[RFC] Talent Red Alert

[Zizzo]

Fleshing out an idea originally suggested over on the ZOmnibus thread. The basic idea is to modify the actor tooltip to include prominent notice of certain particularly threatening talents when possessed by NPCs, to provide early warning of dangerous opponents. As discussed in the original description, the tricky bit of this will be that we want the player to be able to configure which talents the addon should worn about, and to specify player-related conditions for when each talent should be warned about (only for certain player classes, only if player does not have certain other talents, et cetera).

The rough idea is to have a configuration dialog of sorts, with a list of "rules" and UI controls for adding new rules. Each rule would have a talent to warn about (multiple talents? talent tree?), a player property to check (race, class, talent, level, etc.), a target value to compare against, and a comparison (equal, not equal, has, doesn't have, greater than, less then, etc.). This will get more complicated if we want to allow multiple conditions in the same rule; "or" combinations could be covered by having multiple rules for the same talent, while "and" combinations would require multiple sets of UI controls for the conditions.

Other notes:

• Since we're talking about player-based rules for when certain talents are warned about, I assume we'll want these rules to be shared across all characters, which means the configuration information will need to live in either the world{} table or user prefs. Would we want to provide a "default" rule set for new users, to give them something to work from?
• For technical reasons, this one won't be easy to include in ZOmnibus; to make it compatible with the Plenum Tooltip addon, I'll need to give it a much higher addon weight than ZOmnibus uses.

And I can't promise any prompt action on this, as I've just taken delivery of a proverbial full plate over in the T2 module.

[Dracos]

That sounds neat...but also like it would be excessively complicated and breakable (Like if we go back < 10 minor versions, we have Vitality as a potential superdanger). Would it provide some baseline stored set? I mean, without its nice, but also 'needs a lot of attention to get going'.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

It really wouldn't take tons of attention. Do you die horribly to something? Maybe flag that talent for future runs. Again, let's try fearscape as an example, from the perspective of a blind player, brand new.

you meet a rare, who promptly fearscapes you. The overwhelming damage and no escape cause you to die. Lesson learned. You mark it as dangerous, and are warned at every possible future encounter it exists in.
Later, you unlock corruptor, and discover flames of uhr'rok. Now you realize that fearscapes not as dangerous if you have this, so you modify the rule to exclude characters who have this talent at Talent level 1 or higher.
Later still, you discover the sustain can be deactivated by certain talents, and add those to the filter, since it wouldn't be a threat if you could immediately turn it off.

These rules are made at wildly differing times, over months of learned experience. (or weeks, or days, depending on how much you play.)

It's not something I would expect someone to drop 5 hours into programming the moment they download it, but to slowly modify over time, across dozens if not hundreds of characters.

Obviously a basic set could be easy to knockout, but someone who really worked at it could streamline their set to such depth that they cover all the threats to various characters at various times, appropriately filtered by class, build, gear, level, etc.

I vote against a default set shipped with it. Too many things are variable to different people. It's almost like a set of notes about things that have killed you, so it could be built based off your own playstyle, preferences and experience. Otherwise, it feels like it's trying to tell people how to play, rather then helping them more closely enforce their own careful play.

[Zizzo]

I vote against a default set shipped with it.

Well, that will make my job slightly easier, at least.

[Steven Aus]

I just want to say I appreciate you fleshing out the TOME2 port with my and others' suggestions and bug reports. As I get more experienced with Lua I could even help you out with some of the intrinsic work in the port, not just optional addons (although I suppose I already have a little bit when I fixed those errors recently). How far through your map generation were you when you halted it? It might be a good idea to get some more core functionality and bugfixes in and then go back to your mapgen for a while, especially if you are a good way through it.

[Zizzo]

I just want to say I appreciate you fleshing out the TOME2 port with my and others' suggestions and bug reports.

`S all good. That was the point, after all.

How far through your map generation were you when you halted it?

[checks notes] Looks like I'd gotten most of the simpler rooms implemented, notably Orc Cave's signature fractal-cave rooms; I was in the middle of working on random "vault" rooms like the random maze vault, which left actual pre-fab vaults and something called a "crypt", which I can't particularly visualize from the generating code. And then of course testing all of that…

It might be a good idea to get some more core functionality and bugfixes in and then go back to your mapgen for a while, especially if you are a good way through it.

Well, now that we've got someone actually playing it, I think I ought to bump wands/staffs/rods up in the priority queue. My non-spellcasting T2 characters usually carry around a small collection of utility rods.