Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)


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Sar

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Post Thursday, 28th August 2014, 10:50

Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

This is partially based on my observations during playing 0.15 (and I played it a fair bit) and partially on posts of another player I found very insightful (he can reveal himself ITT if he doesn't wish to remain anonymous).

I am not arguing about bringing old itemdest back. Old itemdest was pretty bad, even if (and I will argue about that) it had redeeming qualities. However, I feel like I am missing that mechanic. Why?

It added variety to Crawl enemies, and variety is something Crawl's mid-endgame thrives upon. The tactics remain mostly the same as in early game (don't fight too much dudes, throw stones, avoid with hard dudes), except less pronounced since you have a billion of escape options and a powerful character. This sounds as a completely another concern, and a call for shortening midgame (and midgame should be shortened, IMO), but even shortening it won't remove the concern, and removing midgame is probably not an option I would even like.

It added emotional response to certain monsters - in some case, unwarranted, but in some case it was good. Orc wizard popping one of your two HW potions in early game was cool, orc wizard popping one of your 6 HW potions in midgame wasn't. But by that time there were other monsters with freezing attacks.

Now, the obvious negatives: it encouraged stashing strategic consumables, it scaled badly with damage and actual threat level of enemies, it encouraged partially stashing consumables (which might've been even a design goal at some point). The first one might be addressed in 0.16 by splitting consumables into tactical and strategic, the latter being unaffected by itemdest; the second one I would suggest to address by scaling it with actual damage done (and not damage reduced solely by AC); the third one might be addressed by limiting it to one item per stack per hit (the top scroll/potion burn/freeze). As for conservation, it should not exist outside of Jiyva and probably Maxwell's Patent Coffin.

Now, about corrosion. The arguments for it are going to be even more emotional, so bear with me. I'm just going to come out and say that lemuel's infamous acid trip was one of my favorite vaults of all time. The sheer "fuck you" of putting a bunch of corrosive monsters on your way to the orb is immense. I still fondly remember getting it as a KeAE and winning with around -3 AC. Ultimately, new corrosion is a better effect - it's much more relevant tactically. However, it doesn't elicit a strong response such as DAMN YELLOW DRACONIANS CORRODING MAH CLOAKS. There is no reason anymore to LCS the bastards! Now they're just another drac subtype you mow down. That, to me, is a loss. So, I would suggest adding a small chance to perma-corrode an item to new corrosion; probably make it independent of enchantment (though artifacts should be immune).

I also wanted to talk about weight, but then I realized that I can't say anything positive about that mechanic. I am glad it's dead. I really am.

Now, I gotta admit: I know the ideas in this post have literally no chance of being ever implemented. I just felt like posting a lot of text about a thing I feel strongly about. As a side effect, this might ignite a discussion about alternative to itemdest mechanics (I remember liking a proposal about fiery/cold attacks applying a status that would have a chance to destroy a scroll/potion if you tried to use it under said status). Such mechanics were supposed to be discussed during 0.16 development, but I can't find anything about it on devwiki.

Anyway, thanks for reading this poorly written wall of text, now feel free to call me wrong.

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Post Thursday, 28th August 2014, 11:33

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

My problem with the new status quo is that there is probably no level of consumable generation that makes for interesting choices for the majority of characters. With the variance in power between weak species/backgrounds and strong species/backgrounds, consumable generation that is high enough to make the weak ones halfway viable will let the strong ones make forts exclusively out of unneeded emergency consumables. Old item destruction allowed the existence of choices even for those strong characters because you didn't so much care about how many potions of speed you had back at the stash, if the one or two on your person ran out or got popped at an inopportune time you had to deal with not having access to that consumable at that point. I miss having to deal with that problem, even though I don't miss stashing or inventory management themselves. I don't think this issue will be easy to correct.

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Post Thursday, 28th August 2014, 11:51

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

What if corrosion worked kind of like stat drain, such that negative AC or weapon enchantment has a chance of permanently reducing enchantment by 1, but reduction to smaller positive values does not? That way there is a reason besides "I might die" to retreat before killing a corroder.

