Plead to change shop UI

[takkaria]

Originally Posted by Timo Pietilä

Hello from a long hiatus. I just recently started playing 3.4 beta release and again did a mistake in shop like I have made about zillion times before: I buy the first item into list. In normal game I would just sell them back, but this is no-selling game.

I'm not opposed to changing it back. I would be really interested to hear what you think of the rest of 3.4 beta though.

[fizzix]

Originally Posted by takkaria

I'm not opposed to changing it back. I would be really interested to hear what you think of the rest of 3.4 beta though.

For the record, I have no problem with this going into 3.4. I actually have no opinion on this issue, which means I make a poor judge at deciding whether it's a good change or not. I do know that a change probably needs to be submitted soon, and I'm unlikely to be able to do it myself.

[Timo Pietilä]

Originally Posted by takkaria

I'm not opposed to changing it back. I would be really interested to hear what you think of the rest of 3.4 beta though.

Haven't yet played much (just reached stat-gain, if there is such a thing), but it kind of feels more like it used to be. Nerfted detection for items really makes huge difference. Also found minor demon pit which had Haradekket which greatly improved my survival chances (playing priest, but three blows with edged weapon vs one with non-ego whip is too good not to use). Had a close call with unseen Basilisk (fast, breathes poison for over 100 points, and I have just slightly over 200HP) in cavern level at 1400'. Tengus in that pit were really annoying. Oddly no orc pits yet, usually by this time I have seen several.

Ego-item frequency feels better. I'm no longer swamped by them and several of my equipment are still non-ego. Phial (from Shagrat at 750') and Haradekket (minor demon pit at 1150') are only artifacts this far. BTW, that Phial was before I saw first lantern. Maybe lanterns should be a bit less rare or shallower.

[EDIT] typo fixed

[d_m]

I am pretty agnostic about selling UI. It wasn't hard for me to adapt to it and it won't be hard for me to adapt back if we go that way.

It's not a good idea for 3.4, but if we wanted to do a radical shift (to support gameboy, handhelds, new UI, etc) I think using an option for that might not be a bad idea. The lesson learned here is that slow gradual UI shifts like this don't work because they are (necessarily) inconsistent and draw out the breakage/confusion over a long period of time.

I'm not sure if that helps or muddies the waters, but it's my feeling on it.

I am also still interested in trying to reduce the number of "necessary" commands to be as small as possible. I think Sil has achieved a lot of the things I've wanted to here.

[Jungle_Boy]

Originally Posted by d_m

I am also still interested in trying to reduce the number of "necessary" commands to be as small as possible. I think Sil has achieved a lot of the things I've wanted to here.

I agree with this, I think it would be worth having angband look at Sil's keyset to see if it could be used in Angband.

[Elsairon]

My vote is for switching back to the old shop ui, or putting it in as an option.

Mainly for consistency of not having to learn/use a different method as Timo says, action-item is how the rest of the game works, everywhere.

I also understand how using the item first makes sense in the context of the store, and my preference is for action-item.

[ghengiz]

Originally Posted by Elsairon

My vote is for switching back to the old shop ui, or putting it in as an option.

Mainly for consistency of not having to learn/use a different method as Timo says, action-item is how the rest of the game works, everywhere.

I also understand how using the item first makes sense in the context of the store, and my preference is for action-item.

+1, especially the consistency argument

[Genghis Hank]

Old timer (pc angband 1.8 IIRC) just rediscovering the game here. I've already made mistakes with the shop in purchases. "s" brings up menu of what to sell but "p" behaves differently and purchases the first itme in list so store is inconsistent in that regard. I would vote for the "p,{item}" version since it would be the same as selling then. For now I just mark it down as those greedy merchants trying to swindle me!

[Blue Baron]

This has been implemented in the latest nightly. Please try it out and make sure it works as expected.

it is the hybrid option I talked about before. To use the same example as before, {p,f} works to buy item f, but if item f is already selected, {p, enter} works as well (that is {f,p,enter} works, or {f, p, f}, or {a-z,p,f})

it is the same to examine a store item.

One problem is that pressing escape at the new prompt does not abort the purchase, a fix for this will be in my next pull request.

[wuphonsreach]

As an old-timer I like the hybrid method. It's close enough to how I've been playing Moria/Angband. It was proving hard to get used to the new system in 3.3.1.