Interface improvement for decks

[danr]

One reason I rarely go with nemelex is all the extra keystrokes involved in wielding decks and then rewielding weapons, never mind the prompts "Are you sure you want to attack with a deck of cards in your hands?"

Just as the mechanics of butchering chunks have been largely automated, something similar could be done with decks. If a single click could be assumed to equip the deck, draw a card, and then go back to your weapon, decks would be a lot less annoying to use.

This would make them work like wands, which presumably also have to be handled with your hands to use, but the game does not make you go through the tedium of equipping it.

However, like butchering, you would be prevented from using decks (and wands?) if wielding a cursed weapon. Rods could also be treated the same way - why require wielding them? Just build in more of a time cost and automate the process.

One issue is that the time cost would be added to each use of the item. But switching weapons is a pretty time trivial action anyway, I don't think the realism of this is so important that it warrants keeping a cumbersome interface mechanic.

[njvack]

Waaaait... isn't there a one-star ability to draw from a deck without wielding it?

[danr]

Waaaait... isn't there a one-star ability to draw from a deck without wielding it?

Yes I know, that ability would still be worthwhile because it would be faster than the wielding / unwielding activity necessary without it. It's just that the game automatically takes that time into account and saves the player keystrokes / mouseclicks.

That said, the time cost is not a major gameplay issue. This god ability seems like a benefit more in terms of an added convenience for the interface, not a really significant gameplay advantage.

[danr]

Thinking about this a bit more:

I assume the time cost of the "Draw one" ability is 10 ticks, same as changing a weapon.

The time cost of clicking on a deck in your inventory would be 30 ticks:
10 to wield deck
10 to draw card
10 to wield weapon again.

The drawback of this is that it imposes the 10 tick cost of going back to your weapon every time, and it may be that you want to draw a few cards in a row.

A neater approach might be to just make clicking on a deck automatically perform two actions:
- wield deck
- draw card

If the deck is already wielded, clicking would just trigger the draw card action.

[dpeg]

When we (Haran and I) modified Nemelex, we had a working god to start with. So we kept the concept of wielding decks. We were not afraid of changing the interface: sacrificing was a much more cumbersome activity before, requiring an insane number of keystrokes, so we replaced it by 'p' (although regrettably this also lost the flavour of the "portable altar"). Concerning the cards, we we fond of the Triple Draw and Stack Five, so we came up with Draw One.

In hindsight, I agree that it is better to make cards mechanically similar to the other evocable items. So let's go for that.

However, that does not necessarily mean Draw One is useless. If it was a really quick, but also really expensive action, it could create interesting choices. What do you think?

[danr]

I like the cut of your jib, dpeg.

[danr]

dpeg, do you thing this could go to the dev wiki?

[dpeg]

danr: Recently, there was some Nemelex activity (Mark Four and Peek Two got cut, and there were deck/card tweaks). Therefore I'd rather suggest to ask for comments on ##crawl-dev. Unfortunately, I won't have the time to do that, for at least two weeks. If you want to do it, though, go for it! Tell them I support it (at the very least the interface chance, which on its own would remove Draw One, but perhaps a beefed up, expensive version of Draw One might be appealing).

[evilmike]

However, that does not necessarily mean Draw One is useless. If it was a really quick, but also really expensive action, it could create interesting choices. What do you think?

If decks were evokable with V, then draw one would need to be replaced or changed. Making it fast (take 0.5 aut) would be an option, but I worry that overlaps with draw four (new ability in 0.11), which also allows "fast" drawing of cards but in a more interesting way.

Nemelex also needs to keep an ability associated with "One", to preserve the theme of his abilities. So, simply removing draw one is not an option, imo.

I wouldn't mind seeing changes to make decks usable with V, even though it's a buff to non-nemelexites. I dislike it when the game makes you wield anything that isn't a weapon.

[evilmike]

(Mark Four and Peek Two got cut, and there were deck/card tweaks).

Peek two wasn't cut.

[Blade]

For a while, I was thinking this would be a good idea, but then I remembered a game of mine a while ago:

On the orbrun, my AK got careless and ended up next to a hell sentinel at low HP. I had a deck with elixir in my inventory; I unwielded distortion to wield the elixir and it killed me. This is a very rare edge case, but it is an important one. Needing to wield decks before using them does a couple of interesting things: It forces you to unwield your weapon, taking time (and having negative effects with vampiric and disto), and it forces you to wield an item useless except for card effects. If you want to continue using your weapon afterwards, you must then switch back to that.

For items that can provide powerful summons, instant escape from anything with tomb, warpwright, and other escape cards, and instant full heal with no penalties, the wielding is an important prerequisite. It is not significant with huge frequency, but it is significant enough that imo it deserves to stay in the game.

[eeviac]

Are we including rods and staff of channeling in this discussion? It'd be nice if they were V-able, as they aren't real weapons either.

[rchandra]

if staff of channeling is V-able, it should be cut instead as then it's a less interesting crystal ball. I think it's nice that spellcasters have to choose between energy/enhancer/channeling (ok that one can be swapped, but it's still something)

[eeviac]

eh, staff of channeling functions quite differently from cboe.

[danr]

I think some people are missing the point. It would be just like butchering - you still need to be able to free your hands to do the action, it's just that the game would simplify the interface.