New Quiver usability


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bt

Halls Hopper

Posts: 60

Joined: Thursday, 7th April 2011, 18:13

Post Sunday, 13th December 2020, 16:15

New Quiver usability

1. New quiver system makes early game with a sling a bit of a pain.

Example: say you have a sling, some stones, a dagger and some poison darts. In the previous system you could wield the sling, select stones as your ammo, then wield the dagger and select darts as your ammo, and the game would remember this setup when you switch weapons. In the current system if you switch from sling to a dagger throw stones will overwrite whatever throwable you had with a dagger before.

2. When you pick up new types of quiverable items the letter they are assigned to in the Q menu changes, which, combined with a constant need to requiver your throwables if you are using a sling, makes quivering different ammo in the early game quite messy.

Will rc-file option "autoinscribe += <item>:@Qa" work similarly to options for read/quaff menus?

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 6454

Joined: Tuesday, 30th October 2012, 19:06

Post Sunday, 13th December 2020, 19:01

Re: New Quiver usability

bt wrote:1. New quiver system makes early game with a sling a bit of a pain.

Example: say you have a sling, some stones, a dagger and some poison darts. In the previous system you could wield the sling, select stones as your ammo, then wield the dagger and select darts as your ammo, and the game would remember this setup when you switch weapons. In the current system if you switch from sling to a dagger throw stones will overwrite whatever throwable you had with a dagger before.

2. When you pick up new types of quiverable items the letter they are assigned to in the Q menu changes, which, combined with a constant need to requiver your throwables if you are using a sling, makes quivering different ammo in the early game quite messy.

Will rc-file option "autoinscribe += <item>:@Qa" work similarly to options for read/quaff menus?

Yeah, this unfortunately happens with sling+stones specifically.

You can use Q* to select by inventory letter (good for macros and autoinscribing), which helps a little, and the problem doesn't happen with sling bullets (because those aren't also throwable)
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bt

Shoals Surfer

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Joined: Friday, 13th December 2019, 01:33

Post Sunday, 13th December 2020, 19:45

Re: New Quiver usability

Setting
  Code:
launcher_autoquiver = false
could help here; that way darts will stay quivered and you can fire your sling with 'v'.

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bt

Halls Hopper

Posts: 60

Joined: Thursday, 7th April 2011, 18:13

Post Monday, 14th December 2020, 08:56

Re: New Quiver usability

You can use Q* to select by inventory letter (good for macros and autoinscribing), which helps a little, and the problem doesn't happen with sling bullets (because those aren't also throwable)


Yeah, I thought about using that, but it'll take 3 to 4 extra keys for throwables/ammo and there's not a lot of easy ones left in my setup (they compete with other macro keys).

Setting

Code:
launcher_autoquiver = false

could help here; that way darts will stay quivered and you can fire your sling with 'v'.


Neat, I'll try it. It's unclear how you would switch between stones and bullets when wielding sling and quivering darts though. Also readjusting muscle memory to 'v' instead of 'f' will cause some mistakes for sure, but that's how it goes I suppose.

edit: tried it, it works fine, thank you! Still wish there was a way to preassign letters in Q menu though.

Dungeon Master

Posts: 388

Joined: Monday, 18th August 2014, 20:04

Post Thursday, 17th December 2020, 21:46

Re: New Quiver usability

Thanks for the feedback!

bt wrote:1. New quiver system makes early game with a sling a bit of a pain.

Example: say you have a sling, some stones, a dagger and some poison darts. In the previous system you could wield the sling, select stones as your ammo, then wield the dagger and select darts as your ammo, and the game would remember this setup when you switch weapons. In the current system if you switch from sling to a dagger throw stones will overwrite whatever throwable you had with a dagger before.


I pushed a change yesterday that for this kind of case, should restore the exact behavior from old quivers. (It works somewhat differently behind the scenes so it may not always restore the exact behavior: it works by differentiating launching and throwing as different kinds of actions, so switching away from a launcher makes the firing action invalid, and then switches to the most recent valid action.)

bt wrote:2. When you pick up new types of quiverable items the letter they are assigned to in the Q menu changes, which, combined with a constant need to requiver your throwables if you are using a sling, makes quivering different ammo in the early game quite messy.


