PSA: Item destruction is back (but for randarts this time)

[tedric]

  Code:

Add a new artefact property: Fragile

Fragile artefacts are permanently destroyed when unequipped.
Something of a different take on the Contam/Drain mechanic; the
only penalty is the loss of the item, but the item is *gone*.
Harmless for bad artefacts, but could result in fun choices for
an otherwise-strong ring or weapon.

https://github.com/crawl/crawl/commit/f50acb22cd3cdad6f136844c2f8d15def2d5a1cd

[Pollen_Golem]

That's not item destruction as we know it. Looks fine.

[majesstic]

PSA: This sounds like fun.

[archaeo]

Welcome to the Tavern, majesstic!

This is a cool artifact property, well done PleasingFungus.

[stoneychips]

It might be fun if these items appear more frequently than (maybe on a separate distribution from?) other randarts. I'd kinda hate to lose a very limited number of drops on "power" items you can often only use once. It's bad enough that only a few of all the items fit your class as it is.

Or, perhaps if there was a sort of "degrade" potential where you lose one plus at a time or something, until it's no longer an artifact - or a small regular probability of loss rather than just the first unequip. Something with less chance of outright destruction immediately, anyway.

[daggaz]

It seems cool, but I think this is going to lead to a pretty simple metric. Either you find something which is clearly superior and you switch, destroying the artefact, or you don't switch, even when faced with a situation where switching is highly optimal in the short term. It's basically a no-brainer.

Now you will cut down on item swapping...which I guess is good except that I kind of like being able to refit my character on occasion before I go into an ice-cave etc..

I think an improvement on this property would be to give it a small chance instead to destroy the item. Now the player is forced with more of a choice, as there is a good chance nothing bad will happen. But it might.. So you are likely to take the risk when there is a greater reward, like entering a new branch/portal that is heavy on a given resistance, and less likely to switch every time a different monster appears in LoS.

[dpeg]

daggaz: I think fragile is a good concept, and we'll see how it plays. But I am certain that a small chance to lose the item is much worse than single use. For gameplay and also psychologically.

[MainiacJoe]

I'm curious why Fragile was chosen to always break, instead of having a chance to break. Why is "You cannot swap this at all ever" better than "You take a big risk swapping this"? If that sounds snarky it isn't.

[archaeo]

Having a chance to break strikes me as being a little frustrating; I'll be pissed every time it breaks, thinking about how unlucky I am and how fickle the RNG is. If it always breaks, I can make an easy decision. Plus, I don't have to remember some percentage chance of breakage. Maybe that's not enough of a reason?

[MainiacJoe]

Well let me give a counterexample. Previously use-ID on artifacts risked a ?RC or at most a !Cnc for *Contam. Now you risk the object itself! Having only a chance for breakage mitigates this somewhat. Though I must admit my cautious nature would not mix well psychologically with chance-of-breakage.

[BugHunter]

Will there be a corresponding increase in either the rate of ?IDs being dropped, or the rate of randarts being dropped? This gives us the choice of either using a ?ID or possibly wasting the randart if we're not ready to permanently switch to it. So it effectively either makes us expend more ?ID or more randarts.

[dpeg]

BugHunter: I don't think that's necessary. Perhaps it'd be nice to mention "fragile" when picking it up, so you know you might want to use ?id on it.

[BugHunter]

dpeg: Yeah, that would be nice.

[MainiacJoe]

Agreed, a tag in the unID'd item description would completely assuage my concerns. A "fragile shimmering mace" sounds weird but it does say, burn an ID scroll on this.

[tabstorm]

Just what we needed, more bad randart properties.

[Pollen_Golem]

I have to agree with dpeg and Archaeo here. If there was a chance to break upon removal, it could be aggravating in a way similar to old item destruction.

BugHunter, as for ID scrolls, you forgot to mention that having something fragile on prevents you from equip-identifying other items that use the same equipment slot, except rings.

[pubby]

They called me mr glass.

[Pollen_Golem]

A fragile Majin-Bo would be hilarious.

[duvessa]

BugHunter: I don't think that's necessary. Perhaps it'd be nice to mention "fragile" when picking it up, so you know you might want to use ?id on it.

Would you ever actually equip-ID a fragile randart? If the randart is good, you don't want to waste the single time you can equip it. If you don't care about destroying the unidentified randart, then you also don't care about identifying it, so there's no reason to equip it.

[Pollen_Golem]

right - so you'd want to either hide the fragility, or if you warn about the fragility before equip, you might as well auto-identify the whole article.

