All scrolls auto-ID on pick up

[and into]

There's at least some strategy involved in terms of when and how you ID potions and other stuff (unless you are flooded with ID scrolls), but when it comes to identification of scrolls it is just the same: Read ID everything once you are reasonably sure you have remove curse, or before you are sure you have remove curse if there aren't items on you that you wouldn't mind being cursed for a while.

There's just nothing fun with the little scroll ID minigame. And it is the same minigame, every single time. On the same basis that wand ID was simplified, I'd call for simplification here. Which, in this case, would just mean scrolls auto-ID on pick up.

If you want to keep exactly same balance, have the game auto-destroy the first of each type of the scrolls ID, Fog, ?EA, EWI / EWII, etc., that generates within D1 to D6. I'd bet money (good money—folding money) that doing that would yield results that are something like 90% similar, or more, compared to the exact same game played by your average player. If that sounds about right to you, doesn't that tell you something about the scroll identification minigame?

In the interest of limiting spoilers for very new players, and in the interest of reducing tedium, and in the interest of letting players focus on the things that matter in the game, let's please just streamline this annoying process.

I actually think that auto-ID would make some decisions *more* interesting. E.g., if you have exactly one scroll of ID, exactly when and how do you use it? That's actually a richer question, strategically, than the current situation: "I got a bunch of unknown scrolls, some in pairs, some in threes, some by their lonesome. Guess I'll go into a corner and read them all. Okay lets make sure I take my gloves off so that if I get an armor curse it won't have a chance to lock down that ring I have on; let's make sure I equip my best weapon too. Oops, a bat just flitted on screen, I have one more scroll to read, but can't finish this boring process until I kill it, just in case that last scroll is immolation." (Or, if you are a draconian and haven't found a wand, better carry around a robe you literally cannot use, unless you have found a peripheral armor piece...)

Is this really what we want a significant part of the early Crawl experience to be, every single time—game in, game out?

[Greyr]

Well gosh, you seem pretty passionate about this.

Scroll identification is tedious, as you say. It's a mechanic that most players have blindly accepted for no other reason than "It's been like this 5ever"
The implications of auto ID'ing scrolls is not really all too radical; it would probably entail something simple like the removal of random uselessness (which I'm all for anyway). Tedium for the sake of tedium is tedious, and unfortunately that's what the scroll mini-game is.

[dck]

Identifying scrolls as a cat is one of the most amazingly silly things you have to go through in crawl.

[archaeo]

I don't see how you can't generalize most of these issues to the consumable ID minigame as a whole.

[Greyr]

I don't see how you can't generalize most of these issues to the consumable ID minigame as a whole.

Because drinking the wrong potion can have serious repercussions.

[and into]

I don't see how you can't generalize most of these issues to the consumable ID minigame as a whole.

Because there's at least some strategy involved (sometimes) in terms of when and how you use your scrolls of identify, and in terms of not knowing what potions are early on, which is good as it makes the early game tougher. I think that's fine. The consumable ID minigame outside of scrolls is not nearly so redundant. With scrolls it is always the same. Plus it is spoilery. By removing the scroll identification minigame, this means people will know how many scrolls of identify they have right off the bat, which actually helps make the rest of the ID minigame less spoiler-centric and more of a strategic challenge (however minor it may be, overall, in most cases). So I think there's actually an important difference.

EDIT: And what Greyr said.

[Siegurt]

I have mixed feelings on this. As-is there's no real solid reason *not* to read-ID all your scrolls, and so hunkering down and read-iding them makes the most sense and is tedious.

On the other hand, I *like* having my character discover things about the world he lives in, it's one of the core things I like about games in general, for me there's a real joy in discovery, so what *I* would actually prefer is that read-IDing scrolls comes with a real potential for an actual serious drawback (as potions currently do) making the tedious process of read-IDing a big pack of scrolls under just the right circumstance non-optimal, and encouraging either more risky play or or interesting play.

