Proposal: Remove identification

[Tiktacy]

My proposal is simple, remove identification, period. No more identifying potions or scrolls, artifacts come pre-id'ed, and branded weapons show the brand and enchantment at all times. etc.

I'm going to try my best to explain what exactly identification represents in the context of the game. Essentially, not IDing scrolls/potions on pick up generally means that you end up with 1 less of each type of potion and scroll than you would normally have(unless the time you use it is appropriate, which is entirely RNG based), and scrolls of ID basically say "gain 1 extra potion/scroll that you have not identified yet." Obviously, it depends on how you choose to play the game, as has been discussed in one of my previous threads. However, no matter how you decide to play it, the function of identification is still the same.

I believe this has a negative effect on gameplay for a number of reasons. First of all, its tedious, and not just tedious, but consistently tedious as since it happens every single game. More importantly, it restricts the options of the player in certain circumstances in the early game, essentially turning what could be a choice of "should I use this potion now or use a weaker one to save resources in case I need it later?" into "#YoloQuaff." I know some people like the #YoloQuaff mechanic in the early game, but its just not good game design no matter how you look at it. The random elements of the game are meant for variation, and unavoidable deaths are required otherwise the game presents no 'real' challenge for skilled players, they are not meant to force player skill to take a back seat to a die roll which is exactly what not having potions/scrolls ID'ed upon pickup does.

But lets take a break from potions and scrolls and talk a little bit about some of the other uses of IDing things. Scrolls of identification are also used to identify amulets in case you don't want to accidentally equip faith and be forced to either keep it on or lose a lot of piety. Another use is for figuring out the number of charges in a wand, although people tend to reserve this for the 3 rare wands since they are the only one that have a real effect on the game if they run out. The there is the use of IDing branded and randart weapons to avoid accidentally equipping distortion. Then there are a few niche situations like when one might want to identify the top card of a deck, or maybe they are just lazy and don't want to equip something so they just read the scroll instead(I know I do this a lot). My question is, why does any of that need to be in the game? Would it be added now if it were proposed? Wouldn't it make a whole lot more sense to just ID things upon pickup? All it adds is an extra step, its not like scrolls of identification are in short supply in most games, and reducing the amount of them would only cause frustration since it further hinders player decisions, and before somebody mentions it, there is nothing fun about risk-IDing something that could potentially screw you over that you really didn't need to do, which is the only decision that could potentially arise from limiting ID scrolls.

There is only one other thing that ID scrolls and identification in general has to offer to the game, I guess you could call it the "curse" feature in which an item can negatively impact you as a result of equipping it without IDing it. This is separate from the above paragraph because unlike faith amulets and distortion weapons for example, these 'curses' like contamination and draining have virtually 0 effect on gameplay as they currently exist due to having negligible effects, not to mention the fact that they are pretty uncommon anyway. I did like 10 full zigs the other day and only got contam/drained 4 times after easily 50+ wear-ID'ed rings/amulets/armors/weapons. Even if they were to have an effect, they would again only serve to annoy players further by limiting decisions and punishing them for taking risks, ultimately resulting in the optimal behavior becoming "just wait until you get an ID scroll or you can handle the downside." Unfortunately, that makes it a no-brainer.

My apologies if I come off as rude or aggressive in this proposal, I am merely trying to accurately express my opinions of this subject. I respect the devs for the work they do and appreciate their willingness to read my long winded complaining.

TL;DR: Identification adds a level of consistent tediousness to the game while creating nothing of value in exchange for this tediousness. Additionally, it prevents potentially interesting player decisions and forces player skill to take a back seat to die rolls. It should be removed in its entirety.

[duvessa]

The worst part of item identification in Crawl is probably consumable identification. Keeping track of where each potion/scroll in your inventory generated, how many have generated, stacks, which ones were in monsters' inventories, etc. lets you improve your guesses as to which consumable is which.

[Tiktacy]

The worst part of item identification in Crawl is probably consumable identification. Keeping track of where each potion/scroll in your inventory generated, how many have generated, stacks, which ones were in monsters' inventories, etc. lets you improve your guesses as to which consumable is which.

My god, I never would have thought of doing that.

What kind of madman would subject themselves to something that like...

[dpeg]

My proposal is simple, remove identification, period.
TL;DR: Identification adds a level of consistent tediousness to the game while creating nothing of value in exchange for this tediousness. Additionally, it prevents potentially interesting player decisions and forces player skill to take a back seat to die rolls. It should be removed in its entirety.

