Interface improvement: make wait (s command) interruptable

[evilmike]

https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php? ... ce:waiting

I have written a proposal about making the wait command (. or s) wait 10 aut, but in smaller increments, to make it so it can be interrupted when something important happens. Please read the wiki page for details (also, read it before replying to this thread... it's a fairly short page).

[dpeg]

Sounds good to me. (Also, the tactic you describe would be even useful without energy randomisation, I believe, although more rarely.)

I also fixed your map.

[Galefury]

One thing to consider: the wait should probably also be interrupted by getting attacked, not just by taking damage. This would promote the tactic of waiting to get attacked by an enemy with attack delay higher than 10 aut (early weapon users), then backing away to create some free space between the monster and oneself and going up the stairs without being followed. This is already possible with short actions, but fairly obscure. I think making this tactic more obvious is good.

Another example this change would affect, which also does not depend on energy randomization: fighting fast melee enemies, like snakes and hounds. Right now it is best to back away from them until they are in melee range instead of waiting. If the enemy is one space from you and you wait 10 aut, you will most likely get attacked by the enemy before you get your own chance to attack. If you back away you get to attack first. With this change the wait would be interrupted when the enemy comes into melee range, backing away would no longer be necessary. This is much more intuitive.

Also being interrupted by taking damage (or by getting attacked) could be somewhat annoying against large groups of enemies, especially ranged ones. There is usually little reason to wait when fighting groups of enemies, so this is probably okay. If it proves not to be okay a way to wait exactly 10 aut no matter what could be introduced. Probably unnecessary, but an eye should be kept on it.

Edit: another thing this might affect is turn count, which is relevant to scoring. Probably too minor to worry about.

[evilmike]

Yeah, it would be quite a large interface improvement, in my opinion. The example I named on the wiki page isn't by any means the only scenario where something like this would be useful.

I also highly doubt anything would be lost by implementing this: the example you name of waiting when facing several enemies is quite unusual, and I can't imagine any reason a player would want to do that.

Also, it wouldn't affect turn count (for scoring), in a significant way. Score uses "player turns", where all actions are counted equally regardless of how long they take.