Ordinal Numeral Targeting / Forceful Targeting #205
Description
Even for MUDs using a target disambiguation system, there are times when the player will want to bypass getting prompted. E.G. if there are two nearly identical zombies in the room, they might just want to target the first one without being prompted which one. They know they can handle either one (or both) and just want to get on with it without being prompted "which one", stalling their action. Maybe the MUD's individual desired core gameplay loop involves running cardinal directions and blindly spamming 'kill zombie' in each room. We can support MUDs like that (in addition to other wildly different / innovative gameplay loops) out of the box with some targeting features (and possibly some "did you know" first time hints features to lead to their discovery). A couple ways to do this might be specific "just do it" indicators which mean "just take the first match and go with it; no prompting".
One idea is the command form kill zombie! would differ from kill zombie in just immediately resolving to the first zombie match. In essence using ! is then exclaiming "I know what I'm doing / I'm in a hurry" and I think also it becomes even more obvious to the player that a "whoopsie" when they accidentally target the Uber-Bos Zombie of Doom in the room that it was their own fault for their reckless command form.
Another option is what I'm calling "ordinal numeral targeting", which is a command form like kill 1st zombie or kill first zombie or get 2nd sword or get second sword, etc. Basically we'd build the target list in the normal way / normal set of restrictions for the command (per #203) and then, if there were enough matches (e.g. 1+ matches for "1st" or 2+ matches for "second") then we'd narrow the target list to just that one, so the command will continue against that slot without halting.
We should add one or both of these options to the targeting system, and then add new tickets for any further remaining work or discovered (e.g. the other option between forceful targeting and ordinal numeral targeting, and tooltip-style discovery of these which might only come up if not superceded with the first time normal target disambiguation doesn't also produce such a tip itself.)
We can also consider whether words like last and/or newest should have a special targeting keyword, for commands like greet newest member or get last sword or kill last zombie when there's a bunch there you don't want to count but want to target the last one listed. This can also probably be a separate ticket for later!