Distortion should create an aura

[Chicken]

Does anyone get tired of creating characters who, if you could give them an epitaph, would write, "Check EVERY Weapon EVERY Time No Matter How Long It Takes!"?

Distortion may be powerful, and it may be challenging, but getting trapped and whacked by some bozo with a distortion and going to the abyss and waiting to run out of teleport scrolls is a Bogus Adventure.

So what I want is: whenever a weapon of distortion is wielded, by you or a monster, and perhaps even when it's on the ground, it is at the center of a 3x3 block of "aura" squares. I'm thinking a look pretty similar to what you get if you pick up the Orb, only smaller (i.e. one neighboring square around the wielder, not two). I would not object to it being exactly the same and you reuse the graphic, that's up to you.

"x" over it should say that it is "an area of flickering distortion".

The premise is that a monster holding a distortion weapon can do serious physical damage to something adjoining, so ... even when it isn't that strong, the field still means that you see the end of the hallway wiggle back and forth.

There is a minor in-game effect of doing this - you can see one square around a corner that there is a distortion-wielding critter. But mostly the purpose is so that you really do know what you're fighting, and can take it on strategically without constantly looking at the weapon descriptions.

[Sar]

I assume everyone in the area except for the wielder suffers distortion effects? Sounds cool!

[Chicken]

NO -- all I want is that you SEE the weapon is there. It shouldn't affect the gameplay, except for you seeing the weapon. There are a lot of funny auras that don't do much ... I have no idea what the angel holy glow actually does, except letting you see they're there... this is just an extreme of that, i.e. nothing.

[Sar]

You do realize that when a monster holds a branded weapon its brand is identified?

[Chicken]

It's identified if you look at the monster with 'x', or if the message that you see the monster and it's holding a weapon of distortion happens not to scroll off the screen. Problem is ... who the heck expects the ORC POPCORN you're killing to come at you with a dagger of distortion and end your life? It almost never happens ... until it does, and it's time for the next character.

[Sar]

You can add a line to your rc that makes the game force you to press space bar when something with a weapon of distortion enters the screen.

[CanOfWorms]

You can also press ctrl+x if there's a mass of monsters and you want to see what they're all wielding simultaneously.

[Shard1697]

It feels weird how, in the past, the argument was "you should be treating every monster holding a glowing weapon as though it's distortion, and if you get banished by un-ID'd monster distortion because you assumed it was safe to tab them, it's your own fault and you just played badly" to which many people myself included reacted with "that's crazy and no one should be expected to play like any unknown enchanted weapon is distortion, it's exhausting".
And eventually it was changed! They made it so that not only do your own equipped weapons auto-ID, but weapons held by monsters do to so you can easily check and see. And not only did they do that, but they made the game give you a message about their weapon brand when they come onscreen in case you're too lazy to check the enemy.

But apparently that's still not enough, and the game needs to have glowing tiles everywhere around the monster whenever there's a distortion weapon.
Like a giant fiery warning sign saying /!\ PAY ATTENTION TO THIS MONSTER /!\

(I would actually be ok with different weapon brands having different tiles-eg, fire weapons have a bit of orange flame around them, elec some sparks, etc. if someone would throw the tiles for weapons that go on the player/monster tiles at me I'd give making those a spin myself, actually. But I think a whole aura for one weapon brand is too much.)

It's identified if you look at the monster with 'x', or if the message that you see the monster and it's holding a weapon of distortion happens not to scroll off the screen. Problem is ... who the heck expects the ORC POPCORN you're killing to come at you with a dagger of distortion and end your life? It almost never happens ... until it does, and it's time for the next character.

Anyone who has it happen to them once or twice, presumably.

NO -- all I want is that you SEE the weapon is there. It shouldn't affect the gameplay, except for you seeing the weapon. There are a lot of funny auras that don't do much ... I have no idea what the angel holy glow actually does, except letting you see they're there... this is just an extreme of that, i.e. nothing.

The Halo light reveals everything invisible(including you if you have the halo), it makes monsters twice as likely to notice you(!!!), and everything illuminated by it besides the source is significantly easier to hit(I think +5?). The accuracy boost is actually very noticeable in early-thru-midgame if you follow TSO, helps a lot versus things like killer bees.
The umbra(purple one) is the opposite-it cancels out halos, increases stealth, and gives accuracy penalties(which Dithmenos and Yred worshipers are immune to).

[duvessa]

You can add a line to your rc that makes the game force you to press space bar when something with a weapon of distortion enters the screen.

That would be a very long line of Lua, if it's even possible to write. The weapons wielded by a monster are not always printed to the message log (e.g. if it came into view at the same time as another monster). You would need to inspect the wielded weapons of all monsters that come into LOS, and I'm not aware of anything in the user Lua interface that can do that.