An elaborate posting, you get the point across very well. I hope we both agree that your summary (the TL;DR) is still an opinion. Because while you can state that identification "creates nothing of value...", I say something else: in my opinion (and this is not just theory-crafting as a wannabe designer, I mean this as a player), the fact that early items are not identified creates decisions: when to start the identification process, and how/on what. It is completely alright if you think that the choices you miss (because you don't know what you carry on D:1) are much more interesting than the decisions I mean. But there is something that would be lost.

Because I believe that good design is very much about creating interesting decisions, I am defending the identification system (like in this posting), and rather ask for ideas about how to make it more interesting. As you probably know, I suggested the rule changes about ?id on decks and on wands.

In the big picture: There are some routines every character has to deal with, in each game. Most often brought up: luring, food, identification.
To me, luring is a really big offender, and I believe something should be done about it. On food, I think that the current system does generate some decisions, but they're rather minor and the interface price is hefty. With identification, I'd see plain removal, such as proposed in the OP, as a substantial net loss to the game: especially in the early game, when you have few other choices (because of no items [1]), the additional problems posed by identification really add to the game's depth, in my opinion.

[1] About the possible objection: with the current system, I don't even have the binary choice to use my one potion, unless I gamble -- I say that the decision whether to use your one potion of might or curing etc. is (a) probably obvious and (b) an easier variant of the type of decision you'll be making throughout the rest of the game.

[Sar]

yes let's make early game more like late game

as in, worse

[duvessa]

yes let's make early game more like late game

as in, worse

Removing berserk gnolls from D:1 made early game more like late game but it didn't make it worse

[Tiktacy]

Do other people feel as though identification adds depth and creates interesting decisions? I personally don't think so, to me its a no brainer, SoID the singular potions in hopes of ID cure mutations and quaff ID the multiple stacked potions and scrolls so I can use them in case of emergency. But I'm no pro, so I could be doing it totally wrong.

@Dpeg: I think maybe your feelings about the ID process creating interesting decisions might simply be a product of you not having a specific method of ID'ing potions/scrolls each game. I could be completely wrong on this though, which is why I'd like to get the opinions of a few other players.

@Sar: Can you be a little more specific? What about this makes it more like the late game and therefore worse?

[Sar]

Why do you ID singular potions in hope it's the most useless potion and quaff the ones that can actually be useful?

[Tiktacy]

Why do you ID singular potions in hope it's the most useless potion and quaff the ones that can actually be useful?

Because if I get mutated with teleportitus later on and quaffed my only cure mutations potion then I'm going to be a very unhappy camper. Also, if I quaff ID single stacked potions, then I don't have any left over to use and the information gives me no benefit.

[Sar]

Cmuts are really common now and you don't meet mutators until endgame or postendgame anyway. In the early game, when ID game is played, it's the least important potion, I'd rather have one more heal wounds, curing, agility, might, treeform...

[Tiktacy]

Cmuts are really common now and you don't meet mutators until endgame or postendgame anyway. In the early game, when ID game is played, it's the least important potion, I'd rather have one more heal wounds, curing, agility, might, treeform...

Thats not relevent. *elipses*

[genericpseudonym]

The worst part of item identification in Crawl is probably consumable identification. Keeping track of where each potion/scroll in your inventory generated, how many have generated, stacks, which ones were in monsters' inventories, etc. lets you improve your guesses as to which consumable is which.

Consumables are the only good part of identification.

Equipment ID is mostly pointless except in the very early game when you can gamble on a runed dagger maybe being venom/elec and carrying you to lair and maybe being cursed -3 and killing you because you have no scrolls yet.

[Tiktacy]

The worst part of item identification in Crawl is probably consumable identification. Keeping track of where each potion/scroll in your inventory generated, how many have generated, stacks, which ones were in monsters' inventories, etc. lets you improve your guesses as to which consumable is which.

Consumables are the only good part of identification.

Equipment ID is mostly pointless except in the very early game when you can gamble on a runed dagger maybe being venom/elec and carrying you to lair and maybe being cursed -3 and killing you because you have no scrolls yet.

I agree that its the only *relevant part of identification. If its considered a good thing, then it stays, if its not, then it should absolutely be removed. I think its a bad thing for a number of reasons as explained in the OP.

I also agree that equipment ID is mostly pointless.

[Leszczynek]

The worst part of item identification in Crawl is probably consumable identification. Keeping track of where each potion/scroll in your inventory generated, how many have generated, stacks, which ones were in monsters' inventories, etc. lets you improve your guesses as to which consumable is which.

Barely anybody does it; a bunch of really good players and streakers is still "barely anybody" when compared to the whole playerbase. No offense.

Do other people feel as though identification adds depth and creates interesting decisions?

People use ?id in many different ways. Now, you may argue which one is optimal and that using identification in certain ways is "wrong", but if people do use them very differently, then it does create interesting decisions. Even if you take out "bad" players out of the equation, my "no-brainer" is still different than yours.

