Warn player when switching weapon -> barehanded with no UC

[savageorange]

In this recent yavp/postmortem, the submitter comments that

The worst one was probably the high level loss just prior to my win, where my KoAK was killed because I somehow unequipped my demon blade of electrocution while searching Crypt for a source of rCorr. I tried to fight some Skeletal Warriors barehanded and they ended up very slowly killing me without me ever noticing that I no longer had my weapon. I noticed it when trying to figure out how they got me afterwards, and was pretty annoyed to put it mildly.

I have experienced this several times myself. It's not always deadly, but it's always annoying. It's very easy to become barehanded by hitting ' accidentally. It's the player's responsibility to notice this if it does happen, but ideally it should be harder to cause accidentally.

It would be nice if Crawl could warn the player when switching to barehanded on a character with no UC skill, as it's very rarely useful to use barehanded with no UC. This would have no negative impact on any character builds I know of.

A more general solution might warn when switching from a weapon the character is skilled at to a weapon the character is unskilled at.

To preempt that one person who comments 'this is what inscriptions are for': Yes, you can mostly achieve this with inscription of every weapon you use. But since this scenario effects virtually all characters, IMO Crawl has an opportunity to 'just do the right thing' and thereby reduce the tedium of correctly managing weapons.

[Galefury]

Warnings for this used to exist, but not in a very consistent fashion. Maybe it had something to do with going barehanded for butchering with a blunt weapon, which is no longer necessary.

[Lasty]

I would support this. I've definitely had situations where I've carelessly gone into melee barehanded after an accidental switch. It's never killed me yet, but it's definitely made things worse. Just a "you're about to punch that monster and you don't know how" type warning would be nice.

[Turukano]

The following line in the rc-file is my actual way to deal with the problem:

  Code:

force_more_message += You are now empty-handed


In this case you'll get a -more- prompt.

It is still not the best solution as you are empty-handed after casting sublimation of blood spell as well - and you don't want to get the warning each time.

So I'd prefer a general warning as it is mentioned in the above posts.

[tasonir]

#unarmedreasons

I usually run into a similiar problem with meleeing with rods. Could all rods be autoincribed with !a? Or just treated as if they were? Except for the rod of striking, which is intended to hit things. It's been a while since I've done this, but I believe it's still possible, correct me if I'm wrong.

[Sar]

  Code:

autoinscribe += rod of:!a
autoinscribe += lightning rod:!a

I think that should do it? It will autoinscribe rod of striking too, but it's not like you are going to use it ever.

[crate]

You can also prevent autoinscriptions from being (re)added to an item by manually inscribing said item with something.

[spudwalt]

I don't think I've ever had this problem, though I guess I wouldn't be opposed to some sort of message when you're attacking with something you have no skill in. It'd probably have to be a one-time thing (kinda like when you try to hit something with a ranged weapon), or else it'll get really annoying for all the mages using beatsticks for rats or people hitting things with the slimy randart of awesomeness.

[XuaXua]

Just had the problem; forgot to unwield a rod I'd been using to go back to unarmed with a monk.

[jejorda2]

I've died at least four times to "pick up a weapon, wield if to check the ego, drop it because your old one is better, then press o and tab until dead."

[fortyCakes]

Maybe prevent switching to unarmed with ' if the player has no Unarmed Combat?

Also, is the last action by the player stored anywhere? If so, it could be helpful to give a warning if the player starts moving (or only for autoexploring?) directly after dropping a wielded weapon.

[damiac]

I'd be happy if it warned you, just like if you try to attack with a ranged weapon in melee. I can see the difficulty, since when you have unarmed skill you actually don't want a warning.

I've done the same thing as in the OP myself, try on a weapon, or use a rod, or whatever, then go and smack something for 0 damage for a while until I'm like "Why can't I kill anything?!?"

[tasonir]

How's this for an attempt at a blanket rule that solves all cases:

If you attack with a weapon (including unarmed) for which you have less than 5 skill, prompt the first time. Once you answer yes to the prompt, no further warnings are issued unless you unwield/wield something else. This does not apply to your starting weapon you begin the game with, which you'll probably have less than 5 skill with.

