Purge the devil: Remove item destruction

[Bloax]

There is a problem - and that problem is item destruction.

It accomplishes nothing but placing an artificial 'optimal' style of play where a lot of consumables are stashed away in a safe place.
It's inconsistent as all hell.

It outright punishes you for wearing anything but a cloak of preservation.
It bugs the living hell out of the vast majority of players.
It makes people drop all their scrolls if they're about to face a mottled dragon to avoid losing all their scrolls. And dropping all their potions before entering an ice cave. And dropping all their scrolls before a volcano.
It is superfluous to actual item generation, inventory slot limitations and carry weight. Two of which can be adjusted.

Why must we still have such a problematic "feature" if all it serves to do is annoy people, create pointless dropping games - all while not accomplishing anything.
The only case where item destruction is even interesting is in Zot:5, where you have the choice of either your scrolls or your mundanity due to orbs of fire mutating and burning you.
But this is so late in the game that it hardly even matters.

Remove it.

[Arrhythmia]

Getting rid of item destruction would make it FAR more easy to balance how many consumables the player gets.

Without:
1) Dev sets average spawn rate of consumables
2) Player has that many consumables

With:
1) Dev sets average spawn rate of consumables
2) Dev sets probability of items breaking from attack
3) Dev sets probability of enemies with item destroying attacks spawning
4) We guess wildly about how effective an attack will be for destroying items (e.g. throw frost will break more potions than freeze because of the range)
5) Dev sets probability of item destroying enemy using item destruction ability
6) Player gets that many items.

[rchandra]

I think wearing Cons vs other amulets is a very interesting choice and often not clear-cut (also cloak of preservation vs good artefacts or cloak of MR). The two-tiered item set (items on the floor, items in your invenotry) is also interesting and would be lost with item destruction vanishing.

The occasionaly flavourless but good suggestions to make strategic items immune to destruction (enchant foo, !exp, etc) would be fine since that serves only to not annoy the player.

[Arrhythmia]

We could have amulets and cloaks of "bounty" which could raise the spawn rate of consumables, perhaps with a buildup like gourmand, and it would be FAR more interesting since it's now a strategic decision while doing the exact same thing (giving you more consumables). As it is you're just fucked if you see a mottled dragon and forget to put on your amulet fast enough.

[ontoclasm]

The two-tiered item set (items on the floor, items in your invenotry) is also interesting and would be lost with item destruction vanishing.

As I said last time, this is a really common argument for item destruction, and is totally not true. You can only carry the least of a) X weight of items, b) 52 different items, and c) the amount of stuff you've found. Why are three separate caps on how much stuff you can carry not enough?

I'm lazy and thus completely ignore the fact that item destruction exists outside of a few dumb cases, but I still don't carry every single beneficial potion in the game, because they're heavy. I can't spare the weight capacity and slots for more than 6 or so of the most useful potions, and 2 or 3 of a few other types. Which is... pretty much exactly what I would carry if I were pathologically paranoid about item destruction.

If we think people will carry too many consumables, just make them heavier.

[battaile]

(also cloak of preservation vs good artefacts or cloak of MR).

I use preservation ~99% of the time, I'd be all for any change that made this decision less clear cut.

[pratamawirya]

It's inconsistent as all hell.

I dislike only this aspect of item destruction. Other than that, I kinda like it that my items can be destroyed; I think it's cool.

[reg]

One of the ideas that was thrown about when this came up in the SA thread is similar to Lava Orc's heat-thing. Have build-up effects which can prevent item use like blurry-vision (as in, waste a turn to not consume the item) and step up to a 0% success chance when in a cloud. So, a puff of flame/frost may give a slight Fire/Frost status which gives a small chance to fail Scroll/Potion use. Taking more damage, being on fire or in a cloud causes the status to build up. Conservation could nullify this entirely or reduce the buildup (just whether or not you want to allow the player to switch amulets and then read a scroll while on fire)

[archaeo]

