Improving message sequencing

[Magnate]

Napsterbater reported this in the 3.3 release thread:

You hit the Cutpurse.
The Cutpurse hits you.
The Cutpurse misses you.
You hit the Cutpurse.
The Cutpurse flees in terror!
The Cutpurse hits you.
The Cutpurse touches you.
Your purse feels lighter.
44 coins were stolen!
There is a puff of smoke!
The Cutpurse is no longer afraid.

If you come across any other examples of messages appearing in the wrong order, please paste them into this thread (with any necessary explanation). It could just be specific to monster fear, but it could be more general than that.

[jens]

This might not be what you are after, but it's something that bugs me a bit...

You are full!
You have a Scroll of Satisfy Hunger (k).
You reorder some items in your pack.

I do like the sequence here, but I do not like that I get obsolete information. i.e. I get to know that the scrolls I just ID'd used to be in position 'k', but they are now somewhere else.

I don't have any good solution, but the best I've come up with is to use the same sequencing, but give the information that will be correct after the reorder.

You are full!
You have a Scroll of Satisfy Hunger (j).
You reorder some items in your pack.

[jens]

I have read a scroll of Confuse monster.
I meet a Lost soul.

You hit the Lost soul.
Your hands stop glowing.
You have destroyed the Lost soul.
The Lost soul is unaffected.

btw, is there a way to copy messages from Angband without resorting to manually typing it down?

[Max Stats]

btw, is there a way to copy messages from Angband without resorting to manually typing it down?

There is code the save the last few messages to the file when you do a character dump, but it only applies to dead or retired characters. I don't see why this couldn't be done all the time.

[jens]

And how do you do a character dump?

[Nomad]

I have read a scroll of Confuse monster.
I meet a Lost soul.

You hit the Lost soul.
Your hands stop glowing.
You have destroyed the Lost soul.
The Lost soul is unaffected.

Yup, I've seen this. And I don't have examples to hand, but I'm pretty sure I've had status effects stop in the same turn as a character's death and received them after the death message, leading to fun combinations like "You die. / You are no longer bleeding."

[Max Stats]

And how do you do a character dump?

'C' to bring up character sheet, then 'f' to file.

[PowerWyrm]

This had made me laugh for years:

The ghoul hits you.
You die.
You resist the effect.

No no... death resistance has not been implemented yet. Just a monster landing a final blow with a HIT:PARALYZE attack while having FA.

[Nomad]

Another one:

The Bolt (1d5) (+0, +0) hit the Scroll mimic.  It was a good hit!
The Scroll titled "ibus or an" was really a monster!
The Scroll mimic dies.

[Magnate]

Another one:

The Bolt (1d5) (+0, +0) hit the Scroll mimic.  It was a good hit!
The Scroll titled "ibus or an" was really a monster!
The Scroll mimic dies.

What's wrong with that sequence?

[Derakon]

The message indicating the scroll was a mimic should show up before any references to a mimic being hit do.

[Magnate]

The message indicating the scroll was a mimic should show up before any references to a mimic being hit do.

I wouldn't have thought so. If you miss it, you don't know it's not an object, do you?

[Nomad]

I wouldn't have thought so. If you miss it, you don't know it's not an object, do you?

I guess the problem is not so much that the second message should go first as that after the first message, it's redundant and inappropriate. It's already acknowledged to be a scroll mimic, but then you're stepping backwards and just now noticing that it's not a scroll? Logically, it should probably read:

The Bolt (1d5) (+0, +0) hit the Scroll titled "ibus or an".  It was a good hit!
The Scroll titled "ibus or an" was really a monster!
The Scroll mimic dies.

But if that's too awkward, it might be simplest to remove the redundant message entirely and just display:

The Bolt (1d5) (+0, +0) hit the Scroll mimic.  It was a good hit!
The Scroll mimic dies.

[CunningGabe]

The tricky thing is that the message "The (such and such) is really a monster!" comes up whenever the player becomes aware of a mimic -- which isn't necessarily from hitting the monster. So I don't know if it's possible to avoid the message completely. But I should fit the message into the monster message system.

Really, the whole messaging thing needs to be looked at and rethought. The monster messages tend to be sequenced well by themselves, but the non-monster messages are usually printed right when they are computed. There should probably be one master buffer that gets cleared once a turn. Maybe each message could be assigned a numeric priority so that, for instance, "You die" always appears at the end.

[Magnate]

The tricky thing is that the message "The (such and such) is really a monster!" comes up whenever the player becomes aware of a mimic -- which isn't necessarily from hitting the monster. So I don't know if it's possible to avoid the message completely. But I should fit the message into the monster message system.

Really, the whole messaging thing needs to be looked at and rethought. The monster messages tend to be sequenced well by themselves, but the non-monster messages are usually printed right when they are computed. There should probably be one master buffer that gets cleared once a turn. Maybe each message could be assigned a numeric priority so that, for instance, "You die" always appears at the end.

+1. I've been struggling for ages with how to fix message sequencing, and this is it. It's a big job though!