Bye bye victory dancing


Although the central place for design discussion is ##crawl-dev on freenode, some may find it helpful to discuss requests and suggestions here first.

User avatar

Dungeon Master

Posts: 4031

Joined: Thursday, 16th December 2010, 20:37

Location: France

Post Wednesday, 13th July 2011, 16:42

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

Bim wrote:Could you also put a highlighter round the name changing box on the start screen whilst you're doing that? It's been annoying me no end!

But you can't click it, so what's the point? Or would you like it do do something, like clearing the name and putting a blinking cursor there?
<+Grunt> You dereference an invalid pointer! Ouch! That really hurt! The game dies...

Bim

Crypt Cleanser

Posts: 700

Joined: Wednesday, 5th January 2011, 15:51

Post Wednesday, 13th July 2011, 16:46

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

Yeah that'd be great, Just a box round it to tell you that you've clicked on it or clearing the name and putting a blinking cursor there is equally good, maybe combined would be good either?
2012 Winner of fewest proposed ideas implemented by devs.

Snake Sneak

Posts: 103

Joined: Saturday, 18th December 2010, 12:13

Location: Ukraine

Post Thursday, 14th July 2011, 15:06

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

I think there are should be the way to turn off 0 level skills.

I don't want to get spellcasting for my troll berserker because I read scrolls.... before I could at least read them with empty XP pool, now I can't

I don't want to get fire magic as scald... before I just avoided casting fire brand with nonempty xp pool, now I can't

I don't like to get one level of weapon skill after only one hit with a suitable weapon

and so on

Dungeon Master

Posts: 1531

Joined: Saturday, 5th March 2011, 06:29

Post Thursday, 14th July 2011, 15:19

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

Strongpoint wrote:I think there are should be the way to turn off 0 level skills.


They're using a fairly inconsequential amount of your XP, and as soon as you have Level 1 you can turn off that skill. To be honest it adds a certain amount of realism; even the most melee-oriented character will pick up a small amount of spellcasting knowledge by coming into contact with scrolls.
User avatar

Blades Runner

Posts: 623

Joined: Thursday, 23rd December 2010, 19:17

Post Thursday, 14th July 2011, 15:27

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

I strongly agree with point stated by Strongpoint.
I dont need wasted Xp on -3 aptitude even if its only 1 skill level. Especially if i dont have any use whatsoever from that skill.
User avatar

Dungeon Master

Posts: 4031

Joined: Thursday, 16th December 2010, 20:37

Location: France

Post Thursday, 14th July 2011, 15:34

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

This has been requested over and over. We don't want players starting every single game by having to go the skill menu and disable several skills. We don't want to offer that level of micro-management because player will waste their time doing it. The first level cost has been divided by 4. It's insignificant. Won't Happen.
<+Grunt> You dereference an invalid pointer! Ouch! That really hurt! The game dies...
User avatar

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 5832

Joined: Thursday, 10th February 2011, 18:30

Post Thursday, 14th July 2011, 16:30

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

minmay wrote:Right now, level 0 skills use the old system. Which means dancing. Which means you've kept exactly what you were supposedly trying to get rid of.


Very, very true.

Of course, you only have to do it once.
"Be aware that a lot of people on this forum, such as mageykun and XuaXua, have a habit of making things up." - minmay a.k.a. duvessa
Did I make a lame complaint? Check for Bingo!
Totally gracious CSDC Season 2 Division 4 Champeen!

Bim

Crypt Cleanser

Posts: 700

Joined: Wednesday, 5th January 2011, 15:51

Post Thursday, 14th July 2011, 16:51

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

galehar wrote:This has been requested over and over.

Possibly for good reason?? I'm not saying that you should bow to the players every wish and complaint, but a lot of people (including me) think it's really annoying that you're gaining skills in stuff you don't want.

Not only does it seem weird from a new player stand point (how did I learn spellcasting/daggers without casting spells/hitting stuff?) but it also is annoying to have to go and turn stuff off/make sure it's right. I'd also argue that you just have to do that micromanagement later, at a more annoying time when you're in mid game.

I don't see the harm in having everything them all active, and having the ones that your class doesn't use turned off. The amount needed to get the first level is so small now that you can easily victory dance everything you want quickly, and is nothing more than tedious.
2012 Winner of fewest proposed ideas implemented by devs.

