All scrolls auto-ID on pick up

[savageorange]

Sounds like a pretty clear improvement to me.

[Leafsnail]

As far as I know, currently the only scrolls that don't always ID on reading are:
- Curse foo
- Remove curse
- Enchant Armour
- Identify
- Recharging

I don't think making those always ID would change much gameplay-wise, except occasionally causing you to waste one fewer recharge/ea than you otherwise would have.

[Kate]

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?

This sounds roughly like what I had thought of doing in the past (except I had no particular plan on how to deal with Ashenzari - this way seems decent in that makes it easy to adjust the availability of curse foo). The other question is where to distribute the item weight for scrolls of curse foo - I guess probably just some split between noise and random uselessness is easiest.

[dpeg]

I should mention that Crawl's use of curses -- only sticky items -- is far from ideal. There are plans to address that (and again, I believe that something more interesting than removal is possible), but that's off-topic and far away.

[rabidweasel]

To add to the suggested changes, perhaps enchant and brand weapon scrolls can be made targeted so that you don't have to ensure you're wielding whichever weapon you're trying to enhance when read-IDing them (and would also give more symmetry with enchant armour)

[duvessa]

As long as they identify before targeting (brand weapon already does that by the way). Having to manually identify six targeted scrolls would not be fun imo.

[Mattchew]

I think scrolls auto identifying upon pickup is a huge change. I hope it's not implemented.

I am an intermediate player (150 games) and I do not think I have figured out how to optimally play scroll ID. Only recently have I even started to consider how I might save that first scroll of blinking. I think there's a lot of new players for whom scroll ID adds considerable interest and discovery to the game.

If you remove the scroll ID game that will have ripple effects on the potion ID game also. Do people want to remove that too?

Ashenzari is one of the most interesting gods. Making curse scrolls into an afterthought would steal a lot of his cool. I know not everyone cares about flavor, but I think Ash is so neat that I'd rather see curse scrolls get meaner (scroll of delayed curses?), or remove curse scrolls get nerfed (removing only 1-3 curses, similar to identify) to make them more relevant, rather than doing something to make him less flavorful. (I do hope curses never get as vicious as they were in Nethack, though.)

At least for me, not knowing all the scrolls is interesting even into the later game, because there is a sense of anticipation about whether this might finally be that scroll of acquirement. For those of us that do a lot of autoexplore, that would be gone entirely with auto ID upon pickup. Maybe the game could get more rare and interesting scrolls to make that feeling more pronounced. (Scrolls of brand armour?) This feeling of an unopened christmas present is a big part of the charm of roguelikes (this is why demonspawn are such a fun race, IMO). I'd like more of this feeling, not less.

Some of the other proposed changes, like the targeted scrolls auto-iding to a single type upon reading, or enchant weapon being player's choice, seem less sweeping and more likely to be improvements for everybody to me.

[archaeo]

I should mention that Crawl's use of curses -- only sticky items -- is far from ideal. There are plans to address that (and again, I believe that something more interesting than removal is possible), but that's off-topic and far away.

I don't think it's as off topic as you think; the curse minigame and the ID minigame are both examples of the larger set of "roguelike standard mechanics" that are beginning to look downright vestigial. But I'm not complaining, as I think this is a good thing. If we get rid of the things that make these minigames suck, what we'll end up with are very simple mechanics that'll be easier to add to. Destroy to rebuild, if you will.

Seems like this thread's got the right idea about scroll ID, anyway, and I like and into's idea. Still leaves potions, but I've gotten the impression that people like the quaffing-while-grasping-at-straws-and-dying-in-D6 thing or making mistakes with mutation/poison/what have you.

[TheDefiniteArticle]

Only recently have I even started to consider how I might save that first scroll of blinking.

The thing is that the way things currently work, the answer to that is "you don't". Every ID scroll goes to potions - because they are stronger and thus more valuable than scrolls - and Crawl has tried to remove all ancillary forms of identification. That leaves two options, mass scroll reading to identify them, or leaving them on the Temple steps until you eventually have excess ID scrolls. Since the latter option means you will spend more time with Scroll of Life-Saving-er-I-mean-"blinking" unidentified, AND means you will have to do even more tedious running back and forth than usual, it is invariably best to just waste that one scroll so you can use the others when you need them.

If you remove the scroll ID game that will have ripple effects on the potion ID game also. Do people want to remove that too?

It will not because the ID game already revolves entirely around potions with all other items essentially getting the table scraps when you happen to have more ID scrolls than potions.

And honestly, yes I'd like to remove it, Crawl's ID game is incredibly simplistic and only really matters up until about midway through D3. If it were more involved and interesting I would want to save it, but that would necessarily entail spoilery features and ancillary methods of identification, which go against Crawl's design.

At least for me, not knowing all the scrolls is interesting even into the later game, because there is a sense of anticipation about whether this might finally be that scroll of acquirement.

That's far and away the worst part about current ID game. Brand weapon and holy word are incredibly rare, such that playing through an entire game and seeing only one isn't even unusual. But using a scroll of identify to find them is really dumb and wasteful unless you have a truckload of identify scrolls. Instead you invariably identify them either by reading (which wastes your only holy word scroll) or by process of elimination (which is dumb and spoilery and they should auto-id in this case). Adding item destruction to the mix, and I find myself questioning why these scrolls even exist if making good use of them is going to continue being next to impossible.