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Post Thursday, 28th August 2014, 11:54

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

After playing a lot of games of 0.15, I just wanna add that it's super weird to talk into zot with 20+ cures, 10+ heal wounds, 5+ invisibles, and 5+ haste potions, and it massively reduces the usefulness of the wands. Overall, I found it also reduced the difficulty of the game by a fair amount. I disliked item destruction very strongly but something limiting potion charges should probably be though of. At this point I'm kinda thinking that dumping the potions and keeping the wands (adding cure wand) might be the way to go, which would also make mummies muuuuuuuuuch more fun to play.

For corrosion though I find it's just about perfect as it has a very real and noticeable effect in the current fight without becoming unbearably frustrating in a handful of unlucky cases. I hope it isn't adjusted much further besides maybe slight adjustments regarding rcorr amulet and/or slime branch. I found slime too easy with all the pots on a rcorr fighter while I found slime too hard on a different fighter without rcorr, the difference is enormous.

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Post Thursday, 28th August 2014, 13:20

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

Sar wrote:Now, the obvious negatives: it encouraged stashing strategic consumables, it scaled badly with damage and actual threat level of enemies, it encouraged partially stashing consumables (which might've been even a design goal at some point). The first one might be addressed in 0.16 by splitting consumables into tactical and strategic, the latter being unaffected by itemdest; the second one I would suggest to address by scaling it with actual damage done (and not damage reduced solely by AC); the third one might be addressed by limiting it to one item per stack per hit (the top scroll/potion burn/freeze). As for conservation, it should not exist outside of Jiyva and probably Maxwell's Patent Coffin.
Stop, you've missed the actual main problem with item destruction: it encourages you to drop stuff on the ground and then pick it up again repeatedly, a process so boring and mechanical that most players gave up on it. None of those fixes address that. The stashing stuff was actually put forward as a benefit of item destruction, but I've never understood why making players walk back and forth constantly is good.

Sar wrote:Now, about corrosion. The arguments for it are going to be even more emotional, so bear with me. I'm just going to come out and say that lemuel's infamous acid trip was one of my favorite vaults of all time. The sheer "fuck you" of putting a bunch of corrosive monsters on your way to the orb is immense. I still fondly remember getting it as a KeAE and winning with around -3 AC. Ultimately, new corrosion is a better effect - it's much more relevant tactically. However, it doesn't elicit a strong response such as DAMN YELLOW DRACONIANS CORRODING MAH CLOAKS. There is no reason anymore to LCS the bastards! Now they're just another drac subtype you mow down. That, to me, is a loss. So, I would suggest adding a small chance to perma-corrode an item to new corrosion; probably make it independent of enchantment (though artifacts should be immune).
So your basisc argument is that annoying the shit out of the player is an inherent good that outweighs actual design concerns (such as in this case forcing players to carry around a bunch of spare armour and put it on before facing corrosive enemies)?

KoboldLord wrote:My problem with the new status quo is that there is probably no level of consumable generation that makes for interesting choices for the majority of characters. With the variance in power between weak species/backgrounds and strong species/backgrounds, consumable generation that is high enough to make the weak ones halfway viable will let the strong ones make forts exclusively out of unneeded emergency consumables. Old item destruction allowed the existence of choices even for those strong characters because you didn't so much care about how many potions of speed you had back at the stash, if the one or two on your person ran out or got popped at an inopportune time you had to deal with not having access to that consumable at that point. I miss having to deal with that problem, even though I don't miss stashing or inventory management themselves. I don't think this issue will be easy to correct.
Item destruction didn't do this unless you were insanely loss averse, if you want this dynamic to exist then a new mechanic would have to be introduced.

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Post Thursday, 28th August 2014, 13:42

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

I think newcorrosion beats the pants off oldcorrosion. It's tactically relevant and powerful, and it creates interesting situations and choices. Oldcorrosion against jellies was "I have to play really tediously to avoid losing enchantment on good items" and on yellow draconians was "oh fuck, I auto-explored into -5 ?EA". I would fight oldcorrosion returning vigorously.

I do think something interesting was lost in item destruction (along with a lot of tedium and arbitrariness), but I don't have any ideas for how to bring back the good aspects without bringing back the much worse aspects. One approach would be to lower the number of tactical consumables that spawn. I suppose another way to approach it would be to have all potions have a limited shelf life, encouraging you to use them more often . . .

FWIW, I've almost always gone into Zot (or at least Z:5) with 20+ curing, 5+ HW, 5+ Might, etc. There was nothing about old item destruction that actually prevented you from loading up on consumables for the final piece of the game. I mean, it's not like you could save them for later.

