Buff scrolls of acquirement

[ThreeInvisibleDucks]

I've played enough NetHack not to suggest to turn ?acquirement into a direct wish. But lately, I've also played a lot of chars in Crawl to see why so many people call it the scroll of disappointment.

My suggestion is: buff ?acquirement to make it more likely to gain something useful. For example: a character without cold resistance would have a much better chance of getting a piece of armour that would provide rC. Or a character with a lot of investment in fire magic would have a higher chance of receiving a staff of fire.

The scrolls are rare enough not to break balance, no?

[crate]

Have you tried acquiring wands?

Jewellery acquirement and maybe book acquirement could be improved, but on the whole the scroll seems fine to me.

[Hurkyl]

Characters whose higest magic skill is Fire do receive a higher chance of getting a staff of fire. Weapon acquirement is biased towards your weapon skills too.

[ThreeInvisibleDucks]

Characters whose higest magic skill is Fire do receive a higher chance of getting a staff of fire. Weapon acquirement is biased towards your weapon skills too.

Oh okay, didn't know that.

[ThreeInvisibleDucks]

Have you tried acquiring wands?

Jewellery acquirement and maybe book acquirement could be improved, but on the whole the scroll seems fine to me.

I usually go for wands if I haven't got /healing. It seems to be the most reliable option of getting a great item, although I've wasted four in a game to no avail. I'd like to have another option though, and "wishing" for anything else is usually too disappointing to bother with.

Except for gold.

Lately I've always been saving the scrolls just in case I'll run into a bazaar, and need more gold, and I've found that to be the most reliable method of getting something actually helpful.

Which is one of the reasons I posted this. In a single game a rare scroll such as acquirement should have a high chance of producing something useful, instead of treating them as just extra gold for shops.

[crate]

Weapon is actually more likely to give you a good item than even wand acquirement, though it's limited by the fact that two good weapons is not more useful than one good weapon, whereas two good wands is better than one good wand.

Armour acquirement is fine too. Sometimes you get body armour and that sucks but aux armour is good. (A lot of people seem to misunderstand this part of armour acquirement.)

I suspect misc acquirement is quite good now but I have not tried it, and staff is ok.

Saving scrolls seems bad to me, since you do get good things.

[duvessa]

Lately I've always been saving the scrolls just in case I'll run into a bazaar, and need more gold, and I've found that to be the most reliable method of getting something actually helpful.

That's very nearly the worst thing you can possibly do with acquirement (slightly better than acquiring gold right away, acquiring food as a non-fedhas character, or throwing the scroll in lava, but not by very much).

Of course it's completely impossible to make a decision about acquirement in the first place if you don't have spoilers or spend hours in wizard mode, since there is no indication whatsoever in-game of what kind of items each option will give you and it's way too random to determine by experimentation without thousands of trials.

[Kate]

Moved to advice since the thread is mostly that at the moment.

[cerebovssquire]

With regards to your acquirement strategy, /hasting tends to be more important than /healing, so even if you have /healing it is often a good idea to acquire wand (because of this, and what crate said).

[daggaz]

I dunno bout wands. I've tried so many times considering the advice is weighted so heavily towards this choice here in the tavern, but more often than not I get such a crap wand (even if I already saw it) like frost or flame. Plus there are just a TON of low end wands, this is really only a good option in the late game, and even then you get crapped on as mentioned thanks to the sheer amount of options.

Weapon has always been a much better draw, especially for an early acquirement like if you read-ID one. Doubly so if you have seen most of the low end weapon types in your chosen category. Here it seems that the weighting towards unseen kinds is actually working as intended, and even if you do pull a lower class weapon, its still a randart with often very good bonuses (thanks for removing all that super negative slaying way back when).

Armour is also usually ok, I'll take this if I have a decent weapon and I have all my slots filled with mundane gear, which seems to prevent getting things like a +0 hat etc.. The body slot needs better weighting tho, or so it seems.