One of the ideas that was thrown about when this came up in the SA thread is similar to Lava Orc's heat-thing. Have build-up effects which can prevent item use like blurry-vision (as in, waste a turn to not consume the item) and step up to a 0% success chance when in a cloud. So, a puff of flame/frost may give a slight Fire/Frost status which gives a small chance to fail Scroll/Potion use. Taking more damage, being on fire or in a cloud causes the status to build up. Conservation could nullify this entirely or reduce the buildup (just whether or not you want to allow the player to switch amulets and then read a scroll while on fire)

A version of this was just tried as an experimental branch that didn't get merged. It kind of requires tortured flavour (why didn't it get burned if you failed to read a scroll? Are you trying to catch the right moment to quaff that potion when the temperature is above freezing?) and then still creates a tedious mini-game that feels overcomplicated. At least the status quo makes logical sense and doesn't necessitate any real indicator/notification spam.

But that said put me on the side of the angels here. The item destruction mini-game isn't fun on its own and incentivizes even lamer player behaviors. Removing it would be the simplest fix, and as Arrhy notes above, would allow for much simpler balancing decisions w/r/t scrolls and potions while also knocking out a class of boring items that make players feel forced into wearing if they want to use consumables past D:16. Is there really a compelling argument against this?

[pubby]

And dropping all their potions before entering an ice cave. And dropping all their scrolls before a volcano.

The dropping aspect is really annoying, but I find it interesting to clear a portal vault without access to certain consumables.

This is what I suggest:

If you are in a freezing environment, your potions have a 50% chance of freezing when being quaffed.
Freezing environments are: Ice cave, Cocytus, and standing in freezing clouds.

If you are in a fiery environment, your scrolls have a 50% chance of burning up when being read.
Fiery environments are: Volcano, Gehenna, standing in fire clouds, and being sticky flamed.

The current form of item destruction would be removed.

[Bloax]

I think wearing Cons vs other amulets is a very interesting choice and often not clear-cut (also cloak of preservation vs good artefacts or cloak of MR)

The amulets are somewhat shaky (as said it usually only appears in Zot:5), but the cloaks are definitely not interesting at all, which is what I actually included a link to in the OP.
This quote comes from a game where I found the Cloak of Flash, which is better than the cloak of preservation I had before it..

Except not! Because losing scrolls from most fire attacks - irregardless of damage (I took exactly 3 damage from those two fireballs) would quickly reduce all my scrolls to ashes forever. And scrolls are much better than 1 AC and 4 EV, mind.
You don't get that whole "all your scrolls are gone LOL" effect if you wear preservation. Wanna wear something else? FUCK YOU (and your scrolls too)

[Galefury]

My opinion. Spoiler: it's pretty much the same as Bloax's. Item destruction is pointless, makes me jump through annoying hoops, and is generally terrible.

[dck]

Itemdest is a redundant measure that overlaps with all the other ones that already do their job well and have already been cited in ontoclasm's post.
What's more, itemdest is actually the one consumable-stacking prevention measure that does not do its job well at all. It can be avoided to the point of negating its effect almost completely by carrying a certain amount of each consumable type and then restocking when something does happen to get destroyed.
It only creates annoying gameplay and it should be removed.
Also I think consumables as they currently stand are pretty good and shouldn't be nerfed (no random places with blurry vision or quaffing) because of the removal of itemdest.

[Tiber]

I would like to reiterate that I am still a fan of Marbit's proposal: https://crawl.develz.org/tavern/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=8495&p=115180#p115180, which Brendan implemented. It was never actually tried in trunk though, as some of the devs had problems with it that they never bothered to fully explain or discuss in the thread.

[Klown]

1) How do you do a mass-all-at-once drop?

2) Isn't it pointless if everyone just drops scrolls/potions anyways?
(unless you walk around a corner into an attack)

So it does nothing & slows down the game even more.

[Bloax]

1) How do you do a mass-all-at-once drop?

Press "d" outside of any menus and press the appropriate key for the ASCII representation of the item class. (= is rings, ? is scrolls, ! is potions, % is food, et cetera)

I would like to reiterate that I am still a fan of Marbit's proposal: https://crawl.develz.org/tavern/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=8495&p=115180#p115180, which Brendan implemented. It was never actually tried in trunk though, as some of the devs had problems with it that they never bothered to fully explain or discuss in the thread.