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Post Thursday, 28th August 2014, 14:27

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

Just have cold/fire attacks that do sufficient damage temporarily give -potion or -scroll, that way you can still deny players items if that's a goal and also avoid people running behind a door and dropping their items because they spot a mottled dragon (with -scroll they can't use the items anyway so what is the point of dropping them?)

You can even just deny certain stacks if that is too harsh. Edit2: This would not actually work because you would for instance drop your HW then pick it up later so that your stack of it would not get frozen.


Edit: Basically anything that permanently destroys items or corrodes armour in some way is going to encourage the itemdrop/badgear behavior (though avoiding corrosion by swapping is abit tougher to do without running away from the enemy upstairs) unless you have like magical fire/ice that is like a heat-seeking missile that can destroy your items offscreen that aren't even in your inventory. That would be pretty dumb.
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Post Thursday, 28th August 2014, 14:45

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

@Leafsnail: scaling itemdest with damage is supposed to address that, at least partially. If a fire giant is hammering you with fireballs that actually hurt, tossing your blinking scrolls around would probably not be the ~optimal~ option. If you find a mottled dragon in Vaults it probably can't damage you anyway so you don't have to drop scrolls (this is a problem with putting mottleds in V - why are they generated there anyway, apart from dropping hides to player?).

About annoyance - I think a bit of that is a good thing, yes. If an enemy is frustrating in some way, beating it fast feels good. You can overdo it (and old itemdest and old corrosion probably did), but the lack of it makes for a pretty bland experience.

@tabstorm: I think completely shutting down potions and scrolls might be a bit too harsh. Myself, I like the proposal about making such statuses have a chance to destroy consumable on use a bit more. Sadly, I don't remember whose idea it was!

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Post Thursday, 28th August 2014, 14:47

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

So are you just irritated by 20 potions of healing being a large number? Because, 1d7 + 4 HP isn't going to do much in Zot.

I do think applying the tactical corrosion to potion/scroll usage does add a lot more tension/decision making though.
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Post Thursday, 28th August 2014, 14:50

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

That works as well but I sort of don't like the idea of consumables randomly failing in principle

Edit: I'd rather not have these sort of things be in the game because they don't really add to my enjoyment of it but if item denial is a goal then I think something like that or giving -pot/-scroll (the duration would be fairly short and you would not be able to have both at once for obvious reasons) is better than what we had before.
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Post Thursday, 28th August 2014, 15:18

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

As I said, I don't think itemdest was limiting item use significantly (except for some games, but my item management was never ideal). I don't think it should be its purpose though. I'm just saying it's a mechanic that was prominent, that went away and was replaced with nothing, and that I think it wasn't a perfect decision. But I might be wrong. I just want to start a discussion on what to replace it with.

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Post Thursday, 28th August 2014, 16:05

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

tabstorm wrote:Just have cold/fire attacks that do sufficient damage temporarily give -potion or -scroll, that way you can still deny players items if that's a goal and also avoid people running behind a door and dropping their items because they spot a mottled dragon (with -scroll they can't use the items anyway so what is the point of dropping them?)

This is something that has been suggested many times. The main problem is that -potion and -scroll are very rarely meaningful (since both of those categories are emergency items, and most fights are not emergencies!) - whereas of course losing potions and scrolls permanently was always a real cost. Mottled dragons, for example (my favorite problem monster) would not really be any more threatening with -scroll on their sticky flame.

My personal feeling is that putting -scroll/-potion on certain areas could be interesting, and that sticky flame needs some kind of rework to be at all threatening - which might require making it deterministic (like poison), since you don't want to scale the damage up without somehow indicating to the player that you're doing so... consumables generation also probably needs more tweaking.

I do not agree that item destruction needs a "replacement", though.

(And corrosion absolutely does not! It kills people now, which is far better than dealing psychological damage.)

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Post Thursday, 28th August 2014, 16:10

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

Well it's not really threatening until it is, at least this way it can be meaningful in moderately dangerous battles as opposed to attrition from weak monsters to make up for them being harmless in combat, I don't think having this kind of attrition is desirable or fun.
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Post Thursday, 28th August 2014, 16:12

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

Losing a HW you were never going to use anyway isn't a "real cost".

