Radical consumables 1 by 1 changes

[Pollen_Golem]

Mod edit: shifted to CYC, since this ends up discussing lots of separate proposals all at once. Feel free to split into individual, more focused threads (eg for potions, scrolls, wands).

Proposal to overhaul consumables in DCSS. Focus is on potions, scrolls, and wands. The goal is to promote clear and transparent game mechanics, to reduce overlap between consumables in terms of usefulness in any particular situation, to eliminate clutter items that find little use, and to make consumables better. Here I list most of the consumables, with issues, and solutions.

POTIONS

cancellation
ambrosia
curing
lignification
heal wounds
all strategic and harmful potions
These are all fine, no problems with them.

magic
This one's weird. Running out of MP is a big deal for many casters, so they inevitably develop ways to deal with situations where they run out of MP. Channeling is sometimes so strong it's on par with quaffing this potion. For these casters, it's actually a disruption of their habits to simply quaff a potion of magic. Why should they constantly keep in mind, "hey! you don't need to channel/sublimate/etc like you always do, just quaff magic"?? Compare this with the urge to quaff Heal Wounds in dire situations. Hell, a wand of MP replenishment would be a less-bad idea. You know what? Make !magic weak and more common, like curing. It should be just enough to let you blink away or pop off a fireball. P.S. beginners probably confuse this potion with brilliance, and if we have this pot, it should be called mana or essence.

berserk
It's better to get rid of berserk potions because even though going berserk right after downing a shot is really funny, all other sources of berserk are renewable. Without potions, berserk is either something you have indefinite access to, or something you can't have at all. Let's keep it that way. Berserk is extremely powerful and using it wisely takes getting used to.

haste
Haste is a central status effect and the implications of having it are both immense and clear, so everybody has it in mind. It's fine to have it available in so many forms because it's easy to track all your sources of haste, given its importance.

invisibility
Unlike haste, invisibility can also be evoked from items. Three renewable sources of invis, if you include the wand, make invis something you either have or you don't, continuously, not to mention shadow form. If you're not stabbing, invis is a moderate buff, whereas if you are stabbing, potions of invis are rare enough that you would only quaff one to kill an out-of-depth sleeping monster, which you can typically ignore instead.

agility
Agility potions are bad - they exactly fall from the sky, so if you haven't quaffed many of them, it's hard to tell what they do and how much they will help. Not one bit of !agility is part of berserk, so quaffing agility and going berserk for the toughest fights makes perfect sense, but is somewhat spoilery considering that haste and might are part of berserk. It's not great design to accomodate extreme-max buffing like this. Remove agility, the potion. It could live on as a nice card effect, though. This would solve one of the issues with having consumables like might and agility: you might estimate that both consumables are helpful in a fight, but you'll only need one. In this case you can't know which one is better, so you arbitrate by e.g. quaffing from the larger stack.

might
Might is slightly more forgivable because it is one of the components of berserk... although it takes a bit to figure out that "You feel mighty!" from going berserk and "You feel very mighty all of a sudden." from quaffing !might mean the same thing. Its primary effect is increasing melee damage, so it should be simplified to give a Slay+10 status effect. The potion itself would be better named "potion of slaying" or "potion of bloodlust". Nobody cares about +5 strength. Has anybody ever quaffed might to get a spell castable in armor, or to prevent imminent collapse?

brilliance
Ridiculous. This pot gives FOUR different effects simultaneously, all of which affect your spellcasting and nothing but your spellcasting. The calculations involved make it very hard to predict what your spell success rate will be, and how relevant the power boost will be. No way a normal person can tell when quaffing brilliance will make shatter or DMsl castable, other than maybe a buttload of experience. Seriously, give Vehumet a high-cost invocation that grants brilliance, or get rid of potions of brilliance.

In short, might/brilliance/agility potions are bad, because each seems to only give a little boost one of your stats. In older versions they didn't even display a status effect, lol. Too much trial/error/experience is required to get a grasp on their usefulness. Even a potion of augmentation, temporarily increasing each of your stats by something like 10 would be better, considering that the player already has to make many decisions about stats.

potion of flight
The mechanic of flying as a whole has issues... this potion could turn you into a bat instead.

resistance
This pot could frankly use a rework. It feels like a cheap cheat that works around bad luck finding resist items. When encountering a dangerous source of elemental damage it is natural to think "okay, so... since I don't have resists for this enemy, it is quite dangerous, therefore I should treat it as a dangerous enemy" and proceed to treat it as any dangerous enemy. Having to remember that you can neutralize the reason an enemy is so dangerous in the first place is unnecessarily taxing, mentally, and just leads to an accounting problem where you weigh !resistance vs other consumables. We don't want people thinking "maybe !resist?" every time they see a potentially threatening element. There are simple cases like Nikola or an early volcano, but what if Asterion spawns with a weapon of elec and you don't have rElec - do you quaff !resist or use other consumables to fight him? I once had an early centaur start zapping me with a wand of lightning, and I had !resistance identified. Quaffing it immediately was obviously the right decision, and it was fun to consider my luck in having that potion, but this kind of situation doesn't happen all that often.

There is room for a consumable that grants resistance, just not in potion form. In line with the other ways of getting resistances, which are non-expiring or renewable, its availability should be of strategic import. Make it a rare foodstuff that gives rF+, rC+, rElec and rCorr for hundreds of turns after eating it. How about... faerie dragon meat ration? Screw spriggans! And if there is to remain a potion of resistance, its benefits should at least be standardized with the Hat of the Alchemist to also give MR+, rN+, and rMut.