Dungeon Master

Posts: 3618

Joined: Thursday, 23rd December 2010, 12:43

Post Thursday, 14th July 2011, 17:07

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

Being able to fiddle with skills you don't have yet is very undesirable, in my opinion. We'll invite players to push button for two minutes, only to get killed 20 turns later. (And no, the answer to this is not "make the early game easier".) Since there is no real in-game cost for getting some skill to 1 (as galehar repeatedly explained), the only motivation I see behind the rally for switching off level 0 skills is aesthetics: you don't want to clutter your Troll's m screen with spellcasting. This is fine, but the argument I gave is a lot stronger (my opinion, of course).
User avatar

Dungeon Master

Posts: 4031

Joined: Thursday, 16th December 2010, 20:37

Location: France

Post Thursday, 14th July 2011, 17:11

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

New players need to be able to learn new skills just by using them or they won't even know they exist.
<+Grunt> You dereference an invalid pointer! Ouch! That really hurt! The game dies...

Blades Runner

Posts: 546

Joined: Monday, 20th December 2010, 14:25

Post Thursday, 14th July 2011, 19:31

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

Bim wrote:
galehar wrote:This has been requested over and over.

Possibly for good reason?? I'm not saying that you should bow to the players every wish and complaint, but a lot of people (including me) think it's really annoying that you're gaining skills in stuff you don't want.

Not only does it seem weird from a new player stand point (how did I learn spellcasting/daggers without casting spells/hitting stuff?) but it also is annoying to have to go and turn stuff off/make sure it's right. I'd also argue that you just have to do that micromanagement later, at a more annoying time when you're in mid game.


dpeg wrote:Being able to fiddle with skills you don't have yet is very undesirable, in my opinion. We'll invite players to push button for two minutes, only to get killed 20 turns later.


galehar wrote:New players need to be able to learn new skills just by using them or they won't even know they exist.


I think all of these points are good.

I don't think that it's hard to get skills to level 1. If you know that reading scrolls if how to get spellcasting, then it's just a matter of burning some scrolls. No problem. But now that VD (I just realized that the acronym for victory dancing is the same as that for venereal disease!) is gone for known skills, that unknown skills plays a bit like the old VD system is a incongruous. It highlights how much better the new system is, IMO.

One response might be to (1) show all skills by default (set to "off") and (2) allow the players turn on skills from level 0. Although this would clutter the skills screen, it would mean that all newbies can see all the skills (so they wouldn't need a quasi-spoiler to know how to get the first level of spellcasting, which would be a good thing, I think). Transparency is good -- it's not like there are secret skills that need to be unlocked.

I hope this wouldn't encourage micromanagement from the get-go. Min-maxers are going to visit the skill screen anyway and they would appreciate being able to toggle any skill at any time. Other players we hope are not visiting the skill screen when the game starts, but if they do, I hope that they wouldn't feel compelled to fiddle with all the skill settings and just let auto mode take care of training.

For better or worse, the new skills system has given players more control. More control means that some players choose to micromanage. For those that don't want to micromanage, auto mode will work great. Much of the the tedium has been shifted from VD to toggling skills, and now it's far less tedious. Completing the transition, by removing VD for level 0 skills, might also be an improvement.
User avatar

Dungeon Master

Posts: 4031

Joined: Thursday, 16th December 2010, 20:37

Location: France

Post Thursday, 14th July 2011, 19:47

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

minmay wrote:If you want to get Spellcasting skill on your fighter, you go through an incredibly bizarre process of chain-reading scrolls and killing monsters with as few actions as possible.

This is plainly wrong. I've explained over and over how L0 skills are handled completely differently. You don't need to chain-read them, nor do you need to do it just before gaining XP. You don't have to dance to gain skills. Just use them and you'll learn them, it's that simple.
<+Grunt> You dereference an invalid pointer! Ouch! That really hurt! The game dies...

For this message the author galehar has received thanks:
LunarHarp

Bim

Crypt Cleanser

Posts: 700

Joined: Wednesday, 5th January 2011, 15:51

Post Thursday, 14th July 2011, 19:49

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

The thing is that there is STILL VD. It's less, and only for the first level, but it is still there, and as pointed out by minmay, a lot more bizarre.

Granted, I don't think having to turn on all skills at the beginning is great at all, but as mentioned:

smock wrote:Transparency is good -- it's not like there are secret skills that need to be unlocked.