The problem about that is that if it's at something like 50% - which would be a very noticeable percentage - there would be a:

50% of wasting one turn (and one consumable)
25% of wasting two turns in a row (and two consumables)
12.5% of wasting three turns in a row (and three consumables)

12% Is a pretty bad spell failure chance, but 12% is the chance of wasting three turns and consumables in that scenario.
That's pretty damn terrible for an effect that can still be mitigated by wearing specific items over more attractive ones, and thus it never really got anywhere.

[galehar]

It accomplishes nothing

If that were true, I don't think we'd have to endure the weekly rant about removing item destruction.
Limiting the number of consumables you can safely carry is something. And it's a much stricter limitation than inventory slots. Regarding item weight, it depends on characters. For some, it's already a stricter limit, for others, it can almost be ignored. So no, raising the weight of consumables isn't something we can just do to compensate.
Also, the argument that you can simply drop your stuff before fighting monster x isn't always true. Often it is, and it leads to the problematic tedious behaviour of stepping back and dropping your consumables. But it's not always that simple. Also, if you drop your consumables, you can't use them anymore. And if you teleport, then you can't pick them back.
So, no it's not nothing, it has a pretty significant effect on the game. No, it cannot be easily avoided all the time. Yes, it is somewhat problematic (although I don't think it's as bad as many players tries to paint it). No, it cannot be easily replaced by Marbit's proposal (the gameplay effect is completely different), nor by simply rebalancing the amount of loot (loot you can carry and total loot in the game are not the same thing).

It's inconsistent as all hell.

Hasn't it been changed recently to scale the destruction effect with post-AC damage? I'm not sure what you're whining about here anyway.

[dck]

And what exactly does this extra limitation on the amount of consumables you can carry achieve?
Nothing. Even if you're lazy and don't want to go back to restock a lot: you lug around five curing/HW, a couple of each other beneficial potion and leave the rest on the floor when you're done killing everything. Just with this and very basic positioning, paired with okay defenses you overcome itemdest with the exception of its most aggravating cases.

[Volteccer_Jack]

Limiting the number of consumables you can safely carry is something.

I would really love to know what that something is. Apart from forcing tedious stashing.

And it's a much stricter limitation than inventory slots.

In what way is "if you carry this scroll AND get hit by a fire attack, it MIGHT get burned up" stricter than "you cannot carry this scroll"?

[TwilightPhoenix]

Item destruction's greatest accomplishment is giving us the weekly rant about item destruction. Beyond that, it really doesn't do anything that isn't better handled with already existing mechanics. And what little it does do besides induce rants is very much not worth the tedious stashing behavior it encourages, whether that's dropping everything on L:2, in the corners of the floor you find the stuff on, on the down stairs on the previous level, or wherever.

Will this allow players to carry a lot more stuff? Yeah sure, but if they're relying too heavily on consummables they'll quickly learn either that quaffing 11 Heal Wounds in a row still won't save them from being smitten by three Orc Priests or, if it does, that they'll really wish they still had all those potions later when a Ghoul has rotted half of their HP away.

[sanka]

This is nth+1 item destruction thread, but I guess it may worth to tell my opinion here as well.

I'm not sure what you're whining about here anyway.

Item destruction is not bad because it makes the game harder.

Item destruction is bad because it's annoying, and it's annoying because optimal play involves a lot of fiddling with inventory. Dropping items/leaving them behind is absolutely not interesting tactic but can be very tedious. It's not about whining that the game is hard.

If any developer thinks that keeping item destruction worthwhile, I'd like to quote my proposal from the previous thread. Remember that the purpose is to discourage fiddling with items, instead encourage tactic that reduces item destruction.

1. Never destroy strategial items. Yes, you could use them in Abyss/Pan. Who cares? If they are moved to a separate item category, it may change the id minigame. In my opinion it could change the id minigame to much better. I could elaborate it if somebody is interested. It would be even better if they would not take inventory slots and weight.

