Make suggested HP warning default

[milo]

Re: the oft-suggested advice of editing one's init.txt file to lower the "low HP" warning threshold, so that it triggers at ~75% HP, rather than 50%...

Just wondering why every piece of (really sensible) advice on the subject contradicts the default settings, in-game?

This is one of the only changes I ever make to the init.txt, and it directly influences the way that I play, turn-by-turn*, and is directly responsible for keeping my characters alive for longer. I suspect every other (default) player would also benefit in this, most meaningful, way.


*I'm well aware of the advice to run early, but having the visual stimuli of the warning text and change in the HP-bar's colour, means I actually act on it, more often than not.

[dck]

Because it is not sensible to call 75% of your HP low.

[nilsbloodaxe]

Because it is not sensible to call 75% of your HP low.

I agree, this is a bit much. Still, I do find it useful to set my hp warning and autofight variables higher than the default settings.

[Bim]

Yeah I can't really agree that it should be 75% by default. Sure it's handy for most players, but it isn't really 'low' in a normal sense.

The problem is that we have wayyyy too much autofighting.

[nilsbloodaxe]

The problem is that we have wayyyy too much autofighting.

What does this even mean? You autofight when it doesn't matter and it allows you to press exactly 1 button instead of 1 of 8 (or if you are doing a ranged character, 1 button instead of 2 or 3), and if you need to deal with a specific threat you don't use autofight.

And if you don't like autofight or autoexplore, guess what, you don't have to use them!

[milo]

Semantics guys.

Not married to the numbers, 75% is just what works for me. [Er, actually 50% is my text prompt, 75% is the initial HP-bar colour change. My bad.]

The gist is the proposed lowering of the default threshold.

I think I've pressed TAB about a dozen times in >5 years of playing, so I hadn't thought of that as another culprit for YASD's.

[Bim]

Semantics guys.
Not married to the numbers, 75% is just what works for me. [Er, actually 50% is my text prompt, 75% is the initial HP-bar colour change. My bad.]

The gist is the proposed lowering of the default threshold.

I can definitely support HP color change at 75, but low hp/hp warning at half health seems pretty sensible.

I think I've pressed TAB about a dozen times in >5 years of playing, so I hadn't thought of that as another culprit for YASD's.

HOW?! As a melee character, not pressing tab would give me carpal tunnel after about 10 minutes of play!!

[duvessa]

Re: the oft-suggested advice of editing one's init.txt file to lower the "low HP" warning threshold, so that it triggers at ~75% HP, rather than 50%...

Just wondering why every piece of (really sensible) advice on the subject contradicts the default settings, in-game?

I have never heard this advice and it sounds like completely useless advice to me

[tedric]

Well really milo means "raise the 'low HP' warning threshold" (as in lower the amount of damage you take before it triggers). I've read this advice about a dozen separate times on this forum and from using it myself it is far from useless.

[KoboldLord]

I usually notice my hit points are getting low by looking at my current hit points and comparing them to my maximum hit points. Sometimes, I even compare my current hit points to expected and maximum damage from attacks by the monsters on the screen.

[Bim]

Re: the oft-suggested advice of editing one's init.txt file to lower the "low HP" warning threshold, so that it triggers at ~75% HP, rather than 50%...

Just wondering why every piece of (really sensible) advice on the subject contradicts the default settings, in-game?

I have never heard this advice and it sounds like completely useless advice to me

No, it's not.

If you're tabbing through a lot of monsters (which you (or most people) often are, for better or worse) raising that threshold means you get more advanced notice. It's annoying with a caster, but as a heavily armored char. if something has damaged you beyond 50% you can normally be in quite a sticky situation. Raising it to around 60-70 gives you a little more wiggle room.

Granted, the wisdom should always be 'don't tab through situations you aren't 100% sure of' but I know I certainly do on occasions if I haven't grasped the reality of the threat/seen something come in and raising it helps that kinda thing.

Still, I don't think it should be raised by default.

[tedric]

if I haven't grasped the reality of the threat

I think this is the strongest argument for setting warnings at higher HP. Less experienced players are more likely to underestimate or be totally clueless about threats, especially as they encounter them for the first time. Coincidentally, these are also the players least likely to muck about changing the defaults. Experienced players will naturally modify everything to meet their preferences. It seem to me that the default settings should (attempt to) be optimized for someone who is running the game for the first time.

[Bim]

if I haven't grasped the reality of the threat

I think this is the strongest argument for setting warnings at higher HP. Less experienced players are more likely to underestimate or be totally clueless about threats, especially as they encounter them for the first time. Coincidentally, these are also the players least likely to muck about changing the defaults. Experienced players will naturally modify everything to meet their preferences. It seem to me that the default settings should (attempt to) be optimized for someone who is running the game for the first time.

True, I guess I just feel that setting it above 50% would seem weird for new players. I mean saying 'caution, your health is at 75%!' seems a bit weird. Similarly, once they get that warning they might ignore that warning and then not realize when it gets really low.