[milski]

It feels weird how, in the past, the argument was "you should be treating every monster holding a glowing weapon as though it's distortion, and if you get banished by un-ID'd monster distortion because you assumed it was safe to tab them, it's your own fault and you just played badly" to which many people myself included reacted with "that's crazy and no one should be expected to play like any unknown enchanted weapon is distortion, it's exhausting".
And eventually it was changed! They made it so that not only do your own equipped weapons auto-ID, but weapons held by monsters do to so you can easily check and see. And not only did they do that, but they made the game give you a message about their weapon brand when they come onscreen in case you're too lazy to check the enemy.

But apparently that's still not enough, and the game needs to have glowing tiles everywhere around the monster whenever there's a distortion weapon.
Like a giant fiery warning sign saying /!\ PAY ATTENTION TO THIS MONSTER /!\

(I would actually be ok with different weapon brands having different tiles-eg, fire weapons have a bit of orange flame around them, elec some sparks, etc. if someone would throw the tiles for weapons that go on the player/monster tiles at me I'd give making those a spin myself, actually. But I think a whole aura for one weapon brand is too much.)

It's identified if you look at the monster with 'x', or if the message that you see the monster and it's holding a weapon of distortion happens not to scroll off the screen. Problem is ... who the heck expects the ORC POPCORN you're killing to come at you with a dagger of distortion and end your life? It almost never happens ... until it does, and it's time for the next character.

Anyone who has it happen to them once or twice, presumably.

NO -- all I want is that you SEE the weapon is there. It shouldn't affect the gameplay, except for you seeing the weapon. There are a lot of funny auras that don't do much ... I have no idea what the angel holy glow actually does, except letting you see they're there... this is just an extreme of that, i.e. nothing.

The Halo light reveals everything invisible(including you if you have the halo), it makes monsters twice as likely to notice you(!!!), and everything illuminated by it besides the source is significantly easier to hit(I think +5?). The accuracy boost is actually very noticeable in early-thru-midgame if you follow TSO, helps a lot versus things like killer bees.
The umbra(purple one) is the opposite-it cancels out halos, increases stealth, and gives accuracy penalties(which Dithmenos and Yred worshipers are immune to).

I'm not really sure how your first part makes sense. Tedious play around weapon brands was mostly removed because people hate it, so you find it weird people still hate the last dregs of tedious play?

Honestly yes, I would prefer if distortion weapons were visually ID'd. Even if checking a monster weapon is only a fraction of a second slower than simply murdering it, there's a fuckton of popcorn in the dungeon and at this point I've accepted the 0.1% chance I get banished by something that's a trivial threat because that's better than spending 2% of every game examining orcs.

[Shard1697]

Mostly I just don't think it's very tedious at all to bother checking enemy's weapons, and I think it's funny that now I'm on the other side of what feels like the same argument.
I feel crawl old.

[Sprucery]

Luckily in tiles, branded weapons are shown, so it suffices to xv those.

[rigrig]

The weapons wielded by a monster are not always printed to the message log (e.g. if it came into view at the same time as another monster).

This looks like it could do with some improvement, I wouldn't mind multiple monsters coming into view becoming a bit more spammy by forcing all wielded branded weapons to show up on a separate line.

[dpeg]

Won't happen.

An aura is definitely not a solution to an interface problem. Note how it's already problematic is several auras come into play at once.
Better feedback on enemy brands would be good, but you need to come up with different ideas.

[dynast]

If you didnt check a enemy's branded weapon you would die to electrification more often than you would die to distortion or banishment.

[sanka]

I do not think it is hard to come up with different ideas, for example the game could announce every wielded distortion weapon, even when more monster comes into LOS or when the monster was already announced once. It could be an init option if anybody thinks it generates unnecessary messages, but I wonder who would turn it off. I guess nobody cared to create a patch.

[Lasty]

I haven't thought this through carefully, but it occurs to me that one other rcfile solution would be to allow the rcfile to specify an override glyph for a monster based on its visible equipment as well as type. You could set all polearm wielders to the same glyph, blowgun kobolds, distortion-wielders, etc. I'll look into it, because I'm sure I'd use that option if it existed.

[Hurkyl]

Won't happen.

An aura is definitely not a solution to an interface problem. Note how it's already problematic is several auras come into play at once.
Better feedback on enemy brands would be good, but you need to come up with different ideas.

I think he means aura in the sense of a tinted region around the item, not in the sense of adding a new property that tiles may exhibit.

In other words, an interface solution to an interface problem.

[dpeg]

Hurkyl: Yes, I understand that. But we also have those other auras already. In other words, the visual space is at a premium, I'd rather not waste it on distortion indicators. (I didn't interpret his proposal to show distortion wielders from afar, a la silence spectres.)

[dynast]

I saw it once on the rcfile of comborobin there was a script to make the screen flash(like a brand weapon scroll) whenever the word distortion popped up. But there was still the problem with the text being hidden when more than one monster entered LoS.

