Should rings of flying be passive?

[Greyr]

Since boots of flying (levitation?) were changed to always give the player a passive flying status, it only stand to reason that the rings (and I guess the occasional ran/unrandart amulet) would do so as well. It's just something that has struck me as strange since the change. What is the reasoning, if any, behind this?

[johlstei]

The ring is different than the boots, since you can't recast while you are still flying. Flight's role in the game is a bit of a can of worms but as long as it exists the two are notably differentiated in more than just convenience.

[duvessa]

How is that difference anything other than one of convenience?

[Sandman25]

I guess ring of flight should be evocable to make Jorgrun more dangerous (if you don't have flight potion/spell). It takes much time to swap boots.

[phobetor]

How is that difference anything other than one of convenience?

Its risky using rings for long flights without land in-between . I don't think that comes up often enough or is relevant enough when it does to warrants having the two mechanics but its there.

[johlstei]

How is that difference anything other than one of convenience?

You can't safely get too far away from the shore since it might expire. It's safe to cross the water in one, it's not safe to go fight that kraken in one(assuming you have no !flight. Admittedly I have no idea what the durations are and tend to ignore rings of flight completely. I imagine the distinction comes up in very few cases.

Having four sources of flight does seem pretty excessive though.

[Greyr]

Having four sources of flight does seem pretty excessive though.

Does it? There is a certain rune that requires flight.

[johlstei]

Having four sources of flight does seem pretty excessive though.

Does it? There is a certain rune that requires flight.

It's not a very important rune, and how often do people run out of flight potions going for it?

For what it's worth I think it should change as well, but there are certainly ways around it. (Are there places you can't blink over? It definitely seems worst for trog, but making design decisions around trog in cocytus seems kind of weak.

[crate]

or there could just be ways to get the icy rune without flight or blinking or anything like that
i mean really
it's not like making shallow water "bridges" would change anything about those vaults: you'd still really really want flight, since being in shallow water is bad for every race that can't already traverse deep water

[Greyr]

Those vaults have been a concern for awhile now,

has there been no movement to change them?

[damiac]

I use rings of flight pretty often, it's like infinite flight potions that you can't quaff while already flying, and they fail occasionally.

Making them have permaflight is a significant boost to them, as seen in this example:

I just finished the shoals on a character with a ring of flight. What I would do is evoke it if I had to fight in the water for some reason, or to chase down a siren, or if I wanted to run away.
So I often had to 'waste' a turn or two to turn flight on, before running away, or fighting, or whatever. If it was on all the time, I wouldn't have had to 'waste' those turns.

That's not to say I'm opposed to just letting them have permaflight, but it would be more than just a convenience change.

[duvessa]

I just finished the shoals on a character with a ring of flight. What I would do is evoke it if I had to fight in the water for some reason, or to chase down a siren, or if I wanted to run away.
So I often had to 'waste' a turn or two to turn flight on, before running away, or fighting, or whatever. If it was on all the time, I wouldn't have had to 'waste' those turns.

Except you could have just evoked it while exploring and not wasted any turns in combat.

[KoboldLord]

It would be a significant boost to an almost entirely worthless ring, which would bring them up to the level of just being mostly worthless.

[johlstei]

or there could just be ways to get the icy rune without flight or blinking or anything like that
i mean really
it's not like making shallow water "bridges" would change anything about those vaults: you'd still really really want flight, since being in shallow water is bad for every race that can't already traverse deep water

Yeah I meant to mention this in my post, it's probably the best answer.

[damiac]

I just finished the shoals on a character with a ring of flight. What I would do is evoke it if I had to fight in the water for some reason, or to chase down a siren, or if I wanted to run away.
So I often had to 'waste' a turn or two to turn flight on, before running away, or fighting, or whatever. If it was on all the time, I wouldn't have had to 'waste' those turns.

Except you could have just evoked it while exploring and not wasted any turns in combat.

Well, there is a hunger cost, although I suppose you may be correct in saying the real cost that prevented me from constantly evoking it out of combat was the tedium cost. And upon further thought, if it was permaflight rather than evoked, I doubt it would change anything about the way I use it now.

[ragnarokchu]

Don't see why not, makes the game less annoying if you decide to use one.

[scorpionwarrior]

Don't see why not, makes the game less annoying if you decide to use one.

Yeah, it would at least upgrade this ring from "complete waste of inv. space" to "sort of useful in shoals and swamp"

[Sharkman1231]

There's always Ice Form for the icy rune if by some chance you have no flying.

[duvessa]

You can also use sunlight to evaporate all the water

[XuaXua]

The ring is useful for Statue Form users to avoid getting full damage from Shatter attacks (right?) since boots meld.