voted +1

My PC (ultra ending potential) just died beacouse she accidentally hit her undead slave (230 level quickling queen skeletal warrior) in darkness (Hate the sun - corruption)... instadeath.
I was cautious but game lagged and shit happened :)

I will be glad with just confirmation:

something is passing next to You but You dont know what is it. Do you want to try attack It (Y/N) ?

when we encounter something in dark or when blind...

IMHO Normal to coward tactic should be 'peaceful tactic':

I mean when we switch from f5 to f7:

- auto swapping with neutral monsters should be triggered
- confirmation massage / dialog when encountering something in dark or being blind should be displayed.

@emilus - I don't think confirmation makes sense. It's nearly like seeing one square.

In the dark you have generated message when you encounter monster:

'You feel something passing very closely beside your head' - when something is square next to you. Its more like feeling than seeing...

Confirmation is logical in this situation... but chance +to hit in darkness should be low (based on alertness) or 0 . (possibility to hit empty space or empty square).

If we wanna make it more realistic we could add possibility to strain arm when failing to hit 'something in dark'... (same like straining leg kicking at empty space)...

Nope, you're receiving this message not when something is just next to you but when something you can't see tries to hit you but misses. This happens in the middle of your turn when you can't act. And you usually can't tell for sure from where attack comes.

Adding confirmation before your action is nerf to darkness/blindness/invisibility since you will receive confirmation before taking the decision. It's nearly the same as allowing to see invisible monsters next to you but without knowing their types and statuses.

+If such "sense" were implemented additional tactic won't do anything, if you feel that something invisible is next to you - why would you bump into it?

"The game has been designed around?" Really? Why do you fixate on this type of archaic feature? This has nothing to do with errors on the player's part, it is an interface problem. It is the same as if the only way to move items was to kick them instead of picking them up.

If not having a separate attack and move command what make the cat quest what it is *we need to think about changing what it is*.

We are getting to the point where we are extolling the value of any design decision that is longstanding *just because it is longstanding*. Think about the actual merits of what is being proposed here.

Well, probably it was really design choice since there is even fortune cookie message about darkness and companions. And there is quite good explanation provided in this thread (and the only one possible and justified IMHO): PC is afraid to move without a weapon or a fist in front of him into / inside such a scary environment.

I would suggest a tradeoff for those who likes this explanation and the existing behavior:

If PC is brave enough and feels strong enough he should be able possibly at will enter darkness in place where he feels safe enough. Otherwise he shouldn't be allowed to enter there with the message like this "You're too afraid to enter darkness without holding a weapon or a fist ready." This should apply not only to peaceful mode but to "two shields" ugly workaround as well. Don't think it should do anything with usual walking (so you won't hurt invisible creature if you really don't want to) and I don't think this should touch blind PCs as well.

I'd propose the following equation:
If 5 x danger level + 25 < 1 x Courage + 1 x Willpower + 1 x Level PC should be allowed to enter darkness without any worries and without a weapon or at peace of course.

On the one hand player won't miss this mechanic. 10 level PC with 20 willpower and courage still wouldn't be able to move into scary darkness even on danger level 1. But on the other hand 20 level PC with 25 willpower and, say, 50 courage would feel free to remove his weapons and fists before entering darkness on danger level 13 and lower. 50 level PC with 50 willpower and 100 courage would enter darkness on level 34 but not further.

Thoughts?

Ixi, you started this topic, you had the great idea to do this to begin with. What happened? It sounds like you are now changing your mind. You were right.

Look, the point is not that you can't do what this RFE proposes, you already can. The whole point is that there is already a workaround. You can already equip two shields and that 'design choice' is negated (I think maybe you actually already said all this). And that workaround is just silly.

This situation isn't even limited to the dark, what about the animated forest? Is the pc afraid to walk into it without a weapon drawn?

What if some sort of really simple action was only possible through a convoluted workaround? An action like trying to switch places with villagers and dwarves, where every time you attempted to you got a prompt asking if you wanted to attack them?

Oh, yeah, that already happened, and it was fixed. You have the same situation in this case: The player knows exactly what they want to do, and the game obstinately makes this trivially simple situation a real headache.