SCROLLS

immolation
noise
random uselessness
teleportation
torment
vulnerability
These scrolls are fine, I see no problem with these or the strategic scrolls.

holy word
Bad scroll. It is underwhelming considering how rare it is, since it mostly just does some damage to holy/demonic creatures in LOS. They're likely to be hoarded and never used. By the time a character hits extended they're not even worth carrying. For instance, it takes at least 4 readings, but likely twice as many, to bring down a greater mummy. If there must be a scroll of holy word for some reason, it should cut current HP of all demonic/undead creatures in LOS by half. Then it's appropriately transparent and predictable for such a rare item, awesomely similar to torment, and even consistent with what happens to undead/demonspawn player characters when they read the scroll.

magic mapping
The use of this scroll is way too automated: read it when you're on a level with a timed portal, and on the bottom of rune branches. We don't want the game playing itself. There are combat situations where you want to know the terrain around you, like when you're forced to retreat into unexplored territory, but there are always better ways to spend a turn when you have monsters in sight. Furthermore, this scroll cheapens the benefit of having partial magic mapping through mutations or Ashenari. Better scroll: temporary telepathy. Great in zot, abyss. Good for avoiding clusters of enemies while scouring a level to find a timed portal. Can still be used for guessing location of rune/treasure vault. Even better for that than magic mapping in Shoals:$, where the rune shack is always stuffed with nasties. Magic mapping can remain a card effect.

fog
This is an intricate scroll, and not as common as I'd like it to be. After all, it doesn't make enough fog to immediately block LOS in all directions, so it's not OP for a consumable, and yet it's about as rare as scrolls of blinking. It should be at least as common as scrolls of teleportation. Let noobs get all the fogging practice they need!

blinking
Extremely useful scroll; too good, even, for something this common. You could quite easily have enough of these to get you out of every single could-die-next-moment situation in one game. But it is perhaps the most boring, least inventive ways of getting out of trouble. Which is why it may need to go, despite being so clear and elegant in its function. Especially since controlled blink is now a level 8 spell. We don't want something like Death's Door to be a scroll, do we?

summoning
Well at least it's better than when it made an abomination, what was up with that idea? But casting shadow creatures a couple of times is not particularly impressive, so it doesn't make sense why this scroll is among the rare ones. Let's make the summons durable, and incapable of leaving the branch or level. That would make this a strategic, rather than emergency, scroll. It's a bit of a gamble too, since how can you know where you'll need same-branch allies most?

fear
Scrolls of fear would be great if you could see the chance of affecting a monster... but the interface for "pointing" a scroll at a monster would be horrific. Hey, this could be a single-target "scare monster" wand instead! Not as strong as the scroll, which can be used to de-surround yourself, but hey, you could get many zaps out of it. The only thing I'm not sure about is whether the wand should be evocations-independent, which would be odd, but consistent with the scroll (which would be removed).

silence
Scrolls of silence are too rare for an effect you can get from a relatively low-level spell, and if you're with trog you can't cast silence but you have anti-magic melee. It is problematic in the same way as potions of resistance, see above. What's with the spell-replicating scrolls anyway? If there's a spell that's wanting of a scroll, it's mass/aura abjuration. Too often summonings are trained just to have this spell.

Here's something to replace scroll of silence: scroll of dissent, which shuts down the ability to use divine abilities. This could stick a status effect on everything in sight, like ?vulnerability, or it could be an aura centered on the player character, like silence. It should also prevent the player from using active god abilities, as well as freeze piety gain/loss, permitting e.g. Zin followers to mutate themselves, or Chei followers to use haste. This would avoid duplicating a spammable spell, and it's a more interesting/niche item that would provoke players to pay more attention to various special ability flags.

WANDS

random effects
hasting
heal wounds
digging
disintegration
teleportation
polymorph
enslavement
paralysis
There is no problem with these wands, they are classic. The last 3 are fun hex wands more unique or debilitating than any hex spells. Enslave and polymorph the spells were removed, this is good.

confusion
This wand is way too common for such a good effect, and there are too many sources of confusion in the game. Why should every character be capable of easily confusing monsters? It should go. With this wand gone, players would consider the trickier enslavement and polymorph wands more often.

slowing
this wand is really tricky because on the one hand, slowing an enemy is much like hasting yourself, if it's a 1v1 fight. On the other, it needs to defeat MR, and other wands produce far more debilitating effects than slowing, which makes this very much a junk wand if you find hex wands faster than you use them up. Alternative proposal: the wand of mutual slowing irresistibly slows its target and youself, like how chaos champions do it. This could be useful if you are slowed anyway, or if you have allies and the enemy doesn't. To be balanced it should be blocked by stasis and not work on magic-immune targets.

magic darts
flame
frost
fire
cold
fireball
lightning
draining
These wands are problematic because there's so many of them and they're so similar to each other and to low-to-mid level blaster spells, which conjurations-focused characters can spam. They basically allow you to become a blaster mage for a short while, if you find enough of them, all without costing MP or anything. Hey, even a Fire Elementalist would occasionally like to zap a Wand of Fire. They're very useful for sure, but keeping track of them is a pain. There are already many 'modes of play' (states of consciousness?) that are possible or optimal to switch between in the same game, e.g. melee/summoning/hexing/etc. Allowing a total blaster-caster playstyle into just about any character's game (even for a short while) threatens the kind of segregation that makes characters really different from each other, which is part of Crawl's charm. Rods don't face this kind of problem because they are integrated into your character as you find them, and you can be using them up in every fight all the time.

I would keep Magic Darts because of their simplicity, weakness, and perfect accuracy. I'd scrap all the other wands and replace them with Sticky Flame Ranged, Orb of Electrocution, and Corrosive Bolt. Note that these are not spells and only one is a bolt, down from 4 bolt wands. They're quirky and they'll stay good further into the game, and they would also be bad for getting at The Royal Jelly from behind its wall of summoned jellies.

[tasonir]

No offense, but I feel like your post would benefit a lot from being condensed and focusing on the specific proposals you want to get across. As is it now, I kind of have to dig through it to see what you want. For example, the potion section starts off with a list of potions which are "all fine" and need no changes, but then you talk about haste:

haste
Haste is a central status effect and the implications of having it are both immense and clear, so everybody has it in mind. It's fine to have it available in so many forms because it's easy to track all your sources of haste, given its importance.

Sounds like haste is fine and you aren't recommending any changes - why is it being mentioned then?

A summary where you list things like "Potion of magic: reduce the amount of mana restored, rename to potion of mana, make more common" would help digest the points more easily. If there's a lot, you might want to break it up into separate potion/scroll/wand threads, too.