[Amnesiac]

I'd like at least all scrolls with a permanent effect to be ID'd on pick-up.

[dpeg]

And honestly, yes I'd like to remove [the scroll id game], Crawl's ID game is incredibly simplistic and only really matters up until about midway through D3. If it were more involved and interesting I would want to save it, but that would necessarily entail spoilery features and ancillary methods of identification, which go against Crawl's design.

I have absolutely no clue how you get to make statements like this. Why does an involved and interesting id game have to include spoilery features? In my opinion, that's just a self-fulfilling prophecy. The point about spoilers is moot anyway -- it is always our decision whether something relies on outside information or not.

[Mattchew]

Only recently have I even started to consider how I might save that first scroll of blinking.

The thing is that the way things currently work, the answer to that is "you don't". Every ID scroll goes to potions - because they are stronger and thus more valuable than scrolls - and Crawl has tried to remove all ancillary forms of identification. That leaves two options, mass scroll reading to identify them, or leaving them on the Temple steps until you eventually have excess ID scrolls. Since the latter option means you will spend more time with Scroll of Life-Saving-er-I-mean-"blinking" unidentified, AND means you will have to do even more tedious running back and forth than usual, it is invariably best to just waste that one scroll so you can use the others when you need them.

Might well be what I keep doing.

If you remove the scroll ID game that will have ripple effects on the potion ID game also. Do people want to remove that too?

It will not because the ID game already revolves entirely around potions with all other items essentially getting the table scraps when you happen to have more ID scrolls than potions.

Nearly every game I use scrolls to identify jewelry before potions. Maybe faulty play, but I do it, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

And honestly, yes I'd like to remove it, Crawl's ID game is incredibly simplistic and only really matters up until about midway through D3. If it were more involved and interesting I would want to save it, but that would necessarily entail spoilery features and ancillary methods of identification, which go against Crawl's design.

At least for me, not knowing all the scrolls is interesting even into the later game, because there is a sense of anticipation about whether this might finally be that scroll of acquirement.

That's far and away the worst part about current ID game. Brand weapon and holy word are incredibly rare, such that playing through an entire game and seeing only one isn't even unusual. But using a scroll of identify to find them is really dumb and wasteful unless you have a truckload of identify scrolls. Instead you invariably identify them either by reading (which wastes your only holy word scroll) or by process of elimination (which is dumb and spoilery and they should auto-id in this case). Adding item destruction to the mix, and I find myself questioning why these scrolls even exist if making good use of them is going to continue being next to impossible.

Agreed that accidentally wasting a super rare scroll by reading doesn't is kinda sucky, though I don't mind losing a brand weapon or holy word that much. If I was better it might bug me more, but it just feels like part of the game right now.

(For what it is worth, I think I've used a holy word scroll effectively maybe once or twice in all the time I've played. Because they're so rare, and they're only useful in a particular situation, I tend to forget about them entirely or decide they don't warrant the slot.)

Maybe some of the rare scrolls could get a tag like the spellbook {highlevel} warning so you know not to read-ID them casually. I'm sure there's other ways to improve the ID game rather than scrapping it.

[TheDefiniteArticle]

And honestly, yes I'd like to remove [the scroll id game], Crawl's ID game is incredibly simplistic and only really matters up until about midway through D3. If it were more involved and interesting I would want to save it, but that would necessarily entail spoilery features and ancillary methods of identification, which go against Crawl's design.

I have absolutely no clue how you get to make statements like this. Why does an involved and interesting id game have to include spoilery features? In my opinion, that's just a self-fulfilling prophecy. The point about spoilers is moot anyway -- it is always our decision whether something relies on outside information or not.

Identification is based on hiding information from the player and selectively revealing it. The ways in which the information can be revealed are limited. The first possibility is that items can be identified by their unique properties. This is a simple knowledge barrier at best ("scroll of identify costs X gold") and a tedious affair of testing every item for every possibility at worst (walking in and out of Mephitic Cloud with every ring and amulet in my inventory is a thing that actually happens in Crawl right now). Note that the relative frequencies of the items fall into this category, as well as the fact that certain vaults generate certain potions.

The other possibility is for the item to be identified by an outside source. However, anything without a permanent cost leads to scumming/grinding/farming/whatever. Anything with a permanent cost encourages the player to, for example, quaff-id useless potions in order not to waste identification, unless it avoids that problem by identifying a group of items rather than being targeted. But now we must note that detect curse was removed because identification en masse encourages stockpiling large amounts of unknown items. Additionally, without a re-working of all Crawl's consumables, targeted identification will continue to be utterly dominated by potions.

If I was better it might bug me more, but it just feels like part of the game right now.

It doesn't matter how much it bugs you. The fact that it bugs you AT ALL means that it is a problem that needs to be addressed in some way. Complacency breeds failure.