This would probably err on the side of over warning the player, for example if you start the game with 3 M&F skill and upgrade to a flail on d:2, you'll probably get a warning. But by the time you're on d:4, or sooner, you should be pretty good to go.

[duvessa]

my god, i would never play a ranged character again

[johlstei]

Can we just get an option for a warning on attacking unarmed with <2 UC skill? I don't think we need to let great be the enemy of good here - fixing 90% of the problem would go a long way. Rods other than striking/lightning seem like another good one but seeing as how inscriptions work I wouldn't worry as much about it.

[tasonir]

Fair enough, johistei's has fewer side effects, ranged characters can sometimes end up attacking with a 0 skill melee weapon for quite a while before training it sometime around lairish, which would be annoying.

[duvessa]

i usually don't train melee skill on those until well after lair if at all

anyway how about just allowing inscriptions on bare hands?

[Patashu]

i usually don't train melee skill on those until well after lair if at all

anyway how about just allowing inscriptions on bare hands?

What would the syntax be, {- or whatever the key is to wield nothing?

[johlstei]

anyway how about just allowing inscriptions on bare hands?

This is a better solution even, I just figured it'd be more work to code. If it's on the table I'm all for it.

[njvack]

Spoiler: show

seems to be working so far

[damiac]

my god, i would never play a ranged character again

Huh? There's no need for a warning with ranged weapons (aside from trying to melee with them). You obviously know you have a ranged weapon wielded if you're trying to shoot at enemies.

I really think the easiest way out is if you have exactly 0.0 UC skill, you get a warning. That fixes 99% of the problem. For people who switched off UC halfway through the game, oh well, sorry guys.

Rods could use similar treatment, but they're obviously a little more problematic. Rods in general are problematic, since they're maces for some reason.

[XuaXua]

Rods in general are problematic, since they're maces for no good some reason.

ftfy

[johlstei]

my god, i would never play a ranged character again

Huh? There's no need for a warning with ranged weapons (aside from trying to melee with them). You obviously know you have a ranged weapon wielded if you're trying to shoot at enemies.

What about the things you don't shoot your ranged weapon at? They are probably going to melee stuff with really low skill for a big part of the game.

[crate]

my most recent ranged character never bothered to get any non-bow weapon skill at all

[tasonir]

I'm assuming that was this character: http://crawl.akrasiac.org/rawdata/crate ... 143014.txt

You could have easily dumped all of that yummy shoals/zot experience into a cheap 5 or so melee skill, probably maces, if you stuck with the dire flail. It's not like you need to, but that's like telling people who are using spider form until they later get blade hands/statue form to train 0 poison skill. Might as well pick up 5 maces for now, it's meaningless in the end

[and into]

That's not a very apt analogy, because M&F doesn't help with arrowing or bolting stuff to death, whereas training poison skill along with tmut helps one get spider form online faster. Advising someone to get 5 skill in M&F when they have a good longbow at mindelay and more than enough arrows would be more like advising someone who already has a good great mace at mindelay to get 5 skill in a different weapon class. Yeah it probably won't hurt the character in any meaningful way, but so long as you have plenty of ammo, there's also no compelling reason to do so, either.

Anyway, making someone get 5 skill (which is a completely arbitrary breakpoint) in a weapon skill in order to avoid interface hassle is not a good idea. Crawl already has inscriptions so that you can set your own warning rules regarding stuff you are carrying. If it isn't too hard to add in the code, letting someone inscribe their fist would be a much better solution.

[tasonir]

As you can see in the morgue I linked, he attacked with a dire flail 1018 times between levels 13 and 15. Dumping a very small amount of experience into M&F at the start of this time would be a good strategy. Therefore, it is an apt analogy, because M&F does help with hitting things with a dire flail. You may eventually switch entirely to longbows when you have enough ammo (and crate did) but in the same sense a player with blade hands/statue form is probably never going back to spider form, especially since it isn't fast anymore.

I already retracted the level 5 warning suggestion, see my above post from yesterday. It was a quick brainstorm and is certainly not the best way to go about it. Inscribing hands would be useful.

