Simple adom improvement suggestions (mostly UI/commands)

[LittleLady]

A few things my friend and I both agree'd on that could improve adom in easy but quality of play ways
(perhaps some are already in but we just don't know how to activate them)
Not as a default but as an option, most are available in other roguelikes

1. Have a drop everything (entire inventory) with no confirmation or messages (holding space/enter) command or perhaps just one Y

-Also suppressing and automatically dropping all of a count as an option

2. Have a message suppresion option when picking things up either as a command or as a default setting

-Ie no 'you pick up xxx' just a ';' like command and pick everything up without a notification of what

3. Allow keybinding beyond 0-9, allow a,b,c,d, A,B,C,D etc for A or Z + "#"

Alternatively allow hotkey directly of skills/spells across all characters ever

-like Alt-1 attempting to use 'pickpocket' or 'firebolt' regardless of character or setting up again, if this character doesn't have the skill, return fail or 'unavailable'

A more advanced would be to allow multiple spells/skils to (ex. Alt-1) to try fire bolt, frost bolt, lighting, acid bolt etc, to use in order. Ex. if fire bolt is out, it would move to frost bolt

4. Merge like message on extended waits and other situations. Rather than 'rushing water, or burp/pop' show Pop x 20, Rushing water x 16 etc. (again, as an option) especially in message log

Allow color coding of dungeon feature messages ie, 'arcane mumbling or pious' in blue

5. Auto-explore ignore items(don't stop) as an option or seperate explore command

6. Ability to remove confirmation of kick or walk-opening a door. No Y/n prompt as an option

7. Alternative eat command, aka, Shift-E to let you eat whatever you ate last, if available, if unavailable, open eat window like usual or return error/unavailable

8. On screen days passed toggle to see time always

9. Character history to show special creation messages. Aka 'monday tired', creator lucky, undead moving away etc.

10. Character awareness built in. If you identify 'you feel depressive/bad' to have it show up always. (Aka you use potion/skill insight/awareness and then get a depressed message and self-aware again, to replace the vague message with you become cursed/lose curse. Same for eating corpses 'you feel hot' self identify again and that is the only change since last insight to replace those messages with 'gain fire resistance' also viewable on a (new?) character page with intrinsics you KNOW you have (ie, insighted), perhaps with a message log of changes your character has noticed since the last insight to be cleared and updated when you insight again.

11. Overview of where you've been/what floors "Puppy cave 5/7(floors visited)" with special features you find/see following them. Aka Puppy cave 5, cav,pious(type),shop(type) etc. Your character knows these things if they have seen them. Ie, don't show the water temple unless you actually discovered it via mapping/digging/teleporting

12. Book annotation with how many times you've read from it "Frost bolt - read 2 times"

13. Experience counter option in message log or maybe a seperate one. "You slay kobold - 37 exp earned" with a list of all your last experience garnering actions for, x amount of lines. (On this subject get rid of exploitation of exp by slowing yourself down with walking over water imperviousness)

13. Allow save and exiting mid wish. Had to walk away from the game while I was thinking about what to wish for, came back and it crashed. If people are going to scum they will just use adombot, no reason not to do this.

13. Add a donation button mid-main menu with creator's paypal address, amazon pay, etc.

14. Show character discovered corpse effects as an annotation to corpse (extention of insight) including a flag to are you SURE Y/N on detrimental ones. Aka, kobold. Again, only effects the current character has discovered herself/himself.

15. Add option of talent choice confirmation. Have accidentely hit wrong button several times

16. Allow a 3rd auto pickup rule. On/Off generally and On/Off for shops, perhaps a 4th "Pick up everything always, no confirmation" for loot hoarding mode.

17. Toggle forced Y/N always rather than "are you sure you want to attack xxx" allow option of always returning N or Y (as a toggle/option)

18. Add are you sure Y/N on attack toggle for specific creatures you set and are currently aware of(aka, cats!)

19. Make luck stat visible. As a number or as a "Lucky x 3 Cursed x 1" etc, for known intrinsics/g-id equips

20. Allow resting to ignore non-hostile monsters w-5

21. Character should get 'do you want to continue eating/reading' as soon as a hostile monster enters his/her view (as an option)

I'm sure there's more, thats all we could think of after playing for a week or two. Feel free to add to the list!

I appologize for the terrible layout.