Sar wrote:@Leafsnail: scaling itemdest with damage is supposed to address that, at least partially. If a fire giant is hammering you with fireballs that actually hurt, tossing your blinking scrolls around would probably not be the ~optimal~ option. If you find a mottled dragon in Vaults it probably can't damage you anyway so you don't have to drop scrolls (this is a problem with putting mottleds in V - why are they generated there anyway, apart from dropping hides to player?).
Mottled dragons can do damage to you at all stages of the game, though? Not enough to threaten death, but there would still be a possibility of scroll-burning. I guess this kindof reduces the problem, but it also eliminates the benefit that item destruction is supposed to bring (making otherwise non-dangerous monsters more "interesting", this would only affect monsters that are already powerful enough to matter).

Sar wrote:About annoyance - I think a bit of that is a good thing, yes. If an enemy is frustrating in some way, beating it fast feels good. You can overdo it (and old itemdest and old corrosion probably did), but the lack of it makes for a pretty bland experience.
I guess I might feel a temporary sense of relief? Which would quickly fade as I realize the whole dungeon is full of the fuckers.

To get that feeling of reward the enemy has to be actually challenging in some way.

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Post Thursday, 28th August 2014, 16:15

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

@Leafsnail: mottled drags IME don't really do more than what, 1-2 points of damage by midgame? Those can probably be ignorable by imaginary newitemdest function. And a lot of acidic monsters can be dangerous - professional yellow dracs, acid blobs and other high-level jellies. Well, you're right about them being too common, I suppose.

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Post Thursday, 28th August 2014, 16:51

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

PleasingFungus wrote:The main problem is that -potion and -scroll are very rarely meaningful (since both of those categories are emergency items, and most fights are not emergencies!) - whereas of course losing potions and scrolls permanently was always a real cost. Mottled dragons, for example (my favorite problem monster) would not really be any more threatening with -scroll on their sticky flame.


If mottled dragon is not dangerous with -scroll status, maybe change -scroll status to work like draining? If you need to get some XP to remove the status, it becomes much more threatening because you can meet a dangerous unique behind next corner.

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Post Thursday, 28th August 2014, 18:05

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

My view on it is that people remember itemdest/corrosion "fondly" (if you can call it that) because they made those monsters stand out; mottled dragons were scary, yellow dracs were infuriating, etc. It's fun to have guys do horrible things to you, and even more fun to cleverly avoid said horrible stuff. However, horrible stuff that you avoid by doing something easy-but-tedious, like item destruction, is a really bad way to elicit this feeling, since it only lasts until you learn the trick and after that it's just irritating.

As a comparison, think about achievements, as popularized by literally every other game ever (obviously you might hate Achievements as a concept, but let's suppose you're fine with them). The achievements everyone hates are the ones where I have to do something counter to how I normally enjoy the game, and in particular ones where I have to do it repeatedly, or where doing it requires help from the RNG. The good ones are ones that reward me for doing well, and perhaps lead me to new and fun ways to do so. "Capture 50 objectives" is a good achievement: I want to be doing that anyway, so it'll come naturally, and if I actively pursue it it's actually making me play better. "Get blown up by 50 AP mines" is a bad one, since it rewards me for doing something painful that I normally avoid, and if I want to actively pursue it I have to do something really stupid and boring.

In other words, it's fine to do nasty stuff to the player, but that nasty stuff should push you to have more fun and do things in interesting ways, not punish you for doing so.

Incidentally, the big problem here is that normal HP damage is utterly meaningless like 99% of the time, since as long as you survive a fight with 1 HP you just hit 5 and it's like nothing happened. Unless a monster can flat-out melee you from full health to death it might as well have no melee attack at all. Draining is better; it's genuinely painful, it's semi-permanent, you avoid it by fighting well, and you remove it by progressing through the game. All of those are good things. I assume everyone hates draining but it's a pretty good design.

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Post Thursday, 28th August 2014, 18:55

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

I haven't even played 0.15 yet, so take this with a grain of salt.

But I can understand the """nostalgia""" at losing these annoyances, because part of the appeal of roguelikes is the sense of permanency. Permadeath, and outcomes with real permanent consequences for the future of your character. I've been playing a bunch of FTL lately and I'm loving it...lose a crew member, that's it, better press on...even points of hull damage don't go away without using other resources (every FTL ship is a deep dwarf)

How is corrosion different conceptually from say, malmutation, other than mutation is quite random and we usually see corrosion a bit earlier? Both have semi-permanent negative effects (moreso for mutation, at least you can take the armour off) which can be dispelled by use of a consumable.

