do not generate enchanted plain equipment.

[Hirsch I]

right now, picking every single glove, boot, cloak, headgear and light armour in the dungeon and wearing-iding it is a boring and riskless activity, that can give your character up to +11 AC, if wearing leather. considering such activities contradict the game design philosophy, I suggest all plain pieces of armor are generated unenchanted.

[Bim]

Agreed, i'd prefer anything with a plus or minus to be enchanted.

[hannobal]

I don't mind them being enchanted, but i agree it should be somehow visible, glowing or runed if enchantment is something else than zero.
Actually it would be handy separate enchanted/ego based on glowing/rune: That way you could stop picking up 'glowing gloves', if you already have maximally enchanted plain gloves, and could concentrate on getting ego gloves.
Counter-proposal:
Glowing = Non-zero enchantment (or cursed)
Runed = Ego (or cursed)

[Bim]

Different markings meaning different things is something I'd definitely like to see.

Enchanted should mean just a simple + or - as it mirrors enchant weapon/armor scrolls, whilst runed, glowing or shiny should mean anything with a brand or ego.

[nagdon]

I support this suggestion, it would remove another minor annoyng thing, and I don't think it has any drawback.

[Psiweapon]

I don't find this an annoyance - especially in the case of gloves and boots as they're rare enough, but apparently my tolerance to tedium breaks the tediometer, and I wouldn't mind it much if it was changed as per proposal, either.

[Bim]

It's mainly a problem early on and it's probably one of those things that you should ignore and just wait for a runed/glowing one anyway, but it's tempting to get an extra 2-3 AC out of things if you can (especially as a squishy caster) and so I inevitably just end up going through all the robes/leather armor I find until I get a +2 one.

[TeshiAlair]

@Psiweapon I think I'm developing a brocrush on you. Between your use of the word tediometer and your fondness of eating elves as well.

But overall, yeah, I think this is a really good suggestion. Don't get me wrong, I'm always delighted when the first leather armour I find is +2, but it is a bit silly and doesn't map well to the streamlining ID game design process.

Plus, I think consistently marking equipment as "special" allows more space to do higher risk/higher reward. Not to the extent of a randart, but having something a bit flashier than just "curse." For instance, curse + mild corona, that sort of thing.

[One-Eyed Jack]

For a game in active, open-ended, unbounded development I can see no reason for any "tolerance" of an intrinsically bad thing (tedium)from a design perspective

[PleasingFungus]

right now, picking every single glove, boot, cloak, headgear and light armour in the dungeon and wearing-iding it is a boring and riskless activity, that can give your character up to +11 AC, if wearing leather. considering such activities contradict the game design philosophy, I suggest all plain pieces of armor are generated unenchanted.

I'll have to look at the relevant code, but this seems reasonable.

[Hirsch I]

I'm useful!

[dck]

Mildly so!

[Klown]

0.15: Hirsch's Unenchanted Gloves Edition

[Hirsch I]

please correctly add my name to the credits. I want a big spot, with flashing lights.
warmly
André

[tasonir]

Does this mean you'd no longer be able to find +2 gloves? +2 gloves are some of my favorite things early on, I'd hate to lose them. Can we go with one of the above proposals to mark them as enchanted, or some similar keyword? +3ac early on a robe user is huge. On anyone, really.

[and into]

I think the idea is that, if it has +s on it, it should be glowing/runed. It should also be glowing/runed if it has minuses, in which case it will also be cursed.

[klink]

This is an idea I can definitely get behind too. I've got a pretty high tolerance for a lot of the more tedious things, but I'd definitely like to see this implemented.

[HisMajestyBOB]

If there's a desire to keep the basic equipment with +1 and +2, but remove the tedium (which I support), you could have all basic equipment show their enchantment level by default. So you can tell right away if that leather armor is +0, +1, or +2 without picking it up or wearing it.

[PleasingFungus]

Implemented.

[WalkerBoh]

I think the idea is that, if it has +s on it, it should be glowing/runed. It should also be glowing/runed if it has minuses, in which case it will also be cursed.

Did the change actually do this? It looks like PF's commit just makes it so that all plain equipment is now +0 and nothing else is changed.

**Disclaimer: I am not a code wizard**

[Lasty]

That's my read on it too. PleasingFungus, it looks like this is a nerf to players as implemented. Is that intended? From a player's-hopes-and-dreams perspective, it'd be better to instead force items that meet that if condition to become glowing/runed/whatever.

[DracheReborn]

Did the change actually do this? It looks like PF's commit just makes it so that all plain equipment is now +0 and nothing else is changed.

Indeed, yes. Be careful what you wish for, guys!