[tedric]

[aside] There's an interesting collision of normal English semantics and Crawl's damage formulae here. One can argue that in this context 'low' means "liable to run out prematurely," in which case 75% often is low, in practical terms, in Crawl. But depending on the encounter, 100% can be low (fighting an Ogre at XL 1) and 10% can be plenty (fighting a rat at XL 15). In any case, a higher-HP warning message should probably not be about "low HP" but something like "Danger! Significant damage taken. Maybe you should retreat." [/aside]

[milo]

Apologies for the confusion. I did mean lower the threshold. As in make it more sensitive to HP loss. I think that's pretty obvious from the rest of the OP.

these are also the players least likely to muck about changing the defaults

That's essentially it. It seems like a really simple change to reinforce, in-game, some of the most basic Crawl principles. Especially for newer players.

the default settings should (attempt to) be optimized for someone who is running the game for the first time

And I've read this enough times to try it myself, and be pleased enough with the results to be posting this.

once they get that warning they might ignore that warning and then not realize when it gets really low

That's a valid point. Obviously the warning messages and colour changes need to remain meaningful. One way would be to add one more degree to the warning triggers, but the main point of the proposal is to raise the % HP at which one receives these visual indicators.

[crate]

I have my low HP warning at 50% but I think I probably will lower it in the future (back to around 30%), since it triggers too often to be any use at 50% imo.

But then I also believe that autofight_stop should default to 0 so....

[Sprucery]

I think I've pressed TAB about a dozen times in >5 years of playing, so I hadn't thought of that as another culprit for YASD's.

HOW?! As a melee character, not pressing tab would give me carpal tunnel after about 10 minutes of play!!

Heh, I've pressed TAB about a dozen times in >15 years of playing (of which most of time autofight didn't even exist). I love autoexplore but for some reason find autofight (let alone automagic) inappropriate. Needless to say, I'm a slow player.

[savageorange]

I think I've pressed TAB about a dozen times in >5 years of playing, so I hadn't thought of that as another culprit for YASD's.

HOW?! As a melee character, not pressing tab would give me carpal tunnel after about 10 minutes of play!!

Heh, I've pressed TAB about a dozen times in >15 years of playing (of which most of time autofight didn't even exist). I love autoexplore but for some reason find autofight (let alone automagic) inappropriate. Needless to say, I'm a slow player.

I hope you at least use the 'repeat last command' key

Personally, I started using autofight when I realized that it resulted in far less Interface Screw style YASDs (hold key, too many moves made in too short a time, get flattened by something I didn't even intend to approach). This doesn't seem like a problem that you would have with your playstyle.

[Sprucery]

I hope you at least use the 'repeat last command' key

Never.

[HilariousDeathArtist]

Just poking my head in as a player who has gone through and changed pretty much all the default options.

After playing with autofight_stop values ranging from 25% to 90%, I've found setting it to 60% to be a reasonable value.

In addition I have a custom force_more prompt when I take damage of more than 15% of my total hp in a single turn.

Having both of these makes it really difficult to put yourself in a bad situation using autofight.

Either you take a bunch of small hits, and are left with plenty of turns to escape when you hit <60% hp, or you take a single large hit (and end up with a minimum of 61% hp - damage_taken), and still have a few turns to escape.

I know force_more prompts are looked down upon by many players, but the majority of WebTiles players (including myself) seem to skim the messages. Forcing the player to read a dangerous message and hit a button to continue has alerted me to many dangerous situations a few turns before I would have otherwise reacted. I often hit autofight/autoexplore 2-3 times before WebTiles responds, and things like getting hit with a distortion weapon needs to be reacted to as soon as possible.

[crate]

The big thing with autofight to me is that it is actually safer than not using autofight imo (when you learn how it works it is completely predictable, and you will never accidentally move while adjacent to a monster). So turning it off at low HP is just confusing to me, unless you've macro'd your movement keys to shift-movement (but then you have to use ctrl-dir to do non-autofight or something? I don't even know how that would work!).

[HilariousDeathArtist]

autofight to me is that it is actually safer than not using autofight

Certainly I use autofight for the majority of fights, but there are plenty of times it doesn't make optimal decisions, and you need to know those rules.

1. Using autofight to move closer to enemies can put you in bad sitations.
2. Using autofight at low hp instead of running away.
3. Using autofight against summoned enemies instead of the summoner.
4. Using autofight with ranged attacks always attacks the closest enemy, not the most threatening.
5. Using autofight with melee attacks doesn't always attack most threatening enemy.

"autofight to me is that it is actually safer than not using autofight" ... when you know exactly when autofight is not safer, and choose not to use it in those situations.

It does help prevent me from fat-fingering against popcorn, but that usually doesn't matter anyway.

[nilsbloodaxe]

Just poking my head in as a player who has gone through and changed pretty much all the default options. After playing with autofight_stop values ranging from 25% to 90%, I've found setting it to 60% to be a reasonable value.

HDA, your rc file has saved my ass so many times.

[HilariousDeathArtist]

HDA, your rc file has saved my ass so many times.

Thanks, mine too! It looks like my win rate has gone from (50/1751)=~2.8% to (37/315)=~11.7% since my first commit back in March.