2. Severly discourage dropping tactical items. Optimal play would be to carry them all with yourself. For example effects destroy them on the ground 100% while in the inventory they are relatively safe. Make jellies frequently eating them offlevel - much bigger chance than destroying in the inventory. Or simply make them impossible to drop for whatever reason (while keeping offlevel jellies or something to discourage leaving them behind).

3. Tone down a little bit effects which can destroy your whole inventory, like sticky flame and freezing cloud. Improve things that lets good tactics avoid more item destruction: for example (almost) all item destructing effects should need a clear line (no or very rare smite targeting monsters), etc.

I actually think that it would be much easier to remove the whole thing.

[snow]

At this point it's just ridiculous that item destruction isn't gone yet. How long will this waiting game last?

[Mankeli]

At this point it's just ridiculous that item destruction isn't gone yet. How long will this waiting game last?

Well, there seems to be major ongoing disagreements among devs concerning item destruction so...

ID is horrible at its current state and I have no problems seeing it go at all. I think there has been some changes to it (I think sticky flame most recently) but there are still major problems with it:

1) It is way too common (hello yaktaurs)

2) It is way too harsh in some cases (hello sticky flame, yes still)

3) Many monsters that can cause it seem to be attacking my char's inventory instead of his HP (hello mid game orc wizards and ugly things).

4) It is, on many cases, completely avoidable via tedious methods of backtracking + dropping stuff (hello fire drakes in lair)

5) It doesn't fill it's supposed role of limiting consumables you can carry very well

6) Even if it would fill the role mentioned in 5) it would still be boring to constantly backtrack to get more consumables

7) It further adds to the "item management" (ring swapping etc.) which I consider somewhat problematic and tedious.

I don't know if these problems can be addressed -and there are many of them. If some people or devs are strictly opposed of completely removing it, couldn't we at least change it so that you only have a chance of losing items when you really take damage? I mean when you fight against an OOF you don't stop to drop scrolls. And I'm talking about a massive nerf to the chances of items getting destroyed, I'm not sure I even noticed the sticky flame nerf in actual gameplay. It still feels as bad as ever.

So if there are some people that insist on item destruction staying (I'm not one of them), then could we at least make it so that it's only reserved for actually dangerous monsters that do damage, please?

[MDvedh]

If item destruction doesn't get removed (and it pretty much should be removed), I could suggest a minimum damage dealt by instance (like 20 or so) to have a chance to destroy item.

[Psiweapon]

It's not only annoying. It's aggravating.

Annoying is when one out of your 3 scrolls of identify and one out of your 4 scrolls of remove curse burn.

Aggravating is when 2 of your 3 scrolls of teleport, your last scroll of blinking and an unidentified scroll you just found get burnt.

Could we please limit item destruction to 1 per direct attack and 1 per turn for status and clouds? Pretty pretty please?

(of course, this kind of COMMON SENSE suggestion is the kind of suggestions devs worldwide don't even look twice at)

[Lasty]

Burning max one item per attack would completely defeat the purpose that item destruction serves: the solution to it would be to carry more scrolls, not fewer. The current system at least has the right incentives in place: carry fewer and your odds of significant harm from any given item destruction attack are low.

[KittenInMyCerealz]

If item destruction doesn't get removed (and it pretty much should be removed), I could suggest a minimum damage dealt by instance (like 20 or so) to have a chance to destroy item.

this. its so retarded to have a guy deal like 3 dmg to your 200hp character and burn 5 scrolls with that attack.
minimum damage should scale from 1-20 depending on your level/max hp, so that item destruction still remains in early game as well (if you intend to keep it at all)

[Mumcon]

I think that with Crawl's philosophy, the possibility of catastrophic item destruction is not really the problem. In fact, having that happen up front would in some ways be preferable to the current mechanics which facilitate tedium and lack actual strategic merit. The reasons outlined by Bloax and others in this thread seem, in my personal opinion, sufficient to warrant the removal of item destruction.

Given there's a certain amount of debate over whether item destruction currently has a significant effect on balance, has anyone actually playtested Crawl without item destruction (and if so, do they have any specific experiences to recount)?

