We need more people.

[Pete Mack]

That was my iPod touch-I mistyped noob on the tiny keyboard.

[hillsc]

I might be one of those on the "outside" of RL's looking in, and can tell you that the first reply was spot-on about why these will never find a larger audience. Just to avoid this being a "me too" post, I have a case study for you.

Down at 2200 feet, battling a nest of mature dragons, I was doing great keeping them stuck down the hall and only taking on one at a time at the corner. Standard operating procedure.

Then I get my 2% chanced "You failed to get the spell off!" and thinking I'm about to fire a spell, I actually step into the hallway. I hate that. You're going along a top speed, casting spells over and over and over and suddenly this mechanical keystroke sequence which has, until this point, only generated positive results, just this one time, also generates instant (and permanent) death.

I say instant, but no, it actually took about two minutes of hitting return at all the "--more--" prompts before I actually died.

Luckily, I cheat. Unluckily, I left about $1.4M in loot on the ground after dispatching 80% of those buggers.

[Atarlost]

Then I get my 2% chanced "You failed to get the spell off!" and thinking I'm about to fire a spell, I actually step into the hallway. I hate that. You're going along a top speed, casting spells over and over and over and suddenly this mechanical keystroke sequence which has, until this point, only generated positive results, just this one time, also generates instant (and permanent) death.

Hmm. There is a simple solution to accidental movement on spell failure. It's allways been considered more trouble than it's worth, but it would be worthwhile to know what you, as an outsider, think of it:

Would you have played the game if the arrow keys if you had to hit the walk command (.) before moving?

If it were an option would you enable it now, knowing it would prevent you from dieing from typing too fast?

Another option is to remove either run (shift+dir) or easy alter (ctrl+dir) functionality and map the modifier so freed to walking while removing the existing walk keymaps. This would also eliminate your form of death by typing too fast.

If the interface is optimized to experienced players in a way that makes it troublesome for new players it needs to change if we're going to get new players to stay around.

[PaulBlay]

Hmm. There is a simple solution to accidental movement on spell failure. It's allways been considered more trouble than it's worth, but it would be worthwhile to know what you, as an outsider, think of it:

Not simple, and not that solution, but I did have an idea that could 'solve' that a short while back. In macros / keymappings there is (as far as I know) no 'abort on fail' option. If failed actions aborted macros you wouldn't have the remaining characters misinterpreted.

In other words if the unlucky poster "Fire spell north" (m3dn, or whatever) assigned to a macro instead of
"Fire spell" <failed> "walk north"
he would have had
"Fire spell" <failed><macro aborted>

[Donald Jonker]

Hmm. There is a simple solution to accidental movement on spell failure.

I have yet another simple solution to offer. Instead of shooting the spell in a direction, target the monster with *t. If your spell fails, you won't move, or even make an action wasting a turn. You can even make a foolproof macro that way: \e\e\em3d*t will likewise never result in a wasted turn (at least, I can't think of any situations in which it would).

There are no doubt some situations where it's more advantageous to provide a direction (light beams come to mind), but it would be better in general for a player's muscle memory to provide a target monster to prevent these kinds of mistakes.

[Atarlost]

I have yet another simple solution to offer. Instead of shooting the spell in a direction, target the monster with *t. If your spell fails, you won't move, or even make an action wasting a turn. You can even make a foolproof macro that way: \e\e\em3d*t will likewise never result in a wasted turn (at least, I can't think of any situations in which it would).

There are no doubt some situations where it's more advantageous to provide a direction (light beams come to mind), but it would be better in general for a player's muscle memory to provide a target monster to prevent these kinds of mistakes.

*t is an extra keystroke, and IMO a less convenient one than a direction key, which most people are already used to. Assuming new players will use targeting when directions are available and the target is in a cardinal or semicardinal direction is going to be wrong for most if not all new players. Similarly asking new players to use something as complicated and esoteric as the macro system is asking for trouble.

Going to the targeting system immediately and removing directional projection is another "safe interface" option, though.

[Atarlost]

Flush input on failure is an existing option. It doesn't help because hillsc is not using macros. New players generally do not use macros. Unless a non-macro solution is provided these problems will continue to turn off new players.

[Pete Mack]

There's also the "target nearest monster by default" option, though I've never use it; I always use *t, which cuts down enormously on unintentional moves. Perhaps the target nearest monster will get rid of the '*' and turn this into a single keystroke?

[buzzkill]

Then I get my 2% chanced "You failed to get the spell off!" and thinking I'm about to fire a spell, I actually step into the hallway. I hate that. You're going along a top speed, casting spells over and over and over and suddenly this mechanical keystroke sequence which has, until this point, only generated positive results, just this one time, also generates instant (and permanent) death.

You're never going to eliminate human error, which is what this was. Had he not been pressing keys too quickly, he'd probably still be alive. Furthermore, if he's advanced enough to be battling a horde of dragons, then he's advanced enough to figure out macros (if he wants to).

[Rizwan]

Then I get my 2% chanced "You failed to get the spell off!" and thinking I'm about to fire a spell, I actually step into the hallway. I hate that. You're going along a top speed, casting spells over and over and over and suddenly this mechanical keystroke sequence which has, until this point, only generated positive results, just this one time, also generates instant (and permanent) death.

I can't recall exactly but doesn't a spell failure generate a more prompt? If not would it be too difficult and or annoying to do so and would it help?

I think for new users generating a more prompt on spell failure would reduce unthinking movement experienced by hillsc. It might be a nuisance for experienced users but we want to make it user friendly for new users Don't we?

[Atarlost]

You're never going to eliminate human error, which is what this was. Had he not been pressing keys too quickly, he'd probably still be alive. Furthermore, if he's advanced enough to be battling a horde of dragons, then he's advanced enough to figure out macros (if he wants to).

battling dragons and using macros are not the same or even related skills. You're wanting to tell someone to get out of the game just when it starts to get truly interesting and master some esoteric skill in order to not have to start over.

And the pressing keys to quickly thing is a crock. Typing repetative key sequences quickly is natural human behavior. If your interface discriminates against natural human behavior it is by defenition a bad interface.

[Daniel Fishman]

The 'n' command (repeat previous action) is the obvious solution to this problem, and should be better publicised, IMO. It doesn't move you on spell failure, and reduces the possibility of a mis-type.

[PowerDiver]

The 'n' is not without problems of its own. If you are using pack items [ammo, wands, etc] and a slot goes away without your noticing it ...

[Nick]

The 'n' is not without problems of its own. If you are using pack items [ammo, wands, etc] and a slot goes away without your noticing it ...

'n'! I'll tell you what the problem is. It's all those keys on the qwerty keyboard that are in alphabetical order. op, fgh, jkl, nm are all just little traps waiting to happen. I've lost at least one character to reading scroll 'k' (WoR) instead of scroll 'j' (tLevel).

[Psi]

'n'! I'll tell you what the problem is. It's all those keys on the qwerty keyboard that are in alphabetical order. op, fgh, jkl, nm are all just little traps waiting to happen. I've lost at least one character to reading scroll 'k' (WoR) instead of scroll 'j' (tLevel).

I starting inscribing all my escape methods {*!} last time I did something like that. I've got a little slack with the habit recently, so no doubt it'll do for me again soon...