Gold? Only if there is some uber item in a store I just saw and its way too expensive for me. If I find a scroll on a floor with a bazaar, i'll bring it in just in case, but otherwise hoarding them is just... no.

Jewelry seems to be ok if its later in the game and you have seen the vast majority of the gear. You can still get crapped on like with wands, but you are more likely to get a randart and at least here, in contrast with wands, there are a lot of options as to what can happen. Have gotten some really nice rings this way.

[Sar]

in contrast with wands, there are a lot of options as to what can happen

That isn't a good thing.

[Magipi]

Armour acquirement is fine too. Sometimes you get body armour and that sucks but aux armour is good.

Learndb:

<N78291> You finish putting on the -9 naga barding of Ypurch {Dex-3 Int-2}.

[Lasty]

Obviously, acquirement is intended to be random. The devteam could easily prevent mediocre things from being acquireable, and that hasn't happened. I expect that the intention is that every time you find acquirement, you get to gamble a little, and the great outcomes would be less exciting if you couldn't also get bad ones.

[MrPlanck]

I figure about 1/10 acq give me a genuine upgrade (usually go for armour, wand, jewelry, weapon in that order unless I find one early in which case I go weapon). If I have wand of healing, then getting a 2nd on is not a genuine upgrade. So, 9/10 I am disappointed. I find that they are most useful when tossed at an enemy. Watch as the enemy is filled with despair, then crush it in its moment of weakness. Much more satisfying than actually reading one.

[SaidTheAlligatorKingToHisSon]

If you worship Trog acquiring book gives manuals, and not of magic (or invo I think). Pretty good odds to get something you want.

[Siegurt]

I have better odds than 1 in 10, it is usually 1:2 for the first scroll, then probably 1:4 for any further ones before vaults, and 1:6 thereafter

[Bloax]

Obviously, acquirement is intended to be random. The devteam could easily prevent mediocre things from being acquireable, and that hasn't happened. I expect that the intention is that every time you find acquirement, you get to gamble a little, and the great outcomes would be less exciting if you couldn't also get bad ones.

well sure, elliptic really likes his acquirement being possibly useless but is that really the best way for things to be

but who is bloax to question the great elliptic?

[crate]

Maybe I should point out that an acquirement scroll is more beneficial than benemut potion (on average, unless you purposely do things like choose food acquirement when you don't worship Fedhas) and of similar rarity.

[Bloax]

I don't think it's coincidental that !benmut potions are often said to be pretty bad.

[Siegurt]

Maybe I should point out that an acquirement scroll is more beneficial than benemut potion (on average, unless you purposely do things like choose food acquirement when you don't worship Fedhas) and of similar rarity.

I suspect that's because if you acquire something you don't want you can just drop it, the same can't be said of mutations.

[crate]

It's also because the average good acquirement item is like an order of magnitude more useful than the average good mutation.

[partial]

there are also some mutations you might not want

[celem]

I don't much mind the random poor objects. But what bugs me is when the scroll delivers items useless to your species/character. I had a gargoyle get several rPois items off scrolls then several more in a trove, which is a little heartbreaking

[crate]

I'm pretty sure acquirement does not give you anything that matches useless_item

Now, it could give you something with rpois for a gargoyle just fine (and I don't see a problem with this; the rest of the item could still be useful), but if it gives you a plain rpois ring then that is probably a bug.

[celem]

Ahh you raise a valid point. That particular Gr got 2 rPois cloaks in the trove and a third off a scroll, as you say they are still valid (enchanted) cloaks. Whereas rPois ring is outright junk. Still hurt to see two of my valuable trove slots wasted, but this behaviour as described is fine.

Extending this logically explains why the rPois ring becomes grey-texted but the +0 cloak of rPoi never does, which is something I had idly noticed and pondered.

[Sar]

Well, a +0 cloak still gives 1 AC.