[XuaXua]

It does help prevent me from fat-fingering against popcorn, but that usually doesn't matter anyway.

I'm nowhere near as good at this as you, but I fat-finger popcorn because I have the system --more-- whenever a new enemy comes into view, and I never fat-finger on a floor where I know there's a powerful enemy l've run from lurking about (who will come back into view WITHOUT a --more--).

I will probably incorporate your .rc file after review.

[Sprucery]

Just for the record: I'm sure that autofight is good when used sensibly and if I were a new player picking Crawl up as the first roguelike, I would definitely use it.

[Siegurt]

I think I need to set my autofight key to be the 'autofight-nomove' key, because autofight is nearly always exactly what I want to do, except when it would cause me to move, in which case it's never, ever, what I want it to do.

[nago]

I think I need to set my autofight key to be the 'autofight-nomove' key, because autofight is nearly always exactly what I want to do, except when it would cause me to move, in which case it's never, ever, what I want it to do.

Does it really exist? I've checked in the docs and I've found nothing about it. I'd like to make it a default of mine (because tab tends to charge towards unseen areas)

[crate]

The way you'd change autofight and autofight-nomove is by rebinding tab and shift-tab. I believe autofight is "===hit_closest" and autofight_nomove is "===hit_adjacent"
So if you macro tab to "===hit_adjacent" then you have made tab perform autofight-nomove.

I do not think there is an rcfile option to switch them.

[nago]

Hem, I'm having troubling doing that: if I ctrl-d -> m and then press tab and put ===hit_adjacent in the prompt, tab does nothing.
If I try to do ctrl-D -> M and the I press tab, the screen goes black and I can insert nothing - even If I try to blindy paste ===hit_adjacent and then press enter, I get 'okay, then' message (aka do nothing).
What am I doing wrong?

[goblolo]

HOW?! As a melee character, not pressing tab would give me carpal tunnel after about 10 minutes of play!!

I learned to use 'o' about 2 months after I started to play DCSS. I praise wiki/tavern for that!

[milo]

Sorry to poop on the autofight party, and by all means continue, but just to mention I would like a dev (or someone equally qualified) to reply to the OP, to wit:

Is there any reason not to bump the default HP warning? A little?
Or more generally (and incorporating the rest of the thread), tweak the default settings with (new) player survivability squarely in mind?

Because it is not sensible to call 75% of your HP low.

I guess at some point it becomes counter-productive (confusing to new players) to call a certain %HP "Low" (though I personally have no trouble with any value <100% being termed as such. What's weird about calling less than full health "Low"?), but there are two simple ways around that that I can think of:
- Using more HP-bar colour changes before the text warning triggers
- Adding more degrees to the text warning. Something like: 50% is "Low"; 35% is "Extremely low"; 20% is "Seriously. You are about to die"


The default settings are really good as is, but I do think there is slight room for improvement if one of the goals of the game and UI is to help (esp. newer) players not die.

[HilariousDeathArtist]

The way you'd change autofight and autofight-nomove is by rebinding tab and shift-tab. I believe autofight is "===hit_closest" and autofight_nomove is "===hit_adjacent"
So if you macro tab to "===hit_adjacent" then you have made tab perform autofight-nomove.

I do not think there is an rcfile option to switch them.

Hem, I'm having troubling doing that: if I ctrl-d -> m and then press tab and put ===hit_adjacent in the prompt, tab does nothing.

Looking inside the file crawl\crawl-ref\source\dat\clua\autofight.lua the comment at the top tells you to define the macro as ===hit_closest_nomove

  Code:

-- autofight.lua:
-- One-key fighting.
--
-- To use this, please bind a key to the following commands:
-- ===hit_closest         (Tab by default)
-- ===hit_closest_nomove  (Shift-Tab by default)
-- ===toggle_autothrow    (not bound by default)

In addition to using ===hit_closest_nomove I also have autothrow enabled in my rcfile.

  Code:

# Do/don't throw stuff when autofighting
autofight_throw = true
autofight_throw_nomove = true
# If true. items are autofired stopping at the monsters feet (same as firing using .)
autofight_fire_stop = true

[duvessa]

Is there any reason not to bump the default HP warning? A little?

Is there any reason to bump the default HP warning?

[nago]

Looking inside the file crawl\crawl-ref\source\dat\clua\autofight.lua the comment at the top tells you to define the macro as ===hit_closest_nomove

  Code:

-- autofight.lua:
-- One-key fighting.
--
-- To use this, please bind a key to the following commands:
-- ===hit_closest         (Tab by default)
-- ===hit_closest_nomove  (Shift-Tab by default)
-- ===toggle_autothrow    (not bound by default)

In addition to using ===hit_closest_nomove I also have autothrow enabled in my rcfile.

  Code:

# Do/don't throw stuff when autofighting
autofight_throw = true
autofight_throw_nomove = true
# If true. items are autofired stopping at the monsters feet (same as firing using .)
autofight_fire_stop = true

It works, thanks. Yup, I've also enabled autothrow in 0.15, it's quite handy