[ydeve]

Is it possible to make an option allowing monsters holding weapons with certain brands (distortion, elec) to be sorted into different monster categories on the side of the console screen? For example, if there were 4 orc warriors in LOS and one of them wielded a distortion brand, the side display would show 3 orc warriors and 1 orc warrior (with hp indicator) wielding a distortion brand. There would be no way to miss the fact that a dangerous monster is now on the screen, and it would work for both tiles and console.

[elmdor]

The rcfile line to flash the screen whenever distortion shows up is this:

  Code:

flash_screen_message += distortion

The flash can get slightly annoying if lots of disto weapons are being swung around, but once you get used to it, at least you are no longer at risk of being clueless when it's happening.

[o_O]

I would agree that given how deadly disto can be a visual effect is warranted, beyond the line of text and cv info. An effect centered around the weapon graphic would work, without needing an aura. Maybe color the whole weapon like the singularity papal picture?

[Ceann]

I really don't see what the big deal here is, I would assume that majority of the people that are complaining about Distortion are the ones who lay their elbow on the Tab key and don't like it when they suddenly appear in the abyss while fighting a pack of Orc warriors and since you are a platemail wearing loudnoise strobe light show you end up dying before getting out of said abyss. Crawl has never been about being fair and I don't see this is as any different a tactical decision than deciding to run from a Centaur as a Naga and getting shot to death. Typically when I get banished by Distortion weapon its at the point in the game where I can easily handle the abyss so I don't care, in fact most of my abyss visits are due to banishment from the actual spell.

Playing as a melee and without patience is not conducive to winning the game. As was mentioned early game you should be checking brands, like I have had a lucky venom weapon hit from a goblin red poison me for like 30+ in one hit, it happens sometimes. Or Pikel wrecks you in two hits because his Elec whip procced twice in a row.

Try keeping that cursed ring of Teleport that you equip ID'd for when you get banished and you will be able to get out.
Take elbow off the Tab key.

[Hurkyl]

Whether or not the people making complaints are deficient as human beings is irrelevant to the issue. The issue under discussion has nothing at all to do with tactics -- it's purely a matter of interface. In particular, that the presence of a dangerous brand is not conveyed as naturally as the importance of that fact demands it should be.

(xv on every glowing weapon-wielding enemy -- or every weapon wielding enemy if you can't make out the detail of glowing vs non-glowing -- is not a very natural interface)

[Ceann]

Whether or not the people making complaints are deficient as human beings is irrelevant to the issue. The issue under discussion has nothing at all to do with tactics -- it's purely a matter of interface. In particular, that the presence of a dangerous brand is not conveyed as naturally as the importance of that fact demands it should be.

(xv on every glowing weapon-wielding enemy -- or every weapon wielding enemy if you can't make out the detail of glowing vs non-glowing -- is not a very natural interface)

Understand that the Devs did a favor by making weapon brands ID'd in the first place, it was fair and balanced in my mind when they were all unidentified. So whats being done is that a concession is being extrapolated on because people just "want more".

So when one of the casters has the banish book should they have a special alert too just so people can have their hand held as well?
How is a caster having a randomized book any different than an enemy having a random weapon?
If you operate in your play on the idea that ANY weapon could be distortion, the same as any caster that has access banish COULD have banish.
Then you would be doing the exact same thing for weapons as you do for casters and just assuming that any of them could banish you.

Nobody wants to do that, right?

The premise of the argument that is that since it is a weapon brand it could be on any monster where as if its a caster then you know that casters could have it. But really if you assume that creature that can wield a weapon is wielding a Distortion weapon and you PLAY as though it does the difference at that point is as cosmetic as tile picture for given monster.

If i were to go and look at my deaths, my SPLATS, I can guarantee you that the number of times I have died because Joseph was banging that Wand of Lightening like it was his last wish on earth, or some Kobold with a Wand of Fire far exceeds the times that a Distortion weapon has caused my death.

I am sure we should also remove Hellion Island in Pan because someone was tabbing through a Pan floor and walked into clear sight of 8 Hellions and instantly died it is inherently unfair and players should be warned there is an Island with 30 Hellions on it.

[dpeg]

There's quite some hyperbole in this thread, starting right with the OP. Improving the interface is always a good idea, and checking xv or Ctrl-X all the time is indeed far from perfect. I maintain that an aura is not a good solution for this problem, though. Other solutions are discussed elsewhere, and I hope one of them makes it into the game.

[Hurkyl]

Understand that the Devs did a favor by making weapon brands ID'd in the first place, it was fair and balanced in my mind when they were all unidentified. So whats being done is that a concession is being extrapolated on because people just "want more".

...

The topic of the discussion is how a game that does tell players about brands should go about doing so; you're still hung up on the topic of whether or not the game should tell players about brands. (and, IMO, even missing the main point regarding that)

[Kate]

Closing this since there are multiple threads discussing the same thing but with better solutions (like just improving the announcement messaging).