Suggestion: Activate/Aim/Use/Zap Estimates

[ElectricPaladin]

I'm playing the beta and I have a suggestion.

I really enjoyed the addition of damage estimates to the examIne function. It makes it a lot easier to chose what weapon to wield and generally speeds the game up. It occurred to me that it might be fun to do the same thing for activated magic items (artifacts, wands, staves, and rods). Give you a % likelihood of successfully using it. That would save a lot of time and make it easier on those of us who want to know if we're better off wearing Dwarven plate mail or red dragon scale mail, or how much value we're going to get out of a Ring of Ice, and so on.

What are your thoughts on this suggestion? Can we turn this thread into a towering juggernaut of input? Also, how do I get this idea to the people who need to hear it?

[Elsairon]

I'm playing the beta and I have a suggestion...

It occurred to me that it might be fun to do the same thing for activated magic items (artifacts, wands, staves, and rods). Give you a % likelihood of successfully using it. That would save a lot of time and make it easier on those of us who want to know if we're better off wearing Dwarven plate mail or red dragon scale mail, or how much value we're going to get out of a Ring of Ice, and so on...

I like this idea! I feel frustrated after picking up a rod of something or other with a warrior and failing to use it ten times in a row. It would be nice to be able to check if something is useful or not.

I guess it depends on whether *band is leaning towards exploratory or tactical game play.

[azfalt]

As another note on activations, why are there even separate commands to aim wands, zap rods, and use staves? A single command could bring up all available wands, staves, and rods for use.

The only problem with this could be that it'd make macros more difficult when handling many items. But that could be fixed be allowing macros to interpret more than 0-9 for inscriptions, perhaps by allowing letters or double digit numbers... this might be non-trivial to implement, I don't know.

[takkaria]

I'm playing the beta and I have a suggestion.

I really enjoyed the addition of damage estimates to the examIne function. It makes it a lot easier to chose what weapon to wield and generally speeds the game up. It occurred to me that it might be fun to do the same thing for activated magic items (artifacts, wands, staves, and rods). Give you a % likelihood of successfully using it. That would save a lot of time and make it easier on those of us who want to know if we're better off wearing Dwarven plate mail or red dragon scale mail, or how much value we're going to get out of a Ring of Ice, and so on.

What are your thoughts on this suggestion? Can we turn this thread into a towering juggernaut of input? Also, how do I get this idea to the people who need to hear it?

It's already on the todolist.

[Magnate]

It's already on the todolist.

It's already in Eddieband. I leave the reader to ponder the relationship between these two facts ;-)

[Marble Dice]

As another note on activations, why are there even separate commands to aim wands, zap rods, and use staves? A single command could bring up all available wands, staves, and rods for use.

I know I've heard discussion on this topic before. Not only wands (a), staves (u), and rods (z), but food (E), potions (q), scrolls (r), and possibly fuel (F) too. All seven item types are only used from the inventory, but each has their own command. One good reason for keeping them separate is the player is less likely to accidentally use the wrong item - but even then you could have one command for wands/staves/rods, and one command for food/potions/scrolls. I know I'd love to have some of those keys open for more macros, but I forget what the other good reasons for keeping them separate were.

[Pete Mack]

@Tak:

This is a good quote for the funny messages thread:

It's already on the todolist.
No, I'm not adding it as an option.

[buzzkill]

New monster:

The Todolist: Looming large before you is The Todolist. It is MASSIVE. It's gigantic body full of bright ideas culled form the mightiest adventurers known to exist. It sits alone in the deepest depths, lying dormant, preferring to haunt maintainers rather than hunt player characters. It resists suggestion. It cannot be forgotten or ignored.

[Nolendil]

...It is magical, casting spells intelligently which summon similar monsters, cause terrify or confuse; 1 time in 2. It can destroy other projects and remove free time. It breeds explosively. It can hit to shatter hope and hit to confuse.