From the tediousness argument, trying on a zillion +1/+2 glowing leather armour isn't that much better than status quo, so I think PF's version is correct.

There's a later commit that allows +1 non-cloak aux armour to be glowing/runed, the reasoning being that these items are much less common than body armour (or cloaks), so trying on every pair of glowing gloves or boots isn't so bad.

[reaver]

Did the change actually do this? It looks like PF's commit just makes it so that all plain equipment is now +0 and nothing else is changed.

Indeed, yes. Be careful what you wish for, guys!

If "plain" means "neither glowing or runed" then yes that's what happened. It's a difficulty boost but removing item destruction/weight etc. were player buffs, and that didn't stop those from being implemented. If the difficulty becomes too extreme either way some other arbitrary tweak like another XP nerf could happen.

[Hurkyl]

From the tediousness argument, trying on a zillion +1/+2 glowing leather armour isn't that much better than status quo, so I think PF's version is correct.

Definitely, although someone suggested using an alternate adjective "enchanted" for non-ego non +0 items.

[Leafsnail]

I think that some plain +1/+2 items should generate, choosing between a brand and higher pluses can be an interesting choice. They could appear to be glowing/runed and be less common than they are now.

[Bim]

don't think generating everything plain as being +0 is too bad, especially with the big buffs we've had recently, however I agree with Leafsnail that non ego +1/2 (and upwards) can make for an interesting decision. Having poison resist in an area you know you probably won't need it, or a +2/3/4 is an interesting decision.

From the tediousness argument, trying on a zillion +1/+2 glowing leather armour isn't that much better than status quo, so I think PF's version is correct.

Definitely, although someone suggested using an alternate adjective "enchanted" for non-ego non +0 items.

Although that was my suggestion, I'd think it'd be a good step forward. It doesn't make any difference difficulty wise (they could still be negative and cursed), it mirrors 'enchant' scrolls and it stops the tedium Drache mentions.

[nilsbloodaxe]

Having poison resist in an area you know you probably won't need it, or a +2/3/4 is an interesting decision.

I don't see the interesting decision, you take the AC. Maybe if you know you need it it becomes interesting, but if you probably don't?

[Bim]

Having poison resist in an area you know you probably won't need it, or a +2/3/4 is an interesting decision.

I don't see the interesting decision, you take the AC. Maybe if you know you need it it becomes interesting, but if you probably don't?

Well lets say you have +4 plate armor and a +0 plate of rPois for lair. Yeah AC is probably the way to go, but poison resist could be useful as well.

Without crunching numbers or being overly spoiled, I think that'd be an interesting enough decision.

[and into]

There have been times where I felt I had decisions to make (i.e., choices with no clear best answer) between +0 foo with some ego, and vanilla +2 foo. But it doesn't happen that often. By contrast, so long as your foo was +0, it was basically always best play to try on every piece of non-randart foo you come across, assuming you have at least one ?remove curse. So yeah I like this change.

[DracheReborn]

Well lets say you have +4 plate armor and a +0 plate of rPois for lair. Yeah AC is probably the way to go, but poison resist could be useful as well.

+4 body armour has a good chance to be glowing or runed though. So that won't get squashed by the change.

[duvessa]

i would never wear the rpois plate in that situation

+4 body armour has a good chance to be glowing or runed though.

66% chance, so quite a few are still getting squashed

[Leafsnail]

There have been times where I felt I had decisions to make (i.e., choices with no clear best answer) between +0 foo with some ego, and vanilla +2 foo. But it doesn't happen that often. By contrast, so long as your foo was +0, it was basically always best play to try on every piece of non-randart foo you come across, assuming you have at least one ?remove curse. So yeah I like this change.

That's why I'd suggest making enchanted armour glowing, and also possibly rarer if that dilutes the glowing weapon pool too much.

[Quazifuji]

If there's a desire to keep the basic equipment with +1 and +2, but remove the tedium (which I support), you could have all basic equipment show their enchantment level by default. So you can tell right away if that leather armor is +0, +1, or +2 without picking it up or wearing it.

So what's wrong with this idea? If we want to keep mundane enchanted items in the game (which seems to be a matter of debate), did having to ID them add anything to the game whatsoever? The suggestion of calling them "enchanted" would work, but as people have pointed out, still makes you try on a bunch of items until you have a max enchanted or ego one, all it does is save you the trouble of trying on +0 ones.

What does them starting un-id'd at all ad, though? The merit of the ID minigame have already been debated and its complexity reduced anyway, but the merits that it does have seem to revolve around ID scroll management and potion and scroll identification early. Neither of those things are at all relevant to mundane enchanted gear, which can be trivially identified by several button presses. Processes that are trivially accomplished with several button presses without any risk or resource consumption is practically the epitome of everything Crawl's design philosophy stands against. So why need to ID mundane enchanted items at all?