[JellySlayer]

1. Have a drop everything (entire inventory) with no confirmation or messages (holding space/enter) command or perhaps just one Y

-Also suppressing and automatically dropping all of a count as an option

You can do this from the :d menu.



Allow color coding of dungeon feature messages ie, 'arcane mumbling or pious' in blue

I think this is already possible using the Adom Sage commands, but you have to customize it yourself.


7. Alternative eat command, aka, Shift-E to let you eat whatever you ate last, if available, if unavailable, open eat window like usual or return error/unavailable

There is a repeat last action command...


8. On screen days passed toggle to see time always

Is this so important? You can check time already with ctrl-e, and time has a relatively minor influence on gameplay.


10. Character awareness built in. If you identify 'you feel depressive/bad' to have it show up always. (Aka you use potion/skill insight/awareness and then get a depressed message and self-aware again, to replace the vague message with you become cursed/lose curse. Same for eating corpses 'you feel hot' self identify again and that is the only change since last insight to replace those messages with 'gain fire resistance' also viewable on a (new?) character page with intrinsics you KNOW you have (ie, insighted), perhaps with a message log of changes your character has noticed since the last insight to be cleared and updated when you insight again.

I think the whole point of having insight/revelation is that your character isn't aware of these things.


13. Experience counter option in message log or maybe a seperate one. "You slay kobold - 37 exp earned" with a list of all your last experience garnering actions for, x amount of lines. (On this subject get rid of exploitation of exp by slowing yourself down with walking over water imperviousness)

There already is a command for this. Set Show_Experience = true.


14. Show character discovered corpse effects as an annotation to corpse (extention of insight) including a flag to are you SURE Y/N on detrimental ones. Aka, kobold. Again, only effects the current character has discovered herself/himself.

I think these are things the player is supposed to discover for themself.


18. Add are you sure Y/N on attack toggle for specific creatures you set and are currently aware of(aka, cats!)

The cat quest has already been massively toned down. Might as well just give people the RoTMC for free at this rate.


19. Make luck stat visible. As a number or as a "Lucky x 3 Cursed x 1" etc, for known intrinsics/g-id equips

I suspect this property was hidden on purpose.

[Galacia]

I'll add a few:

1. Arrow management is crazy. Automatically combine arrows, even if they have slightly different damages--just round them all down or average them or whatever.

2. When I run out of arrows in a stack, don't keep asking me if I want to equip the smallest stacks. Just automatically equip the biggest stack. I'll change it if I want something else.

3. When I want to equip a weapon, display weapons at the top of the list, like it does for other equipment categories.

4. Allow re-ordering of inventory, e.g., sort alphabetically, by stack size, or manually.

5. Separate herbs from regular food.

6. Provide a separate eat command for corpses.

[LittleLady]

You saved me with :d jelly! ty!!!!!!

Repeat last command does not work in regards to eating the same thing you ate last (aka, stack of stoma filla/ration) it only repeats what you have done last and not even that, just the keystrokes. If you are eating out of a stack of rations, and trying not to become satiated/bloated, you fight somethings, re-eat at hungry, again have to search through inventory. I don't mean a command mimic, I mean a direct 'eat what you ate last'.

[GordonOverkill]

There already is a command for this. Set Show_Experience = true.

I am kind of a complete computer noob, so if I may ask, where exactly do I have to make this change? Would love to see the exp-gains myself :-)

[divij]

i absolutely agree with the following recommendations...
we should have an option of stacking missiles to lower damage ones (for example if you have 15 '+0, 1d6' ;4 '+1, 1d6' ; 1 '+0, 1d6+3' ; it should become 20 '+0, 1d6' if you use a command
weapons should be displayed on the top if you ever press the left hand or right hand, followed by shields , followed by the other categories
walk command should ignore friendlies (i cant tell you how much grief this gives me while healing or increasing stats in dwarftown)
similar messages should stack.....rushing water*10000000000 for increasing melle/shieldvskills in the gremlin cave without getting a hole in your brain!

also i have the following recommendations to make:-
there should be a setting where you should stop walking 2 steps before you see an item...this will prevent you from attacking mimics (if some1 doesnt want this s/he can switch this setting off)
maybe implement a global memory for confirming eating unfavourable corpses like kobolds, were-creatures, gorgons etc.
have a global memory for scoll of identify

to gordon....
type :=
type show_experience = true (all alphabets small)
press enter

[FnrrfYgmSchnish]

Some of these suggested changes honestly seem like "this should be an optional customization sort of thing if it's included at all" (or, as mentioned above, already doable in one way or another with commands that currently exist)... but others would be pretty nice.