What I have in mind (Which comes to mind exactly as I write it, and so is not as polished as it probably should be) is this:

1. There are significant, rare scrolls which have tactical implications and would be wasted if read-ID'd, and perhaps some with negative consequences beyond cursing (There are some scrolls which have tactical considerations, but they aren't rare, and rare scrolls aren't tactical, at least in the current set).
2. Scrolls of ID are self-identified.
3. There are circumstances which will ID some classes of Scrolls (And perhaps potions) allowing you to at lest partially "Identify by adventuring" similar to the way that equipped jewelry can self-id (Some things that come to mind are fire damage causing scrolls of immolation to id, Hexes can cause vulnerability to self-ID, distortion damage or a teleport trap causing teleport or blinking scrolls to self ID, I'm not commited to that suggestion, but it's an idea)
4. There are less identify scrolls in the game, to compensate for the additional ways to ID stuff.

[Greyr]

I have mixed feelings on this. As-is there's no real solid reason *not* to read-ID all your scrolls, and so hunkering down and read-iding them makes the most sense and is tedious.

On the other hand, I *like* having my character discover things about the world he lives in, it's one of the core things I like about games in general, for me there's a real joy in discovery, so what *I* would actually prefer is that read-IDing scrolls comes with a real potential for an actual serious drawback (as potions currently do) making the tedious process of read-IDing a big pack of scrolls under just the right circumstance non-optimal, and encouraging either more risky play or or interesting play.

Scrolls of torment and immolation (or possibly holy word) are plenty nasty. Reading one of those at the wrong time is game ending.

2. Scrolls of ID are self-identified.
.

This.

[King_jelly]

I'd rather not have the game play itself for me. How about we keep adding more scrolls (and maybe more dangerous scrolls) to keep the id scroll game interesting. I know everyone want to make this game easy and dull, but maybe it'd be a good idea to make this a little more like an RL again.

[Siegurt]

Scrolls of torment and immolation (or possibly holy word) are plenty nasty. Reading one of those at the wrong time is game ending.

The problem is that there's currently no reason to read ID those scrolls in a circumstance in which it would actually be detrimental, ever.

Read IDing immolation or Torment or holy word, when you're just mucking around on a cleared level has 0 chance of doing anything nasty to you in the long or short run, other than possibly making you hit '5' a couple more times. (Compare that to quaff-IDing mutation or or losing a cure mutation potion either of which could potentially ultimately kill you)

[King_jelly]

I don't see how you can't generalize most of these issues to the consumable ID minigame as a whole.

Because drinking the wrong potion can have serious repercussions.

Yeah... a potion of poison! oOOOOoooOOOo scary!

[cerebovssquire]

I don't see how you can't generalize most of these issues to the consumable ID minigame as a whole.

Because drinking the wrong potion can have serious repercussions.

Yeah... a potion of poison! oOOOOoooOOOo scary!

Wasting a potion of speed is very scary. The negative potions don't make scroll-IDing worth it, it's wasting good potions.

[Siegurt]

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=10785&p=148914&hilit=strong+poison#p148914

[Greyr]

I'd rather not have the game play itself for me. How about we keep adding more scrolls (and maybe more dangerous scrolls) to keep the id scroll game interesting. I know everyone want to make this game easy and dull, but maybe it'd be a good idea to make this a little more like an RL again.

... How about a little gratitude to the people who take time out of their real life to make this game happen?

I don't see how you can't generalize most of these issues to the consumable ID minigame as a whole.

Because drinking the wrong potion can have serious repercussions.

Yeah... a potion of poison! oOOOOoooOOOo scary!

Uh. Mutation, strong poison, paralysis, and confusion all spring to mind.

[dck]

The only part of the game where I find consumable identification (and weapon/armour enchantment identification too, to a much lower degree) as a whole to be positive to crawl is in the very early game when you may have the resources to fix fuck-ups in various ways cheaply but don't know you have them yet.
To me that's basically D: 1, maybe 2 if I forget to read things when I enter D: 2 since from them on I systematically read anything as I enter a new level, or past the point noise and mmap have been id'd or I'm starting to hit lower D just on pickup.

The difference between scrolls and potions is that potions are much more useful and to waste one is a tragedy, while there are some very good scrolls like ?fog and ?blink that is a shame to waste it doesn't add up to anything close to wasting your first !speed or !might, which is why no one quaff IDs but most people read IDs.