[dpeg]

Mumcon: It doesn't need a sage to tell you that players playtesting a branch/fork without item destruction would write glowing reports. There's a fundamental mismatch between what a player and what a designer could want in this situation. To a player, item destruction is (a) a loss of power, and (b) an annoying ordeal. To a designer, (b) is a problem --everyone acknowledges that-- but the option to tinker with characters' inventories is a great opportunity. However, given the amount of "retarded" and "why don't they finally..." in this thread, I don't feel at all motivated to think about solutions.

I also don't think that item destruction is the worst offender to Crawl's interface. In my experience, that's the constant and mindless resting (we're doing it all the time, and while it is generally automated --not automated when poisoned which is really annoying to me-- we spend more time with that than with item destruction countermeasures; at least I do. Second to that I'd consider eating and corpse sacrifices; for both of these there are ideas: these are also actions that are much more frequent than potion/scroll dropping. (I know there are interface knobs to help with those, but I always play with the vanilla defaults, like a new player would.)

For a bigger picture: I think restriction of options is generally good for a game, because then we can try get players act without their (full, standard) toolkit at times. So I think that regions (portal vaults, branches) denying the use of scrolls, or potions, or wands, or spells etc. are interesting. Item destruction is not necessary to achieve this, but it's one simple approach. Among solutions to (b), I suppport the division of consumables into tactical and strategical types, with the latter indestructible. This would need a little thought about flavour, interface and the id game but I don't see a principal obstruction.

[archaeo]

(of course, this kind of COMMON SENSE suggestion is the kind of suggestions devs worldwide don't even look twice at)

Right, because insulting devs really makes them want to code patches for the game. To wit:

However, given the amount of "retarded" and "why don't they finally..." in this thread, I don't feel at all motivated to think about solutions.

Seriously, guys, can't we all just get along?

I can understand the dev desire to, as you put it dpeg, "tinker" with player inventories. That's awesome, please do that. But item destruction as it exists is just not fun. It makes us act like crazy people, look at this thread. Let's talk solutions instead of pissing into one another's tents, or whatever. I'm in favor of removing item destruction and salting the earth it grew from, but if the devs want item destruction, surely there's some middle ground where we can agree.

[BlackSheep]

Hadn't someone started a branch with item destruction alternatives? Did that go anywhere?

[rebthor]

1) It is way too common (hello yaktaurs)
3) Many monsters that can cause it seem to be attacking my char's inventory instead of his HP (hello mid game orc wizards and ugly things).

Just to highlight these two because it's most often felt long after then actual damage to the player from these enemies is no longer threatening. I often find myself taking extra shots from that yaktaur captain with normal bolts or melee attacks from the orc knight while I move to engage the less dangerous threat to my character's life in order to prevent item destruction. I'm not saying that this happens every time, just often enough that I notice it. And the sole reason that it happens is because my character's health will regenerate but the one scroll of blinking or potion of speed I'm carrying around for emergencies will not.

Now maybe this is the interesting choices that the devs want to occur but like many others I find it weird that suboptimal behavior is encouraged.

[Bloax]

Given the amount of "retarded" and "why don't they finally..." in this thread, I don't feel at all motivated to think about solutions.

There is exactly one post with "retarded"

this. its so retarded to have a guy deal like 3 dmg to your 200hp character and burn 5 scrolls with that attack.

And even then he still has a point. It's absolutely absurd that a miniscule attack by something that can't even touch you can ignite your scrolls as if they were made of solid hydrogen.

As for "why don't they finally..", then there's none of that here. There's only a conclusive remark on the premise of this thread;

At this point it's just ridiculous that item destruction isn't gone yet. How long will this waiting game last?

I can't see why these two minor incidents would nullify everything said in this thread however. The general chorus seems to suggest that a removal should be considered, even just to see how it goes.
Or keep it for its greatest quality:

Item destruction's greatest accomplishment is giving us the weekly rant about item destruction.