[Lyrick]

crappy wand acquirements

read 24 acquirement scrolls and picked wand for each of them, with no wands identified yet
Got:

  Code:

 l - a wand of lightning
 m - a wand of hasting
 n - a wand of fire
 o - a wand of invisibility
 p - a wand of fireball
 q - a wand of hasting
 r - a wand of hasting
 s - a wand of hasting
 t - a wand of teleportation
 u - a wand of teleportation
 v - a wand of invisibility
 w - a wand of heal wounds

 a - a wand of enslavement
 b - a wand of digging
 e - a wand of enslavement
 f - a wand of teleportation
 g - a wand of fire
 h - a wand of frost
 i - a wand of polymorph
 j - a wand of hasting
 k - a wand of hasting
 l - a wand of heal wounds
 m - a wand of heal wounds
 o - a wand of heal wounds

I think I like these odds are pretty good.

For kicks, I tried it with 120 weapon acquirements, on a character with 12 short blades skill. About a third of them are artifacts, and about a third of them come out to be quick blades. So, not too bad there either. (3 of the artifact rapiers/quickblades were at least +10, and one of the mundane quickblades were +10.)

[daggaz]

Yeah, aquirement is a very reliable method of getting a Qblade on a stabber. Guess I was just a victim of bad luck regarding wands, will keep that in mind next time.

[damiac]

My priorities for acquirement are:
Weapon if I don't already have a good one
Armor if I am a naga or centaur without a barding already
Wand if I don't already have healing and hasting
Book if I'm a blaster who needs better spells
Armor unless I already have good armor in most of my slots
Book if I don't have all the support spells I'm hoping for
Jewelry if I have really bad jewelry
I've never had to think further than this, i've never picked gold, misc, food, or ammo. Jewelry is usually a disappointment.

[XuaXua]

i've never picked gold, misc, food, or ammo. Jewelry is usually a disappointment.

I picked gold when there was something I really wanted in one of the stores that cost several thousand gold and I had already visited Orc.

I don't remember what it was or what I wanted it for.

[Sar]

Also, as mentioned previously, food is a great option for a Fedhas character.

[notcluie]

I've never had to think further than this, i've never picked gold, misc, food, or ammo. Jewelry is usually a disappointment.

i think i picked misc once
it was on a zig scummer that needed more zigs to scum
ammo is just why though

[damiac]

But addressing the OP: scrolls of acquirement do not need a buff, at least, the popular choices don't.

[duvessa]

I think I used ammo acquirement once. It's probably about the same usefulness as book/jewellery. Misc acquirement is way better, the chance of getting a box of beasts is pretty low and it won't give you duplicate lanterns/discs/balls.

[Sprucery]

I picked gold once, for a bazaar, and was very disappointed to get only about $650.

[Berder]

if octopode then jewelry. 8 rings means there's a better chance that any new ring will be better than a ring I already have.
else if my weapon is lame for my level, and I mostly fight with a weapon, then weapon
Else if I need HW/Haste then Wand
Else armour

[Count of Hearts]

  Code:

M - +8 orange crystal plate armour {Archmagi, Int+3 Clar SustAb}

Just got that crystal plate from my first scroll of acquirement on this char.... I think the odds are fine.

[MrPlanck]

Yes, I need to reassess. 1/10 upgrades is way off. I've had incredible fortune with Acq lately. Maybe I was on a bad streak before that, which biased my opinion. Acquirement seems fine to me.

[ThreeInvisibleDucks]

Yes, I need to reassess. 1/10 upgrades is way off. I've had incredible fortune with Acq lately. Maybe I was on a bad streak before that, which biased my opinion. Acquirement seems fine to me.

I think this is the root of the issue here. The rarity of the acquirement scrolls combined with the random nature of the results pretty much guarantees that at some point one is likely to be on the good or the bad side of the variance that will last throughout several games.

If one gets bad results in, let's say, 3 games in a row, over a longish period of time, one might be tempted to start a thread like this. But get one great buff for a character and all is peachy again.