Also there are several really spoilery rituals you have to go through to read ID optimally and this is all just stuff that's being put on newbies' backs for basically no reason. It's not interesting to play guessing games with targeted scrolls and it's not interesting having to unwield that one sling I was using early on unless I risk getting it cursed with no rc ID'd yet.

[duvessa]

Much as I wish the scroll ID minigame would go away (also, the rest of the ID minigames), one of the premises of and into's argument - that you should always read-ID scrolls - strikes me as egregiously wrong. I usually try not to identify enchant armour, recharging, enchant weapon, blinking, fear, and fog by using them, because you lose them if you do that and they are quite valuable. Of course this still isn't interesting at all so the overall point stands.

[cerebovssquire]

Uh. Mutation, strong poison, paralysis, and confusion all spring to mind.

Paralysis and confusion are harmless under the assumption that you aren't quaff-IDing during combat. In you are, that situation is rare to begin with, potions of curing and heal wounds are usually obvious because you find more of these, and if they aren't obvious, you were probably going to die regardless of what else you quaff-ID.

[Greyr]

I'd rather not have the game play itself for me. How about we keep adding more scrolls (and maybe more dangerous scrolls) to keep the id scroll game interesting. I know everyone want to make this game easy and dull, but maybe it'd be a good idea to make this a little more like an RL again.

... How about a little gratitude to the people who take time out of their real life to make this game happen?


Ya know, I sound like an asshole. I apologize.

I only meant to point out that this game is HUGE and the devs are but a handful of people (with real jobs) and are CONSTANTLY trying their BEST to make this game as enjoyable and strategically rich as possible.

[King_jelly]

https://crawl.develz.org/tavern/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=10785&p=148914&hilit=strong+poison#p148914

Strong poison is so rare... by the time people usually find it, they have a stock pile of potion of curing.

Lets be honest, NOTHING about the unidetified consumables in this game are scary... NONE. I have no fear read iding, I have no fear quaff iding. That's one of the problems with this game, goes too easy on the player. Anyone remember potion of liquid flame from other RLs? Sometimes those were insta-death. Im not saying we should go to that extreme, but the fact that most consumables are fairly safe and trivial by the time you reach lair is part of the reason why the id game is also boring and trivial.

Very few times was I screwed over by it.

[cerebovssquire]

I have no fear quaff iding

In how many situtations that your characters die in would they have survived if they had quaffed a potion of speed that could have been scroll-IDed? quaff-IDing is dangerous if you consider the long term.

Lets be honest, NOTHING about the unidetified consumables in this game are scary

This reads like a completely normal and good thing to me. Yes, other roguelikes do the whole death by identification thing, but crawl's design goals don't mention being like other roguelikes at all costs, but do mention avoiding spoilers - potions that significantly harm your character or outright kill it when you ID them are basically the definition of spoilery. (I think uninteresting and spoilery describes the current state of IDing as well, but you seem to want to make it worse with regards to spoilers)

[Greyr]

So we can all agree that the loss of a useful potion is a much bigger threat/bummer than quaffing a harmful one. That being said, and reiterating point that's already been thoroughly established: do not quaff ID. Going off the assumption of a few posters here that randomly ID'ing things won't get you outright killed (which it will, eventually) what is the purpose of identify then? Let's be real here. Identifying stuff is important. Using your resources efficiently is paramount to success in crawl.

Anyway. Let's just scrap all potions and scrolls, they're annoying.

[Klown]

Why is there a Scroll of Random Uselessness, btw? It seems rather random and useless.

[Greyr]

Why is there a Scroll of Random Uselessness, btw? It seems rather random and useless.

Butterflies.
A /free/ level one spell with NO hunger costs? Idk, they're pretty OP...

[conted]

I do not read-ID every unidentified scroll because scrolls of summoning, silence, holy word, brand weapon, and vulnerability are rare and valuable. So I would certainly not like for the numbers of these scrolls to be reduced under the assumption that people always read-ID them. Early on I will often scroll-ID scrolls if I have no potions to ID because scrolls of blinking, teleportation, fog, and fear are comparable in value to the good potions at this point in the game.