Would it be super crazy to have both "original style" and "wretched star style" corrosion, to get the best of both worlds? It would be more complex admittedly. But then you could fight a jelly without terminally corroding your character, and still piss your pants when you see an acid blob coming at ya.
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Post Thursday, 28th August 2014, 19:11

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

PleasingFungus wrote:
tabstorm wrote:Just have cold/fire attacks that do sufficient damage temporarily give -potion or -scroll, that way you can still deny players items if that's a goal and also avoid people running behind a door and dropping their items because they spot a mottled dragon (with -scroll they can't use the items anyway so what is the point of dropping them?)

This is something that has been suggested many times. The main problem is that -potion and -scroll are very rarely meaningful


Has it been tested in practice?
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Post Thursday, 28th August 2014, 19:15

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

WalrusMcFishSr wrote:How is corrosion different conceptually from say, malmutation, other than mutation is quite random and we usually see corrosion a bit earlier? Both have semi-permanent negative effects (moreso for mutation, at least you can take the armour off) which can be dispelled by use of a consumable.
They are conceptually different because one of them is an attack on the player's current equipment (which leads to stupid behaviour like switching to an expendable weapon, or walking away and changing into some disposable armour) and the other is an attack on the player. Item destruction has similar problems because it's an attack on the player's current inventory.

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Post Thursday, 28th August 2014, 19:22

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

WalrusMcFishSr wrote:I haven't even played 0.15 yet, so take this with a grain of salt.

But I can understand the """nostalgia""" at losing these annoyances, because part of the appeal of roguelikes is the sense of permanency. Permadeath, and outcomes with real permanent consequences for the future of your character. I've been playing a bunch of FTL lately and I'm loving it...lose a crew member, that's it, better press on...even points of hull damage don't go away without using other resources (every FTL ship is a deep dwarf)

How is corrosion different conceptually from say, malmutation, other than mutation is quite random and we usually see corrosion a bit earlier? Both have semi-permanent negative effects (moreso for mutation, at least you can take the armour off) which can be dispelled by use of a consumable.

Would it be super crazy to have both "original style" and "wretched star style" corrosion, to get the best of both worlds? It would be more complex admittedly. But then you could fight a jelly without terminally corroding your character, and still piss your pants when you see an acid blob coming at ya.


You can drop your items behind a door and go fight the monster but you can't do the same with yourself.

With that said I wouldn't complain if wretched star mutation became the norm in the game only because I find lots of the mutations in the game pretty annoying but it probably wouldn't be good design
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Post Thursday, 28th August 2014, 19:44

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

Leafsnail wrote:
WalrusMcFishSr wrote:How is corrosion different conceptually from say, malmutation, other than mutation is quite random and we usually see corrosion a bit earlier? Both have semi-permanent negative effects (moreso for mutation, at least you can take the armour off) which can be dispelled by use of a consumable.
They are conceptually different because one of them is an attack on the player's current equipment (which leads to stupid behaviour like switching to an expendable weapon, or walking away and changing into some disposable armour) and the other is an attack on the player. Item destruction has similar problems because it's an attack on the player's current inventory.


The obvious solution then is Acid Mummies--they curse all your stuff until you kill them and also summon acid blobs.
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Post Thursday, 28th August 2014, 20:01

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

I just want to mention that apparently death curses are the next to go and I do like them (apart from regular mummy curses-curses, those are pointless but thankfully mummy-mummies are rare in D and probably should not even spawn in Tomb).
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Post Thursday, 28th August 2014, 20:04

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

Sar wrote:I just want to mention that apparently death curses are the next to go and I do like them (apart from regular mummy curses-curses, those are pointless but thankfully mummy-mummies are rare in D and probably should not even spawn in Tomb).


Isn't torment and smiting bad enough? It just means lots of time spent stairdancing and resting off the results. Also if death curses go there is no reason for guardian mummies to continue to exist
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Post Thursday, 28th August 2014, 20:06

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

I think (permanent) damage effects are essentially good, as they make fighting those enemies more meaningful. (Although I dislike monsters with chance for permanent damage, no other attack and no defenses (nexoquec, old orc wizard with item destruction).) The problem with consumable destruction and corrosion was that they were avoidable by risk-free but annoying procedures; similar but unavoidable effects wouldn't be problematic.

