The Tavern

Remove identify at DCSS.
It is not well designed.

having all potions identified from the start would make early game much less dangerous. how about remove identify and all items EXCEPT potions remain identified?

kroki, unacceptable: mummy buff

kroki wrote:having all potions identified from the start would make early game much less dangerous. how about remove identify and all items EXCEPT potions remain identified?

No way. I do not want to quaff ID !mute. Potions are what you use ID on anyway, so this wouldn't make sense.

Luckily it's easy to play without identify if you wish to do so: Just don't read scrolls of identify. Carry one junk item (e.g. club) with you so when you read-id the first ?identify, you can use it on that item. Now you can enjoy a better designed game.

WingedEspeon wrote:
kroki wrote:having all potions identified from the start would make early game much less dangerous. how about remove identify and all items EXCEPT potions remain identified?

No way. I do not want to quaff ID !mute. Potions are what you use ID on anyway, so this wouldn't make sense.

This is almost certainly not how a game without ID would work.

Currently, the ID minigame mostly denies you access to items you have in your inventory. Of course, you can still use them, but it's like using a wand of random effects, and you're rolling the dice when you do so (unless you've read up on the spoilers and know things like "the biggest stack of pots on D:3 is probably curing" and the like). If ID was removed, you'd probably also cut the average number of items that generate before temple.

Personally, I'd have everything auto ID'd, but keep the scroll around for wand charges and artefact properties (which don't work unless you ID the item), both of which I kind of like. Keeping the scroll around for just those uses seems kind of crazy, though, so it might be best to dispense with it altogether.

I don't think this is an idea likely to make it into the game.

identify at DCSS is not well designed compared to other roguelike games.

at DCSS, you can read ?identify without thinking ,and can use that item withoout thinking.
there isn't any interesting strategy in identify at DCSS.

Have fun with your distortion battleaxe on D:3

A disto battle axe on D:3 is my endgame weapon found on D:3 so I would be very very happy.
(ok axes suck but an enchanted with a good ego battleaxe on D:3 is worth enough).

I think the main problem is that the game generates too many identify scrolls.

I think ID scrolls should be removed. CureMut can be made slightly more common in early D (add a guaranteed drop before temple for example) to compensate for Mut, if players honestly think that is necessary (its not). Slightly bump potion loading chances in early D to compensate in general (again, not actually necessary), but otherwise force all items to be use-identified.

This buffs Ash, who retains her ID-abilities. Who cares about mummies, seriously.

Use-ID on wearables or wieldables has the added benefit of pushing the player into the new maluses.

Remove remove-curse as well (give Ash an active ability set for this mechanic) and make dropping a cursed item experience based like draining.

Mmmmm yeah wasting potions of haste, delicious

archaeo wrote:Currently, the ID minigame mostly denies you access to items you have in your inventory. Of course, you can still use them, but it's like using a wand of random effects, and you're rolling the dice when you do so (unless you've read up on the spoilers and know things like "the biggest stack of pots on D:3 is probably curing" and the like). If ID was removed, you'd probably also cut the average number of items that generate before temple.

Personally, I'd have everything auto ID'd, but keep the scroll around for wand charges and artefact properties (which don't work unless you ID the item), both of which I kind of like. Keeping the scroll around for just those uses seems kind of crazy, though, so it might be best to dispense with it altogether.

I don't think this is an idea likely to make it into the game.

I kind of like your suggestion, but I did want to separate this from the spoiler issue; I've never seen a non-code drop frequency list for crawl, and it still becomes painfully obvious that curing is quite common in the early dungeon, and that beneficial mutation is rare. I don't think spoilers are very relevant to this topic.

one thing I like about id scrolls is that in lategame I can just quickly ID rings/armours without wasting turns putting them on, removing curses, dropping them etc.

a hypothetical "wear/wield-ID only" situation would be painful

I like the ID minigame. It's like opening a present for Christmas!

