You can't cancel out of a potion petition(spoilery)

[Shard1697]

Please at least mention this in the ability's description. As someone who doesn't usually use gozag, seeing the text "Gozag offers you a free set of potion effects!" makes me wanna check what they are, which isn't listed in the abilities list... and then once I press a, I realize I've just wasted my free potion petition because I cannot press esc to back out, unlike most abilities where you aim/choose something after using it.

[chequers]

Potion Pettion was designed as uncancellable because you could check what potions were on offer and cancel the request to get a new set of random potions if none were what you wanted.

An alternative implementation could be to allow cancelling pp but not re-rolling the potions if you petition again in future. So the player would always have knowledge of what potions gozag is currently offering, which might be tedious to remember.

Another implementation might be to simply charge the player the 300gold as soon as they petition, and have a yesno prompt if they attempt to escape out of it.

[Hellmonk]

You could give a yesno prompt for activating the ability: "Gozag will require you to purchase one of the offered potion sets. Really use potion petition?" I imagine that would get annoying if you use it a lot though. Maybe prompt the first time it's used?

[bel]

If you type "aa", while following Trog, you immediately go berserk (without any prompt). There are plenty of other abilities which behave the same (say, Elyvilon's lesser healing). It seems to me that potion petition follows this behaviour exactly. The prompt only exists to give you a choice of potion effects.

[VeryAngryFelid]

If you type "aa", while following Trog, you immediately go berserk (without any prompt). There are plenty of other abilities which behave the same (say, Elyvilon's lesser healing). It seems to me that potion petition follows this behaviour exactly. The prompt only exists to give you a choice of potion effects.

This is a bad example IMHO, going berserk will not make you lose money and you can do it indefinitely. Now compare to potion petition, corrupt or Death's Door spell. There is a reason why I created "confirm_action" option (and it was accepted by devs!), some actions are too dangerous by default and can be customized by players to give confirmation prompts.

Edit. Some time ago I had "ability_slot += Berserk:A" in my init.txt to avoid accidental presses of aa.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Another implementation might be to simply charge the player the 300gold as soon as they petition, and have a yesno prompt if they attempt to escape out of it.

I don't see how it solves OP problem, you still lose money for nothing. IMHO we should have a confirmation for first and only first petition, it does not make spamming the ability less convenient and it does solve problem of unspoiled players.

[bel]

If you type "aa", while following Trog, you immediately go berserk (without any prompt). There are plenty of other abilities which behave the same (say, Elyvilon's lesser healing). It seems to me that potion petition follows this behaviour exactly. The prompt only exists to give you a choice of potion effects.

This is a bad example IMHO, going berserk will not make you lose money and you can do it indefinitely.

This is irrelevant to my point. If you don't like the berserk example, take the lesser healing example. It costs piety and is not free.

[VeryAngryFelid]

This is irrelevant to my point. If you don't like the berserk example, take the lesser healing example. It costs piety and is not free.

Still bad example IMHO, Lesser healing does the same thing every time you invoke it and all other abilities with choice can be cancelled: "which weapon to bless/corrupt/pain", "learn which spell (from Vehumet)", banish whom, upheaval whom etc. . Why don't you want to change description of potion petition to include something like "It can give 2-4 of the following effects: haste, resistance [etc.] You cannot cancel it once you activate it"? and optionally confirm first potion?

[chequers]

People wasting one potion petition in one game isn't a major issue that requires a confirmation, IMHO.

[VeryAngryFelid]

People wasting one potion petition in one game isn't a major issue that requires a confirmation, IMHO.

I agree, I was so disappointed by wasting money that I still remember it after several years and unfortunately we don't have an easy way to implement "display confirmation just once for account" as far as I know.

OP suggests to change ability description, any objections to that?

[Shard1697]

People wasting one potion petition in one game isn't a major issue that requires a confirmation, IMHO.

I agree, but I also think it would be nice the description mentioned that you cannot cancel out of the potion selection menu, which is a very minor change. Speaking for myself, I was expecting to be able to, probably because of other abilities which require additional keypresses after a->key being cancelable.

[Rast]

Wasting PP feels worse than any other piety waste, because Gozag has no piety cap. No matter how much piety you earn after wasting a PP, you will always have that much less than you "should".

[bel]

This is irrelevant to my point. If you don't like the berserk example, take the lesser healing example. It costs piety and is not free.

Still bad example IMHO, Lesser healing does the same thing every time you invoke it and all other abilities with choice can be cancelled.

It's not clear to me what your objection is, because you did not mention this "choice" thing in your original post. Anyway, this reason is also wrong: Nemelex Triple Draw also does not allow cancellation, for roughly the same reason as Gozag potion petition. (There are actually two choices in Nemelex Triple Draw, first choice is the deck and the second is the card. The first is cancellable and the second is not for the reason outlined above).

The objections are still irrelevant to my point: there are many abilities which don't prompt you after you invoke them.

[Lavandula]

If it is your first Gozag game, get ready for surprise when you use Bribe Branch. Bribed monsters often turn hostile unprovoked.

[mattlistener]

A better ability description would seem to be appropriate here.

[Shtopit]

"Wanna use it now? If you see it, you have to use it!" y/n

I have used bribe branch a few times and won a game with it. I still don't know how it works, how the money is handled, why some are allies and some neutrals, why the allies die after a while or attack the neutral ones, why I can't rest near the neutral ones, how many monsters are supposed to be pacified, how the pacification extends...