[Wahaha]

when it comes to identification of scrolls it is just the same: Read ID everything once you are reasonably sure you have remove curse

I don't do this so you're assuming things here. Once I have teleport identified I usually don't read ID. When I have tele, blinking and fear identified I don't read-ID at all until I have a wand, armor and optionally weapon to use the enchant/recharge scrolls on. This means that in Lair half of my scrolls aren't identified. But for example if I have enchant armor already identified I don't worry about getting a good armor before read-IDing obviously.

I also use identify scrolls on scrolls very often once I have curing, heal wounds, speed, and a decent amount of other potions identified. Because wasting tele and blink is just as bad as wasting a potion of speed or whatever. Usually I identify at least over ~8 scrolls with ID scrolls (once I have tele, blink and fear I usually identify the rest with ID scrolls). Wasting recharging and enchant armor is bad. Silence is also a very valuable scroll.

So no I disagree with your statement that scroll identification is always the same read-ID everything.

[dpeg]

I realise that most people have their own algorithm about item identification, and I also realise that especially regular players may find the procedure to be tedious. However, I am not sure that it's clear what the "best" approach to item identification is (and I have a hunch there's some groupthink at play). Ideally, the answer would be "it depends". If that's not the case yet, we should try to make it so. Unfortunately, I've never seen a dedicated (and detached from daily play) discussion about what can make the id-minigame fun (or why it couldn't ever be fun)... Some buzzwords that might help with the "it depends": shops, monsters using items, generation of ?identify in your current game.

(And here is my approach: I use early scrolls of identify on potions because more potions than scrolls are tactically relevant, but I try to avoid having to read-id blinking.)

[savageorange]

I have no fear quaff iding

In how many situtations that your characters die in would they have survived if they had quaffed a potion of speed that could have been scroll-IDed? quaff-IDing is dangerous if you consider the long term.

Can we avoid oversimplifying here? Quaff-iding is dangerous at a certain point (when you haven't yet identified the important good and bad potions). Some potions are invariably fine to quaff-ID as long as you are careful (experience, paralysis, confusion, *blood). Others are rather build-dependent in their usefulness (berserk rage, brilliance).

Personally, I always aim to whittle down the non-IDed list to a final list of items I don't particularly care about for this character, so that I don't need to spend ID scrolls on them.

Lets be honest, NOTHING about the unidetified consumables in this game are scary

This reads like a completely normal and good thing to me. Yes, other roguelikes do the whole death by identification thing, but crawl's design goals don't mention being like other roguelikes at all costs, but do mention avoiding spoilers - potions that significantly harm your character or outright kill it when you ID them are basically the definition of spoilery. (I think uninteresting and spoilery describes the current state of IDing as well, but you seem to want to make it worse with regards to spoilers)

I have to agree -- direct death by ID is purely infuriating, and if it got into Crawl, it would be on the very short list of 'ways of dying an unfair death'.


On the broader subject of improving ID,

* Angband recently acquired the concept of 'runes' (quite different from the crawl concept), which basically says, the magical properties of things are made up of runes..you have like a 'fire' rune, and a 'protect' rune, and etc.. So if you ID a ring of fire, you should then automatically get ID of a scroll of immolation or a ring mail of fire resistance (extrapolating onto Crawl items here), or a rF+ property on an artifact/randart.

To me, that makes ID both make more sense, and be less grindy. It makes ID of rare properties still require ?Id, while suggesting the character is capable of thought .

* Another idea, which you may scream in horror at, but I wanted to put on the table, is of randomized 'ID timeouts'. This would consist of, when you get the first scroll/potion of type X, an ID timeout in turns would be randomly generated, based on the item's natural depth and value. After that number of turns elapses, the item would auto-ID.

This models the process of the rogue exploring the dungeon and understanding more about its items... in a much more organic and cognitive way than our current model, which is more like the player is a robot that's unable to make intuitive leaps or even do basic Bayesian inference

[and into]

Much as I wish the scroll ID minigame would go away (also, the rest of the ID minigames), one of the premises of and into's argument - that you should always read-ID scrolls - strikes me as egregiously wrong. I usually try not to identify enchant armour, recharging, enchant weapon, blinking, fear, and fog by using them, because you lose them if you do that and they are quite valuable. Of course this still isn't interesting at all so the overall point stands.

(And also responding to dpeg):

I overstated the case, certainly. I was a bit rushed making the post but I wanted to start a conversation about this in GDD.