[Tiktacy]

Why don't we just make it so certain creatures have item destruction? Like for example, OoF and draconian breath attacks in zot? I mean, zot is already pretty interesting, but having item destruction be exclusive to zot would reinforce the idea of it being the "final frontier."

I think item destruction is a cool idea, but it is too common. If we make it much rarer than it is now and maybe merge conservation with rCorr(preservation) then we might just be able to salvage this broken mechanic.

[Lasty]

I'm going to try to throw an idea into this thread before it gets locked for people (e.g. battaile) being awful:

Holding potions in your inventory acts as a small multiplier to cold damage (e.g. 1% per potion?). Holding scrolls acts as an identical small multiplier to fire damage. Voila. You can now hold as many scrolls or potions as you want, they won't be destroyed, but you're still penalized for carrying gigantic amounts of them with you when fighting actually-dangerous foes. Flavorwise, we can represent this by having messages like

"Your scrolls are ignited by the flames, burning you! The scrolls magically extinguish themselves."

and

"Your potions become unnaturally cold for a moment, chilling you! The potions magically revert to room temperature."

[TwilightPhoenix]

Tinkering with inventories and removing options is fine. But really, item destruction, as implemented, is just an annoying and unfun way to do it. That and it induces weekly rants, which are also unfun.

At the very least, can't we go for a middle ground in the mean time? Like, say, an attack must do at least some percent of your HP to cause item destruction. And, ideally, there's some caps on the number of items that can be destroyed to a point. Past that point (like, 40% or something), everything in your inventory is free game.

This wouldn't completely fix the problem, but it'd at least remove the, dare I use this word, stupidity of a D25 Orc Wizard destroying 4 potions with a puff of frost that did 1 damage. And it'd make item destruction more bearable until better, less tedious, and more fun solutions are found.

I also don't think that item destruction is the worst offender to Crawl's interface. In my experience, that's the constant and mindless resting (we're doing it all the time

Off-topic, but just remove resting. If the player has been out of combat for X number of turns, where X is whatever is balanced and what not, either massively increase player regen or just fully heal them. If necessary, reduce food generation slightly to compensate for the less food that would need to be consumed. I mean, if you're able to sit in one spot for 40 turns or however many it takes to rest, 99% or more of the time you'll be able to stay there until you've fully healed several times over.

This also has the nifty benefit that the player can "rest" while auto-exploring or traveling to a destination, which in turn speeds up the game.

[Marbit]

The thing that makes item destruction specially agravating to me is that it feels like a random punishment... frequently there is very little that I can do to overcome it and it severely affects the survival of my characters (say goodbye to your blinking scroll). I see how item hoarding can be a problem, I'd suggest:

-Restricting the item usage in some situations.
-Encouraging trading/sacrificing items.

In this sense I'd encourage:
-Known locks for secondary/bonus areas that ask for items to let you pass.
-Gods/creatures/items/places that reward you for sacrificing items.
-Status or places that restrict item usage.
-Perishable items.

[galehar]

Here are some explanations from elliptic about why he is opposed to item destruction removal :

I do think it serves an important purpose in current crawl: providing a reason other than weight not to carry all of your consumables
without item destruction, you'd end up always trying to carry all your possibly useful consumables (all 15 potions of heal wounds, etc), which means that the weight limit would be exceptionally annoying for most characters
there are probably other changes that we could make to help with this (making potions weigh less, generating fewer items, removing the weight limit, etc), but without such measures I do think that removing item destruction wouldn't turn out well

I don't think that letting players carry all their consumables is an issue really, yes... my concerns about removing item destruction are (1) inventory management becomes always awful because of the weight limitation and (2) should probably decrease the number of consumables generated to compensate

(to be clear, I already hate the weight limit on characters that run up against it... not because it means I can't carry as much, but because it means that every single item I find requires inventory management)
(and removing item destruction would mean I would run up against the weight limit in every game that doesn't have huge strength)

[Bloax]

As the broken record I am; I'm curious about how inventory management is worse than permanent, random and frustrating destruction of consumables?

[Sar]

That's a very unexpected point of view. Come to think of it, weight-related inventory management is something I do dislike to do.