[Siegurt]

Well, there's not no-risk, in particular those items could be cursed and have negative enchantments, that's in fact the point of the ID mini game, to force you to chose between a risk activity that could benefit you, and non-risky behavior that has less benefits associated.

Since there are no negative armour egos (well, aside from unrands of ponderousness, which come pre-id'd) negative enchantment levels are the only thing providing this risk. Negative enchantment levels require non-id'd ness to be a thing (otherwise there's no point to them at all)

Now you could argue that this risk/reward balance isn't interesting enough to make un-id'd armour (and my extension negative enchantments) a worthwhile part of the game, but personally I like it being around (in the same way that I like mutation potions being a thing)

[Sjohara]

Did the change actually do this? It looks like PF's commit just makes it so that all plain equipment is now +0 and nothing else is changed.

Indeed, yes. Be careful what you wish for, guys!

If "plain" means "neither glowing or runed" then yes that's what happened. It's a difficulty boost but removing item destruction/weight etc. were player buffs, and that didn't stop those from being implemented. If the difficulty becomes too extreme either way some other arbitrary tweak like another XP nerf could happen.

Um, since ego aux armor is very rare, let alone ego aux armor with decent plusses, doesn't this change mean that players will almost never have a reasonable opportunity to use an enchant armor scroll on body armor again, rendering dragon armor in particular nigh-unwearable? Right now you can easily get most of your aux plusses from floor loot eventually, but with this change in place you'd be extremely lucky to get even +2 out of 8 by the time you hit the Vaults.

[reaver]

Um, since ego aux armor is very rare, let alone ego aux armor with decent plusses, doesn't this change mean that players will almost never have a reasonable opportunity to use an enchant armor scroll on body armor again, rendering dragon armor in particular nigh-unwearable? Right now you can easily get most of your aux plusses from floor loot eventually, but with this change in place you'd be extremely lucky to get even +2 out of 8 by the time you hit the Vaults.

Later changes made +2/+1 aux armour "glowing" too.

[Quazifuji]

Well, there's not no-risk, in particular those items could be cursed and have negative enchantments, that's in fact the point of the ID mini game, to force you to chose between a risk activity that could benefit you, and non-risky behavior that has less benefits associated.

Since there are no negative armour egos (well, aside from unrands of ponderousness, which come pre-id'd) negative enchantment levels are the only thing providing this risk. Negative enchantment levels require non-id'd ness to be a thing (otherwise there's no point to them at all)

Now you could argue that this risk/reward balance isn't interesting enough to make un-id'd armour (and my extension negative enchantments) a worthwhile part of the game, but personally I like it being around (in the same way that I like mutation potions being a thing)

I thought only glowing/runed/artefact items generated cursed and plain ones were always safe. Is this incorrect and that even trying on, say, some plain non-glowing/runed gloves in hopes that they're +1 or +2 can give you a cursed one?

Either way, I thought the whole point of this post was that trying on plain aux armour in the hopes of getting good enchant values is a tedious risk free exercise. Either you misinterpreted what I said and it truly is risk free, the risk of needing a remove curse scroll is considered trivial, or there is a non-trivial risk in trying on plain aux armour in hopes of getting good enchantment values. In the first case, my point still stands. In the second case, my point expands to question why the ID mini-game exists at all (consumables and distortion brand could be the answers, I suppose, but then why is does is exist for armour?). In the third case, isn't the whole point of this thread invalidated?

[duvessa]

I thought only glowing/runed/artefact items generated cursed and plain ones were always safe. Is this incorrect and that even trying on, say, some plain non-glowing/runed gloves in hopes that they're +1 or +2 can give you a cursed one?

Yes, that is incorrect.

[WalkerBoh]

I like this change a ton. Probably a good thing that it's a player nerf, since Crawl is leaning pretty heavily in the player's favor right now as opposed to any version I've played (since 0.10 at least). Not having to try on every piece of armour is quite welcome. Thanks devs!

[tasonir]

Put down the pitchforks, I have found a blue glowing pair of gloves and it turned out to be +2 without an ego. Kind of disappointing in that I thought it was going to have an ego, but once you adjust to the change it'll be a great thing. +3 ac from the floor, thanks RNG!

[Sar]

Plain aux armour in this case should probably show its +0 enchantment without ID, otherwise it's a spoiler - admittedly, very minor one.

[PleasingFungus]

Plain aux armour in this case should probably show its +0 enchantment without ID, otherwise it's a spoiler - admittedly, very minor one.

Plain armour (or weapons) can still have minuses, if they're secretly cursed.