Discussion thread on some UI improvements.

[Singbird]

Well, if we're talking about UI improvements, I think these kind of confirmation prompts are at the bottom of my list.

Using skills repeatedly is absolutely tedious.
Quickmarking skills and spells doesn't really achieve anything because you have to push the same number of buttons to use them anyway. In addition, using the non-quickmarked ones just becomes more and more tedious. For some outworldly reason you then have to press '*' to get to the skill list.
You can filter by item type when using 'd', but not when using 'Ctrl+d'.
Throwing items is a chore. Remove bow and arrows, equip throwing item.

As for misclicks I really don't know. I don't remember any other game asking me if I really want to shoot that fireball so close to my party members or if I really want to fire that RPG right now because the grenade will hit the wall and kill me. I also don't remember ever missing it either. To me this isn't even fixing the user interface, it's just putting up safes because the interface is so crappy. Or maybe your input device is so crappy? Maybe it's putting up safes to accomodate input devices the game was not designed for. I'm using a keyboard and never had any misclick problems.

I wouldn't mind if the game warned about firing a bolt on a wall next to me, because I never do that. But then I think the game also should warn about putting on iron items for my mist elf. Of course, it would also be nice if it warned me when entering fire and air temples with items that might get destroyed. You know, physical misclick, mental misclick, shouldn't make a difference (diving in water already is a mental misclick protection). I recently got sacrificed when I stepped on an altar because I wasn't thinking, so the game should warn about that too. So yeah, I don't miss more confirmations for my doings. But if others want them and they can be toggled off, why not. They could be implemented in an easy mode in the enhanced version or something, for example.

[Stingray1]

I think here is maybe the best place to clarify something. I do look down on cheating and of course cheaters, that is my persona. What you and maybe others see as elitist statement is not my intention for them to seem like. Obviously I am doing those statements in the wrong way.

From my perspective they are attempts to deter others from certain unhealthy practices, in my view.

If I do a certain challenge or test it is to inspire players, not to try and indicate to them that I think I'm better than them. I think there are many better players than me, very many.

I shall henceforce really try to rephrase my comments.

[JellySlayer]

Well, if we're talking about UI improvements, I think these kind of confirmation prompts are at the bottom of my list.

Using skills repeatedly is absolutely tedious.
Quickmarking skills and spells doesn't really achieve anything because you have to push the same number of buttons to use them anyway. In addition, using the non-quickmarked ones just becomes more and more tedious. For some outworldly reason you then have to press '*' to get to the skill list.
You can filter by item type when using 'd', but not when using 'Ctrl+d'.
Throwing items is a chore. Remove bow and arrows, equip throwing item.

As for misclicks I really don't know. I don't remember any other game asking me if I really want to shoot that fireball so close to my party members or if I really want to fire that RPG right now because the grenade will hit the wall and kill me. I also don't remember ever missing it either. To me this isn't even fixing the user interface, it's just putting up safes because the interface is so crappy. Or maybe your input device is so crappy? Maybe it's putting up safes to accomodate input devices the game was not designed for. I'm using a keyboard and never had any misclick problems.

I wouldn't mind if the game warned about firing a bolt on a wall next to me, because I never do that. But then I think the game also should warn about putting on iron items for my mist elf. Of course, it would also be nice if it warned me when entering fire and air temples with items that might get destroyed. You know, physical misclick, mental misclick, shouldn't make a difference (diving in water already is a mental misclick protection). I recently got sacrificed when I stepped on an altar because I wasn't thinking, so the game should warn about that too. So yeah, I don't miss more confirmations for my doings. But if others want them and they can be toggled off, why not. They could be implemented in an easy mode in the enhanced version or something, for example.

Pretty much this. A lot of the UI "improvements" suggested so far seem to be designed to remove actual game mechanics that people don't like, not to make the interface easier to work with.

[GordonOverkill]

To quote the theme of a big personality of the present: "Well, you hurt my friends, and you hurt my pride... I gotta be a man, I can't let it slide!"

Stingray's been an extremely nice and pleasant person who gave me alot of valuable hints without ever giving me the feeling of playing like an absolute moron (though I honestly did at times ;-)). He's definitely no blowhard, he has just got kind of a rumbling and direct way to say his opinion at times ;-)

Apart from that Singbird is 101% right with his statement!

[Soirana]

Some of us are of the view that a player should not be punished for pressing the wrong key at the wrong time.

Well, problem is you need mechanically determine if it was misclick or not, which means game engine should predict what you 'ought' not to do in given situation. Well either that or just allowding revert last action. Both ways suck, IMHO. Later does not go well with what I expect from roguelike and former from games I played usually does not work very well unless fixed to very specific and simple rules [like firing rocket launcher gives warning if it would damage friendly units -in turn based game naturally].