[MainiacJoe]

Incidentally, what negative weight does fragility have in the randart generation algorithm? Are we getting really good other attributes like -Tele or does it only prop up minor attributes like Sth-?

[Airwolf]

Ash buff!

[futacatgirl]

I really like this change as long as it stick to randarts only

[Lasty]

The weight is the same as *corrode, *drain, and *confuse. I'm not sure what ManiacJoe meant by the second half of that question.

[tedric]

There were a couple of commits recently that (very, very slightly) buffed the randart generation algorithms, but neither of them has the per-property weighting ManiacJoe alluded to.

  Code:

b56d899 | 2015-11-30 19:12:20 -0800

Tweak randart prop generation slightly
It's now slightly more likely for the last good prop generated to
be stacked (e.g. rF++); previously, this was very slightly less
likely than for good props added earlier.

This makes randarts empirically about 1% better.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2cd13a6 | 2015-11-30 19:12:20 -0800

Don't add more than 2 bad props on a randart
Happened somewhat less often than one time in 27,272, empirically.
(But at least one time in 54544!)

Also improve a nearby comment.

[MainiacJoe]

The weight is the same as *corrode, *drain, and *confuse. I'm not sure what ManiacJoe meant by the second half of that question.

I meant that I'm guessing Sth- has less negative weight than these. By "prop up" I'm guessing that the randart generation selects a random quality value and then puts together a combo of positively and negatively weighted attributes to add up to that value. Since Sth- is a smaller negative weight, it doesn't enable as large a positively weighted attribute. But I'm just guessing on how randarts are made, I haven no idea how it's actually done.

[Lasty]

The way it works is that it rolls a number of "good" affixes, then based on the number of good affixes it can generate from 0 to 2 bad affixes. The odds of a given affix being selected are affected by the weighting, and a "good" affix point can either add a new affix or increase the potency of existing affixes up to a given limit. There's no notion of how strongly "good" or "bad" a given affix is -- they all take up exactly one affix slot.

[Pollen_Golem]

I have a little question about this - what happens when a monster wields a fragile item? Does the item disappear when they unwield it? I ask because last time I checked, monsters could unwield weapons of distortion with impunity, and Ash should be able to tell you if a monster is wielding a Fragile item.

[Bart]

Am I the only one who finds it weird that fragile armour can withstand thousands of blows, but as soon as it is taken off, it gets destroyed?

On the other topic: can we get artifacts upgradeable with enchant armour/weapon scrolls?

[Sprucery]

Am I the only one who finds it weird that fragile armour can withstand thousands of blows, but as soon as it is taken off, it gets destroyed?

It's magic.

Of course, 'fragile' could be replaced with 'single-use'.

[archaeo]

Alternate proposal: remove "fragile" and simply make curses act that way. Anyone can remove a cursed item, but it immediately falls apart. Make remove curse scrolls rarer, give Ash a 1* (2-5 piety) ability that curses equipment and a 5* (10-15 piety) ability that uncurses it.

edited to add: you'd also want to change curse generation, so that actually good items are generated as cursed. *Curse also becomes a much more obnoxious artefact property, but that's probably a good thing.

[Sprucery]

Alternate proposal: remove "fragile" and simply make curses act that way. Anyone can remove a cursed item, but it immediately falls apart. Make remove curse scrolls rarer, give Ash a 1* (2-5 piety) ability that curses equipment and a 5* (10-15 piety) ability that uncurses it.

So you could safely wield/wear-test every blue weapon or piece of armour or jewellery in early D?

I don't know. Personally I like that I have to wait to have a scroll of RC to do that safely. Currently I always put on the first amulet and two rings I find. Then I have to deal with the consequences... With weapons and armour there's a real choice: do I wield that glowing morningstar or stick with my flail for now?

edited to add: you'd also want to change curse generation, so that actually good items are generated as cursed.

Hmm. But if it's a good item there's no hurry in getting it uncursed. Now the question is how rare would ?RC be then.

[Pollen_Golem]

What about all the troll monks that wield a cursed -2 slingshot on D:2 and can't find a remove curse scroll until the orc shops?

[Sprucery]

What about all the troll monks that wield a cursed -2 slingshot on D:2 and can't find a remove curse scroll until the orc shops?

Imho they are being justly punished for being stupid trolls. I would never wield a glowing sling as a troll if I didn't have remove curse available.

[archaeo]

Eh, I dunno Sprucery, I don't find the current curses to be very interesting; it's a newbie trap more than anything, since it's pretty easy to avoid putting on a cursed item until after you've ID'd RC. But it's just a thought.