Proposal: add a "cast anyway(Y/N)" to z casting

[esran]

currently, when trying to cast an offensive spell with z with no enemies in range, it tells you to use Z and cancels the action. I propose, instead, it ask if you want to cast anyway. this would be much less annoying when dealing with invisible enemies.

[and into]

I think a more compelling argument would simply be to remove the prompt.

If there "aren't any enemies in range," it either means that there *are* worthwhile targets in range, they are just invisible or else they aren't tagged as enemies (non-active ballistocytes, plants you gotta blast through quickly for some reason) and you want to cast the spell anyway. Or it means that there truly are not any enemies in range, but then you still (usually) have to target the spell and press enter or space bar, so it is already pretty hard to accidentally cast fireball and make noise when nothing is actually around. You also have the fact that different spells behave differently here. (Spells that create clouds never ask, for instance.)

So yeah, I'd just remove this particular check. I literally cannot recall a time it has helped me in any way, even back when I was first learning the game, and there are several instances in almost every non-Be winning game I've played in which it has annoyed me. Most checks in Crawl are good, smooth, and make sense. This one really stands out as an exception, I think it can be removed. (The "are you sure?" checks about hitting yourself or your allies with a spell, etc., should stay in, IMO.)

[damiac]

Yeah, I agree with you there. I get the thinking behind the prompt, but I don't think it's actually accomplishing much.

It would also be nice if when you see the 'invisible enemy' sprite, spells would auto target it like any other enemy. Tab should probably do the same.

[crate]

I think a more compelling argument would simply be to remove the prompt.

This is basically making Z the default (which, by the way, I definitely agree with).

In the mean time you can macro "z" to "Z" and your problems will be solved.

[Jarlyk]

Perhaps I'm misremembering, but I seem to recall that 'z' will also give you the prompt if the only enemies you can see are immune to the spell you're trying to cast. This strikes me as a helpful feature while you're learning the details of the various monsters, though it's a bit indirect. Hmm, thinking of it, that might be an interesting idea for tiles: some sort of graphical indicator for monsters in the line of fire that would be immune to the spell. Or maybe it already does have this and I just never noticed? I'll have to take a look and see how hard that would be. I do know that the 'zap' code is a bit involved, as there are a lot of tricky corner cases (some literally involving corners.)

[damiac]

That's a really good point. How do you prompt when targeting only immune monsters, but not prompt when targeting invisible monsters? You really can't without introducing a big information leak. Otherwise if the game doesn't give me a prompt when I target an imp with fireball I know there's an invisible creature around.

Like Jarlyk said, if you could somehow graphically indicate which creatures are totally immune while targeting the spell, that would be the best solution.

[wheals]

I think a more compelling argument would simply be to remove the prompt.

This is basically making Z the default (which, by the way, I definitely agree with).

Only for targetted spells, though.

Anyway a prompt would be pretty awful IMO; I do use 'z' personally, but if casting a spell with nothing around gave me a prompt that I had to use 'N' to cancel out of I would switch to 'Z' pretty quickly.

[Quazifuji]

Perhaps I'm misremembering, but I seem to recall that 'z' will also give you the prompt if the only enemies you can see are immune to the spell you're trying to cast. This strikes me as a helpful feature while you're learning the details of the various monsters, though it's a bit indirect. Hmm, thinking of it, that might be an interesting idea for tiles: some sort of graphical indicator for monsters in the line of fire that would be immune to the spell. Or maybe it already does have this and I just never noticed? I'll have to take a look and see how hard that would be. I do know that the 'zap' code is a bit involved, as there are a lot of tricky corner cases (some literally involving corners.)

I think this is the one case where the prompt has helped me. I've definitely had times when I was planning to blast an enemy with a fire spell and realized they were immune when the message popped up showing that there were no targets in range. On the other hand, it's much more frequent that it pops up when I'm doing something that's a completely reasonable use of the spell, so I still might be in favor of making the current Z behavior the default.

At the very least, I find it extremely annoying that Tornado gives a message about no targets in range when you try to cast it with nothing nearby. I don't think that one makes any sense.

[and into]

Since the code already exists for the game to warn you that all possible targets in range are immune to the spell you just tried to cast, shouldn't it be fairly easy to change the code such that this prompt only occurs in those cases? (If this is done the text can just be changed to something like "All possible targets are immune to this spell. Use Z to cast anyway.")

I agree that this particular trigger for the prompt ("all possible targets are immune") is useful and worth retaining.