For example if strong (>some function of XL and/or maxHP) acid attacks would cause slowly healing woulds, which (until removed) reduce AC or give negative Slaying, then we get the interesting part of corrosion, without the weapon/armour swapping and the problem with low-level corroders. Removing these wounds could be an alternative effect of EA/EW scrolls (you can select your body if you're acid-scarred; maybe rename the scrolls to make this usage less strange) if we want to closely emulate corrosion. (Of course this version is harsher because if you have two +2 gloves and one of them gets corroded, you don't have to waste EA on it; but if your body is scarred, you can't swap it.) Alternatively !curing, !cureMut, !restAb, simple XP gain or some other resource could get the "heals acid scars" effect; and other parameters (EV, HP etc.) could also be damaged this way.

Of course too much permanent damage would make lots of games unfun: being killed by an ettin is better than slowly becoming a mutated corroded etc. cripple who can still survive by escaping but has no real victory chance. Felids already have a bit of this problem; when they die twice or three times in the midgame, suddenly they are underleveled and have to run from lots of threats. They can still escape from lots of things, but starting a new game may provide better victory chances than continuing playing them.

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Post Thursday, 28th August 2014, 20:12

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

Death curses have additional effects that I feel are pretty funny (casters killing themself with backlash from killing too many mummies at once). Remove that, remove puzzly Tomb nature, and you turn Tomb into another Pan without hellfire... might as well remove it at this point.

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Post Thursday, 28th August 2014, 21:48

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

Sar wrote:About annoyance - I think a bit of that is a good thing, yes. If an enemy is frustrating in some way, beating it fast feels good. You can overdo it (and old itemdest and old corrosion probably did), but the lack of it makes for a pretty bland experience.


You have confused challenging with annoying, which is the same design problem that plagued Nethack. If beating an enemy quickly feels good, it should feel good because you've demonstrated some sort of skill and tactical superiority, not because it would be a pain in the ass for it to have gone on longer.

PleasingFungus wrote:My personal feeling is that putting -scroll/-potion on certain areas could be interesting, and that sticky flame needs some kind of rework to be at all threatening - which might require making it deterministic (like poison), since you don't want to scale the damage up without somehow indicating to the player that you're doing so... consumables generation also probably needs more tweaking.


What if sticky flame made it harder to do anything besides run around and scream for a couple turns? Can't use scrolls or potions (they'd boil), can't change armor or weapons, involuntarily screaming the whole time, and you've got a hefty penalty to slaying and spell success because it's too hard to focus since you're on fire.

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Post Thursday, 28th August 2014, 21:50

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

Item destruction was just obnoxious because of what we had to do to avoid item destruction. It is not item destruction that's the problem, it's what has to be done to avoid it. Item destruction doesn't bother me in Sil because there's no way to avoid it, or at least the situations where you can and want to avoid it are a lot rarer. If there was no way to avoid item destruction in Crawl it would be ok and we would get mad at these monsters like we used to.

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Post Thursday, 28th August 2014, 21:53

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

Wahaha wrote:Item destruction doesn't bother me in Sil because there's no way to avoid it


Does Sil not let you drop things?

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Post Thursday, 28th August 2014, 22:02

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

@nicolae: I... didn't? I'm outright saying that itemdest purpose is to be annoying, and that I think there is a place for annoying things like itemdest in the game (not every annoying thing is good, though).

@Wahaha: that's a good point yeah, and ultimately why old itemdest had to go. Because of dropping stuff.
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Post Thursday, 28th August 2014, 22:11

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

Then do something that affects whether you carry stuff or you have dropped it, so dropping is not a viable option, or at least not the way to go.

What if burning/freeze/whatever locks the slots that contain consumables both scrolls and potions. If the slot is filled, you cannot use that item until time passes, exp increases, any other mechanism... if the slot was previously void and get affected, you cannot (g)rab that kind of items -consumables- until the same mechanic applies (something like repairing pockets or so).

Edit: Maybe you can use or grab the items but at a % risk of destroying them in the processes. Therefore the mechanics are symmetrical either you carry the items or you drop them, so optimally you don't drop them.