By this, I mean that it would be easy for newbies straight away. Also, it wouldn't have to be for EVERY skill, just the ones that everyone picks up no matter what, like I mentioned. Giving everyone fighting, spellcasting, dodging, armour and stealth wouldn't clutter the screen up, but would mean that everyone gets what they expect, and there's no 'how on earth do I get spellcasting again'. Reading scrolls to get spellcasting doesn't really make sense in my mind at all, you can imagine a rational player would also think that wands and potions might do the same as they are all 'magic'. Same with fighting, I AM fighting, but with spells.
2012 Winner of fewest proposed ideas implemented by devs.

Dungeon Master

Posts: 33

Joined: Tuesday, 28th June 2011, 08:38

Post Thursday, 14th July 2011, 19:59

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

I've been having another (minor) issue recently:

With my character at level 27, I've been trying to pick up Charms, for obvious reasons. However, it seems that it's not making any progress, or that the amount of experience required is abnormally high even considering my current skill level total. I've tried to victory dance some of the training percentage into it for manual, but I'm still stuck at 108% for my current skills. Is this another trunk thing, or do I just have to keep spamming See Invisible?

Tartarus Sorceror

Posts: 1776

Joined: Monday, 21st February 2011, 15:57

Location: South Carolina

Post Thursday, 14th July 2011, 20:38

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

minmay wrote:If you want to get Spellcasting skill on your fighter, you go through an incredibly bizarre process of chain-reading scrolls and killing monsters with as few actions as possible.

The process you describe sounds like this:
1)Repeat an action that corresponds to a desired level 0 skill as much as possible to build up uses in the queue.
2)Gain experience while avoiding actions that might push those uses out of the queue

This is not how you have to do it. Level 0 skills start to train as soon as you use them a few times (not a few times consecutively), and they don't stop training when you do other things. Level 0 skills train differently from level 1-27 skills; you don't stop training them when you use other skills or set other skills to train more.

A small percentage of your experience will go to that level 0 skill no matter what your training settings are until you gain the first level. I've seen the level vary from 6% to 12%. I'm not sure whether that is because the system has been tweaked, because of the number of level 0 skills I was training at the same time, because of my settings, or because I was using the skills more.

I played a gladiator who gained spellcasting when after only identifying two scrolls, and they weren't identified at the same time. I killed lots of things before gaining the skill, but it was easier than doing the same thing under the old system.

Bim wrote:The thing is that there is STILL VD. It's less, and only for the first level, but it is still there, and as pointed out by minmay, a lot more bizarre.

It isn't really victory dancing any more, because it doesn't have to be done after a victory while there is experience in the pool. It really isn't dancing, because you don't have to repeat it all at once or at any time. You do have to use skills to gain them, though. And it takes a while to gain the skill after you start using it because you can't turn off all the other skills and put all the experience into the level 0 skill.
User avatar

Slime Squisher

Posts: 332

Joined: Friday, 4th February 2011, 18:04

Location: The South, US

Post Thursday, 14th July 2011, 21:49

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

I dunno if this should go on Mantis: I was playing a Naga (+5 Stealth apt) Skald of Nemelex with Stealth, Spellcasting, and Charms turned on in Manual mode. An Experience card gave me +18 Stealth, +5 Spellcasting, +5 Charms, Evocations and T&D.

A huge gain like this seems like it could be scummable, and at the same time keep me from learning other skills with the XP available on D:2.

Is this Mantis-worthy?
Human kind cannot bear very much reality.
TSE

Vestibule Violator

Posts: 1567

Joined: Friday, 21st January 2011, 22:56

Post Thursday, 14th July 2011, 22:09

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

Well, you don't usually get Nemelex and an experience card on D:2. But the exp card being way too strong very early on is not good. Putting it on mantis definitely wont hurt, maybe it is also broken later in the game and nobody noticed. Possibly this happened because a single exp gain does not change skill cost level, so you got a lot of skill points for cheap. I don't know enough about the training mechanics to say for sure though.

About gaining skills: I think gaining skills works just fine. They are almost free now, you gain them very quickly if you use them, and if you use a skill you will definitely get it after a while, no matter what else you do. The current system for gaining new skills is perfect IMO. There is no need to allow switching level 0 skills on/off.

For this message the author Galefury has received thanks:
galehar
User avatar

Dungeon Master

Posts: 4031

Joined: Thursday, 16th December 2010, 20:37

Location: France

Post Thursday, 14th July 2011, 22:31

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

dolphin wrote:I dunno if this should go on Mantis: I was playing a Naga (+5 Stealth apt) Skald of Nemelex with Stealth, Spellcasting, and Charms turned on in Manual mode. An Experience card gave me +18 Stealth, +5 Spellcasting, +5 Charms, Evocations and T&D.

