Feature suggestion: confirm before cast

[Derakon]

I'd like some way to have the game request confirmation before I cast certain spells -- for example, Teleport Self, Earthquake, Destruction, Mass Banishment. These are all spells that could be bad to accidentally cast.

I'm thinking something like inscribing a book with "!6" would require confirmation before casting the 6th spell in the book.

This isn't hugely important, but it would be a nice-to-have.

[PowerDiver]

I've lost at least 1 char to typo m2f intending m3f.

[fizzix]

I'd like some way to have the game request confirmation before I cast certain spells -- for example, Teleport Self, Earthquake, Destruction, Mass Banishment. These are all spells that could be bad to accidentally cast.

I'm thinking something like inscribing a book with "!6" would require confirmation before casting the 6th spell in the book.

This isn't hugely important, but it would be a nice-to-have.

I agree. I've died once during a misclick, and destructed a GV once because of a misclick. !6 looks reasonable syntax from the user side, but might be difficult to implement.

[Derakon]

I've lost at least 1 char to typo m2f intending m3f.

The specific impetus for making this post was accidentally teleporting instead of casting spear of light. Fortunately I landed somewhere relatively safe.

[Timo Pietilä]

I agree. I've died once during a misclick, and destructed a GV once because of a misclick. !6 looks reasonable syntax from the user side, but might be difficult to implement.

Typos do not stop to spells. I have lost one char for mistakenly reading scroll of phase door when I tried to read teleport scroll. After that I have inscribed them all with either confirmation inscription or some number (then I don't make mistakes).

hmmmm....If you inscribe spellbook with !m doesn't it enforce confirmation?

(trying....) yes, it asks "really try <book name>?"

So you can inscribe entire book for confirmation, but not individual spells.

[Derakon]

Yeah, you can force confirmation on books, but that's not generally useful as most books include a mix of spells you want to be able to easily cast (e.g. detection, general attack spells) and spells you want to be careful with.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

And if you force confirmation at the book level, you'll lose the value...because you'll get into too much of a habit of confirming immediately. Book-level confirmation would work much better if the spells in the basic books were organized much more thematically, altho even if all the 'movement' spells were in 1 book and with book-level confirmation, one could still have Timo's PD vs. teleport mishap.

But if you don't have confirmation on all spells, with the scheme we have now, you only catch a fraction of the issues. You don't catch the case when you *want* to cast the dangerous spell...but typo or misclick to something that doesn't solve the problem.

Still...it's certainly true that accidental Teleport Level, WoR, Earthquake, and Destruction can easily be *very* bad...the first 2 can mean major loss of loot, the latter 2 can mean loss of loot OR blowing open the dungeon in ways you do not want, like cracking a pit. So even if per-spell confirmation isn't a perfect solution, it's clearly useful enough to include.

[ewert]

Well tbh, all those are a lot LESS bad than typoing the final letter and NOT casting one of those spells.

So it is kinda a lose-lose situation. Of course having it as an option (!mc or !pc etc as probably mentioned already, so that it confirms if you cast spell c .. or !m3 and spell three as in "c").

[Chud]

You could force confirmation at the book level, and then define macros with a "y" at the end for the common spells you don't want to confirm -- if you don't run out of macro keys that way. I usually have most of f1-f12 filled up by mid-game, though most of those are with spells for the casting classes.

[ewert]

You could force confirmation at the book level, and then define macros with a "y" at the end for the common spells you don't want to confirm -- if you don't run out of macro keys that way. I usually have most of f1-f12 filled up by mid-game, though most of those are with spells for the casting classes.

Except that doing that does not help at all on the what I perceive is the "true" (more dangerous) problem:

casting something ELSE than the escape/destruction spell (which you have confirmation for) ...

I mean, for the life of me I can't figure how anyone could die from casting *destruction* =P ... unless it still has failrate. Of course, a book or spell level confirmation inscription is a nice addition, but ... typoes will still kill.

[Nick]

Why not have a currently-unused-for-macros key - #, say - so that #b in an inscription means "confirm spell b"? Apologies if that was assumed.

[PowerDiver]

Except that doing that does not help at all on the what I perceive is the "true" (more dangerous) problem:

casting something ELSE than the escape/destruction spell (which you have confirmation for) ...

When you are about to die if you don't escape, you can be extra careful about which key you press. In addition, if you are not playing a pure caster with 0% fail, you should be using a scroll instead of casting from a book when you really need an escape.

[ewert]

Well that is true ... =)

Boredom kills ... Angband motto.

[kaypy]

OK, how does this sound:

A {#b} (or whatever) on a spellbook inscription causes a prompt like "Do you really want to cast Detect Monster" (or whatever)

A {#p}/{#m} will force the prompt for all spells (as opposed to !p/!m, which prompts at book selection time) (I assume m is far enough down the alphabet to be safe, but still have a bad feeling about this one...)

Hitting # before selecting a book will also force the prompt for that cast only, so you have an "if I get the wrong spell here I am toast" option.

Implementing one of the latter two would probably be sufficient- both may be overkill...