1. Arrow management is crazy. Automatically combine arrows, even if they have slightly different damages--just round them all down or average them or whatever.

2. When I run out of arrows in a stack, don't keep asking me if I want to equip the smallest stacks. Just automatically equip the biggest stack. I'll change it if I want something else.

3. When I want to equip a weapon, display weapons at the top of the list, like it does for other equipment categories.

YES to the "ask about the biggest stack of arrows first" thing. "Do you want to reload with the arrow? Do you want to reload with the arrow? Do you want to reload with the arrow (+1, 1d6+2)?" ...no, the stack of 14, because I get hit every time I reload and I don't want to do it every time I have to shoot! XD

Maybe it should be possible to combine stacks of "regular ol' arrow" arrows into one big pile in your missile slot, and the game could just internally track how many of each type exists, just showing "14 arrows" or whatever in your missile slot on the equipment screen but randomly deciding whether you just shot a crappy (-2, 1d6-3) or an ordinary (+0, 1d6) or whatever as you use them, and splitting them back up if you unequip the stack.
Having a bunch of varied arrows all smush down into the same type when combined into your quiver (even if it is just converting them all to standard +0, 1d6 arrows or something) would be weird. Especially weird if arrows would lose special properties (of slaying, of darkness, of thunder, etc.) this way, or if mithril arrows would turn back into wood. O_o

Showing weapons at the top of the equip list when choosing what to wield sounds like a good change too, especially since every other slot already shows the items that are specifically intended to be equipped in that slot first before any others that could possibly go there. Of course, you should still be able to wield non-weapon stuff if you want, but it'd be nice to have the weapons show first.


4. Allow re-ordering of inventory, e.g., sort alphabetically, by stack size, or manually.

This could be kinda nice. Something I noticed lately is that spellbooks get rearranged if you read and identify them--that's kind of annoying sometimes, and it'd be nice if they would stay in the same order whether they're "bejewelled tomes" or "dusty tomes" or "mangled tomes" or if it turns out they're actually "tomes of Cure Light Wounds" after all.


5. Separate herbs from regular food.

6. Provide a separate eat command for corpses.

This kind of stuff just seems like it would be needlessly complicating things, though, and not have any really positive effect whatsoever. Herbs and monster-meat are food, and you use them by eating them (well, except spenseweeds and moss of marelion, but you can still eat those... along with seeds, which are also useless as food but useful in another way)--having a separate eat command would just be annoying, and splitting them into a different item type would be kind of pointless.

On the other hand, I have been playing Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup lately and there's the "cut chunks of meat from corpses" command there--so you have the whole corpse as one item and then you get "chunks of _____ meat" after hacking the corpse up, and the chunks are what's counted as edible. It has an actual function, not just being a "second eat command for corpses," so I wouldn't mind seeing something like it implemented here. Would be kinda neat to be able to hack an ogre corpse into 4 or 5 chunks and get a separate chance of strength boost from each one, or something along those lines. Plus tiny little hobbits eating an entire ogre corpse in one sitting is a bit silly, after all (though, on the other hand... that could explain why eating huge monsters increases your strength. you have to get stronger mid-eating or you can't finish such an absurdly oversized meal. XD)

Splitting herbs off into a different category would be almost like splitting the "stuff you're only supposed to dip things in" potions like oil and poison off from the "stuff you're supposed to drink" potions, though. I like that all "drinkables" are potions and all "edibles" are food, rather than having a bunch of categories for only-slightly-different item types. Not every game does that--I've seen some roguelikes use a potion icon for lamp oil but never let you drink it even if you want your character to be the kind of complete moron who'd drink lamp oil because they didn't know what it was.
The consistency of "if you can eat it, even if you shouldn't, it's food" and "if you can drink it, even if you shouldn't, it's a potion" is pretty nice and I'd like to see that stay in the game.

Speaking of whether items should be in their current category or not... I kinda want to say that lumps of clay should probably be in the missiles category rather than tools, since nobody but Mist Elves has any use for them besides throwing/slinging anyway... and the game already asks if you want to reload with them when you're using a sling, so it's only one step away from fully counting them as the same sort of thing as rocks.

[GordonOverkill]

to gordon....type :=
type show_experience = true (all alphabets small)
press enter

Excellent, thank you!

[_Ln_]

Excellent, thank you!