To often it is like this though:

byrel wrote:I kind of like your suggestion, but I did want to separate this from the spoiler issue; I've never seen a non-code drop frequency list for crawl, and it still becomes painfully obvious that curing is quite common in the early dungeon, and that beneficial mutation is rare. I don't think spoilers are very relevant to this topic.

I don't know, I've read enough r/dcss and DCA to know that the ID minigame isn't obvious to every player when they get started. Unfortunately, it's a bit of a worst-of-both-worlds thing; Crawl's ID minigame isn't intuitively obvious, as each item category has its own expectations w/r/t using ?ID, but it's also so simple that after you've been spoiled/gained experience it leads to pretty formulaic gameplay.

Sar wrote:one thing I like about id scrolls is that in lategame I can just quickly ID rings/armours without wasting turns putting them on, removing curses, dropping them etc.

a hypothetical "wear/wield-ID only" situation would be painful

Yeah, simply removing ?ID without making any other changes would be extremely unpleasant. You could rebalance the game around that, but it seems like a lot of work to just create a more unpleasant Crawl experience in general, I think.

kuniqs wrote:I like the ID minigame. It's like opening a present for Christmas!

That might be a fair comparison, if Christmas was every night. Identifying items is a chore you have to do in every game, and it's a chore that plays out the same way every time. It's also a chore that's hard to distinguish from a game where players just don't get items they can't ID yet and instead start with a deck of cards.

Of course, I again feel like I should acknowledge I don't expect mine to be a majority opinion; lots of people think IDing items is a foundational element of a roguelike, and that if the problems I'm talking about are true, we should be trying to make the ID game more fun, not remove it.

Siegurt wrote:To often it is like this though:

Dude, it could be a wooden tricycle, i already saw that happen.

If all items were IDed by default, you have the ability to skip a vault with shitty loot at a glance. Just throwing this out.

If all items were IDed by default, they'd get IDed when you pick them up from the ground and put them into your inventory, to prevent exactly that.

any difference between a lot of unknown items, ?identify and a lot of known items and no ?identify?

radinms wrote:any difference between a lot of unknown items, ?identify and a lot of known items and no ?identify?

Bad items and mediocre items do not have a reason to exist.
Nobody is going to pick up any weaker version of their current weapon or armour unless it has a good/different ego if everything is already identified.
Nobody is going to pick up ring of AC -5 (cursed or not). Ever. No I don't even think a D:2 ash worshiper with no other jewelry and as many curse/remove curse scrolls as they like will equip that ring of AC -5.
Randart generation would probably also need to change.

Upside: we can cut out the 90,000 generically generated items that drop and pile up in the dungeon that you never use because they simply don't need to ever show up in a list of items you might want to pick up.

Downside: Curses, mediocre, and 'bad' items lose their place, which makes the early game contain far less decisions about equipment and item management.
With lots of identify and lots of unknown items, you do SOME thinking about what items you want to check (and risk taking a negative result if you don't want to burn an ID scroll, or can't burn an ID scroll because it is early).

even now there is no reason that bad items exist.
there are a lot of ?identify and ?remove curse.

ZipZipskins wrote:Mmmmm yeah wasting potions of haste, delicious

It's one potion of haste, not potions of haste, and if that makes a big difference to you, you need to up your game. As it is, I clearly stated that devs could up early D loading rates for potions to make up for it.

archaeo wrote:
Currently, the ID minigame mostly denies you access to items you have in your inventory. Of course, you can still use them, but it's like using a wand of random effects, and you're rolling the dice when you do so (unless you've read up on the spoilers and know things like "the biggest stack of pots on D:3 is probably curing" and the like).

You might as well have said it's also, a minigame that affects new players much, much worse than experienced players. Potions of curing in particular are so common that most slightly experienced players will at least have good reason to expect that a large stack might be those. Though it's not perfect.

While I suppose one might argue that most everything hassles newer players more, this one is a pretty drastic example. Still... More familiarity with the potion list (whether through rereading Wiki or through playing to around Lair a few times) does make the potion id gamble generally less onerous.