I admit I have no idea how often a good result comes up in the long run but given the possibility of bad luck streaks I'd still say it'd be more fun to get a better result on average. IMHO, of course.

[Lyrick]

on average.

Do you mean you want more consistently ordinary results instead of randomly great/useless results?

Acquirement scrolls can give you top tier items, and are a chance for you to get those items which would otherwise have a much rare chance to generate. If you relaid the probabilities from great/useless to just good, then thats fewer "great" items being generated, probably.

[Bloax]

Removing the possibility of complete trash items from acquirement would serve to raise the average quality of acquirement.

[Sar]

why do you hate fun

[ThreeInvisibleDucks]

on average.

Do you mean you want more consistently ordinary results instead of randomly great/useless results?

No.

Removing the possibility of complete trash items from acquirement would serve to raise the average quality of acquirement.

This was more what I was thinking. So, a direct buff without a drawback.

As I said before, in my opinion it wouldn't be horribly unbalancing because of the rarity of the scrolls.

[Sprucery]

Removing the possibility of complete trash items from acquirement would serve to raise the average quality of acquirement.

I also think that acquirement should not give complete trash items. Now the question is, how should 'complete trash' be defined? And should the definition take the current character into account somehow?

[XuaXua]

Removing the possibility of complete trash items from acquirement would serve to raise the average quality of acquirement.

I also think that acquirement should not give complete trash items. Now the question is, how should 'complete trash' be defined? And should the definition take the current character into account somehow?

Run a calculation giving + aspects of an item a positive value and - aspects of an item a negative value, and adjust by the amount of each aspect. If the total is -, the item is trash, so reroll the result.

[ThreeInvisibleDucks]

Removing the possibility of complete trash items from acquirement would serve to raise the average quality of acquirement.

I also think that acquirement should not give complete trash items. Now the question is, how should 'complete trash' be defined? And should the definition take the current character into account somehow?

Run a calculation giving + aspects of an item a positive value and - aspects of an item a negative value, and adjust by the amount of each aspect. If the total is -, the item is trash, so reroll the result.

I was about to propose a similar thing. A piece of armour with -5 enchantment is unlikely to be used no matter what the resistances are.

In my current game I got the following, continuing my streak of disappointments (or not really, I'm not expecting anything from those scrolls ATM):

  Code:

 15424 | Lair:5   | Identified the -1 robe of the City {Dex+4} (You acquired it on level 5 of the Lair of Beasts)

If I understood XuaXua's idea correctly the item would be considered as non-trash, which it is. Just an average piece of gear unlikely to be used, compared to a regular +2 robe.

I'd go further and discard all armour with a negative enchantment. It might be too far as a -1 robe might get a use if was the only item in the game providing, say, rF. Usually the base AC is more important though.

[XuaXua]

I'd go further and discard all armour with a negative enchantment. It might be too far as a -1 robe might get a use if was the only item in the game providing, say, rF. Usually the base AC is more important though.

Different aspects could have different weights.

One point of AC could be worth 4x as much as one point of attribute; one pip of resistance could be 2x one point of AC. In that sense, that robe would even out at 0, which... I'd consider 0 to - trash.

[duvessa]

It would be nice if armour acquirement lost the special case to give you negatively enchanted armour if you don't have armour in that slot.

[XuaXua]

I'm playing Ru right now and I sacced Stealth.

What does armour acquirement get me? +2 Boots of Stealth.

In some cases, acquirement gives a s--- about what you haven't yet found (never found boots? acquire armour and you get boots!) and in some instances what you cannot use (no plate for a spriggan!), but I'm curious if it takes (or if it should take) into account what aspects you cannot use (as above), or if those were simply overlooked since Ru is new, etc.

[XuaXua]

It would be nice if armour acquirement lost the special case to give you negatively enchanted armour if you don't have armour in that slot.

Agreed. All this special case does is make one who wants to use acquirement for armour potentially hoard acquirement scrolls until armour is first found.