[cheetah7071]

For the damaging wands specifically, I find myself often unable to remember which are the good ones and which are the bad ones, especially for fire/flame and frost/cold. Rather than have a ton of different elemental wands which are only marginally different from each other, why not condense it into Wand of Lesser Destruction and Wand of Major Destruction, with similar (or identical) effects and scaling to Mahkleb's abilities?

[Sar]

Agility potions are bad - they exactly fall from the sky, so if you haven't quaffed many of them, it's hard to tell what they do

oh I quaffed one

oh look my EV is now blue and the number is bigger

I wonder if it's a good thing???

[Laraso]

slowing
this wand is really tricky because on the one hand, slowing an enemy is much like hasting yourself, if it's a 1v1 fight. On the other, it needs to defeat MR, and other wands produce far more debilitating effects than slowing, which makes this very much a junk wand if you find hex wands faster than you use them up. Alternative proposal: the wand of mutual slowing irresistibly slows its target and youself, like how chaos champions do it. This could be useful if you are slowed anyway, or if you have allies and the enemy doesn't. To be balanced it should be blocked by stasis and not work on magic-immune targets.

"Hey I think this wand is junk compared to other similar, but more useful wands. Let's nerf it"

???

[Quazifuji]

Agility potions are bad - they exactly fall from the sky, so if you haven't quaffed many of them, it's hard to tell what they do

oh I quaffed one

oh look my EV is now blue and the number is bigger

I wonder if it's a good thing???

To be fair, while it's easy to tell that Agility Potion is a good thing, it is kind of subtle and not exactly clear when you use it other than "in fights tough enough that you want to use consumables to ensure you win them."

[Sar]

So like almost every other buff except for resistance?

[dpeg]

As a rule of thumb, all effects on consumables are okay. It's unlimited sources (spells, evokers) that should justify their existence, not potions and scrolls. That's not to say that all potions and scrolls are golden, but I fail to see any problems with scrolls of fear and potions of resistance (to give two examples). The fact that the former is unreliable and the latter is rare are advantages.

[johlstei]

"Hey I think this wand is junk compared to other similar, but more useful wands. Let's nerf it"
???

It makes it irresistible so it's not explicitly a nerf. Still, I can't say that a wand that lets me slow opponents in a way that's useful only when I myself am slowed is not likely to spend much time in my "52 most valuable things to carry" list. I do think you're right that the MR check is why I almost never use a wand of slow, I just don't think this is how you fix it.

[edgefigaro]

My guess is you fully explore every level before proceeding to the next unless something you can't handle is around. There are other ways to crawl that make consumables far more relevant.

[Laraso]

"Hey I think this wand is junk compared to other similar, but more useful wands. Let's nerf it"
???

It makes it irresistible so it's not explicitly a nerf. Still, I can't say that a wand that lets me slow opponents in a way that's useful only when I myself am slowed is not likely to spend much time in my "52 most valuable things to carry" list. I do think you're right that the MR check is why I almost never use a wand of slow, I just don't think this is how you fix it.

Yes, it is a nerf, since right now it's useful against any monster that is capable of being slowed (aside from really tough enemies that have high MR, but other wands have that problem too), and this change would basically make it only usable if there's a torpor snail in view.

[CanOfWorms]

It's pointed out in the suggestion that you can just summon buddies after the initial slow, for what is effectively a group haste (that isn't hated by Chei!!!)

[Pollen_Golem]

Agility potions are bad - they exactly fall from the sky, so if you haven't quaffed many of them, it's hard to tell what they do

oh I quaffed one

oh look my EV is now blue and the number is bigger

I wonder if it's a good thing???

Well, you might expect EV to change based on just increased DEX, which sounds like a reason good enough for the game to make your EV blue (it's not your natural EV). So you have to record or remember your EV number with and without agility, and notice that the difference is much more than what you'd get from the extra DEX. If you think it's just +5 DEX in a bottle, you'll misuse it as +5 DEX in a bottle.

So like almost every other buff except for resistance?

If most buffs are interchangeably something to use "in fights tough enough that you want to use consumables to ensure you win them.", that's a pretty good indication that there's something wrong with the design of consumables! You're confused about how they help you!

As a rule of thumb, all effects on consumables are okay... The fact that [a consumable is rare or reliable] are advantages.

What is the reasoning or experience behind this? I can't see why the rule of thumb is as you say, and not the other way around. Unlimited sources are allowed to have oddities and fail-rates that you can study repeatedly, which should not be permitted among consumables - this is how I see it. Are the problems described in OP unsound?

I can't say that a wand that lets me slow opponents in a way that's useful only when I myself am slowed is not likely to spend much time in my "52 most valuable things to carry" list.

same goes for other well-designed consumables like lignification, immolation, and magic darts.

only usable if there's a torpor snail in view.

because there are no characters that regularly experience slowing

effectively a group haste (that isn't hated by Chei!!!)

which even stacks with actual haste!

[Quazifuji]

If most buffs are interchangeably something to use "in fights tough enough that you want to use consumables to ensure you win them.", that's a pretty good indication that there's something wrong with the design of consumables! You're confused about how they help you!

Not sure what I think about the rest of this post, but I definitely agree with this.

I'm not sure if any potions besides might and agility are really big offenders here, however. Brilliance somewhat, but I feel it's clearer, and most other potions and scrolls have fairly clear benefits.

Maybe it would make sense to change might and agility to behave more as potions of offense and defense? The current obvious theme is "might is strength, agility is dexterty" but the benefits of dexterity and strength are kind of opaque. It seems like generally agility is primarily for taking less damage while might is primarily for dealing more damage, so why not make that clearer rather than emphasizing the much less clear strength vs dexterity tradeoff?

[Laraso]

only usable if there's a torpor snail in view.

because there are no characters that regularly experience slowing

If you're a Draconian, you only get slowed from cold attacks, and if you're a berserker you only get slowed after berserk ends. If you're berserking correctly, you should never end up in a situation where berserk wears off and you're still fighting enemies. So, that's one race and one background that potentially benefits (still very situational, it will rarely be a factor even if you're playing a DrBe) from the wand, in only very specific and isolated situations, as opposed to the current iteration of the wand where any race of any background can use it in almost any situation.