So let see at examples:

1. Prompt me if I attack certain pre-defined monsters: RFE

2. Accidental bouncing bolts: RFE

3. Accidentily pressing shift q: RFE

4. Handling certain items while having poisoned hands or mana battery: RFE

1. Adom prompts when one attacks perma friendly stuff, no? Berserk is obviously designed exception. Don't see what needs to be fixed.
2. Well problem is if one warns about every bouncy damage it gets wierd - trained bolts can easily have higher range than sight [and wands of far slaying too] so that would introduce whole nonsense of "bouncesight" and so on.
In theory it would be nice if there was possibility to lean in game "soft" versions of bolts - that is without bouncing. Player could pick bouncy or not bouncy with their own advantages and disadvantages.
I still view bounces as part of deal for wizzards having good times in adom compared to melee chars.
3. you do get prompted after that. So what do you want to fix?
4. These, in my opinion, are made not to be save. So prompt would work opposite from intended.

Now speaking about UI - stuff I would like to see is getting some sage functios -like command repeating your last action, autoswitch with hostiles, environment message suppression.

On stuff I personally suffered was mostly asassins and Alchemy with overpressing a's [a to apply, a to choose skill [usually first in list], than couple overrushed a's for ingredients] - ends in burnt up charwith half town chasing arround.

[Stingray1]

Soirana, I agree confirmations must be kept to an absolute minimum and only be presented to the player in very likely instances that a misclick might have been occurred.

Berserk has been fixed to also prompt.

This is why, for my "issues", I am considering suggesting config variables. Where through the player will define himself whether (s)he wants comfirmation on said "issues".

Wrt to your "issue" about pressing 'a' too many times, one already existing solution besides taking care is to quickmark skills. Not everyone likes using quickmarks though.

Those sage features are already implemented or will be in the near future.

Edit - I am starting to lean more and more towards us old timers' view on misclicks. That would most certainly be the easiest to implement and forces the player to be careful, which is something I feel should remain in the game. Covering every possible misclick will be ridiculous.

I think most everything has been said wrt misclicks, so unless anyone feels something more needs to be added. If you want to discuss misclicks a little more, I'll shift my posts. Maybe we can move on to actual UI improvements as Singbird started on. I will thus search now for RFEs regarding non-misclick UI improvements and link them in my next post. If I do miss any, please be so kind as to mention them.

We can thus maybe try to concentrate on stuff that hasn't been RFE'd yet.

[Stingray1]

Search engine to find items easier in inventory: RFE

Stacking those annoying small stacks of missiles: RFE and another

Combine single repeated actions: RFE

Lvl 18 Healer classpowers (minor one): RFE

Lvl 18 Thief classpower (minor one): RFE

More teleportation to shortcuts: RFE

Extend extended drop: RFE

Auto-pickpocket: RFE

Quickmarking ':u'sable items in inventory: RFE

'l'ook targeting like 't'hrow: RFE

Select multiple items for sacrifice: RFE

Yeah that's all I could locate.

[Stingray1]

Ok, I'll start so long. Wrt to quickmarked skills/spells, I never used it when I started playing. Nowadays I cannot go without it. What I like about it is that I can most of the time keep my right hand on the numpad and my fingers know exactly where those keys are. My left hand is on 'a' and 'w' and 's' and 'z' and near 'e'. Very convenient setup in my view.

Sorry Singbird for not understanding, but I don't understand how the current quickmarking UI is inconvenient?

[Singbird]

Sorry Singbird for not understanding, but I don't understand how the current quickmarking UI is inconvenient?

Well, I think my problem is mainly that quickmarking a skill or a spell in actuality "slow-marks" all the other skills and spells. If you quickmark something, using something else then becomes slower. How to fix, I don't know. 'a'pplying a skill could open the list as usual, just the quickmarked skills could be selected with the numbers as right now, or another skill could be selected with letters. Or have a different key to use the quickmarked things. Make 'a' use a quickmarked skill and 'A' use normally or to quickmark them. Or when you have a skill quickmarked and you 'a', make 'Z' take you to skill list and not abort. That would speed things up nicely I guess.

[SirTheta]

Sorry Singbird for not understanding, but I don't understand how the current quickmarking UI is inconvenient?

Quickmarking doesn't save you any keypresses - just finger movement, and then only for like 6 skills/spells at most, and keypress related errors [learning new spell -> spell shifts down one -> you choose wrong spell] - and it makes accessing a non-quickmarked skill a HUGE pain in the ass. I don't have any suggestions for making it better, but there's a lot of room for improvement (bringing up the screen has occurred to me, but a very nice thing about quickmarking is it doesn't bring up the screen...)