A huge gain like this seems like it could be scummable, and at the same time keep me from learning other skills with the XP available on D:2.

Is this Mantis-worthy?

The skill cost is raised while the skills are training, not just at the end, so no problem here. But the XP is split and then the first skill to train will have a cheaper cost than others. The training order is randomized so it's usually not a problem, but in this case, one skill gets much more training than others. Add to that the fact that stealth is twice cheaper than others and the Naga apt and you start to see where this is coming.
What deck type was it? Because at power level 2, experience card just give 20k XP which is huge in the early game. This should probably scale with XL like potion of experience (750 * XL).

You can definitely put it on Mantis.
<+Grunt> You dereference an invalid pointer! Ouch! That really hurt! The game dies...
User avatar

Dungeon Master

Posts: 4031

Joined: Thursday, 16th December 2010, 20:37

Location: France

Post Friday, 15th July 2011, 15:25

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

minmay wrote:I'm pretty sure it's because you were using the skills more (hence the impression that it would be best to have as few training events as possible for other skills).

The exercises for known skills are stored in a FIFO queue with a fixed length of 100. So there's no way "to have as few training events as possible".
<+Grunt> You dereference an invalid pointer! Ouch! That really hurt! The game dies...
User avatar

Snake Sneak

Posts: 121

Joined: Tuesday, 11th January 2011, 20:02

Post Friday, 15th July 2011, 20:41

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

It seems now that each time you swing a weapon it doesn't necessarily put 1% train into your weapon or fighting in auto mode. Am I correct in thinking that if the game is keeping track of the last 100 actions that each action would add 1%? Is this behavior caused by having other skills focused?

Also it seems that focus has changed a little bit now. If I had a skill at 1% before and focused it alone it would go to 2% (it was proportional to where it was at before). Now it seems that focus on a 0% training skill brings it up to 16% or so depending on how many other skills you have.

Just wanted to make sure all this behavior was intentional and not a bug since now it is behaving a bit different.

edit:Oh this is probably why my weapon skills are not going up when I whack things. My staves skill is 1 with an unenchanted quarterstaff. I was killing rats and stuff with it, but it probably wasn't doing enough damage.
https://gitorious.org/crawl/crawl/commi ... b6e483934b
Last edited by LunarHarp on Friday, 15th July 2011, 20:51, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar

Dungeon Master

Posts: 4031

Joined: Thursday, 16th December 2010, 20:37

Location: France

Post Friday, 15th July 2011, 20:51

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

LunarHarp wrote:It seems now that each time you swing a weapon it doesn't necessarily put 1% train into your weapon or fighting in auto mode. Am I correct in thinking that if the game is keeping track of the last 100 actions that each action would add 1%? Is this behavior caused by having other skills focused?

Nope, it's caused by this.

LunarHarp wrote:Also it seems that focus has changed a little bit now. If I had a skill at 1% before and focused it alone it would go to 2% (it was proportional to where it was at before). Now it seems that focus on a 0% training skill brings it up to 16% or so depending on how many other skills you have.

The effect of focus on skills with low training has been increased.

LunarHarp wrote:Just wanted to make sure all this behavior was intentional and not a bug since now it is behaving a bit different.

Totally intentional :)
<+Grunt> You dereference an invalid pointer! Ouch! That really hurt! The game dies...

For this message the author galehar has received thanks:
LunarHarp
User avatar

Snake Sneak

Posts: 121

Joined: Tuesday, 11th January 2011, 20:02

Post Friday, 15th July 2011, 20:52

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

Ha I found it at the same time. Thanks for your help galehar!

Vestibule Violator

Posts: 1567

Joined: Friday, 21st January 2011, 22:56

Post Saturday, 16th July 2011, 01:27

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

Skills at the bottom of the queue are pushed out. But learning new skills does not use the regular queue, only known skills use the queue. If you read a scroll with unknown spellcasting and get an exercise event from it, it is stored until you actually put exp into it. It will never expire without spellcasting being trained.

For this message the author Galefury has received thanks:
galehar
User avatar

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 5832

Joined: Thursday, 10th February 2011, 18:30

Post Sunday, 17th July 2011, 22:44

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

Correct me if I'm wrong, but since Manuals have been rendered useless due to this system, shouldn't Manuals be removed as items from the game until they've been re-rendered useful?
"Be aware that a lot of people on this forum, such as mageykun and XuaXua, have a habit of making things up." - minmay a.k.a. duvessa
Did I make a lame complaint? Check for Bingo!
Totally gracious CSDC Season 2 Division 4 Champeen!