To me, the most frustrating thing about ID is it often blocks ready use of freshly discovered weapons (for fear of Contam, Drain on remove, yes Distortion even as I don't usually like to be locked into a single main hand item).

If there were more ID scrolls or less ID-ing going on, then I'd be quite happy to use ID to make better tactical use of Decks. As it is, I nearly always random draw them and blow through them too quick - unless playing Nemelex or a Deck of Wonders, for example. Or I'm carrying them around in mid game never really knowing where the useful cards are, and being too shy about using them anyway!

As things are, I'm happy not to scroll-ID the type of wand, but in contrast to the mess with Decks? It's still really useful for me to know the number of charges (you don't even gain knowledge of that upon recharging an "empty" wand? ugh!) and generally, to have lots of ID for picking up which white items have that particular bonus/resistance etc. you're missing.

daggaz wrote:It's one potion of haste, not potions of haste, and if that makes a big difference to you, you need to up your game. As it is, I clearly stated that devs could up early D loading rates for potions to make up for it.

last time I checked, one potion of haste each game across many games is "wasting potions of haste", because that's how numbers work

Does it make a big difference to me? No, I'm not good enough for my games that I was going to lose anyway to be reversed by a consumable, so maybe I do need to "up my game". But as an aside, I don't think that the current state of ID is even awful. I don't mind it whatsoever. If it were to be removed or changed, that's also cool, but I don't think I'd prefer a system where I chug a potion to see what it does, or for that matter that requires me to try things on or use them before they're IDed in the late game.

tl;dr: I don't actually have a strong opinion about ID one way or the other but I guess some people really do?

I really don't want to chug ID !mut. Please don't remove ID and leave potions unIDed. If anything remove ID and leave everything but potions unIDed and give a warning on *Drain and *Contam stuff.

"Remove identify, it's not good design. Discuss!"

*horselaugh*

I think the id minigame is actually alright: yes, for experienced players it can feel scripted [1], but it provides some choices early on, when your gear provides none. (Later on, you choose what to use etc.) I've even written a devwiki page about it, so I'll be brief: in the early game, you have to decide

when to use-id items.
Earlier means more risk of losing a good item; later means less knowledge in dire spots. I hope this is non-trivial: do people think that use-identifying items right away (i.e. when you pick up an unknown item) is best? For some category of items? I am sure that waiting too long is bad. So ideally, the optimal solution is not clear, and hopefully depends on circumstances. (For example, the more unknown stacks you have, the better is the statistical approach.)
what to scroll-id.
I know that prevailing concensus is to scroll-id potions, both to catch emergency options, and to avoid strategic loss (quaff-identifying !CureMutation !Mutation). I hope it's not always that trivial: for example, I have championed the wand charge identification rule, so that now wands are also meaningful ?Identify targets. In my games, I have identified early wands (draining, cold etc.), but obviously I am biased in this regard.

I would love to hear ideas for how to increase the decision space here. Remember, the rules can be tweaked.

For example, what if ?Identify identified itself when picked up (as the only scroll to do so)? Would that influence your identification approach?

What if there was a guaranteed scrolls-or-potions shop on D:6-9? Would that have an impact on your id pattern?

[1] Forgotten footnote: I am also interested in reports when you think your id-minigame is scripted. And how your algorithm works.

I'm a slightly experienced player, playing melee brutes exclusively.

Having an easy early game, I hold out till I have two stacks of scrolls standing out (Identify & Remove Curse), I then proceed to use all my Id scrolls until I know Heal/Cure/Teleport/Blink. After that I gradually continue to use all my id scrolls until I know all my potions AND scrolls. I'll also use them on a Wand of Teleport/Heal/Haste.

I always use-id equipment, cause I got plenty of remove curse scrolls.

Identify could be made more interesting, but I would "fix" the curse mechanic first. It is utterly trivial. Make the "remove curse" scrolls a lot more rare, but make curses wear out with XP gain.