So we have a complicated equation to decide if the pc is scared of the dark. My dark elf is scared of the dark. My *dark* elf is scared of the dark now. Ixi, come on, this is just too much of a hassle to be worth it. And you already solved this problem yourself. We should do what you said to begin with. You were right.

ADOM is about giving players choices. This is the opposite of that.

What Greybird said.

Given that workarounds exist (Chatting with empty spaces, equipping 2 shields), then a tactics setting that puts you on peaceful should exist. It's something any player might deliberately want to do, but it isn't obvious how (equipping 2 shields and chatting with empty spaces aren't obvious to new players), but there's no good reason why this should be an "advanced" feature hidden this way.

And tactics already makes a lot of sense for this.

I'm not trying to ignore any opinions, I'm trying to listen to people even if their point is opposed to suggested RFE. And trying too find sense and logic in their words.

Otherwise for what do we need these discussions?

Moving/Attacking isn't designed very good and it's a top-priority subject to change from my point of view. However being afraid of darness makes a lot more sense then using two shields not to attack (come on, this was designed to punish the player, not give him a way to be peaceful!) or chatting with monsters in darkness (I would ignore something chatting with me in darkness and this should consume a turn if it currently doesn't).

Regarding dark elfs or orcs - yeah, the shouldn't be afraid at least so much. I'd say they should see in darkness after all. Equation was just a sample on which I didn't though too much.

Ixi, that's very respectful of you, but it's okay to stick to your guns when you are right. Your RFE has 17 upvotes. It's been a long time since I've seen one that popular. You have the community's support.

No worries, I didn't change my opinion at all ;) I think game would became much better with peaceful mode even if weak chaotic coward PC that get used to sunlight (again, just example) won't be allowed to use peaceful mode on very dangerous dark area where he unlikely have a reason to do so.
Anyway IMHO that's not what was actually proposed and probably a subject for separate RFE after we see this RFE implemented.

I don't know whether or not it's the ideal fix for the movement/attack issue, but I would absolutely like to see a more situational parsing system continue to be developed which allows for free movement around friendly creatures without an attack being assumed. It's very strange to encounter a monster and have the game raise a dialogue about whether or not you want to attack it (or in the case of beserking, not even ask). The problem is that it's difficult for the game to presume a player's intention when one of two might be equally valid. Not everyone has two shields available in this sort of situation or hands free of other cursed items. Not everyone will want to equip them just to avoid hitting a non-hostile when there's a hostile rampaging in the same area, nor would that make sense from a character point of view (one example of a hostile walking around a town area - the last Dwarftown quest, as well as companions and the like in general).

In such a case a tactics setting might be a good idea, either using the Coward setting or something entirely new keyed to say F8. For greater integration this could feature a togglable key with a seperate game setting entirely (Rest/Adventure?).

I do however see a counter-issue that inevitably some people will leave the toggle on when they don't mean to. Perhaps it would only be useable in peaceful locations?

Perhaps another solution that didn't require too much extra coding would be to change the message from a Y/N option to something like "What do you want to do with this foo? 'S'witch places or 'A'ttack?" which is still unfortunately a small hitch in the flow of the game but at least doesn't imply that the player was trying to slaughter their way through an innocent child (when they weren't trying to). It's also two-three fewer keypresses than 'y' ':' 's'. Encountering something new in darkness for the first time might result in a single-turn message of "You bump against something in the dark. It grunts/squeaks/hisses in confusion." which would allow the player to not only 'C'hat to it and attempt peaceable contact but also give them some idea about the monster they're encountering in advance. Similarly "You bump against something in the dark. It turns and lunges at you!" might show up for naturally hostile monsters, before the monster actually retaliates, allowing the player to then attempt to walk into it a second time to initiate combat. Rather than equipping shields and 'C'hatting at thin air every step of the way, this would be a flavourful way to enable detection, and might even invalidate the need to warn against companions in darkness.

I'm basically not quite conversant enough with ADOM's programming to know what would be the best option in developing this recognition and whether Tactics is the easiest way to go.

That said, though - I believe that the issue this RFE raises is very valid, and if the ADOM team -can- work out a way to implement it in an appropriate manner, I'd be very pleased. So voting up.