Affecting slots is milder than giving a status of "don't use/don't grab" because does not affect entirely all your possessions but one at a time.

It's not itemdestruction but itemimpairing
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Post Thursday, 28th August 2014, 22:26

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

Sar wrote:@nicolae: I... didn't? I'm outright saying that itemdest purpose is to be annoying, and that I think there is a place for annoying things like itemdest in the game (not every annoying thing is good, though).


I figure that killing a person is superior to annoying them, so maybe things could just be made harder instead if you find Crawl too easy-peasy or not-engaging or whatever.

nicolae wrote:
Wahaha wrote:Item destruction doesn't bother me in Sil because there's no way to avoid it


Does Sil not let you drop things?


It does let you drop things, actually. And at the very least you should do it with _magicMapping and _itemDetection, whenever you see a fire-breathing serpent (which is pretty common later on). I suspect you should do the same with !haste too, but that's perhaps a lesser concern.

Anyway item destruction in Crawl and very especially Sil was/is more a reason not to play the game than some sort of gripping, "flavourful" feature.

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Post Thursday, 28th August 2014, 23:23

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

I respect your opinion a lot, Sage, though I'll probably disagree with itemdest being a reason not to drop Crawl. I don't think Crawl has to be made much harder (and I'm not sure it is even possible at this point without drastic changes). I didn't suggest making it much harder - okay, I guess I failed to suggest anything of value.

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Post Thursday, 28th August 2014, 23:35

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

Roderic wrote:Then do something that affects whether you carry stuff or you have dropped it, so dropping is not a viable option, or at least not the way to go.

What if burning/freeze/whatever locks the slots that contain consumables both scrolls and potions. If the slot is filled, you cannot use that item until time passes, exp increases, any other mechanism... if the slot was previously void and get affected, you cannot (g)rab that kind of items -consumables- until the same mechanic applies (something like repairing pockets or so).


That's basically the -scroll and -potion idea, just with an added layer of complexity about item slots that doesn't add much.

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Post Friday, 29th August 2014, 00:03

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

XuaXua wrote:Has it been tested in practice?

Yes. (Plague shamblers gave the "retch" status, which was... -potion.)

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Post Friday, 29th August 2014, 00:51

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

Item destruction was not fun for players, so even if it allows for more depth to gameplay that doesn't matter, since the fact that it was no fun greatly outweighed any gains from it existing. The vast majority of the playerbase agrees with this.

If you want to encourage certain behaviours, I suggest you figure out a way to encourage those behaviours that doesn't make a player want to respond by just not playing the game.

re: plague shamblers: the problem there was much much more implementation-related (only occurred after you killed the monster, and then it occurred in a very weird and badly-behaved fashion that showed why circlelos is bad) than anything else. I don't see why -potion or -scroll are inherently not going to be meaningful. I might agree they would not be fun, but that is of course an opinion.

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Post Friday, 29th August 2014, 00:52

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

Well, you had to go out of your way to get retch. Any effect like that is silly on melee attacks, it's the same problem with rot and malmutate melee. But the malmutate spell works fine. I don't think -scroll/-potion would necessarily be bad if they were on things like bolt of fire and bolt of cold instead of really easily avoided stuff like melee. (But at the same time I'd suggest that if -scroll/-potion sound like they would make the game more interesting, it's probably because consumables are too powerful, and would rather address that than add completely new mechanics as a plaster. Silence is already -scroll, too.)
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Post Friday, 29th August 2014, 00:57

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

Wasn't it pretty hard to get Retch from a plague shambler without being a Naga? Or am I mixing up different mechanics they had
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Post Friday, 29th August 2014, 01:08

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

basil wrote:It does let you drop things, actually. And at the very least you should do it with _magicMapping and _itemDetection, whenever you see a fire-breathing serpent (which is pretty common later on). I suspect you should do the same with !haste too, but that's perhaps a lesser concern.

I might be mistaken but I think fire breath destroys items on the ground too? I'm probably underestimating the frequency of situations where dropping items works but it's still less than in Crawl because there's no stashing and because you can't risk having to leave the level while the items are on the ground.