This may be overly complicated, but what about making it a Scroll of Understanding, which is in line with the wand changes:

1. Wands are the same as now.
2. Potions and jewelry are still unidentified and revealed on wear/use/scrolled.
3. Scrolls are now identified on pickup, but weaker or more uncontrollable. !Understanding brings their effects up to current levels.
4. Weapons now have their +x hidden until a scroll is used or until they have been wielded for a while (which I believe used to be the case in the past). Their brand is auto-IDd but not their curse status.
5. Artefact properties are hidden until scrolled.

Tasonir-steals-more-mechanics-from-Torchlight-2, take two: I also like how torchlight handles identification. Items have a level at which they become identified for free. Say a ring of protection from fire is level 10; if you first find one at level 9 it's unidentified, if your level 12 character sees it they'd immediately know it's an rF ring as soon as they see it on the ground. While scrolls are still sold in town and technically infinite, they are much more rare to find and feel more limited compared to previous games.

How I imagine this would work in DCSS: rather than being strictly level based, because there's no level requirement to wear equipment in DCSS, I'd make it based on carry time. Spend 1000 turns with a potion and it ID's, spend 1500 with this ring, it ID's. Numbers would be randomized I assume, and not fixed per type. Haste might take more time to ID than curing, eg haste takes 2000-3000 turns, and curing takes 500-1000. Ego equipment might ID within 2000 turns but randart armor might take 5000. Scrolls of identify still exist so that you can ID that possibly amazing randart ring right away, but they're limited so that you can't ID all items right away. I'm not terribly sure where wear-IDing would fall in this system - in torchlight you can't equip something unless it is ID'ed first, and I'd be inclined to go that way in DCSS too. If wear IDing is allowed, then scrolls should be more rare as well.

Actually, with the higher spawn rate of !curemut in trunk, I think quaff-id is not nearly as bad as it used to be. Wasting a !curemut isn't as bad now and if you do get badly mutated by a !mut, you're fairly likely to find a !cutemut. Of course there's usually enough !id around that it's not something you really need to do.

I'm not super-experienced, though I've won a few games. My general strategy:

Equip-id most items early on. I stop doing this for amulets if I've already found a decent amulet so that I don't wind up with harm or faith (assuming I don't want faith.) I sometimes also avoid weapons found on the ground really early if I'm not sure if I have a remove curse scroll yet, since they have an annoying tendency to be negatively enchanted and cursed.

Hold on to scrolls until roughly D:5. If I have one stack that's particularly large (and hence very likely !id), I might read it sooner to start identifying some potions. If I do get a nasty cursed item (like amulet of inaccuracy or *Tele ring), I might read-id earlier in hopes of removing the curse. I will also sometimes read-id earlier if there is a timed portal really early, to see if I get mapping. By D:6, I just read-id everything and will read-id all new scrolls onward from that point. Might be wasteful, but better to know what I have and read-id is generally pretty safe.

I generally don't quaff-id unless it's really early and it's an emergency (i.e. let's play hope-I-find-curing-before-adder's-poison-kills-me.)

When I !id, I target potions first, starting with the smallest stacks (always with a glimmer of hope that it might be !experience.) I generally assume the largest stack is !curing, though I'll still !id it if it's the last stack.

I'll sometimes !id a wand that I think I'll want to use a lot and certainly will !id the key wands (Tele, Haste, HW, Invis [situational]), though often I put that off until after all my potions are known; they get a higher priority if I don't already have a scroll/potion form of Tele/Haste/HW/Invis to use prior to having the wands identified. I don't usually !id the damage-dealing wands since if I'm using them much, I probably have some Evocations anyway, which means they'll id for free at some point, plus they usually spawn often enough that running out isn't a huge problem. I'll !id them if I have excess !id scrolls, though.

Later in the game I pretty much !id any equipment of interest, since equip-id is slow and !id is plentiful.

To add to earlier post: I always equip-id equipment. This brings some risk with it, worst being Contamination (from unequipping) and Banishment (25% chance from unequipping weapon of Dispersal), but those are low chance and I just take it on the chin.