Vestibule Violator

Posts: 1567

Joined: Friday, 21st January 2011, 22:56

Post Sunday, 17th July 2011, 22:56

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

They have been rerendered.

Commit Log wrote:New manuals.
You activate them by reading them and deactivate by reading again or dropping
them. As long as you're studying a manual, the skill gains twice as much skill
points when it's trained. Rational is that learning from a book make the actual
practise more effective, but it's still needed.

The charges is the number of bonus skill points and is between 2000 and 3000.

They are also reflavoured as "not magical" and don't crumble to dust. Not
everything has to be magical in the dungeon and this is a good opportunity
to have a valuable mundane item.

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 3037

Joined: Sunday, 2nd January 2011, 02:06

Post Monday, 18th July 2011, 01:21

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

I'm a bit bothered by the skill management at the start of each game.

In the very early game, there are a couple skills for each background that are much more important than any other starting skill. This will nearly always be your basic casting skill for caster backgrounds, and your weapon skill for melee backgrounds. The benefits of getting your starting damage spell to excellent or notching a point of delay off your starting weapon completely overwhelm the benefits offered by any other starting skill. An extra point of dodging will do literally nothing for most early-game characters since the fraction will be rounded off, for example, and an extra point of fighting will be approximately one single extra hit point until there's a larger level multiplier to work with.

Consequently, the first thing that I must remember to do every time I start a new game is go to the skill screen and switch off most of my skills. Otherwise I'll start gaining training events in these other skills, and the point where I have a reduced weapon delay or reduced miscast chance will be seriously delayed. Given the dire consequences associated with slow attack speed or miscasts, I don't feel that I can risk automatic training mode.

Automatic mode works much better after these critical skills are up more, since the benefit of extra weapon skill when you're already close to minimum delay and the benefit of more magic skill when you're already at excellent spell success are both much more in line with the subtle benefits of most of the other skills.

I see three potential solutions:
1) Status quo. New players will get a training mode that is clearly inferior for the first few levels until they learn to turn it off, but if they make it through the artificially hard early game it'll equalize out eventually.
2) Start with only the most important skills on. Players will have to remember to turn things on manually once they have their basics down.
3) Start with higher levels of skill in these critical skills. Adding a half-hit point worth of damage to Magic Dart is not an urgent problem in need of correction, but moving it from very good spell success to great definitely is. Fighters and gladiators are both looking much better if they start with enough weapon skill to be close to minimum delay in their starting weapons.

Mines Malingerer

Posts: 50

Joined: Monday, 31st January 2011, 03:23

Post Sunday, 7th August 2011, 05:10

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

I finally got around to playing with the new skill system. Here's my feedback:

1. Auto mode does a bad job of leveling skills proportional to their use (which seems to be the main goal of the mode). This is mostly due to the differences in how skills are triggered and used - attack spells will usually be used more than buffs and get disproportionate weight, stealth is trained infrequently and will get almost no weight unless it's focused and carefully managed.
2. Manual mode isn't granular enough for my needs. I usually found myself using auto mode instead just because 40% of xp into my main casting skills and 10% "banked" away in stealth and dodging seemed about right.

In the end, all I cared about were the XP allocation percentages. I used auto mode, and toggled normal/focused throughout the game to get the percentages roughly to what I wanted. The automatic shifting of skill percentages became more of an inconvenience than anything - it was annoying that stealth would get a temporary boost if I happened to walk past some sleeping enemies, for example, and I'd have to check my current percentages to see if they've changed unfavorably before getting a big kill. What I really wanted was a manual mode but with more control.

I think due to point 1, auto mode is sort of fundamentally broken - it's an impossible task to automatically distribute points to skills due to the differences in how skills are used. I also think that having two separate skill systems complicates things a lot, and gives too many ways to do the same thing (allocate XP percentages).

My proposal is to remove auto mode, and give manual mode more granularity. Where it currently has 3 (off/on/focused), I think it could use more settings, which each correspond with common skill allocation strategies. An example would be Off (no XP allocation), Slow (for when you want a slow trickle into a skill), Normal, Focused (similar to the current settings), and Exclusive (sets the allocation to 100%, can only be enabled for one skill at a time, useful for quickly tagging a skill to receive quick gains). You would still provide the XP allocation percentages for reference as a player sets these. As I was managing my allocation percentages, I found that my skill leveling strategies generally fell into one of these categories - I was playing a DEFE and used auto mode to maintain Fighting/Dodging/Stealth at low percentages, Evocations and Earth at medium, and Spellcasting/Fire/Conj at high. 5 might not be the magic number for number of leveling settings, but it seems like it fits for how a lot of builds' skills are managed.
User avatar

Dungeon Master

Posts: 182

Joined: Saturday, 18th December 2010, 10:26

Location: Germany

Post Sunday, 7th August 2011, 11:08

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

I absolutely don't want to bother with turning skills on or off (very lazy player, me), so I haven't tried anything other than automatic, though I did get the impression that my main weapon skill stayed much lower than it used to be (say, skill level 2 by Dlvl 6 or thereabouts).