[4Hooves2Appendages]

I don't mind identification, but I get annoyed that I should be tracking where the potions/scrolls came from (inscribe them on pick-up, etc.). Usually I'm too lazy and it doesn't matter, but sometimes I regret it later.

That could be fixed without removing identification of course. The simple solution would be to remove the weightings and restrictions for the locations in which consumables can spawn. Yes, it would change the power balance somewhat and increase the randomness of the order in which consumables are encountered. That doesn't bother me.

[archaeo]

I'll leave googling for the numerous previous threads on the subject as an exercise for the reader, but if you don't want to bother, they all end the same way: part of the Tavern (including me, fwiw) finds the ID minigame superfluous, and the other part feels like it's a vital part of the genre and an important thing Crawl should have, and then nothing changes, because the former camp probably won't ever convince the latter camp.

I'm curious about actual responses to dpeg's point about making ID more interesting. We can split that off to a new thread, if Tiktacy would prefer to keep tilting at the ID windmill in this one, but given the routine opposition to "remove ID" threads by the people with actual commit access, it should really just get added to the "won't do" list.

[KoboldLord]

That's not actually true, though. The ID minigame is much smaller than it used to be, and if you look back on changes in previous versions it is clearly on the way out. There is a subset of the playerbase and devteam that have an affection for it, but as it exists now it is pretty clearly an uncompensated drag on the gameplay. Historically speaking, the way I expect the rest of the process to play out is that one tiny piece of the ID minigame will be singled out for removal, which will be grudgingly accepted as a compromise, and then the compromise will become the new normal. Repeat, with the end effect of the ID minigame going away over the course of real-time years with lots of unnecessary kludges rather than being cleanly removed all at once.

The ID minigame isn't inherently bad, mind you. Nethack does a lot of interesting things with it, in that you have many ways to soft-identify items or mitigate potential harms caused, and the id mini-game there does have some real bite to it if you are not cautious. Crawl has already removed almost everything that could make the minigame interesting. Use-id is obviously worse than scroll- or shop-id, and you should immediately use all scroll- or shop-id opportunities on whatever is most likely to be valuable. Maximizing the accuracy of this prediction for consumables is only marginally better than blindly guessing, which puts this tedious book-work into a particularly sour spot because doing the work is optimal without being remotely worthwhile.

[dpeg]

@Dpeg: I think maybe your feelings about the ID process creating interesting decisions might simply be a product of you not having a specific method of ID'ing potions/scrolls each game. I could be completely wrong on this though, which is why I'd like to get the opinions of a few other players.

Oh, I am set in my patterns, too. It's just that I am not convinced my procedure is optimal.

Also, I am not claiming that identification provokes deep, mind-boggling decisions in each game. My claim is rather that there would be *even fewer* decisions if everything came preidentified. Of course, depending on how you consider this, this affects your assessment of the price: the identification system necessitates some interface burden. I claim that what we gain outweighs this cost. Now that's very much subjective, and you may easily disagree (and if identification feels trivial to you, then you should disagree).

I have a feeling of deja ecrit, but let me explain what I would like to see in the early game: you collect items (let's restrict to consumables here), and you don't know what they are. You would like to know what they are, because that will increase your life expectancy. Now there are several ways to go about this:

1. You could use any consumable as soon as you have two of them ("use-id").
2. You could wait until you have guessed scroll of Identify and use that for consumables you consider important ("scroll-id").
3. You could wait until you have amassed enough potions/scrolls to make a statistical guess.
4. Waiting with identification may help in other ways (shops, monster use).

In a perfect world, there wouldn't be one fixed way that's best. It should depend on circumstances. For example, if I find an early attack wand *and* lack killing power, then I often blow ?ID on the wand. I like to believe this improves my odds (but because I am enjoying my own idea, this could easily be wishful thinking). In any case, it's an actual option, and I am curious how anyone would go about proving it's always bad.

To me, ?ID are a limited resource, and how to spend it should be non-trivial. I am happy to discuss how to increase decisions in this area. For example, what if uniques sometimes carried identified consumables? Would the existence (or high generation chance) of a potion/scroll shop in D:7-9 change your approach?

Part of the Tavern finds the ID minigame superfluous, and the other part feels like it's a vital part of the genre and an important thing Crawl should have, and then nothing changes, because the former camp probably won't ever convince the latter camp.

It's not just that -- if enough developers enjoy ID, then why should we change it? And if we think it can be improved, then we'll do that rather than remove it.

I'm curious about actual responses to dpeg's point about making ID more interesting. We can split that off to a new thread, if Tiktacy would prefer to keep tilting at the ID windmill in this one, but given the routine opposition to "remove ID" threads by the people with actual commit access, it should really just get added to the "won't do" list.