This is a tricky one because the Q menu merges items, abilities, and spells, which each have their own lettering. I do agree that the current situation is annoying, and even as the designer I still find myself trying to quiver items by letter, etc., but I don't yet have a good solution aside from macroing "Q*". (In fact if macro Q to Q*, then you can press esc from there to still get to the regular quiver menu.) One possibility would be to add a fourth lettering system for quiver actions (plus perhaps another submenu of "="), so that they at least have a persistant lettering, but that is adding a lot of complexity and I'm not sure whether it has a huge gain. I've also considered things like trying to assign letters to items based on their inventory letter, and then filling in other quiver types, but I think in practice aside from the very simplest cases this leads to a lot of weirdness in the menu ordering. So I'm happy to hear other ideas.

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bt

Dungeon Master

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Post Thursday, 17th December 2020, 21:48

Re: New Quiver usability

bt wrote:Also readjusting muscle memory to 'v' instead of 'f' will cause some mistakes for sure, but that's how it goes I suppose.


If it helps, I picked this key as a generalization of the reaching interface, so just think polearms.

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andrew

Shoals Surfer

Posts: 305

Joined: Friday, 13th December 2019, 01:33

Post Thursday, 17th December 2020, 22:49

Re: New Quiver usability

Which makes sense, since for many purposes a launcher is just a range-7 reaching weapon.

bt

Halls Hopper

Posts: 60

Joined: Thursday, 7th April 2011, 18:13

Post Friday, 18th December 2020, 12:39

Re: New Quiver usability

advil wrote:
bt wrote:2. When you pick up new types of quiverable items the letter they are assigned to in the Q menu changes, which, combined with a constant need to requiver your throwables if you are using a sling, makes quivering different ammo in the early game quite messy.


This is a tricky one because the Q menu merges items, abilities, and spells, which each have their own lettering. I do agree that the current situation is annoying, and even as the designer I still find myself trying to quiver items by letter, etc., but I don't yet have a good solution aside from macroing "Q*". (In fact if macro Q to Q*, then you can press esc from there to still get to the regular quiver menu.) One possibility would be to add a fourth lettering system for quiver actions (plus perhaps another submenu of "="), so that they at least have a persistant lettering, but that is adding a lot of complexity and I'm not sure whether it has a huge gain. I've also considered things like trying to assign letters to items based on their inventory letter, and then filling in other quiver types, but I think in practice aside from the very simplest cases this leads to a lot of weirdness in the menu ordering. So I'm happy to hear other ideas.


Hah, I'm such a dummy, finally properly understood what Siegurt meant by using Q* for macroing. Macroing Q to Q* pretty much gives the old behavior, so it solves my problem completely, thanks! As an aside, with the new system you can have launcher and darts ready at the same time, which feels great.

advil wrote:If it helps, I picked this key as a generalization of the reaching interface, so just think polearms.


Yeah, my brain understands, but my fingers have a mind of their own :), it'll take some time, no worries.

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 6454

Joined: Tuesday, 30th October 2012, 19:06

Post Saturday, 19th December 2020, 04:13

Re: New Quiver usability

bt wrote:
advil wrote:
bt wrote:2. When you pick up new types of quiverable items the letter they are assigned to in the Q menu changes, which, combined with a constant need to requiver your throwables if you are using a sling, makes quivering different ammo in the early game quite messy.


This is a tricky one because the Q menu merges items, abilities, and spells, which each have their own lettering. I do agree that the current situation is annoying, and even as the designer I still find myself trying to quiver items by letter, etc., but I don't yet have a good solution aside from macroing "Q*". (In fact if macro Q to Q*, then you can press esc from there to still get to the regular quiver menu.) One possibility would be to add a fourth lettering system for quiver actions (plus perhaps another submenu of "="), so that they at least have a persistant lettering, but that is adding a lot of complexity and I'm not sure whether it has a huge gain. I've also considered things like trying to assign letters to items based on their inventory letter, and then filling in other quiver types, but I think in practice aside from the very simplest cases this leads to a lot of weirdness in the menu ordering. So I'm happy to hear other ideas.


Hah, I'm such a dummy, finally properly understood what Siegurt meant by using Q* for macroing. Macroing Q to Q* pretty much gives the old behavior, so it solves my problem completely, thanks! As an aside, with the new system you can have launcher and darts ready at the same time, which feels great.

advil wrote:If it helps, I picked this key as a generalization of the reaching interface, so just think polearms.


Yeah, my brain understands, but my fingers have a mind of their own :), it'll take some time, no worries.

I could've been more explicit about that, sorry. (Although there's a deficit that now you can quiver stupid things with Q* that the old Q macros would not in case you have a macro for a slot that isn't filled with your desired item yet.) It would be mildy helpful if there was a Q( or something that provided just the missiles section of your inventory
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