FR: Remove Teleportitus from Tele Rings

[bcadren]

I'm making this suggestion NOT for when the teleportitus is a bad thing; having a ring that's bad when you first pick it up and good later is fine; but, I think that the teleportitus portion of the ring encourages putting the ring on and pillar dancing. Take this scenario:

You are in the lair. You walk around a corner and wind up next to a hydra. The hydra could kill you in a turn or two. You put the ring on and start running away. Eventually the teleportitus kicks in and removes you from the situation and you survive to die somewhere else.

Without the teleportitus; you would need decent evocations skill to teleport with the ring and even then...it would take a turn, which make it not work as an escape item in that situation.

BUT, do we really want to encourage running away until something that kicks in randomly saves you?

I suppose you could say the same of having the teleportitus mutation and taking off a Stasis amulet; but that's more of a fringe case and also teleportitus is MOSTLY bad; in this case we are talking about a supposedly bad part of a good ring that is abusable if you know what you are doing.

[KoboldLord]

In your 'problematic' hypothetical, swapping rings is going to be no more successful than just reading a scroll instead.

[and into]

I agree that bcadren's hypothetical is a bit reaching, but *Tele on rings of teleportation is really bad anyway.

I'd say either remove rings of teleportation, or else remove *Tele (teleportitis) from them and just keep the +Tele. If the latter, these rings should not always generate cursed. Of course swapping jewelry in order to use evocable properties is still a problem but it is not a unique problem to rings of teleportation and the *Tele effect doesn't actually punish but in fact *encourages* annoying swapping. So in either case this would be an improvement.

Rings of loudness, hunger, and negative slaying/stats/EV/AC all still exist and make trying on jewelry without ?remove curse a problem, so really nothing is being lost. So, full support to OP's proposal.

[TheDefiniteArticle]

The fact that teleportitis is sometimes helpful is a good thing, for exactly the same reason that ring of teleportation having a drawback is a good thing.

BUT, do we really want to encourage running away until something that kicks in randomly saves you?

Well random energy still exists so obviously someone wants to encourage it.

[and into]

Balancing drawbacks and positives can be interesting. However, when

1.) it only takes 1 turn to swap rings,
2.) the only good thing about the ring is that you evoke it for an effect that (unlike =invisibility) doesn't require the ring to be worn for the effect to continue, thus meaning you want it on for exactly however long it takes to successfully evoke, at which point it is useless to have on;
3.) as if 2.) weren't enough, the ring's "balancing drawback" seems to be precisely calibrated to even further encouragement of ring-swapping;

then I would suggest the drawbacks and positives are not interesting, and doubly encourage jewelry swapping. Which means that your opportunity cost for the ring is not a ring slot, but an inventory slot and 1 aut.

So actually I'd suggest one of three things:

1.) =teleportation is a strictly bad ring that just gives you level 3 teleportitis while worn.

2.) =teleportation is a strictly good ring that can be evoked for teleportation
2a.) Make it a strictly good ring and perhaps also give it a continuous beneficial effect (resistance to hostile teleports/blinking?) to make it good for more than just switching for one turn to evoke

3.) =teleportation is simply removed (teleportation is a common effect)

I would recommend 1 or 3, personally.


Note that the "switch to evoke" is less of a problem with rings of invisibility because if you take the ring off, the effect ends. Ditto for =flight.

Nonetheless I would suggest merging =invisibility with =+stealth; it would be a small buff but would fit in terms of theme and game play, and would again give a continuous benefit that would encourage one to leave the ring on.

I'm not a huge fan of how good jewelry swapping is in general, and frankly I think it should take longer than 1 aut to do. But it is particularly bad in cases of rings that grant evocable abilities, and of those =teleportation is by far the worst offender.

[TeshiAlair]

Let's get a 2 for 1: Make the curse more interesting.

If cursed: just *tele
If uncursed: just +tele

This way, still strategic when cursed, but straight up good when uncursed.

[Tiber]

It's an extreme edge case, but I've put on rings of teleportation while confused as a mummy, simply because confusion takes away so many options that hoping for a miracle was the most sensible thing to do.

[KoboldLord]

Infinite teleportation is considered too strong to exist without a substantial drawback. Ring-swapping a situationally dangerous ring to evoke at least costs double the amount of time as using a consumable version.

[and into]

Let's get a 2 for 1: Make the curse more interesting.

