is quite helpful, Aule as a weapon and zero failure on both healing-spells).
> >>
> >> Timo Pietilä
> > Are you playing 3.1.1 or 3.1.2? Levels are a little smaller in 3.1.2, and I
> > believe that significantly reduces the likelihood of greater vaults. Oh,
> > never mind, in the most recent 3.2 I believe 4950' is special-cased to be full
> > sized.
> > I'll still post this since it might affect what you experienced before 4950'.
>
> 3.1.1. Didn't know 3.1.2 is out.... Looks like it isn't yet, at least
> rephial.org still has 3.1.1.1626.
>
> Why did level size get smaller? It just makes teleport from one trouble to
> another and back again more likely. Current level size isn't problem. At least
> not for me.
If you download the "nightlies", they are 3.1.2 in development. Alpha
development. I download the latest source using
svn co svn://rephial.org/angband/trunk
For some unfathomable reason, some people including our maintainer seem to
find small levels interesting. I would prefer to see occasional massive
levels, perhaps disconnected with more stairs and stairs guaranteed in each
component, if it is really necessary to muck with level size.
Small levels is the worst idea in 3.1.2 IMO. It used to be much worse, but
even toned down they are still a dreadful idea IMO.
The worst was around rev 1642. I describe it somewhat starting maybe halfway
through this thread on my attempts to dive in ironman.
http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=2110
I also started a thread because dungeon generation died on 1-room levels where
there might be a little more discussion.
http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=2238
I probably complained about it in other threads too, but web fora suck and
I'm not going to go searching.
Eddie
Billy Bissette
news:h9slnk$37b$1...@oravannahka.helsinki.fi:
> pete m wrote:
>> On Sep 27, 6:15 am, Timo Pietil� <timo.piet...@helsinki.fi> wrote:
>>> Hello all.
>>>
>>> I just accidentally destroyed Crown of Lordliness (+3) {telepathy}
>>> because I had macro for destruction mapped at "-" and I tried to
>>> wear it right from the floor and there was still -more- prompt which
>>> I didn't notice and game didn't take "W" as a command, but clear
>>> -more- prompt.
>>
>> It seems to me that '-' is a bad choice for a destroy keymap, and
>> that this particular error is not worth designing for. (I sometimes
>> invert 'd' and 'D', since I use destroy more often than disarm.)
>
> It works for me very well. But that was not my point. Point was that
> entire destroy command (no matter how you destroy item) should be
> replaced with "squelch this item".
>
> There is one thing to consider, and that is that without destroy item
> you can't anymore identify potential artifact by trying to destroy it.
Is that a really a bad thing?
Gameplay-wise, you can argue either way. Personally, I think the
arguments favor at least some form of destruction ID when putting
items in various states of risk are otherwise encouragement for ID.
If artifacts are going to be invulnerable, then it makes sense from
a logical point of view. If I were an Angband warrior who only cared
about a new sword if it were a nigh-indestructible artifact, then why
wouldn't I immediately jam the blade between two rocks to see if I
could snap it in half? Or try to cut that new cape with my sword, or
toss it into my campfire? Or take a warhammer to the crown that I
just found?
If you don't want to be able to identify artifacts with "destroy,"
then simply have destroy destroy artifacts just like it destroys
everything else. Destroy already ignores the durability of
everything else, taking the same time to render completely unusable
a glass vial as it does an iron spike or a metal shield.
Timo Pietilä
Got bored. Killed Morgoth.
Nearly 3M turns and only one GV in entire game. Countless of numbers of
level 4950' (nearly 1M turns using alter reality-clairvoyance-check
level and items -combo). Found *first* banishment scroll after about
2500k turns. Morgoth (or one of his summons) dropped first cloak artifact.
Got one "superb" level after couple of hundred tries and that one had
only one tiny LV and Graveyard.
Timo Pietil�
Andi Sidwell
I've filed these requests in the bugtracker.
Andi