To avoid doing so in every game, go to ADOM resource dir (somewhere in your user directory on Windows) and add "Show_Experience:=true" to adom.cfg file.

[GordonOverkill]

Thanks alot! Just tried it out and it works fine :-)

[SinsI]

I think with arrow management, it is better to let the player create a "quiver" and put whatever arrows he wants into that quiver, with a random one being pulled out each time. In inventory, quiver would look like a subtree that you can expand to view its contents and take individual stacks out or put them in, or you can designate one of the quivers as the default place to put newly picked up ammo of that type, unless you have a matching stack outside it.

[LittleLady]

Nice! I just used that too!

Excellent, thank you!

[SirTheta]

On the other hand, I have been playing Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup lately and there's the "cut chunks of meat from corpses" command there--so you have the whole corpse as one item and then you get "chunks of _____ meat" after hacking the corpse up, and the chunks are what's counted as edible. It has an actual function, not just being a "second eat command for corpses," so I wouldn't mind seeing something like it implemented here. Would be kinda neat to be able to hack an ogre corpse into 4 or 5 chunks and get a separate chance of strength boost from each one, or something along those lines. Plus tiny little hobbits eating an entire ogre corpse in one sitting is a bit silly, after all (though, on the other hand... that could explain why eating huge monsters increases your strength. you have to get stronger mid-eating or you can't finish such an absurdly oversized meal. XD)There's actually a very good proposal somewhere to redo food in DCSS because the "chunk-hunting minigame" is so tedious. As it stands, with DCSS limited inventory - both in terms of weight and slots - chunks make sense, but I don't see them as making sense for ADOM, and I'd be rather annoyed at the extra action incurred.

[FnrrfYgmSchnish]

Eh, just thought something along those lines would make more sense than "adding a separate Eat command specifically for corpses," which just had me scratching my head and going "...huh? why??"

But yeah, it'd probably be better to just keep the current system. The only real advantage I can think of the "you have to cut chunks off the corpse first" system (aside from the possibly-kinda-cheap way of getting corpse eating effects multiple times) would be less chance of accidentally eating a kobold corpse or something that happens to be lying on the ground where you're standing, which is pretty easy to avoid once you know better anyway.

[grobblewobble]

The cat quest has already been massively toned down. Might as well just give people the RoTMC for free at this rate.
I didn't really follow what happened in the latest versions, how has the cat quest been changed?

[Cactus]

I didn't really follow what happened in the latest versions, how has the cat quest been changed?

I think JellySlayer referred to the non-hostility of many monsters in the new versions. If you are trapped between two cats nowadays, chances are very high you can just swap places with one of them.

[JellySlayer]

Also, cats rarely show up at lower DLs.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

The current monster distribution is fine from a balance point of view, but honestly I still miss the 1.1.1 distribution. I never shared the views of the people complaining about finding goblins in the deep CoC. Fighting difficult monsters feels more epic if you don't find one around every other corner of the dungeon.

[GordonOverkill]

The current monster distribution is fine from a balance point of view, but honestly I still miss the 1.1.1 distribution. I never shared the views of the people complaining about finding goblins in the deep CoC. Fighting difficult monsters feels more epic if you don't find one around every other corner of the dungeon.

Exactly how I see it.

[Blasphemous]

I think encountering goblins, orcs, rats and kobolds in deep CoC is ridiculous.
I think having them always attack a ridiculously powerful character dual wielding greater moloch corpses is even more insane.
Sadly, you can't satisfy everybody. That's why RFEs get downvotes and upvotes so that the majority of player base can express their preferences.
Personally, if I were TB, I'd just stick to my own personal choices and if people don't buy it, they shouldn't play it.
Understandably, TB might not be the best game designer out there since apparently he doesn't play his own game lol.
If he did play it half as much as I do, I'm sure we'd get a crapload of RFEs in a timeframe of 48 hours that would radically change the entire game.
But that's an entirely different story.

[Dazed]

I would like to have a y/n choice if you accidentally select the Earthquake spell without meaning to... I'm playing an Elementalist at the moment and I do get a bit annoyed when my Fire Bolt spell moves down the alphabet because Earthquake appears and I end up mashing up the dungeon level :(

[Dogbreath]

Understandably, TB might not be the best game designer out there since apparently he doesn't play his own game lol.