Just chiming in to say that turning off all skills by default forces players otherwise uninterested in fiddling with the numbers to do so after all, which seems like a bad idea to me. Isn't there an option to set default skills in the init file by now, or did I just see that suggested somewhere?
Please report bugs to Crawl's bug tracker, and leave feedback on the development wiki. Thank you!

Dungeon Master

Posts: 3618

Joined: Thursday, 23rd December 2010, 12:43

Post Sunday, 7th August 2011, 11:43

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

I believe that having an automated mode is a must. There are enough casual/new or just lazy players who don't want to bother with fiddling with the m screen. Their results will never be as good as those who do everything manually, but that's always the case. As galehar mentioned time and again, getting the auto mode to use proper weights will need time. The skill system is very young (and cybermg, there are already a number of places where weights are intentioanlly dispoportionate).
User avatar

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 5832

Joined: Thursday, 10th February 2011, 18:30

Post Thursday, 11th August 2011, 15:05

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

I like that I can now set start to manual mode on init.

I believe it is unnecessary to have a different key (|) to cycle between practice/focus.
I feel having three options (disabled, enabled, focused) on the cycle should just be the way it is.

Is there an advantage to having the default as (disabled, enabled) vs having to hit a key to activate 3-versions (disabled, enabled, focused)?
"Be aware that a lot of people on this forum, such as mageykun and XuaXua, have a habit of making things up." - minmay a.k.a. duvessa
Did I make a lame complaint? Check for Bingo!
Totally gracious CSDC Season 2 Division 4 Champeen!

Temple Termagant

Posts: 14

Joined: Saturday, 26th February 2011, 20:35

Post Thursday, 11th August 2011, 17:50

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

How is this new system going to affect humans? Everything I've read so far is if you have 0 or -1 apt you will have a really hard time at least in beg-mid of game. It seems to me humans, who always have a 0 apt would therefore have been nerfed, but weren't they already kind of a hard species?

Blades Runner

Posts: 546

Joined: Monday, 20th December 2010, 14:25

Post Thursday, 11th August 2011, 18:02

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

The new skill system is great and galehar has put a lot of work into making the skill screen usable and efficient. But, if I recall correctly, a while back someone expressed concern about how complex the skill screen was. I have a couple suggestions that might help.

The current set-up in progress view and then training view:
  Code:
   Skill            Lvl   Train   Apt
j * Transmutations  12    (100%)   0
k - Fire Magic       2             0 -4


My proposed set-up, showing scenarios with and without enhanced skills:
  Code:
   Skill              Lvl    Train Apt
j * Transmutations  12.30/10 100%  0
k - Fire Magic       2.30/1        0 -4

   Skill              Lvl    Train Apt
j * Transmutations   12.30   100%  0
k - Fire Magic        2.30         0 -4


The differences are:
(1) Show progress as level.decimal, so there's no need for the progress|training toggle.
(2) Remove the superfluous paraentheses from the Training percent. It's already in it's own column and colored brown; I think that's enough.
(3) No need for enhanced|normal views, since everything fits in the same screen.
(4) I say get rid of the practice|focus toggle, leaving focus mode on all the time. If I don't want to use focus, I can simply not use it.

This leaves just two toggles (known/all and auto/manual) and help.
User avatar

Dungeon Master

Posts: 4031

Joined: Thursday, 16th December 2010, 20:37

Location: France

Post Thursday, 11th August 2011, 18:32

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

I don't think the number of toggles is what makes the skill screen complicated. However, increasing the amount of numbers on-screen would definitely makes it more complicated.
Regarding progress, I have plans to simply remove it.
Some players (and at least one dev) don't use focus, so forcing it on them just make toggling skills annoying to them. Maybe it can be changed to an option instead of an in-game toggle.
<+Grunt> You dereference an invalid pointer! Ouch! That really hurt! The game dies...