Ideally one does not want to waste scrolls. Also, I do think there are some differences in exactly how different players will approach the lack of knowledge about scrolls. However, I don't think that the differences here matter very much, nor do they tend to be interesting. At least, they tend not to be interesting enough to justify the spoiler-reliant quality (for very new players) and the tedium (for people who have played for a while). I think people tend to fall into a more or less reasonable (but not necessarily "ideal") habit with respect to IDing scrolls, precisely because it matters so little. dpeg called it groupthink, but "habit" seems much more appropriate; one simply does it because (after doing it many times) it isn't very fun so it becomes routinized, and the gains that one gets from "extremely good / best method" versus a "(reasonably) reasonable" method are extremely narrow. So long as one's method of scroll identification is not wildly wasteful, and so long as one doesn't put off doing it for an abnormally long time given the circumstances of their game, the chances that any decisions you made during scroll identification will impact your game deleteriously are incredibly small. Even worse, any advantage gained here doesn't tend to accumulate (the way a bunch of smart skill investments can), because as long as you have enough consumables, you are just as well off as a character who has more than enough consumables. This simple fact strips even marginal gains to identification method of any real stakes outside of rather unlikely scenarios.

(Under what circumstances to engage in (some degree of) quaff IDing is much more of a calculated risk in my experience—and thus interesting, even if under most circumstances it is best not to quaff ID.)

The question to my mind here is one of balance. Not in the sense of (over)poweredness, but in the sense of, "How much good versus how much bad comes from scroll identification?" Having a higher initial learning curve and more spoilers are more obvious downsides, but then there are also some of the degenerate behaviors that I referenced in my first post. Is it worth it? I say, "No."

[archaeo]

Damnit, and into, I had just written up a lengthy "reasons why dipping would be terrible" explanation, but you took the wind out of my sails with your wall of text (you wrote like ten words for my every one).

dpeg called it groupthink, but "habit" seems much more appropriate

"Groupthink" is the operative term. It typifies players' habits, especially since our reference materials are all hilariously imperfect and the community's proud oral tradition keeps several myths or customs alive. The common tropes of the ID game (read ID, don't quaff ID) are pretty set in stone among most players, but I don't know that there's any real evidence that this is really "optimal" beyond what I've heard.

Under what circumstances to engage in (some degree of) quaff IDing is much more of a calculated risk in my experience—and thus interesting, even if under most circumstances it is best not to quaff ID.

See, there's only one potion that will ruin your game if you quaff ID it, probably. A potion, I'll remind you, that has most/all of its effects duplicated by mutagenic chunks. Otherwise, potions are basically scrolls, with excellent ones you don't want to waste (blinking/cure mut/speed/fog) and questionable/marginal items (holy word/lignification/berserk/torment).

Again: I fail to see what makes potions different from scrolls here, other than the fact that potions-as-they-exist have a nasty minigame whereas scrolls are harmless.

[dpeg]

Some notes in advances: 1. I didn't want to offend anyone with the word "groupthink" -- I am fine with "habit". I have seen some forum/IRC-related questionable traditions over the years (a few examples: fear of autoskilling, overexpectation of GDR, the sudden rise of irrational hatred to all things summoned -- please don't discuss these in this thread).
2. The noise in the this thread makes me wonder whether my time is spent well by replying here.

I would very much like to discuss the id-game properly, i.e. from the basics. To me, finding unknown things and having to identify them is a core concept of rogueliking. Now I know that everyone likes to challenge the principles (Crawl is no exception, and I did my fair share) and DCSS has a history of removals, sometimes radical. However, I am absolutely unconvinced that such a drastic measure is called for. In other words, the tedium you describe is not my tedium, and I'd also like to know why you think there is no way to improve scroll identification.

As I see it, the id-minigame is only relevant very early, but it has a function: at a period where there are not so many strategical choices (like spell choice, or skilling, say), it tries to provide some decisions. And that's not just a break from the otherwise simplified early game (e.g. generally no god, only a limited toolkit to deal with monsters), it is also a way to make mistakes, which increases a games' depth.