I find it really hard to take your comparisons with lignification and immolation seriously. We're talking about a wand that basically accomplishes absolutely nothing (if you're both slowed, you're both the same speed) in a 1v1 and actually hinders you if there are multiple enemies around. Lignification makes you almost completely invincible to any early game monster aside from orc priests, magic dart is a useful early game wand to soften up big targets, and immolation is useful at any point in the game against big groups of enemies if you have a reliable way of taking out monsters from range. Your "wand of slow self" is literally garbage compared to those other three consumables.

I get that you're trying to buff it since it's a little on the weak side at the moment, but this isn't the way to do it. It would be incredibly simple to, say, give it a 1.5x spellpower bonus so that it's easier to get past MR checks than paralysis/confusion, without completely gimping the wand from the inside-out.

[ololoev]

The problem is that all the potions you mentioned is good at early-mid and become less important later on.
Magic is a good potion. The amount of mana it replenishes is strongly biased to 24 within a 10-38 span. I don't see any way to get so much mana per turn even in lategame but drawing a power 2 alchemist or killing a shitload of enemies if you worship Veh/TSO. In early-mid you can't even touch that numbers.
Brilliance is anouther potion that suits well for a limited amount of situations. Say I want to clear V5 or Elf3 vault, but my Firestorm is at 16% red fail. If I quaff !bril it will reduce fail to bearable yellow 5% or orange 8%. I don't care about the numbers, it is just much better to be struck by miscasts not too often and them being milder.
Most other potions/scrolls serve the same purpose - you are in a tough situation or want to take a tough fight - quaff some !might !agi !haste, read ?summoning or ?HW for vulnerable and do it! Want to retreat? !haste ?blink ?fog is your friends. Since scrolls and potions are limited resources (instead of evocables and spells), you usually face numerous strategical decisions during your game. You should think whether you should use that last ?blink or save it for a rune branch end, etc.

[Sar]

So you have to record or remember your EV number with and without agility

You have to actually compare 2 (two!) numbers? The horror!

[Pollen_Golem]

give slow a 1.5x spellpower bonus so that it's easier to get past MR checks than paralysis/confusion

Something like that could work, although it would jar players that paralysis/confusion/polymorph/enslave/disintegrate/teleport have one failrate, and slowing has another.
That "wand of slow self" would be worth acquiring for some characters, especially if it could work on magic-immune beings, and God knows I haven't even thought of all uses for it.

Generally agree with ololoev's post but why is

that all the potions you mentioned is good at early-mid and become less important later on

a (or the) "problem"? And is it a problem with the potions, or a problem with the proposal?

[prozacelf]

Why would that be jarring? If you actually are casting hexes or other spells that are resisted by MR they all have radically different failure rates. I don't think it would totally blow people's minds to see hex wands display the same behavior.

[Pollen_Golem]

Hex spells are almost all different levels and/or different schools, factors that affect failure rate. Even Tukima's Dance and Confuse, which are both level 3 and Hexes-only, have different failure rates, plus different power caps, for what I guess are balancing reasons. But wands are the same, and to see that they are the same you would probably check different wands but not all wands, because what you discover for the first 6 wands you test, you can extrapolate to the 7th and final one. But imagine if, nope, that 7th wand (slowing) had its own failure rates, somewhat lower than all the others! Just imagine all the gasping "What?! I did not know that!" coming from duped players.

[Laraso]

You could simply change all the wands to have different success rates, depending on their power, just like how hex spells work. It would actually make more sense that way.

[Pollen_Golem]

How would you change all wands to have different success rates? Make the stronger hexes like paralysis less likely to pass MR checks? Make weaker hexes like slowing more likely to pass MR checks? Is that what makes "more sense"?

I would end up checking the success rate of each wand, weighing between the effect I want and my success rate, and that would be a pain. Scarcity allows hex-wands of varying quality, but equal success rate, to co-exist. The only reason I would use confusion over paralysis is: limited number of charges (or lava / deep water lol).

if you're a berserker you only get slowed after berserk ends. If you're berserking correctly, you should never end up in a situation where berserk wears off and you're still fighting enemies.

about this - avoiding berserk when it might wear off with enemies still around (i.e. "berserking correctly") has a significant cost, a cost that could be almost eliminated by having a wand of mutual slowing. The amulet of resist slowing, before it was removed, could be highly valuable. Then you also have involuntary berserk, enemies coming into view while resting and slowed, etc.

It's not necessarily a sign of a well-designed consumable if

any race of any background can use it in almost any situation.

[Siegurt]

I would actually like it if the lower power effect hex wands had a spellpower bonus and the higher power ones had a penalty.

Something like:

Slow +50%
Confuse +25%
Polymorph (as is)
Paralysis -25%
Enslavement -50%

This is slightly arbitrary (the power level of polymorph is certainly debatable) but wanting more evo to get the deadlier effects seems logical to me.

[partial]

Remove low level damage wands imo.

Or consolidate MD/fire/frost into one wand that randomly picks an element (poison/fire/cold/elec) and does equivalent minor damage.

[dpeg]

As a rule of thumb, all effects on consumables are okay... The fact that [a consumable is rare or reliable] are advantages.

What is the reasoning or experience behind this? I can't see why the rule of thumb is as you say, and not the other way around. Unlimited sources are allowed to have oddities and fail-rates that you can study repeatedly, which should not be permitted among consumables - this is how I see it. Are the problems described in OP unsound?

Because if a consumable is actually limited, then each use is an actual decision. For example, if you can expect to get three !resistance in a game, then you can say: "Use these potions in the three most important fights where you lack a resistance." But I don't think it's actually obvious when to use them.
With consumables, you can err on both sides: too stingy (this is the trap most newbies fall into), or too generous. This is good, because it makes it harder to optimally use them.

You need strong checks on unlimited sources (e.g. in Crawl: spell slots, MP, casting success, miscasts, spell hunger), and they can still be highly problematic.

A consumable can be too strong, too weak, too bland and have other deficits. But I think it's pretty hard to break a game with them, as long they're rare enough. It is easy to break a game with unlimited sources.

[Sojiro]

Something like that could work, although it would jar players that paralysis/confusion/polymorph/enslave/disintegrate/teleport have one failrate, and slowing has another.

Disintegrate already has a different failrate from the others, actually.