Dungeon Master

Posts: 3618

Joined: Thursday, 23rd December 2010, 12:43

Post Thursday, 11th August 2011, 18:44

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

I've bounced the idea around on ##crawl-dev a few times, and it seems everyone could agree with removing the percentages (which fuzzing will achieve in the best possible way, thereby removing the need for one colour and one toggle) as well as just going with the three levels. (Even developers who don't use Focus said they'de be fine with it.) This would save another toggle -- altogether a line in the bottom section. We could still keep a Focus Off option for those who just don't want to be bothered.

Personally, because I am lazy and not so good player, I am interested in optimising auto mode a bit more. That will need time and effort, but will come.
User avatar

Dungeon Master

Posts: 4031

Joined: Thursday, 16th December 2010, 20:37

Location: France

Post Thursday, 11th August 2011, 19:04

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

dpeg wrote:I've bounced the idea around on ##crawl-dev a few times, and it seems everyone could agree with removing the percentages (which fuzzing will achieve in the best possible way, thereby removing the need for one colour and one toggle) as well as just going with the three levels. (Even developers who don't use Focus said they'de be fine with it.) This would save another toggle -- altogether a line in the bottom section. We could still keep a Focus Off option for those who just don't want to be bothered.

Personally, because I am lazy and not so good player, I am interested in optimising auto mode a bit more. That will need time and effort, but will come.

Sounds good.
Step 1: Default to focus mode and add a disable_focus option.
Step 2: skill fuzzing and remove progress
Step 3: improve auto-mode. There's still a thread to report on training rates. Last feedback I got from it was to increase the training rate for evocations, which I haven't done yet, but I haven't forgotten either.
<+Grunt> You dereference an invalid pointer! Ouch! That really hurt! The game dies...

For this message the author galehar has received thanks: 2
dolphin, ryak

Blades Runner

Posts: 546

Joined: Monday, 20th December 2010, 14:25

Post Thursday, 11th August 2011, 19:57

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

galehar wrote:I don't think the number of toggles is what makes the skill screen complicated. However, increasing the amount of numbers on-screen would definitely makes it more complicated.

Ah, I sorta look at tables for a living so they seem easy -- especially tables with colors -- but I only use toggles in Crawl so they somehow seem hard to me. Anyway, I like what's planed. Fuzzing, no more progress percentages, default to focus mode all sound great.

The remaining bits of the proposal are combining enhanced and normal and removing parentheses from the training column. That's small change compared to the other stuff. Nice.
User avatar

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 5832

Joined: Thursday, 10th February 2011, 18:30

Post Friday, 12th August 2011, 14:47

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

galehar wrote:
dpeg wrote:I've bounced the idea around on ##crawl-dev a few times, and it seems everyone could agree with removing the percentages (which fuzzing will achieve in the best possible way, thereby removing the need for one colour and one toggle) as well as just going with the three levels. (Even developers who don't use Focus said they'de be fine with it.) This would save another toggle -- altogether a line in the bottom section. We could still keep a Focus Off option for those who just don't want to be bothered.

Personally, because I am lazy and not so good player, I am interested in optimising auto mode a bit more. That will need time and effort, but will come.

Sounds good.
Step 1: Default to focus mode and add a disable_focus option.
Step 2: skill fuzzing and remove progress
Step 3: improve auto-mode. There's still a thread to report on training rates. Last feedback I got from it was to increase the training rate for evocations, which I haven't done yet, but I haven't forgotten either.


Step 1.2 - remove parenthesis around progress
"Be aware that a lot of people on this forum, such as mageykun and XuaXua, have a habit of making things up." - minmay a.k.a. duvessa
Did I make a lame complaint? Check for Bingo!
Totally gracious CSDC Season 2 Division 4 Champeen!
User avatar

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 5832

Joined: Thursday, 10th February 2011, 18:30

Post Wednesday, 17th August 2011, 14:48

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

When is fuzzing going in?
"Be aware that a lot of people on this forum, such as mageykun and XuaXua, have a habit of making things up." - minmay a.k.a. duvessa
Did I make a lame complaint? Check for Bingo!
Totally gracious CSDC Season 2 Division 4 Champeen!
User avatar

Dungeon Master

Posts: 4031

Joined: Thursday, 16th December 2010, 20:37

Location: France

Post Wednesday, 17th August 2011, 15:08

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

When I have the time to code it. I'm on something else right now, and fuzzing is a significant amount of work.
<+Grunt> You dereference an invalid pointer! Ouch! That really hurt! The game dies...