I've told him before, and I still think, the best thing possible for ADOM development would be for TB to actually play ADOM. Like, take a month or two to stop development and do absolutely nothing but play ADOM until he beats it, or at least gets 4 or 5 characters past the TOEF. From what I understand, he usually plays it for a few hours, then gets so many ideas he stops playing and starts coding again, which is why IMO you see so many (relatively new) features for the first parts of the game, but the second half (post TOEF) has been left almost completely untouched until very recently. (with the experience changes, changes to the elemental temples, etc.) Because he never gets that far. :)

As far as cat lord: I can say anecdotally that his quest has gotten much easier. In 13 years of ADOM playing, I got his ring twice in 1.1.1. In the past few pre-releases alone, I've gotten it 4 or 5 times. Pretty much any character I take past the TOEF gets it, simply because it's not difficult to avoid killing cats now.

[Blasphemous]

As far as cat lord: I can say anecdotally that his quest has gotten much easier. In 13 years of ADOM playing, I got his ring twice in 1.1.1. In the past few pre-releases alone, I've gotten it 4 or 5 times. Pretty much any character I take past the TOEF gets it, simply because it's not difficult to avoid killing cats now.

I have to disagree. I used to just slaughter cats before since I played classes that don't really need the ring that much (mostly wizards) and just didn't care since every time I tried, some stray cat behind a corner would ruin my day.
But when I started playing other classes, especially melee in the prereleases, I reconsidered the value of the cat ring and will usually try to get it.
It's as difficult as I remember trying not to kill cats, I need to be very careful all the time.
Just yesterday I finished a game with DE assassin that got the ring.
I had to lead 6 cats one by one out of DD:7 to get to the druid and outmaneuver them while my speed wasn't that high, then leave them locked in empty rooms or lost behind corridor bends etc.
A bit tricky to pull this off, I was close to giving up and just slaying them.
Then through UD I had to do this again with 3 cats, one of them almost getting killed when I tried to hit it accidentally but luckily missed.
Later game doesn't make it easier at all when you try to clear a giant undead vault and the liches summon lions or tigers.
With all the other colors out there and monsters swapping places, I really had to pay close attention to get the felines out of the crowd, make them follow me then after ascending/descending - teleport them away.
Finally, some balor on D:50 summoned lions again so I had to use my wands of trap creation to get rid of them.
So yeah, avoiding killing cats is as annoying and difficult as I ever remember it.

[grobblewobble]

You guys got it all backward. The real quest is to sacrifice the ring. The reward is that you're allowed to kill annoying cats at will.

[_Ln_]

IMHO ring is not that hot. *grabs popcorn*

[Dogbreath]

Blasphemeous: I guess the reason our experiences are different may be due to playing styles?

So, up until Dwarf Town or so my characters are usually in danger of dying pretty easily, and I play the game relatively slowly. Slowly enough that I pay attention to every monster I encounter, and so avoiding cats isn't difficult. Even in 1.1.1 I don't think I ever accidentally killed a cat pre-dwarftown.

OTOH, once I start getting more experienced, my chances of dying drop off dramatically (I almost never lose a character after dwarftown), so I naturally start playing faster. I don't just hold down the keys or anything, but the whole "turn the corner, accidentally splatter a cat" thing happens more frequently. Especially since, by that point, I can always one-hit a cat. The recent pre-releases have made cats much, much, much rarer deeper than dwarftown, so getting the ring hasn't been a challenge for me. Luck might also play a part. *shrugs*

[gut]

I vote no to all ideas that involve adding more prompts and a hearty yes to all ideas eliminating all prompts.
I want cat gen rate to be increased and all cats hostile. I want more cat cornerings in narrow cooridors. I want
the quest to be *2 more difficult and the reward to be *2 more powerful. That way I can really feel good about
getting that ring and beating cats to death with it.

[Blasphemous]

Gut, I think you're right in a twisted, fucked up kind of way.
I'm in for buffing the cat ring at the cost of increased cat annoyance, eve if that means I will have to buy a new keyboard every week.
In fact, I will post an RFE right now.

[Heikki]

Gut, I think you're right in a twisted, fucked up kind of way.
I'm in for buffing the cat ring at the cost of increased cat annoyance, eve if that means I will have to buy a new keyboard every week.
In fact, I will post an RFE right now.

+1 to that RFE already, going to read it later :)

[adom-admin]

It would be totally awesome if someone would take all the suggestions (especially from the first two posts) and turn them into RFEs at http://www.adom.de/forums/project.php?projectid=2 :-)

Otherwise chances are very slim for anything to change...