reform ?acquirement

[HardboiledGargoyle]

Acquirement is going through a lot of discussion and changes lately. I'd like to look at its basic form instead of the details. It has issues.

Acquirement is pretty deep. It weird and spoilery, influenced by a whole host of things, many (all?) of which are completely non-obvious. But acquirement scrolls are rare and very random, so trial and error is unlikely to give a good picture of the usefulness of different acquirement categories. Even if you have access to all acquirement-related information, it takes some brainwork to process, but it is not very fun because acquirement is just guided by arbitrary hidden parameters, knowledge of which is useless whenever you're not reading a scroll of acquirement.

On the other hand, once you figure all that out, acquirement is quite shallow, as duvessa recently showed by making an acquirement flowchart.

As a result, the process of acquiring actually isn't very fun. You know your choices before you read the scroll - even before finding the scroll. Then once you acquire the item, it's not much different from finding it on the floor.

Note that unbalanced acquirement categories (e.g. jewellery acquirement being rather poor) is not part of the problems described above, so "making player choices more even" is not exactly a solution, although it does improve acquirement.

Proposal that hopefully "solves" acquirement:
when you read a scroll of acquirement,
1. the game randomly chooses 3 different, valid acquirement categories
2. the game generates an item for each of the 3 chosen acquirement categories
3. the game offers you to select 1 item with the [a]/[b]/[c]-type prompt
4. if acquirement thus offers you an unrand, but you don't take it, it can still be generated later
5. it's up to discussion whether the items should be identified (use coinflip()?)

[MainiacJoe]

?MontyHall. Better flavor than a scroll for your proposal would be a djinni's lamp that summons a djinni who offers you one of three items.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

Sure, it doesn't even matter whether acquirement comes in scroll or lamp form, except RU_SAC_EVO exists, and that is a Ziggurine problem as well.

[lobf]

?MontyHall. Better flavor than a scroll for your proposal would be a djinni's lamp that summons a djinni who offers you one of three items.

I love this idea!

[twelwe]

Crawl Light does this but with all the options, not a reduced selection of 3.

[Leszczynek]

So how choosing the category I want from all available categories is not fun while having no control over the item type and facing a possibility of all presented items being useless is fun? Sounds like a personal preference to me.

Jewellery acquirement got better by the way, play some trunk. You will get randarts more often than not now.

[duvessa]

The Crawl Light approach is honestly pretty much the only reasonable one outside of removing acquirement entirely. Yes, it always leads to a no-brainer, but so does current acquirement, and even if it didn't, you would still need to be spoiled to make an informed decision so what's the point?

[HardboiledGargoyle]

So how choosing the category I want from all available categories is not fun while having no control over the item type and facing a possibility of all presented items being useless is fun? Sounds like a personal preference to me.

Did you read what I wrote write after saying it's not fun? I don't think it's a matter of personal preference at all:

choosing the category I want from all available categories

is the same every time, and should be based on strange background parameters, whereas the MontyHall version presents you with a limited selection clearly laid out before you (e.g. runed battleaxe / OCPA / 3334 gold), forces you to reject two potentially enticing options, gives you a new little problem to solve every time you read an acquirement scroll, ...is that enough elaboration?

[HardboiledGargoyle]

you would still need to be spoiled to make an informed decision

I don't understand this. If the game's acquirement has you choose 1 of 3 things, and it shows you what the 3 things are, how does that translate into needing to be spoiled to make an informed decision?

[duvessa]

I meant that you need to be spoiled to make an informed decision if acquirement doesn't show you the items in advance. Your version of acquirement is just the Crawl Light version with a nerf attached (which is reasonable, since the Crawl Light version is certainly much stronger than current acquirement) that also happens to improve the interface.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

I don't know how Crawl Light did it. "in advance" of what? You only choose 1)when to read the acquirement scroll (answer: immediately) and 2)which one of several presented items to claim. How does deciding whether you'd prefer this glaive, or this plate, or this manual, require you to be spoiled about how acquirement functions?

[duvessa]

Again, I was talking about current acquirement, not your suggestion.

[pumpyscump]

What if it was like a rich uncle, and it just tried to give you something nice, weighted based on your race, skills, and god? It doesn't know you very well and doesn't usually give you The Item You Want, but it tries. It has a lot of connections and it really tries.

No weighting for what you've seen, because that encourages bad players to play it wrong. Just something simple like a 50% chance to spawn a good arti for your character, 25% chance to make a good non-arti item, and 25% chance to be something completely random.

[crate]

What if it was like a rich uncle, and it just tried to give you something nice, weighted based on your race, skills, and god? It doesn't know you very well and doesn't usually give you The Item You Want, but it tries. It has a lot of connections and it really tries.

No weighting for what you've seen, because that encourages bad players to play it wrong. Just something simple like a 50% chance to spawn a good arti for your character, 25% chance to make a good non-arti item, and 25% chance to be something completely random.

if you do this, why not just generate said good item instead of the acquirement scroll in the first place?

[Leszczynek]

choosing the category I want from all available categories

is the same every time

Just because you do it the same every time doesn't mean I do it the same every time. Also just because duvessa created a good acquirement flowchart doesn't mean I follow it, even if I generally agree with its contents as a guideline for newer players. And to address the other part of your idea, the 3 categories proposed may all take from categories that are already established as "bad" (gold, ammunition, book, some others). I can imagine the choices being more like [15 poisoned javelins, some mostly bad randart book, randart cloak] and wow, I wonder what I would pick from these, what excitement. The choice you gave as an example is an absolute no-brainer too by the way. Now, the obvious solution to this problem would be to balance the categories but then why replace the original ?acquirement in the first place?

[4Hooves2Appendages]

?MontyHall.

You read a Scroll of Monty Hall.
Pick (a), (b) or (c). Only one of them is good.
You shrug and pick option (a).
Suddenly Monty Hall pops up out of nowhere!
You are delighted.
He shows you item (b). It's a rock.
Change your choice? Pick (a) or (c).
You grin and instantly choose (c).
Bad luck. (c) is the Robe of Misfortune.
(a) was a stack of Scrolls of Blinking.
You swagger away, smugly confident that you made the right choice despite the outcome.

[jwoodward48ss]

xom already does that

[twelwe]

yea