Proposal: Mangle item

[BlackSheep]

add to that: piety decay

[Hurkyl]

As an anecdote, I briefly played another MuCj until I got bored. I didn't go with my usual mummy hoovering.

On D:1, I was rewarded by having one hobgoblin pick up a chain mail I left alone, and another picking up a robe I discarded after finding leather armour. This allowed both of them to survive a full mana dump, forcing me to resort to "walk away while it stays next to me and regen mana and hope it doesn't kill me when I stop to cast again". (or, I suppose, to unarmed combat....)

On D:2, a Hobgoblin picked up a Halberd from a Gnoll I killed earlier, and became extremely hazardous when it made itself known at an unopportune time, nearly killing me before I could escape up stairs.

(I didn't play much longer after that)

[Tenaya]

Floor equipment makes critters more varied and therefore more interesting/challenging to fight, managing actual dangerous stuff you come across and preventing critters from picking it up is trivial, managing everything that might give a creature even a slight advantage is, while possible and tedious, also dumb, and therefore doesn't require fixing.

Agree that floor equipment makes monsters more interesting and provides tension on new levels, if, for example, the orc warrior will pick up the consumables that you desire.
Disagree on the rest; junk management, as you describe it well, is an activity with miniscule reward and risk and yet is strictly optimal. Therefor it should be fixed, despite it being a trivial problem.

I would argue that it is not strictly optimal because the miniscule benefits from junk management are outweighed by the miniscule penalties associated with the extra turns required. (Notably extra spawns and food consumption(where applicable), also the possibility of valuable items being consumed by jellies, and yet-unfound-items being picked up by wandering monsters)

You are stating that the activity has a miniscule reward and a miniscule penalty/risk. You are correct and that is what is known as grinding.

[Siegurt]

You are stating that the activity has a miniscule reward and a miniscule penalty/risk. You are correct and that is what is known as grinding.

I'm also further positing that the miniscule penalty/risk is *greater* than the miniscule reward, hence a sub-optimal activity. My internal definition of "grinding" is an activity whose rewards exceed the risks/penalties by some margin *and* whose tedium exceeds either the risks or rewards. (I don't think there's any argument that this is not a tedious activity, only whether it's a beneficial one, after all, picking up and dropping the same meat ration over and over is also tedious, but also reward-less (And therefore clearly not "grinding" by my personal definition))

[Wahaha]

Not using autoexplore is optimal (hunger cost, piety decay, better positioning) and sometimes tedious. Therefore we should remove the benefits of not using using autoexplore.

[Sandman25]

I have already written about stairdancing in Vaults 5 but I can repeat. I stairdanced about 5 times in the same game and it was annoying to check every position after every fight and move away dangerous weapons. Risk was minimal, reward was big but I didn't enjoy it for some reason

[Tenaya]

You are stating that the activity has a miniscule reward and a miniscule penalty/risk. You are correct and that is what is known as grinding.

I'm also further positing that the miniscule penalty/risk is *greater* than the miniscule reward, hence a sub-optimal activity. My internal definition of "grinding" is an activity whose rewards exceed the risks/penalties by some margin *and* whose tedium exceeds either the risks or rewards. (I don't think there's any argument that this is not a tedious activity, only whether it's a beneficial one, after all, picking up and dropping the same meat ration over and over is also tedious, but also reward-less (And therefore clearly not "grinding" by my personal definition))

You can't seriously believe that any of the risks/penalties mentioned are worse than the possible risks of hazardous junk? Really? Piety loss: impossible to quantify because when new junk appears in your LOS, you were going that way already or possible already standing on it; same goes for risk of other items being picked up; and food? No. Maybe when we lose chunk eating then maybe, but for now, there is no food penalty for picking up extra junk. Extra spawns: this is a reward, not a risk. Were there any that I missed?

[Tenaya]

Not using autoexplore is optimal (hunger cost, piety decay, better positioning) and sometimes tedious. Therefore we should remove the benefits of not using using autoexplore.

Almost a good try, but unfortunately a complete non-sequitur. We're talking about actions within the game that have a miniscule (but still finite) reward and miniscule risk. We are not talking about the UI, although ...
The benefits of not using autoexplore are more accurately the costs of using autoexplore. If you want to propose that we reduce the costs of auto-explore then I say "yeah!". I've proposed that before, in fact, and there have even been some improvements to the auto-explore function over the last several versions, IIRC. I think my latest proposal for a removal of a "not using autoexplore benefit" is to add a toggle to the discovery screen that, without further notification to the player or stopping explore, smashes/mangles certain classes of objects.

[Tenaya]

I have already written about stairdancing in Vaults 5 but I can repeat. I stairdanced about 5 times in the same game and it was annoying to check every position after every fight and move away dangerous weapons. Risk was minimal, reward was big but I didn't enjoy it for some reason

Are you saying that stairdancing is grinding? I'd say it is a tactic, rather than a repetitive action, as is pulling MOBs into a single-wide corridor.
The devs thought that stair pulling was grinding, apparently, and I'd agree. It was almost always optimal to pre-butterfly before going down a level "Hydra! No!"

Post-stair dance junk management is exactly what we are talking about. Tedious but definitely worth it, although it is best to leave some of the weapons there for the off-chance that a vault guard will make a poor-choice weapon switch. Fortunately, I now understand (IIUC) that all that I need to do is pick up the branded weapons, then drop recent for every stack of vault guard debris. That definitely makes it easier than having to cart away the dangerous weapons.

[Sandman25]

Are you saying that stairdancing is grinding? I'd say it is a tactic, rather than a repetitive action, as is pulling MOBs into a single-wide corridor.

No, I am not saying it. I want to automate "destroying weapons for monsters" to avoid tedium of checking every position with dead monster, that's all I want. Especially useful in games with "no pickup" conduct where I am not even interested to see what's in those positions.

[Tenaya]

I have already written about stairdancing in Vaults 5 but I can repeat. I stairdanced about 5 times in the same game and it was annoying to check every position after every fight and move away dangerous weapons. Risk was minimal, reward was big but I didn't enjoy it for some reason

Are you saying that stairdancing is grinding? I'd say it is a tactic, rather than a repetitive action, as is pulling MOBs into a single-wide corridor.

Tenaya: please trouble yourself to familiarize yourself with the entire thread before commenting. Thank you.

[duvessa]

Not using autoexplore is optimal (hunger cost, piety decay, better positioning) and sometimes tedious. Therefore we should remove the benefits of not using using autoexplore.

This is absolutely true.

[Tenaya]

After some reflection, I'm not sure that including a toggle for mangle in the discovery list would be less tedium than present. Hmm, I guess an automatic setting would be the way to go, if a change is made at all.

I was just imagining being two hours into a MfGl game and then taking the time to set 'mangle' for: all non-bardiche non-art polearms; all non-ego robes; all non-ego leather armour, all non-dragon heavy armour with the exception of randart chain mail; all wands of magic missile, frost, flame, lightning, polymorph, slow, confusion; all missile launchers and ammo with the exception of branded javelins and curare and randart blowguns; all non-art weapons; non-branded boots, cloaks, caps, hats, helmets, gloves, gauntlets and bracers; ... and then dying.