The solution for Crawl item destruction is clearly to make potions break when dropped and scrolls fly away or something. It's stupid but it's a good way to make item destruction work with the only downside being that it doesn't make any sense for some items to get destroyed when dropped. So it's not a good idea, but it works! (as long as item destruction is changed to not be based on the amount of scrolls/potions carried in any way, which would probably be a good change no matter what).

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Post Friday, 29th August 2014, 01:12

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

as long as item destruction is changed to not be based on the amount of scrolls/potions carried in any way, which would probably be a good change no matter what

Item destruction in crawl always gave each individual item in your inventory a specific chance to be destroyed by a relevant attack. (Conservation had some weird effect in implementation but the end result is still the same on average, IIRC.) So unless I'm misunderstanding you this was the way it already worked.

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Post Friday, 29th August 2014, 01:18

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

What I mean is right now more scrolls carried means more scrolls being destroyed. It would be better if it was simply 50% chance to destroy 1 scroll or something like that, completely independent of how many there are. This means that there would be no reason to drop extra scrolls or potions just to lower the chance of them being destroyed.

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Post Friday, 29th August 2014, 01:22

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

Wahaha wrote:What I mean is right now more scrolls carried means more scrolls being destroyed. It would be better if it was simply 50% chance to destroy 1 scroll or something like that, completely independent of how many there are. This means that there would be no reason to drop extra scrolls or potions just to lower the chance of them being destroyed.

Right, instead you have to carry extra scrolls/potions so that fewer relevant ones get destroyed.

(this is a much worse situation)

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Post Friday, 29th August 2014, 01:25

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

Yeah I think it used to be like that, and it was changed due to clearly encouraging that behaviour.

(this is still a problem for death curses by the way, except there's an extra issue due to the fact that curses are not strictly bad)

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Post Friday, 29th August 2014, 01:26

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

Oops, sorry, forgot about that. It is worse.

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Post Friday, 29th August 2014, 17:49

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

I kind of like the idea of item destruction becoming a special effect for certain monsterss. The comparison that comes to mind is the shining eye - not a damage threat, easy to remove, but presenting a special threat of permanent consequences if you don't deal with it fast enough. Maybe a destruction effect that goes beyond scrolls and potions, drains wand charges, maybe even corrodes weapons and armor in the old style? Rust monster? I would also be okay with reviving mottled dragon/sticky flame itemdest for old times' sake. This would of course present the same tedious scenarios but less often - swapping in resist mutation isn't exactly the highlight of a crawl game but it's okay because you don't have to do it that much.
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Post Friday, 29th August 2014, 19:35

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

I'd suggest adding -potion and -scroll to certain hells but then again hells are basically just pan 2.0 + effects which is tired and boring. No one gets out of pan and gets excited for pan 2.0 + effects so I'd remove hells before adding -potion and -scroll to them.

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Post Saturday, 30th August 2014, 06:00

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

I'd remove pan.

though obviously first six levels of hells need a revamp

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Post Saturday, 30th August 2014, 17:12

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

zardo wrote:I'd remove pan.

though obviously first six levels of hells need a revamp

Pan at least has some new and interesting content in the form of Demonspawn. Hell, not so much.
I will agree that most of the postgame content is borked. Tomb is still annoyingly predicable, although much less so than it used to be, slime's lack of loot encourages just ignoring all floors except for the bottom two, pan allows for infinite grinding, hell effects are just an annoying way of forcing you to return to the vestibule if you want to heal, and all of the endgame branches (with the exception of Slime) make TSO worship a no-brainer for most characters because of the absurd numbers of undead and demons.

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Post Saturday, 30th August 2014, 18:22

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

crate wrote:Item destruction was not fun for players, so even if it allows for more depth to gameplay that doesn't matter, since the fact that it was no fun greatly outweighed any gains from it existing. The vast majority of the playerbase agrees with this.


I think players are missing the forest for the trees. I think that removing item weight, destruction, and corrosion has lead to a character having instant access to any item that has generated in the game removing a layer of complexity involving player choice on which items would give a character the highest chance of survival. Does the game play differently with having what amounts to unlimited curing, teleportation, branded ammo, and food? Of course. I don't know if the game is more fun as a whole though. I think continuing to remove ways the game can attack the player leads to a watered down experience.

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Post Saturday, 30th August 2014, 18:39

Re: Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)

characters already had access to any item that has generated in the game, because they could go back to previous levels

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