Ultimately, it might just be a matter of preference (just like labyrinths: some players passionately hate them, but I really enjoy them, so I completely fail to see the need to remove labs). I think there's more to it though, and since the id-minigame affects almost every game, it would be good to know and to discuss.

[Bart]

Personally I find identifying items as an interesting early challenge. Proper spending of ID scrolls might save life and that's a worthy addition.
On the other hand, as the game proceeds, identifying becomes useless. If ID scrolls were more scarce, they could impact player's choices (should I wear this item? Should I drink this potion?). Currently, with so many items auto-identifying themselves, ID scrolls are having less and less sense, as one usually has a stockpile of scrolls enough to ID everything... unless sticky flame happens, but that's other topic

[vengefulcarrot]

With what Bart said. Maybe we could have an item that just identifies things automatically which can be found later in the game like the PLANK OF KNOWLEDGE, but then that would kinda make ash's ability a bit irrelevant so I don't know what I am talking about.

[MIC132]

Identifying stuff (including scrolls) is on of the reasons I even play roguelikes..
I'm not very good at them, but identifying and discovering stuff is really one of the most fun things in DCSS for me, and the reason that it has such awesome replayablity.

[Bim]

So the responses to this thread show that people are pretty strongly divided on the issue. I'd say that making Identify scrolls auto-ID'd would be a good compromise. They are by their very nature an object of identification, so it seems weird that you need to identify the indentifyer. Remove curse scrolls could also do this, as they are 'good' scrolls.

Still, it'd cut out the tedium of 'find the ID and remove curse', which is mainly just the scrolls you have most of early on.

I really do have to say though, a lot of you are coming from this as experienced and spoiled players - you know what all the scrolls do and don't see the point. For new players (and when I was a new player) I thought finding new things that scrolls did was awesome. Immolation!? HELL YES! HOLY WORD OHMYGODDDD! RANDOMBUTTERFLIES WTFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF.

[dpeg]

Bim: Indeed, there is a divide between frequent players, who want the experience to be as streamlined as possible and irregular/new players who
This is not the same thing as secrets in the game (a supposedly fun feature that is interesting once and becomes tedious as you figure it out; in the worst case if tedious from the start because you spoiled yourself) -- id mini-game has the potential to create decisions. In my opinion, this discussion is mostly about personal assessments whether these decisions are fun and/or worth the trouble.

Like I said, I'd much rather discuss about identification itself than throwing out the baby with the water. So for those who say they follow a set pattern when it comes to scrolls: would you change your approach if there was a guaranteed consumables shop until D:9? If several uniques had a chance to come with pre-identified scrolls? If scrolls of blinking were more rare? (All of these ideas are completely random, of course. Just trying to ignite discussion.)

[Sar]

I thought about it a bit and I actually don't hate ID minigame. Some aspects of it are clumsy but it does matter in the part of the game I enjoy the most, which is early game.
I also don't like special-casing ID scrolls. I mean they usually are the most common ones, and that can be considered spoilery, but "usually" does not mean "always", and the same case can be made for potions of curing.

[sanka]

I would change the ID minigame to something like this:
1. Make everything use/wield ID.Even artefact jewelry, and enchant armour scroll, etc. The cost is the lost consumable, or the risk of a cursed item.
2. Remove all strictly bad potions, like paralisys etc. They are completly pointless.
3. Generate less ID scrolls, so you *need* to use/wield ID stuff. Since you can identify everything without ID scrolls, I think way less ID scrolls would be good, and it will be a good deceison on what to use them.

I think this would provide with even more tension early game (since the less ID scrolls) and get rid of the annoying identifications late game (where it's only annoying).

[galehar]

I don't think you can call the id game spoilery. Of course, reading spoilers can help, but the definition of a spoilery feature is one that is very hard to learn from experimentation. And this isn't the case.
How about reducing the frequency of RC scrolls? That could add a bit of tension to scroll read-iding.

[Sar]

Well, on top of my head it probably would be nice to tell a first time player than when his GIBBERISH WORDS scroll asks for a target it's either ?ID, ?ea or ?recharging.
On other hand that would clutter inventory for people who already know that.
And reducing ?rcurse frequency would be an indirect nerf to my favourite god!