For this message the author galehar has received thanks:
XuaXua
User avatar

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 5832

Joined: Thursday, 10th February 2011, 18:30

Post Wednesday, 17th August 2011, 17:32

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

galehar wrote:When I have the time to code it. I'm on something else right now, and fuzzing is a significant amount of work.


Cool, thanks. I think fuzzing will pretty much be "win" for this system.
"Be aware that a lot of people on this forum, such as mageykun and XuaXua, have a habit of making things up." - minmay a.k.a. duvessa
Did I make a lame complaint? Check for Bingo!
Totally gracious CSDC Season 2 Division 4 Champeen!

Tartarus Sorceror

Posts: 1776

Joined: Monday, 21st February 2011, 15:57

Location: South Carolina

Post Thursday, 18th August 2011, 21:42

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

XuaXua wrote:I like that I can now set start to manual mode on init.

What is this option called? And is there also an option to have focus on by default?
User avatar

Dungeon Master

Posts: 4031

Joined: Thursday, 16th December 2010, 20:37

Location: France

Post Friday, 19th August 2011, 14:50

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

minmay wrote:There have been a lot of questions on IRC, and a lot of confusion, about level 0 skills in the new system. It seems the process for training them is indeed unclear and unintuitive.

Just practise them. Is it really necessary to understand the inner working on how to gain skills? From my testing, there's sometimes a little problem if you try to learn several skills at once. The one with the most training might override the training events of others. Appart from this minor thing (which can be improved), there's not much more to it than "practise it to gain it", so I'm not sure what explanation is needed.
<+Grunt> You dereference an invalid pointer! Ouch! That really hurt! The game dies...
User avatar

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 5832

Joined: Thursday, 10th February 2011, 18:30

Post Friday, 19th August 2011, 19:20

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

galehar wrote:
minmay wrote:There have been a lot of questions on IRC, and a lot of confusion, about level 0 skills in the new system. It seems the process for training them is indeed unclear and unintuitive.

Just practise them. Is it really necessary to understand the inner working on how to gain skills? From my testing, there's sometimes a little problem if you try to learn several skills at once. The one with the most training might override the training events of others. Appart from this minor thing (which can be improved), there's not much more to it than "practise it to gain it", so I'm not sure what explanation is needed.


I've had a couple times early on when I set my skill management up (manual, focus on spellcasting), used a weapon, saw 0-level fighting and weapon appear, kept using spells, then saw them eventually vanish; I did get them later.

I think there is no point to fixing this 0 level thing because once fuzzing enters the picture, it will resolve itself.

Worst case, just tell people if they want to start up a new skill, use it 10 times in succession then go kill a few things.
"Be aware that a lot of people on this forum, such as mageykun and XuaXua, have a habit of making things up." - minmay a.k.a. duvessa
Did I make a lame complaint? Check for Bingo!
Totally gracious CSDC Season 2 Division 4 Champeen!

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 3037

Joined: Sunday, 2nd January 2011, 02:06

Post Friday, 19th August 2011, 21:14

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

I'm not quite sure why it's so important to keep the Level Zero Pre-Dancing Ritual. It's confusing for new players, and it doesn't successfully satisfy the people who want a simulationist learn-by-doing system. It was originally conceived as a compromise that would hopefully satisfy everybody, but it seems at least mildly annoying to everybody instead.

Removing the Victory Dancing Ritual for levels 1 through 26 made the game more fun. What's so different about that level 0?
User avatar

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 5832

Joined: Thursday, 10th February 2011, 18:30

Post Friday, 19th August 2011, 21:58

Re: Bye bye victory dancing

I agree with KoboldLord.

I, brr... did it just get cold in here?

Anyway, I think, much like pen-and-paper role-playing games, all viable skills should be listed from the very beginning at level 0 (or 1) at 00%.

The only restrictions to training skills that currently exist is the availability of any given skill. For example, my Necromancer can't train Earth till he learns a low-level Earth spell, casts it 10 times, gets it to level 1, purges the pointless spell from memory with a scroll of amnesia, then trains it up to a respectable value and memorizes LRD or Shatter.

I guess the concept of the 0-level restriction is that you cannot train a skill which you cannot actually use at this time.
"Be aware that a lot of people on this forum, such as mageykun and XuaXua, have a habit of making things up." - minmay a.k.a. duvessa
Did I make a lame complaint? Check for Bingo!
Totally gracious CSDC Season 2 Division 4 Champeen!
PreviousNext

Return to Game Design Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 31 guests

Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group.
Designed by ST Software for PTF.