Let's not underestimate how little a new player knows about the game. With the disclaimer that I haven't played recent tutorials, you don't know that item generation weights don't change across games, you don't know that all games can generate all scrolls and all potions, you don't know when ID unlocks extra powers (wands) and when it doesn't (everything else). Sure, you figure it out at some point, but that's still a hurdle you have to overcome in an already complex game. You're also dying a lot in the early game, when you don't have much ID, so you're either not using all the consumables you have available, or you're blind-quaffing, in which case the potion is just what you accidentally got, and you didn't intend to use that particular consumable (and it's by using a consumable with intention to use it that you get a grip on consumable usage). You don't get a great sense of item generation weights either. You either use-ID, in which case your attention is drawn to what's left: X-1, where X is the number that was generated, or you die-ID, in which case you're not very interested in what survival tools you have available now. And it takes time or consultation to develop the scripted ID process mentioned here. The existence of identify makes Crawl harder to learn, easier to master, so to speak.

I think it would be more interesting if you could not scroll-identify wands, but zapping didn't waste charges either, because you wouldn't know how many charges you have left, if any, when you zap - it adds mystery to wand-play.

Add modes of difficulty to DCSS. These would of course be factored in with the final score, as well as being recorded to the logfile. To do this would be best (IMHO) accomplished by formalizing the modes bitwise, allowing players to customize their play:

¶ instantly recognizable — type and whether accursed, not details e.g. stats on armor:
00000001 "wand"
00000010 "scroll"
00000100 "jewellery"
00001000 "armor"
00010000 "weapon"
00100000 "potion"
¶ will never be placed by dungeon–maker (floor or shops):
01000000 "dangerous_item"
10000000 "bad_item"

For the UI when beginning a new adventurer: First is a field for entering the binary or decimal sum of the bits; below that is listed each item which the player can select with a menu (like Get or Drop). The field and individual items each would update for every change to either.

Simplify the challenge of balancing between trial by use and conservation of an item resource. Rather than have people argue whether or not items should need their type discovered anew each play, let them decide.
With regards to the Scroll Of Identify, it would probably be better if it were renamed to a Scroll Of Attuning so as to better indicate the aspects of its function. The chance of finding them would need to be factored, obviously, by the possible number of uses which the difficulty mode provides.
As Ashenzari was originally developed to replace the deprecated Detect Monsters et al, this wouldn't change that aspect of the god much. One concern would be how this changes the utility of Remove Curse and its quota of the spawn chance (pardon my verbiage), but I'm working on some things for that.

Now, I haven't played NetHack much myself, but from what I understand the so–called ID minigame consists of an experimental process whereby the player examines effects and alterations caused by Items and then specifically or typically labels those items. That is what most of you mean when you describe the ID procedure in DCSS as “broken” and such, yes?

Nethack and DCSS are completely different games. Comparing them is like comparing apples to oranges. They're both fruits (rougelikes with persistent dungeons involving retrieving the Amulet of Yendor and bringing it to the surface), but that's about where the similarities end. Nethack has an excellent (to people that enjoy Nethack in the first place) ID game that would not work at all for crawl. Yes, you have what that ID game consists of right. And it works because Nethack really is a role playing game. It makes much more sense to roleplay the game than to view it as a technical challenge of sorts. (Pretty much the only strategic/tactical considerations involve managing the risk of instadeath).

Crawl, on the other hand, is more streamlined and tactical. Instadeath is viewed as cheap and unfair. Binary resistances are dismissed as uninteresting (which they are from a tactical perspective). Anything that is tedious and does not contribute to a tactical challenge is cut out. The way Nethack does ID just does not fit into Crawl. It's completely out of place and does not contribute to what's good about the game. Crawl is not a game about exploring, raiding, stockpiling and crafting your loot. In some sense it's more like DoomRL than Nethack and does not need ID.

Don't forget *Fragile

If you had all items identified, *Fragile would still work fine.

The Tavern

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Difficulty Mode Bits and Scroll O' Attuning

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