[duvessa]

As you can see in the morgue I linked, he attacked with a dire flail 1018 times between levels 13 and 15. Dumping a very small amount of experience into M&F at the start of this time would be a good strategy.

i do not see how your premise relates to your conclusion here
if i kill a rat by throwing a stone at it, that doesnt mean i should train throwing skill

[crate]

I was mainly pointing out that said character would have been completely unplayable with forced warnings on unskilled melee combat, unless I spent xp in a useless manner (you should never have to do this to fix crawl's interface).

This wasn't actually directed at tasonir........... (you may notice that other people have posted in this topic also!)

[tasonir]

As you can see in the morgue I linked, he attacked with a dire flail 1018 times between levels 13 and 15. Dumping a very small amount of experience into M&F at the start of this time would be a good strategy.

i do not see how your premise relates to your conclusion here
if i kill a rat by throwing a stone at it, that doesnt mean i should train throwing skill

Throwing a stone at a D:1 monster, most likely just to get its attention, is extremely different from swinging a fairly slow/high damage 2h melee weapon (dire flail) over 1000 times in the mid game. Granted, he's only attacking less dangerous monsters since it's a backup weapon, but even a backup weapon is worth a few skill levels imho.

Really at this point it's getting fairly offtopic, so it's probably best to just let this die. If anyone's unclear at this point, I do not recommend warnings based on skill levels, it was a bad brainstorm.

[damiac]

my god, i would never play a ranged character again

Huh? There's no need for a warning with ranged weapons (aside from trying to melee with them). You obviously know you have a ranged weapon wielded if you're trying to shoot at enemies.

What about the things you don't shoot your ranged weapon at? They are probably going to melee stuff with really low skill for a big part of the game.

No, that's not what I was saying.

When trying to attack an enemy in melee with a ranged weapon, you get a warning, because ranged weapons do not work in melee. So there's no need for a new warning, as there already is one.

On the subject of 0 skill melee attacks, there's no need for a warning, and I was not proposing one. You have to purposely wield a melee weapon to attack with it, and there's no reason to wield a melee weapon except to attack with it, so adding a warning would accomplish nothing but annoying people. 0 skill melee is a very common tactic.

On the other hand, it's very possible to wield your bare fists by accident. If you wield ID a weapon, find out it's crap, then throw it away, now you're barehanded. So what I was saying is if you have 0.0 skill in UC, you should get a warning if you try to attack bare handed. 0 skill UC combat is never a good idea, except maybe on a non-weapon background on the first couple enemies you see, if you run out of MP and have no other option.

Along the same lines, it's very possible to accidentally smack an enemy with a rod. Maybe you wield the rod of shadows, summon some guys, cast a couple spells, then you hit tab to finish them off. But OOPS, you forgot to wield your actual weapon. Nobody purposely hits enemies with a rod of shadows. So a warning here would be helpful in pretty much all cases. The rod of striking messes that up a little, but the rod of striking is a special case mess that doesn't add anything to the game anyway.


But, since we're talking about inscriptions, how about this:
Fists start with the !a inscription at character gen, unless you're a background that starts with UC. Players who pick up UC on their own have to manually remove the inscription, or, training UC at all automatically removes the inscription.
Rods (except striking) automatically gen with the !a inscription, as no sane person would want to attack with them. Insane people are free to remove the !a inscription.

[One-Eyed Jack]

I had to pick up an eudaemon blade to kill a spriggan air elementalist or something on my oghu

dmsl is no joke

also yeah since unarmed 0 is really awful making characters with 0 unarmed be "are you sure" sounds good to me

[sanka]

Sorry for thread resurrection, but I just had an idea. What if we introduce a new inscription, which inscribed on weapons means "give me a warning if I melee attack with something that does NOT have this inscription". So you can inscribe your weapons, and then you will get a warning if you attack unarmed. Some LUA magic may change it more comfortable (auto add this inscription to all picked up weapons - on/off wether you play unarmed or not.)

This is just assuming that inscribing hands is too hard to implement to bother.

[jejorda2]

That sounds like it is more flexible for those who choose to understand it, but less likely to help new players.

I guess if nothing in the game is inscribed with +a, you don't get any warnings. If any item is inscribed with +a, whetehr on the ground or in your inventory or under lava, you get a prompt when attacking with something that is not inscribed with +a. I haven't checked to see if +a is already used.