Minor Feature addition: Deactivate "Skill Default Mode"

[Tiktacy]

When you start up the game and go to skills screen by pressing m, your skills are set to "auto" rather than "manual mode" and "trainable" rather than "All skills" and "Training" rather than "cost." Each of these default settings are mainly for newer players as to not overwhelm them and most intermediate or above players will immediately change them upon starting the game because the second option is optimal since it gives the most amount of control over what you do.

I propose that the devs add the option that says "Toggle skill defaults" in the character select screen right next to the other options(like random species for example) that changes all the settings in skill screen to default to the opposite setting(so auto becomes manual mode for example, same goes for the other 2 settings).

The reason for this is because I have found it to be quite annoying having to start my games by opening up the skills screen and adjust everything(which is a no-brainer, and a very consistent one at that).

There is of course the issue with what skills will be selected to start with under "non-skill default mode." Best case scenario, creating a screen for players to customize based on class what skills they start with selected would be best, and in my opinion this would really be a big improvement over the status quo. However, until that is programmed, I think settling for each class defaulting to 1-2 specific skills would be acceptable. For example, air elementalist would default to air magic, fighters would default to fighting and their weapon skill, and artificers would default to evocations.

Spoiler: show

Just to clarify, this would in no way effect the experience allocation of each starting class, it would only effect what skills are selected to be trained from the moment you kill your first enemy. In other words, you can't set assassin's skills to train all stealth and start with no experience in throwing or short blades, just as an example.

[reaver]

You could also program this with a start-of-game lua script.

I have one that opens my skill screen, but I don't care to go beyond that.

If background isn't exposed to clua (I presume it is but haven't checked) I'm sure any developer would push a patch to change that.

[Tiktacy]

You could also program this with a start-of-game lua script.

I have one that opens my skill screen, but I don't care to go beyond that.

If background isn't exposed to clua (I presume it is but haven't checked) I'm sure any developer would push a patch to change that.

I'm sure I'm a minority on this, but I have no idea what any of this means.

[prozacelf]

If you add the following to your rcfile/whatever you put it in on local (init.txt?) it will open the skill screen at the start. I'm not sure how to auto-set it to manual skilling but just having the screen open is enough to remind me the vast majority of the time.

  Code:

{
local dump_count = you.turns()
local need_skills_opened = true
-- local oldready = ready
function ready()
  if you.turns() == 0 and need_skills_opened then
    need_skills_opened = false
    crawl.sendkeys("m")
  end
  if you.turns() >= dump_count then
    dump_count = dump_count + 500
    crawl.dump_char()
  end
--oldready()
end
}

[Siegurt]

Or you could just set:

  Code:

default_manual_training = true

[Tiktacy]

This isn't a thread about advice on fixing it yourself, this is a proposal on making the fix an in game feature. While I appreciate the suggestions, lets try to focus on the main idea of the thread.

[chequers]

I'm not sure there should be one setting that controls all of (automatic/manual) (base/enhanced) and (split/cost), but it would be nice if some way was figured out to allow expert players to spend less time setting skills at the beginning of the game.

[neil]

Or you could just set:

  Code:

default_manual_training = true

Add to that:

  Code:

default_show_all_skills = true

and that covers all the requested menu toggles (because manual training implies showing cost, unless you have toggled ! previously). It doesn't cover the starting skill assignment, though. I could imagine an option to do that (probably a Lua-implemented option like the various autofight stuff), but a separate configuration screen would have to wait until we tackle the more general problem of providing an option-setting UI.

[prozacelf]

Oh. It's that easy? And here I used this overly complicated way to do it.

[archaeo]

This isn't a thread about advice on fixing it yourself, this is a proposal on making the fix an in game feature. While I appreciate the suggestions, lets try to focus on the main idea of the thread.

Except what you're being told is that it's already an in-game feature, it's just that this part of the game lives in the terrible init.txt system. The only thing missing is the preset-training-based-on-background part, something that would be a fine addition to the available options if someone would be kind enough to code it up.

The real problem is the one Neil alludes to: at some point, it would be wonderful if the vast majority of init.txt could be edited through an in-game interface.

[Hurkyl]

Even a stand-alone init.txt editor would be fine too.

[Tiktacy]

This isn't a thread about advice on fixing it yourself, this is a proposal on making the fix an in game feature. While I appreciate the suggestions, lets try to focus on the main idea of the thread.

Except what you're being told is that it's already an in-game feature, it's just that this part of the game lives in the terrible init.txt system. The only thing missing is the preset-training-based-on-background part, something that would be a fine addition to the available options if someone would be kind enough to code it up.

The real problem is the one Neil alludes to: at some point, it would be wonderful if the vast majority of init.txt could be edited through an in-game interface.

There was a script that you could use that auto-devoured chunks and that was added to the game.

Granted, that was a much more annoying problem, but the idea is still the same.

I do agree with the last part though.

[archaeo]

Sure, and a script that makes it possible to set up your options file to set skills to manual and train user-specified skills based on your background and weapon selection seems like it could be added too, though it definitely wouldn't be made into the default setting, one imagines.

What you're asking for in the OP, however, is the ability to edit that new option from inside the game, and as far as I understand it, that's not something that it's set up to do right now.

[Tiktacy]

Sure, and a script that makes it possible to set up your options file to set skills to manual and train user-specified skills based on your background and weapon selection seems like it could be added too, though it definitely wouldn't be made into the default setting, one imagines.

What you're asking for in the OP, however, is the ability to edit that new option from inside the game, and as far as I understand it, that's not something that it's set up to do right now.

The suggestion was to add a button that would toggle the 3 options on the skill menu automaticly upon entering a game. It would be displayed in character select screen by the various other things such as skill table and randomly choosing species:

"A - Toggle Default Skill Settings(Auto)"
"A - Toggle Default Skill Settings(Manual)"

When it is on auto, it will be as it is now, when it is on manual it will be the opposing settings of the 3 currently displayed. The setting would automaticly be set to auto upon creation of an account on webtiles or when you download crawl.

I'm sorry if my OP wasn't very clear, I understand why someone might think I'm suggesting to make manual the new default setting.