[dck]

I'm glad there's awareness of how bad inventory management gets with the current weight system, offtopic aside I'd like question whether people would really carry everything even if the weight system was removed just because they would be able to.
It'd be really annoying to do while not providing any benefit whatsoever other than not having to walk to the nearest !HW when you've used a couple or so. The difference between this and walking back to restock due to itemdest would be that it'd happen a lot less times in a given game and if you're carrying a couple excess ones (like say five !HW instead of three, three !might instead of two) then it doesn't even need to happen right away since potions would only disappear when you decide to use them.
I am however about consumable generation rates needing to be changed just because of itemdest's disappearance.

[Sandman25]

I don't understand. When I have enough stones/potions of curing/scrolls of remove curse etc., I turn off automatic pickup for the items, when I need them again I turn them on. What's so bad about it and what item destruction has to do with that? Don't you do the same customization with current destruction?

[Siegurt]

As the broken record I am; I'm curious about how inventory management is worse than permanent, random and frustrating destruction of consumables?

Personally I find inventory management considerably more annoying than random item destruction. OTOH I also find I need consumables so infrequently that, when I lose a few, I frankly just don't care and go on about my buisness, I certainly don't get all hopping mad about it or anything, so I may be the exception rather than the rule here.

I don't understand. When I have enough stones/potions of curing/scrolls of remove curse etc., I turn off automatic pickup for the items, when I need them again I turn them on. What's so bad about it and what item destruction has to do with that? Don't you do the same customization with current destruction?

The problem is that there's not a set "number" of things you need, if for example you come across a ?blinking or !HW that you can't carry, with no item destruction what is optimal to do is to find stuff which is lower priority to drop and replace with a higher priority item. With item destruction, there's an impetus to leave the item on the ground if you already have a few, without it, it's optimal to rearrange your carried items *every time* you come across a consumable item presuming it's not worse than everything you've already got in your inventory.

The opinion made was that random item destruction exists actually rewards players for non-tedious play, by making it optimal.

[Sandman25]

The problem is that there's not a set "number" of things you need, if for example you come across a ?blinking or !HW that you can't carry, with no item destruction what is optimal to do is to find stuff which is lower priority to drop and replace with a higher priority item. With item destruction, there's an impetus to leave the item on the ground if you already have a few, without it, it's optimal to rearrange your carried items *every time* you come across a consumable item presuming it's not worse than everything you've already got in your inventory.

The opinion made was that random item destruction exists actually rewards players for non-tedious play, by making it optimal.

Thank you for the explanation. Let me elaborate more now that I start to understand the issue.
There are 2 possible cases with autoexplore:
1) character is at max weight limit. Every time I see an item which is in autopickup list, I get annoying "Really ignore the item (y/n)" and should press n. The best thing I can do here is to change autopickup for some items, using Ctrl+A is not a good idea because I don't want to miss a very important item. Item destruction does not affect this case. If I do find an item from autopickup list, then it is a very important item and it's ok to spend some time on it.
2) character is not at max weight limit. Without item destruction I just autopickup all useful items.
So I fail to see how item destruction removal can make autoexplore worse.

Now without autoexplore:
3) If autopickup is on, it is very similar to points 1 and 2.
4) If autopickup is off, you still need to decide if you want to pick up the item. Item destruction removal makes it easier because you always want to pickup potion of heal wounds without checking how much you already have.

So I must confess I still fail to see how inventory management can become more annoying without item destruction.

[araganzar]

As far as the straight-up removal of item destruction, I think this comment by dpeg is telling and has been largely passed-over:

the option to tinker with characters' inventories is a great opportunity

By removing it, you remove one of the things a developer/designer can tune to create interesting situations or choices. Also, removing destruction would result in some known and desirable changes. But as a fundamental mechanic, its absence would over time generate substantial, unpredictable, and potentially undesirable changes in player experience and behavior.

Therefore, demands to remove it by fiat or popular demand are unlikely to sway developers.

Neither will the most compelling argument, when made by someone who does not understand the above.