[Bart]

I don't think you can call the id game spoilery. Of course, reading spoilers can help, but the definition of a spoilery feature is one that is very hard to learn from experimentation. And this isn't the case.
How about reducing the frequency of RC scrolls? That could add a bit of tension to scroll read-iding.

It's fine idea, but then also allow Ash worshippers to choose what kind of scroll is created from RC to not screw them completely.
I also suggested before to decrease amount of ID scrolls. Summing both up, it would make worthwhile to think what you're reading/equipping.

[phobetor]

Ultimately, it might just be a matter of preference (just like labyrinths: some players passionately hate them, but I really enjoy them, so I completely fail to see the need to remove labs).

This is a good point, but labyrinths can be easily skipped with little penalty. The ID minigame could be skipped but your character probably wouldn't last that long. What if instead of removing or changing IDing people who dislike it where given a way to bypass is?

Off the top of my head i'd say add a new starting class. One that starts with all consumable items already IDed, but has lack luster skills. They have a rather large advantage in that they immediately know what can save them, but the down side of starting weaker so they have to use those items more often.

Scholar: A learned adventure with extensive knowledge of the dungeon. While their studies gave them knowledge their practical skills are lacking. Or Curse Knight: A devote of Ashenzari who enter the dungeon with cursed gear and knowledge granted by his god.

[duvessa]

I think my biggest gripe with item identification in Crawl is item destruction. It means it's optimal to drop most of your unidentified consumables, and then come back to them when you find a scroll of identify, and pick three of them up, and then drop them again.

[dpeg]

duvessa: That's a good point. I'll try to mention replacing item destruction with inability to use ("Your scrolls are too hot, they'd burn!", "Your potions are too cold, they'd shatter!") in ##crawl-dev from time to time. (I still think that disabling tactical options can be interesting --e.g. denying access to potions, scrolls, wands, god etc.-- but you have convinced me that actual destruction is a clumsy way to do this, and there should be better ones.)

I also believe that the id game can be improved with little changes, like adding a few items, or changing some rules a little bit.

[dpeg]

and_into: I'll admit I don't understand the purpose of the prose you're writing (and I don't understand the prose itself very well either). Are you sure this will help us along the path to a better (for you: removed) id minigame?

[Kate]

A general note that applies to a lot of people in this thread: avoid responding to off-topic or unhelpful posts as this is likely to make the thread even less useful. Instead use the "Report" button. Thanks!

[and into]

@dpeg:

To clarify, I like that you have to ID things in the game, in general.

It is very specifically scroll identification that I wonder about. I'll try to outline the reasons more thoroughly and charitably than I did in my OP.

1.) All potions do something directly to your character—you drink them, they do something bad or good. Scrolls produce a variety of effects, some of them affect your surroundings, some affect creatures around you, some affect your items (two affect everything in LOS including you, and one—amnesia—affects just you). There have already been a lot of (in my opinion, reasonable) changes to how and when things identify, because, e.g., having to find a rat for read-ID of ?fear was a bit silly in terms of game play, even if made sense in some ways ("this thing affects enemies, so there need to be enemies around for its effect to be clear and for your character to identify it"). But because it resulted in some silly game play decisions, the flavor of the scroll was cleverly tweaked so it makes sense that it IDs even if you use it when no one else is around ("You assume a fearsome visage"). Then, for a long time, scroll of recharge wouldn't ID upon use even when you already knew ?identify and ?enchant armour, which was an interface annoyance; I believe this was just recently changed (again, a change for the better). While that is all good, some weird cases remain, especially with species that have armor restrictions. You get weird interactions and game play still, because you carry around armor as a draconian you can't use in order to figure out what ?EA is, and the whole case of felids is pretty strange as dck points out. So the whole scroll ID minigame interacts weirdly—and sometimes badly, according to Crawl design—with many species. I don't think that when choosing what species to play, nor when in game development devs are thinking of new species to add, the scroll minigame should be a consideration. In this sense it is a minor impediment perhaps, but an impediment nonetheless.

2.) It is nearly always the case that the whole curse system, which is supported almost entirely by scrolls, matters only for Ash worshipers. Ash is one of my three favorite gods, and I'm fine with those items existing largely for Ash's benefit. But because scrolls matter for every character, it adds a bit of annoyance to those characters. I'd like to keep Ash, keep curses, keep scrolls, and remove that annoyance. Auto-ID of scrolls seems the clearest and most direct way to do this, even if it is radical. (I actually don't think it is that radical, personally, but if a dev considers it radical I defer to his or her judgment.)