[Pollen_Golem]

Something like that could work, although it would jar players that paralysis/confusion/polymorph/enslave/disintegrate/teleport have one failrate, and slowing has another.

Disintegrate already has a different failrate from the others, actually.

What?! I did not know that!

As a rule of thumb, all effects on consumables are okay... The fact that [a consumable is rare or reliable] are advantages.

What is the reasoning or experience behind this? I can't see why the rule of thumb is as you say, and not the other way around. Unlimited sources are allowed to have oddities and fail-rates that you can study repeatedly, which should not be permitted among consumables - this is how I see it. Are the problems described in OP unsound?

Because if a consumable is actually limited, then each use is an actual decision. For example, if you can expect to get three !resistance in a game, then you can say: "Use these potions in the three most important fights where you lack a resistance." But I don't think it's actually obvious when to use them.
With consumables, you can err on both sides: too stingy (this is the trap most newbies fall into), or too generous. This is good, because it makes it harder to optimally use them.

You need strong checks on unlimited sources (e.g. in Crawl: spell slots, MP, casting success, miscasts, spell hunger), and they can still be highly problematic.

A consumable can be too strong, too weak, too bland and have other deficits. But I think it's pretty hard to break a game with them, as long they're rare enough. It is easy to break a game with unlimited sources.

"This is good, because it makes it harder to optimally use them." - it should be challenging to make the right decision, given accurate relevant information. Instead, it is hard to optimally use them because you don't have enough information or its import, and the challenge is to gather that information through trial.

With appalling frequency, using consumables is not unambiguously better than just doing what you normally do with your unlimited sources, and egregiously so for an unspoiled player.

For fear of totally unbalancing the game, yes, unlimited sources must be balanced very carefully, whereas sufficiently scarce consumables don't have to be. I suppose we can agree that the stakes aren't super-high here. It's just that... unlimited sources can afford to be bland/boring/obscure. For example, you can move around and tab monsters, and nothing special happens, and that is fine. This thread is more about helping consumables be interesting and transparent. Most of the gripes in OP hinge on a consumable being boring, opaque, or junk. That said, scroll of blinking is close to game-breaking, despite being a consumable.

[Wahaha]

That said, scroll of blinking is close to game-breaking, despite being a consumable.

The next step is realizing that 10 scrolls of teleportation is almost equivalent to 10 extra lives when playing correctly.

[WingedEspeon]

I dissagree with most of these proposals.

[daggaz]

Your reasoning for berserk and then haste is a total contradiction, and it would seem you base it simply on your own preference for using haste. "haste is important, no problem that we have it on multiple sources its easy to track anyhow because its so important" vs "berserk is super powerful and dangerous for kids, its better you have it 100% of the time or not at all".

Early game and occasional isolated fights is the only time I use berserk, and potions are perfect for that. On the other hand, I can easily go the entire game without ever using haste if I have to.

Its especially ironic, considering haste is easily the one consumable/effect that gets THE most flack in these forums regarding needing a nerf. To be honest, I just stopped reading these proposals after I got that far.

[n1000]

I don't want to suggest that you've overlooked many uses of all the consumables or that you've intentionally left out major tactical uses but I will assert that many of the examples you've given are oversimplifications of how the items are actually used.

Furthermore, it's far from clear how any of your suggestions are improvements over the status quo.

You didn't address dpeg's point about scarcity making an interesting decision--but I suspect that's only because this thread attempts to criticize a large set of consumables based on a variety of criteria (too opaque, too obvious, too rare, too weak). What I mean is both of you could be correct if you restrict which consumables the claims refer to.

I'm going to address a few specific cases.

1. magic
   renaming this to mana is fine but I don't think the minority of characters who have very strong channeling is relevant. This potion has a very strong effect for characters that only replenish MP by resting
   
2. berserk
   fine as-is. I'd rather remove the amulet and let unlimited, at-will berserking be a trog-only thing. Berserk potions offer interesting decisions early on.
   
3. invis
   it's just a consumable which lets you use a fairly common status
   
4. temporary status potions
   my biggest gripe is that might's main effect (slaying) might not be obvious. Brilliance and agility might have a lot of effects but they aren't exactly confusing--it doesn't take a lot of experience to try !brilliance when you want to cast a spell better. Maybe !might and berserk should stack?
   
5. resistance
   "unnecessarily taxing, mentally, and just leads to an accounting problem where you weigh !resistance vs other consumables." <- this is an interesting and good problem for players (in the status quo, I'd be open to hearing people's ideas for a major resistances overhaul in another thread) Making the potion give MR+, rN+, and rMut sounds fine though.
   
6. fine scrolls
   I don't think these are all fine
   
7. holy word
   seeing as you didn't mention it. Maybe this scroll's main effect is not obvious enough?
   
8. mapping
   no idea why you think those are the best places to use mmap and can't see why your idea is better. Sorry...
   
9. dissent
   this shit is 10x as confusing and useless than silence
   
10. There is no problem with these wands,
    There's a problem with each of these wands!
    
    Changing the conjurations/hex wands to reduce their numbers sounds good though.

Even though I disagree with almost everything you've proposed I think this is a discussion worth having in general. I'm curious whether others could point out which consumables they hate

[Pollen_Golem]

Furthermore, it's far from clear how any of your suggestions are improvements over the status quo.

I don't know why it's not clear to you, but at least I fully explain my reasoning in OP, and in fact the explanations have a front row seat compared to the conclusions.

I can barely say anything RE: the cases you tersely address, which offer no clarification or relevant insight. Every case is underdeveloped. Here's the first one:

1. magic
   renaming this to mana is fine but I don't think the minority of characters who have very strong channeling is relevant. This potion has a very strong effect for characters that only replenish MP by resting

Nor do I think that characters with strong channeling are crucial to consider, but they are among several groups that demonstrate how poorly designed !magic is, and how !magic doesn't have a good place in Crawl.

Nobody says potion of magic is weak. And the most common solution to running out of MP is to leave the level and let it regen. Just because it's a more common solution does not make potion of magic any better designed for these characters. From the OP:

"Running out of MP is a big deal for many casters, so they inevitably develop ways to deal with situations where they run out of MP... For these casters, it's actually a disruption of their habits to simply quaff a potion of magic."

