Feature - Rejected Better gate key mgmt during the Entryway

[Weatherboy]

So, if you get to the Entryway with only one or two keys and a zap wand, I'd like mafia to automatically zap my key until it either completes that section or blows up the wand, and if it blows up, immediately does the DD to get the final key.

Mafia already looks for the presence of another phat loot token when it detects you're short a key. Just looking to expand on that.

 

[Veracity]

I'm OK with the "attempt to zap" part, but the "automatically do the DD" part would make me stop using the quest script.

 

[Weatherboy]

Hey that's cool. Just do the zap part then! <3 I haven't had many fails with one key, but they do happen. I've also had a key go boris -> pete -> boris -> pete -> jarlsberg(boom).

 

[slyz]

Blowing up your wand is not an automatic decision, since you have to wait a few days to get another one. I don't think this should be automated by Mafia.

 

[Veracity]

I agree with that too - although, by the time I get to the gates, I'd rather blow up my wand trying to get through for 0 turns, rather than spend up to 8 turns to get another token so that I can use the wand in aftercore. If we added this to the script, we could argue "don't use the script if you don't like what it does", but I guarantee there will be bug reports from people who didn't expect that - even if it got them through the gates with 0 turns.

Probably frono will write one; since he is determinedly and intentionally suboptimal, I am sure he would prefer to spend 8 extra turns in the DD in order to not risk a blown-up wand, since he expects to use the wand every day in aftercore, zapping his original Gs into heavy Ds.

 

[slyz]

Zapping Gs into Ds makes Wangbot cry.

 

[Kirkpatrick]

I would enjoy a "Zappy Entryway" option or whatever. Though then you'd either have to put in "Unlucky Zappy Entryway" and "Lucky Zappy Entryway", or have people complain about their preferred option missing!

(I suppose it's been settled, but further support for "not automatically doing the DD". Mafia using turns when it's not explicit is dangerous waters, I think. Also, there's the handy "Daily Dungeon" daily deed for automating it!)

 

[StDoodle]

I agree with V (hey that rhymes); a single zap when mafia thinks it's safe to do one and that guarantees you'll be able to use all keys is certainly a good idea; chancing blowing up your wand at that point would probably be a bad idea, except maybe if you were "good to go" on tower items already (and instruments? Does zapping do anything for any part of any of those? Blech, shows what I know). But 9 times out of 10 for me at least, it would be the single, safe zap that would make a difference in the level of help provided by mafia.

 

[Veracity]

if you were "good to go" on tower items already

This is interesting. I have a full telescope so I make sure that I have all the items I will need before I even enter the entryway, but I can imagine somebody climbing the tower, discovering that they need black pepper, and regretting that they blew up their wand when they'd have preferred to try zapping some dehydrated caviar into black pepper.

This sounds like the kind of thing you'd want to configure. Just as Kirk said, both the clover & the wand are variables - and although we already have two menu options to select on one variable, having four to select on two variables gets to be too much.

We had the same issue with the Leaflet quest: get stats or not, use the house or not. Lost is trying to eliminate the second variable by prompting, or something, if you have furnishings in your existing dwelling already - but putting prompts into a quest script that can be invoked via a CLI command is also guaranteed to lead to complaints from people who want to automate via script, rather than by selecting a menu option from the GUI.

I think this is another can of worms, similar to the Leaflet quest script.

 

[Darzil]

And then you have the people who didn't realise the wand had safe zapped once, were planning to use the wand in aftercore, and are surprised when it explodes as they didn't know the script had used it !

 

[StDoodle]

Isn't there a zap-tracking preference now? I seem to recall one being added. If so, that could be used to determine whether a zap was "safe" to do. Sure, people who mix non-mafia with mafia play could be burned, but it's kind of moved past that point in many ways; there's just too much stuff from KoL to track these days. Perhaps we need a prominent warning somewhere: "Caution! KoLmafia's automation features rely on information gathered during previous play; use caution when automating after playing outside of KoLmafia."

 

[Veracity]

I am convinced that this is Yet Another Case where we cannot provide functionality which will satisfy everybody without hurting somebody.

Considering that my current strategy is to get exactly one key, use it, zap it, use it, and zap it again until I either get the last key or the wand explodes, I am uninterested in putting a single "safe" zap into the script. I would still have to manually zap and rerun the script. My time savings would be minimal. So, if the suggestion is to put in a single zap, sometimes, to make it easier for a minority of people, at the expense of guaranteed bug reports from people who were not expecting even a single zap - and it doesn't even help me - meh.

Sounds like one could write a script which would assess your key and wand situation and call the "entryway" and "zap" commands as needed.

Rejecting.

 

[Weatherboy]

Sounds like one could write a script which would assess your key and wand situation and call the "entryway" and "zap" commands as needed.
Rejecting.

Yeah, I agree. BCC has key zapping code in bccascend. I'll just yank what I need. thanks for everyone's thoughtful consideration.

 

[fronobulax]

Probably frono will write one; since he is determinedly and intentionally suboptimal, I am sure he would prefer to spend 8 extra turns in the DD in order to not risk a blown-up wand, since he expects to use the wand every day in aftercore, zapping his original Gs into heavy Ds.

*snicker* I'd like to claim my suboptimality is based on ignorance rather than anything else, although someone wondered if I were a completest and I may be ready to plead guilty to that. The non-ascending character doesn't care and the ascending characters don't always have/get wands or stay in aftercore long enough to make it an issue.

 

[Winterbay]

I've always claimed that suboptimal play is the optimal way to play

 

[slyz]

I've always claimed that suboptimal play is the optimal way to play

So when I'm suboptimal I should try to be optimal and do speed runs?