3.) Keeping information from the player is good and can be interesting. There may be some differences in how people go about doing this, but honestly if you read ID all scrolls that you have multiple copies of by D4 or D5, the chance that one of those larger stacks happened to be (e.g.) ?blinking is already low, and the chance of having that one (potentially) wasted scroll coming back to bite you is incredibly low, especially since in this scenario your one wasted ?blinking is being compensated by the fact that you now have one or two identified scrolls of blinking. Things are sometimes a bit more interesting when you have had a scroll-scarce early game, but I think having fewer scrolls than average is in itself interesting and puts a lot more pressure on the player to find other ways to compensate (perhaps thinking outside the box a bit), which isn't aided by the whole scroll ID thing, but just made somewhat aggravating. (That's my experience, at least.)

As far as tactical scrolls are concerned: A lot of potions give straight up buffs or healing, whereas tactical scrolls are innately interesting. ?fog, ?fear, and ?teleport either need to be used somewhat intelligently in terms of terrain and position, and thus require a bit of nuance, or (in case of ?teleport) carry an element of risk built in. So to my mind it makes sense that !potions are more unequivocally helpful, but non-identified, whereas ?scrolls require a bit more thought to use well and thus already are interesting for game play without erecting knowledge barriers. (The relatively rare ?blinking is an exception to this, admittedly.)

4.) Even with all the changes to make identification of scrolls better, there are still bad kinds of game play encouraged, as I and others have pointed out. This can sometimes apply to potions, as well, but you generally deal with scrolls first for a variety of reasons, one of the major ones being that you want to figure out what ?identify is so that you can begin figuring out all your other consumables. So scroll identification tends to bear the brunt of this, I think.


Final point: Tangentially related, but if this hasn't been done in Trunk yet, rings of sustenance and hunger should auto-ID when worn. Or else just removed. Actually removal should be better because people actually do stuff like swap on rings of sustenance while auto-traveling...

[nicolae]

Auto-ID of scrolls seems the clearest and most direct way to do this, even if it is radical. (I actually don't think it is that radical, personally, but if a dev considers it radical I defer to his or her judgment.)

Agreedo. I think all scrolls should auto-ID after being read, and when you read recharging, enchant armour, or identify, you know what the scroll is before choosing something from the inventory, because wasting a scroll of enchant armour on a weapon or wand isn't super interesting. (In Nethack, scrolls of identify are IDed on use before you choose items from your inventory. Surely we can at least be better than Nethack when it comes to scrolls of identify!)

[and into]

Auto-ID of scrolls seems the clearest and most direct way to do this, even if it is radical. (I actually don't think it is that radical, personally, but if a dev considers it radical I defer to his or her judgment.)

Agreedo. I think all scrolls should auto-ID after being read, and when you read recharging, enchant armour, or identify, you know what the scroll is before choosing something from the inventory, because wasting a scroll of enchant armour on a weapon or wand isn't super interesting. (In Nethack, scrolls of identify are IDed on use before you choose items from your inventory. Surely we can at least be better than Nethack when it comes to scrolls of identify!)

Ok, if auto-ID on pick up is too radical, I'd still be much happier with universal auto-ID of all scrolls upon reading. Is this, at least experimentally/provisionally, something we can try out?

[duvessa]

One note on that: it makes it (more) generally optimal to remove all armour and jewellery before identifying scrolls, until you have curse jewellery and armour identified. (I think it would be fine if curse scrolls just didn't generate, and were only accessible using Ashenzari.)

[and into]

How about:
1.) All scrolls ID upon reading.
2.) Scrolls of curse foo never generate randomly.
3.) For Ash, praying over remove curse scrolls destroys them, and replaces them with scrolls of curse foo. However, more than one scroll of curse foo can be generated from each scroll of remove curse, such that the average number of curse scrolls available to Ash worshipers evens out to the same as it is now. Exactly how many and what type of curse scroll is generated from sacrificing the ?remove curse will still be randomized.

Does that cover everything?