You didn't address dpeg's point about scarcity making an interesting decision

because it's not a point against anything I've said. Scarcity is sometimes made to work very neatly. For example, deciding how to approach Haste is often interesting: do you acquire wands? do you go for the spell? do you make do with pots? or use swiftness or finesse? you have to look at a particular character and figure it out.

dpeg's point is that poorly designed consumables don't break Crawl, and devs / GDD have bigger fish to fry. If you read, dpeg didn't actually criticize any of my suggestions or arguments - only the significance I imparted to the topic. In other words, all consumables-related threads are examples of bikeshedding.

[archaeo]

"Running out of MP is a big deal for many casters, so they inevitably develop ways to deal with situations where they run out of MP... For these casters, it's actually a disruption of their habits to simply quaff a potion of magic."

Isn't using a consumable supposed to be about disrupting habits, to some extent? I've always treated it as something I use when the circumstances are out of the ordinary; I'm about to fight an especially hard monster, so I quaff haste and might, or I'm about to run out of HP so I read tele, etc.

dpeg's point is that poorly designed consumables don't break Crawl, and devs / GDD have bigger fish to fry. If you read, dpeg didn't actually criticize any of my suggestions or arguments - only the significance I imparted to the topic. In other words, all consumables-related threads are examples of bikeshedding.

I think you might want to re-read dpeg's post, as he directly points out where he disagrees with you re: silence and fear, at least. Nor do I get the sense that anybody's trying to sweep concerns with consumables under the rug, or that "consumables-related threads are examples of bikeshedding". It's simply difficult to discuss the entire OP at once, because it approaches so many different problems (real and perceived) with so many different kinds of solutions.

[n1000]

I don't know why it's not clear to you, but at least I fully explain my reasoning in OP, and in fact the explanations have a front row seat compared to the conclusions.

I can barely say anything RE: the cases you tersely address, which offer no clarification or relevant insight. Every case is underdeveloped. Here's the first one:

I'll readily admit my bullet-points were underdeveloped. I mean to point out that there are many cases where either the purported issues or solutions didn't convince me, and to give (brief) mention of why. You don't need to respond to them.

Would you mind clarifying what you want in trying to "reduce overlap between consumables in terms of usefulness in any particular situation, to eliminate clutter items that find little use, and to make consumables better"?

I don't think there's a simple 'usefulness' metric which can be applied to a specific combat situation. Variations between characters and different approaches to a given tactical situation makes it hard for me to accept that this overlap is a huge problem, aside from wands where I think it is. Perhaps there's a problem related to the scarcity of consumables and how they're typically used--buff up versus uniques by chugging whatever good stuff you've got--but this is a problem I've seen and I don't want to put words in your mouth.

I suppose I failed to understand some of your points because of how the argument is organized. Some consumables have opaque effects, a real issue. Why are ambrosia and cancellation excluded? Maybe it would be helpful if you could organize your argument by particular problem and list the included items instead of by type of item. I'm not trying to put you on blast but to point out where and why your arguments failed to convince me.

[Laraso]

[*]temporary status potions
my biggest gripe is that might's main effect (slaying) might not be obvious. ... Maybe !might and berserk should stack?

Couldn't we use the same status effect that the Song of Slaying gives you, showing you Slay(#x) for the duration of might?

[dpeg]

Couldn't we use the same status effect that the Song of Slaying gives you, showing you Slay(#x) for the duration of might?

Indeed. I am sure a patch will be accepted.

[Lasty]

Might doesn't give +slaying (unless that was recently changed and I missed it). It gives a bonus to strength and a bonus to damage. A while back PF and I discussed changing !might to do +slaying instead, and found in testing that how much slaying !might was worth depended heavily on the weapon being used and the target's EV and the skills of the wielder -- IIRC it could be worth anywhere from 4 to 10 slaying depending on what one considered to be the "standard" case.

[dpeg]

Lasty: many thanks for correction before some tries to write that patch!

So we need to solve that issue first, or we show Damage(x) in the HUD.

[Pollen_Golem]

found in testing that how much slaying !might was worth depended heavily on the weapon being used and the target's EV and the skills of the wielder -- IIRC it could be worth anywhere from 4 to 10 slaying depending on what one considered to be the "standard" case

because might is Dam+10 while Slay+10 is Dam+10 and Acc+10, so the degree to which Slay+10 is better than Dam+10 depends on how important accuracy bonuses are to the character.

[Pollen_Golem]

Isn't using a consumable supposed to be about disrupting habits, to some extent? I've always treated it as something I use when the circumstances are out of the ordinary

Well then, you have a habit of treating it a certain way, don't you? ?tele is well-designed in this regard, whereas !magic is not.

I think you might want to re-read dpeg's post, as he directly points out where he disagrees with you re: silenceresistance and fear, at least.

This is the closest dpeg comes to directly pointing out where he disagrees with me:

I fail to see any problems with scrolls of fear and potions of resistance (to give two examples). The fact that the former is unreliable and the latter is rare are advantages.

So because dpeg fails where I have succeeded, ...why might I want to re-read dpeg's post? I explain why those consumables are problematic, dpeg just says they're not. But if there's something I'm missing, I'm prepared to be impressed by your superior reading comprehension skills.

[tasonir]

found in testing that how much slaying !might was worth depended heavily on the weapon being used and the target's EV and the skills of the wielder -- IIRC it could be worth anywhere from 4 to 10 slaying depending on what one considered to be the "standard" case

because might is Dam+10 while Slay+10 is Dam+10 and Acc+10, so the degree to which Slay+10 is better than Dam+10 depends on how important accuracy bonuses are to the character.

Granted accuracy has different strength for various characters/weapons, but it shouldn't be critically important that the bonus remains exactly the same - just give slaying 6 or 7 and call it a day. It's materially the same for the bulk of characters, and maybe slightly better/worse for a few, but it still does what it's meant to do.

Even though I disagree with almost everything you've proposed I think this is a discussion worth having in general. I'm curious whether others could point out which consumables they hate

Consumables I almost never use (note this doesn't mean I hate them or they aren't useful, just that I tend to never use them):

Scrolls
Fog
Fear
Holy Wrath
Vulnerability
Silence
immolation
enchant weapon (when doing my usual unarmed builds - obviously it's good if you have a weapon!)