Nearly every game I use scrolls to identify jewelry before potions. Maybe faulty play, but I do it, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

It is objectively awful play. Using a scroll to identify a ring of fire resistance is a waste of a scroll because A) you can just drop your scrolls and step in a flame cloud to test (or some other dumb spoilery thing) and B) the ring still gives you fire resistance even if you don't know it. Contrast this with a potion of might; The only way to use-id it is to waste it, and as long as it sits in your inventory unidentified it provides no benefit at all. The exception to the above is randart jewellery, because scroll of identify is the ONLY way to fully identify artefact jewellery, and artefact jewellery can have severe hidden drawbacks.

But my question is why do you do that? Either you're playing poorly due to a lack of information (because identification is inherently spoiler-ific) or you know this stuff already and you are playing poorly deliberately. I ask this because if players are knowingly choosing to lower their chances of winning, there is a serious design problem.

[savageorange]

Nearly every game I use scrolls to identify jewelry before potions. Maybe faulty play, but I do it, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

It is objectively awful play. Using a scroll to identify a ring of fire resistance is a waste of a scroll because A) you can just drop your scrolls and step in a flame cloud to test (or some other dumb spoilery thing)

How is that spoilery? \ tells you what types of rings there are, it would be strange to expect a 'ring of fire resistance' to not reduce damage from flame clouds.
Almost all the ring types are named in an obvious way.. looking at them now, there are only a few oddities -- 'ring of positive energy' is not very obvious, and the distinction between 'ring of magical power' and 'ring of wizardry' is not obvious.

But my question is why do you do that? Either you're playing poorly due to a lack of information (because identification is inherently spoiler-ific) or you know this stuff already and you are playing poorly deliberately. I ask this because if players are knowingly choosing to lower their chances of winning, there is a serious design problem.

I can certainly place myself in the second category; I want not to mess around with irritating behaviour like dropping my scrolls and walking into clouds, swapping out rings, enough to, you know, actually not do those things, despite agreeing that they are more-optimal play.

[crate]

probably people in this topic (and while discussing crawl in general) should stop using the word "spoilery"
it pretty much just serves to make your arguments weaker since the word is misused often enough that it is mostly not meaningful any more
you can find other words to illustrate your idea; use those instead

[nicolae]

You know, I'm starting to come around on the idea of having most things be pre-identified. Scrolls and potions at the very least. Though I do think that it might make sense for randarts to still need identification; perhaps if randarts were the only things that needed identifying, ID scrolls could be moved to the deeper dungeon and become rarer.

[Siegurt]

Personally I like the ID game, and would actually prefer it be made richer and more interesting (or at very least relevant for scrolls) rather than simplified in the name of removing tedium. Rather than trying to counter a suggestion with a suggestion of my own, I'm going to make a separate thread for that purpose.

[Bodrick]

How about randart / unrandart potions and scrolls, which combine the effects of 2 or more potions / scrolls? Then identification of the base items could be made less important - maybe auto-id on pickup - but these artefacts would be much more valuable and worth identifying as you'd get more effects per turn for them. Maybe they could be immune from destruction like other artefacts are as well.

[Leafsnail]

I like the idea of randart consumables,but I'm not sure if it would make the ID game any better. It would just act as another sink for ID scrolls.

The other issue I have with them is that they would probably hog a lot of slots.

[Lasty]

I have no particular problem with the existing ID minigame, but I also see merits to many of the proposals.

What I'd like to contribute is this: right now there are 3 targeted scrolls that don't identify on read every time, and 4 untargeted ones. The untargeted ones are remove curse and the three curse foo scrolls. Once you've ID's remove curse, the three unknown-and-untargeted-but-read scrolls should be id'd as cursed and removed from autopickup, because that is 100% knowable and trackable, but right now you're incentivized to harmlessly ID them so that you can get them to stop being auto-picked-up. Alternately, I would accept allowing the playing to manage read-but-unID'd scrolls in the auto-pickup menu.

Some of the existing proposals address this issue as part of a larger overhaul, but at the very least I would like to see this happen.

[TeshiAlair]

Rather than add more scrolls to the game, I'd say make the existing ones more conditional. For instance, have !Fog make either normal fog (80%), poison cloud (8%), steam(8%), or miasma (4%). Or have magic mapping cause a tremor, causing enemies to hear you. Add a little risk without making the scrolls useless.

I think it would be also cool personally if some scrolls were one-time spells. They'd primarily generate in early game, since many people hybridize later, but they would both discourage just read-iding, and offer some cool tactical use. As far as weighting goes, I'd say someone should only get 3 or 4 tops by Lair, to prevent them from being an annoyance. Scroll of Swiftness is far more interesting than Scroll of Blinking IMO

[Sar]

I usually read ?fog when I'm in a bad situation or think that a situation can get really bad if I don't break LoS. If it has a chance not just to do nothing, but to slow (!) and massively damage me, well, I'm not sure I would ever pick ?fog up after identifying it.

[TeshiAlair]

I guess it boils down to what items should be solutions versus possible solutions. Potions tend to be fairly binary (healing good, paralysis bad, with only maybe Berserk being a conditional one), while scrolls I feel tend to have a bit more variance, with immolation and vuln being potentially useful, and even teleportation being a risky proposition.