To me, the removal of nausea is an example of a positive and limited change that did not remove or undercut the fundamental nature of the mechanic. If someone wants to change item destruction, I would suggest starting similarly small. To me, removing it from certain attacks such as branded missiles would be the best start. One could also provide players a couple more conservation options, such as making it a possible ego on more slots or as a temporary effect from some source.

[bisonbisonbison]

Here's a vote for changing destructive effects to statuses, giving total protection in inventory / chance of destruction on use.

"Your frozen fingers drop the potion. It shatters on the ground."
"The flames enveloping you ignite the scroll. It disintegrates in your hands."

[acvar]

I do think it serves an important purpose in current crawl: providing a reason other than weight not to carry all of your consumables
without item destruction, you'd end up always trying to carry all your possibly useful consumables (all 15 potions of heal wounds, etc), which means that the weight limit would be exceptionally annoying for most characters
there are probably other changes that we could make to help with this (making potions weigh less, generating fewer items, removing the weight limit, etc), but without such measures I do think that removing item destruction wouldn't turn out well

I don't think that letting players carry all their consumables is an issue really, yes... my concerns about removing item destruction are (1) inventory management becomes always awful because of the weight limitation and (2) should probably decrease the number of consumables generated to compensate

(to be clear, I already hate the weight limit on characters that run up against it... not because it means I can't carry as much, but because it means that every single item I find requires inventory management)
(and removing item destruction would mean I would run up against the weight limit in every game that doesn't have huge strength)

I am sorry there is not polite way to say it, but this argument is simply idiotic. To explain why allow me to reword it.

I think getting kicked in the balls is important. When I get kicked in the balls I don't notice how bad it is getting punched in the face. You need to keep kicking me in the balls so I don't notice getting punched in the face.

Tedious solution A that makes tedious situation B not occure as often is a very bad solution especially when tedious situation A is more annoying then situation B.

There may be reasons to keep item destruction, but this is not one of them. The only one that I have seen presented came from dpeg, and he didn't even seem to think that it justified all the negatives.

Please devs ecplain exactly what item destruction does that several other mechanics don't allready do. Please explain the benefits of these effects. Honestly why is it a good thing that people don't carry all there good items around with them instead of leaving them littered about the dungeon?

[Siegurt]

So I must confess I still fail to see how inventory management can become more annoying without item destruction.

You've still missed the point.

Without item destruction you want to pick up all items that are good. With item destruction you want to pick up all items that are good, that you don't already have a sufficient number of in your inventory, and that are useful tactically, not strategically.

Whenever you encounter an item that you want to pick up, either you'll be at max weight/slots (in which case inventory management is needed) or you wont, in which case you'll just pick it up. That behavior doesn't change whether or not you're using auto explore, auto pickup, and doesn't change whether or not item destruction exists.

What changes with the presence/absence of item destruction is the frequency at which the the situation occurs in which a consumable is desirable to pick up and you are full. Without item destruction, the number of items it's desirable to carry around with you increases, and hence, both the time it takes to get full, and the number of times thereafter you'll encounter an item you'd like to pick up and you're full increases. (And hence making a thing that is somewhat tedious to do, come up that much more frequently.)

[rebthor]

Here's a vote for changing destructive effects to statuses, giving total protection in inventory / chance of destruction on use.

"Your frozen fingers drop the potion. It shatters on the ground."
"The flames enveloping you ignite the scroll. It disintegrates in your hands."

This is strictly worse than not having the item in the first place IMO.

All this change will accomplish is a bunch of people (somewhat legitimately) complaining "What was I supposed to do? I had 2 blink scrolls in my inventory and they both burned up when I tried to use them."

[TwilightPhoenix]

Thing is, with or without item destruction, you're going to have tedious inventory management regardless. Without it, you run into elliptic's argument. With it, you're instead micromanaging your inventory and auto-pick up so that you carry an optimal number of each type of consumable while also having to dash off to grab a new one whenever item destruction takes you below the optimal number.

Hence, inventory management is a problem regardless. Removing item destruction, or at least limiting it, you at least cut down on the tedious running back to the stash part of inventory management.