This isn't counting the generally bad scrolls like noise, torment, random uselessness, even if those have positive edge cases.

Potions

Berserk rage
Flight (prefer the ring; may use this if I can't find the ring)
cancellation

I have a harder time adding things to this list than scrolls, because there's some rarely used potions, I still have once in a while saved my life with potions like lignification and ambrosia. It may only come up in <10% of games, but it comes up, so I'll just list those three. I'm sure I've used berserk rage a few times, but generally not (conflicting with chei is probably at fault here).

Wands

Magic dart
frost
flame
disintegration
confusion
paralysis
polymorph
slowing
random effects

Again, I'll grant that paralysis/confusion/disintegration etc have some good power, and should probably be used, but I generally don't bother, and usually it's because I have pretty low evocations as I'm trying to overcome how crappy unarmed is until it gets higher up. I'll use an unidentified zap or two of these wands before dropping them when I run out of inventory space; it's not like I've never zapped these, just that I don't consider them worth carrying once 52 slots becomes an issue. This overall list is intended to be subjective, although there's some in here which could be fairly objectively cut - flame/frost/magic darts are pretty weak and if not all cut, at least replaced with a single "minor destruction" type wand.

[WingedEspeon]

scroll of torment is great for taking out TRJ

[Pollen_Golem]

Would you mind clarifying what you want in trying to "reduce overlap between consumables in terms of usefulness in any particular situation, to eliminate clutter items that find little use, and to make consumables better"?

I thought it was clarified through examples, and that remark was to remind of the overarching principles driving the proposal.

Some consumables have opaque effects, a real issue. Why are ambrosia and cancellation excluded?

Because ambrosia and cancellation are well-designed. The only real issues are the nigh-necessary hack of !cancellation cancelling some effects after a turn rather than immediately, and that the nature of a few status effects may be unintuitive, e.g. catoblepas calcification, post-zerk slow, things that go away right after the enchanter dies, some card effects: are they enchantments (removable by cancellation) or non-magical (physical/non-internally-generating?) which could perhaps be solved by underlining un-cancellable status effects, but otherwise it's a great, cool consumable.

Maybe it would be helpful if you could organize your argument by particular problem and list the included items instead of by type of item.

I don't know if I could do this because the problems are inter-twined. I don't think they can be separated by issue. Reforming a single consumable often tackles many issues at a time.

[Pollen_Golem]

Granted accuracy has different strength for various characters/weapons, but it shouldn't be critically important that the bonus remains exactly the same - just give slaying 6 or 7 and call it a day. It's materially the same for the bulk of characters, and maybe slightly better/worse for a few, but it still does what it's meant to do.

Removing the strength bonus is also recommended.
Oh, and seriously: always put Might and Fast right up there with Berserk, while the character is berserking, so it's clear that might and haste do not stack with berserk.
And rename the Fast status to Hasted status. Geez.

[archaeo]

Well then, you have a habit of treating it a certain way, don't you? ?tele is well-designed in this regard, whereas !magic is not.

How is !magic not an emergency consumable? I'm playing a mage (or a VS/melee bro with guardian spirit) and I'm out of MP. I quaff !magic to get MP back. In the late game, I might also do that to get back to an MP range where it's safe to use CBoE.

This is the closest dpeg comes to directly pointing out where he disagrees with me:

I fail to see any problems with scrolls of fear and potions of resistance (to give two examples). The fact that the former is unreliable and the latter is rare are advantages.

So because dpeg fails where I have succeeded, ...why might I want to re-read dpeg's post? I explain why those consumables are problematic, dpeg just says they're not. But if there's something I'm missing, I'm prepared to be impressed by your superior reading comprehension skills.

My apologies for my mistake, but I also don't think "dpeg fails" here. You seem to think that we all owe you detailed explanations for why we disagree.

I'm very obviously not dpeg, but I'll take a swing at resistance and fear. The former is a rare-ish potion that means the difference between "deadly fight" and "manageable fight," so whenever it's useful it's fun to quaff -- I think you underestimate how often players find themselves a resistance short in the midgame, and the idea that it's "unnecessarily taxing" is a little confusing to me. The latter could simply be described better, possibly; there's probably a succinct way to explain "This scroll casts Cause Fear at maximum spellpower and will therefore work on most things that don't have enormous MR."

[Sprucery]

Consumables I almost never use (note this doesn't mean I hate them or they aren't useful, just that I tend to never use them):

Scrolls

enchant weapon (when doing my usual unarmed builds - obviously it's good if you have a weapon!)

My unarmed characters tend to carry a +9 blowgun around.

Personally I think consumables are quite ok currently. I hardly ever use ?torment (never killed TRJ using it either) though. Some descriptions could probably be made clearer (thinking of might, agility, brilliance).

[Pollen_Golem]

How is !magic not an emergency consumable?

No one said it's not an emergency consumable, and your question is out of nowhere. It follows this exchange:

"Running out of MP is a big deal for many casters, so they inevitably develop ways to deal with situations where they run out of MP... For these casters, it's actually a disruption of their habits to simply quaff a potion of magic."

Isn't using a consumable supposed to be about disrupting habits, to some extent? I've always treated it as something I use when the circumstances are out of the ordinary

Well then, you have a habit of treating it a certain way, don't you? ?tele is well-designed in this regard, whereas !magic is not.

But if you're saying "how is !magic poorly designed consumable" it's because depletion or near-depletion of your MP is something that happens constantly on characters that would care to carry !magic. So if you (nearly) run out of MP, it is not an emergency situation, unlike when you (nearly) run out of HP. "Oh no I can't cast my spells" is quite different from "Oh no I could get killed soon" though they intersect a bit. MP gets depleted at a predictable rate, unlike HP which tends to swing wildly instead. With spirit shield, the more common heal wounds is much better for survival anyway. I guess the characters who love !magic most are the ones who use few summoning and direct damage spells, and thus rarely keep track of their MP - they'll occasionally find themselves low on MP and wanting to cast an emergency spell or invoke some high-tier god ability, and in this case !magic is such a cheap way to counteract losing your powers that it doesn't deserve to be in the game.