If cursed: just *tele
If uncursed: just +tele

This way, still strategic when cursed, but straight up good when uncursed.

Thought about that, but then it is a weird special case. No other thing in the game changes its immediate functional operation when cursed; you simply cannot remove it. The major asymmetry here would be terrible for game clarity, especially cause in so many other roguelikes, curses do change how an item operates. Having this special cased in this manner would be really bad and misleading for new players.

[and into]

Infinite teleportation is considered too strong to exist without a substantial drawback. Ring-swapping a situationally dangerous ring to evoke at least costs double the amount of time as using a consumable version.

It isn't a very substantial drawback though, and if the way around a situationally dangerous drawback is "I create a macro, or else spend more time staring at the inventory screen and pressing keys I normally don't press," then the drawback is obviously very poorly designed.

[KoboldLord]

It isn't a very substantial drawback though, and if the way around a situationally dangerous drawback is "I create a macro, or else spend more time staring at the inventory screen and pressing keys I normally don't press," then the drawback is obviously very poorly designed.

I wouldn't be surprised if the ring of teleportation eventually gets the axe. Some subset of the devteam said as much after the last round of teleport nerfs. I would be very surprised indeed if random teleports were removed from it without also removing the evocation.

[Tedronai]

I like the random teleports on the rings. However, I think teleport rings should always recurse themselves (the same mechanic like on the obsidian axe etc.).

[damiac]

Infinite teleportation is considered too strong to exist without a substantial drawback. Ring-swapping a situationally dangerous ring to evoke at least costs double the amount of time as using a consumable version.

It isn't a very substantial drawback though, and if the way around a situationally dangerous drawback is "I create a macro, or else spend more time staring at the inventory screen and pressing keys I normally don't press," then the drawback is obviously very poorly designed.

I think you misunderstand. It takes double the amount of in game time, as in turns. So 20 aut to equip the ring and evoke the tele effect, rather than just 10 aut to use a scroll, or evoke an already equipped ring.

So I don't think a macro will let you avoid spending those extra turns, which are dangerous when you're trying to escape. This is a significant drawback of the ring swap to tele ring.

[tasonir]

I like the random teleports on the rings. However, I think teleport rings should always recurse themselves (the same mechanic like on the obsidian axe etc.).

So now scrolls of remove curse = scrolls of teleport?

[Tedronai]

So now scrolls of remove curse = scrolls of teleport?

You can still have infinite teleport evocation for the cost of random teleports. You would have to carefully evaluate in hell/pandemonium where item destruction tears right through your scroll supply.

I guess you could still cheat your way around with swapping stasis on and off. Still you'd have to give up two jewelry slots for this.

[Kramin42]

What about a mechanic similar to gourmand: after a certain number of random teleports you become "attuned" to the ring and you can trigger it at will (perhaps also decreasing the chance of random teleports, eg. teleportitis III -> I).

[Patashu]

Is infinite uncontrollable randomly timed teleports even that strong? Teleports often land me in a worse spot than I started in, after all. It's not the escape button it is in Angband!

[duvessa]

really, ring of teleportation should just be removed since teleportation is supposed to be a limited resource

[TeshiAlair]

I think that cursed/uncursed distinction is one of the few things from other roguelikes I actually remotely enjoy, at least in the jewelry realm

As for balancing infinite tele, what if it made a lot of noise when you landed. Call it "ring of violent teleportation"

[Leafsnail]

I kindof like the idea of having it take a while before you can activate it, although that might lead to people waiting around for their teleport ring to turn on when they're in a safe situation. Another option would be to move the +/*tele ego to another less swappable piece of equipment, if people want to keep the effect.

[Sprucery]

I usually use a ring of teleportation on Tomb:2, but there are lots of teleportation traps there to use anyway. All in all removing rings of teleportation wouldn't affect my typical games a whole lot. On the other hand, I don't mind the current situation either, so whatever.

Removing =tele would be a slight buff to Mennas, though. There would be one tool less for escaping if you're silenced.

[archaeo]

I don't mind tele rings as they are either, but as long as we're proposing new ideas:

What about a portal ring instead of tele ring? It creates a random portal somewhere in the level (can't be used with ctele) and a portal near you, both of which stay open (and can be used by monsters) for 20-40 turns or so.

[TeshiAlair]

I REALLY like that. I'm not really a fan of Passage of Golubria, and I think it is more interesting as an evocable ability.

Also, Fo can use Passage?! That's kinda fantastic