You seem to think that we all owe you detailed explanations for why we disagree.

And you seem to think that conclusions are just as good and elucidative as detailed explanations.

resistance and fear. The former is a rare-ish potion that means the difference between "deadly fight" and "manageable fight," so whenever it's useful it's fun to quaff -- I think you underestimate how often players find themselves a resistance short in the midgame, and the idea that it's "unnecessarily taxing" is a little confusing to me. The latter could simply be described better

You can't quaff resistance whenever it's useful because it's rare-ish, so you can't have that fun. What are you even arguing against? Especially with what you say about the fear scroll? I said it would be a good scroll if you could see the chance of it affecting monsters in LOS. Anyway, the "taxing" part is due to resistances generally coming from items and spells, i.e. unlimited sources that can be swapped or cast. Having a rare-ish and quickly expiring consumable intrudes upon that. If you're confused, try reading the original over n1000's snip:

resistance
This pot could frankly use a rework. It feels like a cheap cheat that works around bad luck finding resist items. When encountering a dangerous source of elemental damage it is natural to think "okay, so... since I don't have resists for this enemy, it is quite dangerous, therefore I should treat it as a dangerous enemy" and proceed to treat it as any dangerous enemy. Having to remember that you can neutralize the reason an enemy is so dangerous in the first place is unnecessarily taxing, mentally, and just leads to an accounting problem where you weigh !resistance vs other consumables. We don't want people thinking "maybe !resist?" every time they see a potentially threatening element. There are simple cases like Nikola or an early volcano, but what if Asterion spawns with a weapon of elec and you don't have rElec - do you quaff !resist or use other consumables to fight him? I once had an early centaur start zapping me with a wand of lightning, and I had !resistance identified. Quaffing it immediately was obviously the right decision, and it was fun to consider my luck in having that potion, but this kind of situation doesn't happen all that often.

There is room for a consumable that grants resistance, just not in potion form. In line with the other ways of getting resistances, which are non-expiring or renewable, its availability should be of strategic import. Make it a rare foodstuff that gives rF+, rC+, rElec and rCorr for hundreds of turns after eating it. How about... faerie dragon meat ration? Screw spriggans! And if there is to remain a potion of resistance, its benefits should at least be standardized with the Hat of the Alchemist to also give MR+, rN+, and rMut.

[bcadren]

Holy Word USED to be much more powerful than it currently is... used to be like Zin's Recite at above maximum power (like equivalent of 40 invo). -50% HP on hell/pan lords. lesser demons turned to pillars of salt. Slowed, confused... insane shit.

[Sar]

What, when? Because before the recent change it did some damage and reduced all the affected enemies' energy to zero.

[archaeo]

But if you're saying "how is !magic poorly designed consumable" it's because depletion or near-depletion of your MP is something that happens constantly on characters that would care to carry !magic. So if you (nearly) run out of MP, it is not an emergency situation, unlike when you (nearly) run out of HP. "Oh no I can't cast my spells" is quite different from "Oh no I could get killed soon" though they intersect a bit. MP gets depleted at a predictable rate, unlike HP which tends to swing wildly instead. With spirit shield, the more common heal wounds is much better for survival anyway. I guess the characters who love !magic most are the ones who use few summoning and direct damage spells, and thus rarely keep track of their MP - they'll occasionally find themselves low on MP and wanting to cast an emergency spell or invoke some high-tier god ability, and in this case !magic is such a cheap way to counteract losing your powers that it doesn't deserve to be in the game.

I really don't understand your read of the game here, P_G. You say it isn't an emergency to run out of MP; have you really never been playing a blaster or summoner who needs more MP right now? It would take some seriously Hypothetically Optimal Play to never underestimate the amount of MP you need to survive an encounter! And, in very long sections of the game, being at 0 MP is extremely dangerous for characters who depend on it, often the same sections of the game where non-Sif characters can't count on any form of channeling.

As an aside, the "characters who love !magic most" are Vine Stalkers, full stop. It's the only thing remotely like HW for them.

You seem to think that we all owe you detailed explanations for why we disagree.

And you seem to think that conclusions are just as good and elucidative as detailed explanations.

I do? I'm trying to explain myself, and I think others are as well. It just seems that you find our efforts wanting.

You can't quaff resistance whenever it's useful because it's rare-ish, so you can't have that fun. What are you even arguing against? Especially with what you say about the fear scroll? I said it would be a good scroll if you could see the chance of it affecting monsters in LOS.

I mean, I find using a rare but powerful effect to be pretty fun, or at least "interesting." Many games I enjoy present the player with powerful effects they can't possibly use in every circumstance where they'd be useful, and !resist fits that niche nicely.

I'd also point out that Fear: The Spell also doesn't display to-hit chance, along with, well, the vast majority of player options in the game, really. We're obviously getting to a point where it's a little inconsistent, what shows percentage to-hit data and what doesn't, but that's the slippery slope toward Dungeon Crawl: Numbers Soup. I'm all for more clarity with ?fear, I just doubt it requires overhauling the entire item to do it.

I'll get back to the arguing thing, but first,

Anyway, the "taxing" part is due to resistances generally coming from items and spells, i.e. unlimited sources that can be swapped or cast. Having a rare-ish and quickly expiring consumable intrudes upon that. If you're confused, try reading the original over n1000's snip:

I read the original, but it doesn't really help me better understand how you could find it taxing. Or rather, I find it hard to understand how it's any more taxing "to remember that you can neutralize the reason an enemy is so dangerous" with !resist than it is with any other thing the game gives you that offers a viable way to handle a threat. When I think of "taxing," I think of, say, trying to remember how to price-ID items in NetHack without having the spoiler open. Or, for that matter, remembering the dance of buffs/charms/hexes and swapped jewelry a lot of Crawl characters end up doing in the mid-to-lategame (I've killed some really good characters because I got lazy about buffing/swapping before every fight).

Of course, despite reading all of this, I'm still not really sure what the unifying thesis is behind all these ideas. Maybe that's why you seem puzzled or disappointed with what I'm saying? It's hard to see the central goal here, so maybe I'm missing whatever's motivating the changes you're proposing.