+1 for ID windmill. Does this make tiktacy the Don and duvessa is Rosinante?

On topic: yes, I'd love to have such a thread.

[Tiktacy]

I'll leave googling for the numerous previous threads on the subject as an exercise for the reader, but if you don't want to bother, they all end the same way: part of the Tavern (including me, fwiw) finds the ID minigame superfluous, and the other part feels like it's a vital part of the genre and an important thing Crawl should have, and then nothing changes, because the former camp probably won't ever convince the latter camp.

I'm curious about actual responses to dpeg's point about making ID more interesting. We can split that off to a new thread, if Tiktacy would prefer to keep tilting at the ID windmill in this one, but given the routine opposition to "remove ID" threads by the people with actual commit access, it should really just get added to the "won't do" list.

I discussed a few ways of making identification more interesting in the OP and what problems they have. Making ID scrolls more common, making IDing more important, etc.

I do normally prefer improvements over removal, but something that is tedious on a fundamental level like IDing just doesn't have a road to improvement. Its like suggesting that we should try making food more interesting. Maybe I just lack the creativity though. Decreasing ID scrolls spawns would mean nothing but reducing the amount of other consumables the player has, and trying to increase the danger of quaff IDing potions/scrolls would result in fewer decisions existing since if you made it dangerous enough them players would simply just never quaff ID unless they are in trouble(which i think we can all agree is fucking terrible). If you make it too irrelevant then it simply continues to exist as it is, its a very fine breakpoint and I honestly don't think there is a sweet spot for this particular issue. Even if there was a sweet spot, there still exists a number of other issues, read on for more details on that.

@dpeg:

My confusion with dpegs stance though lies in the lack of justification for the tediousness it represents. Either way, IDing or no IDing, there will still be interesting decisions to be made, but IDing is still an extremely tedious portion of the game for the majority of players. What is so tedious about it is that it takes up a very significant amount of time, often times creates forced clutter(because negative scrolls and potions STILL exist for some reason), and ultimately has the same outcome and ends up totally irrelevant usually by the time you reach temple.

Just to summarize this, we are talking about a feature that has a pretty small effect on the game, arguably removes just as many decisions from the game as it creates, and becomes 100% irrelevant after only about 15 minutes of play time yet continues to linger throughout most of the game while offering no decisions(since ID scrolls become so abundant). IDing is not a subjective issue, even if it does somehow create more interesting decisions for you(which is the only subjective part of the discussion), those decisions dissipate after only a few minutes of playtime and become non-existent while still adding an extra step to everything involved in the ID process through the games entirety. I struggle to see how its removal is somehow a net loss when the depth that you speak of becomes non-existent so quickly.

Perhaps its not a no brainer, but just because it adds decisions to the game doesn't mean its other problems can just be forgiven. Old similicrum added decisions to the game; "what chunks should I drop to make room for these new ones?" but that doesn't mean its tediousness suddenly stops existing.

[dpeg]

I am mostly fine with everything you say, even if I have a very different opinion. But then, how do you expect to get away with this?

IDing is still an extremely tedious portion of the game for the majority of players

.
You can say that ID is *extremely tedious* for you, and certainly for *some* players. Maybe tedious for many players. But how do you interpolate that to *extremely tedious for the majority of players*?

What is so tedious about it is that it takes up a very significant amount of time, often times creates forced clutter(because negative scrolls and potions STILL exist for some reason), and ultimately has the same outcome and ends up totally irrelevant usually by the time you reach temple.

I disagree with all of this except the forced clutter. Negative consumables exist because of the ID game. "Very significant" time is your own experience, it does not match mine. I don't believe "same outcome" and "totally irrelevant by temple".

I've seen threads like this before, and I believe this one has run its course. We've exchanged our points, you try to up the ante by making more tenuous claims, but there is nothing to up.

Having a discussion about how players approach identification would be useful. Especially if people can recall when it did not work so well, or they changed their pattern. I am always happy to discuss ways that improve the ID system. That said, even if nothing changes, I am quite happy with identification -- like I said in my first reply, food and particularly luring are much higher concerns on my private Crawl list.

[Malevolent]

I find the ID minigame kind of fun, myself. And yes, there definitely are interesting decisions to make involving identification. I don't see how that can be doubted, even if it's only a few small decisions that only affect the early game.

[Tiktacy]

What is so tedious about it is that it takes up a very significant amount of time, often times creates forced clutter(because negative scrolls and potions STILL exist for some reason), and ultimately has the same outcome and ends up totally irrelevant usually by the time you reach temple.

I disagree with all of this except the forced clutter. Negative consumables exist because of the ID game. "Very significant" time is your own experience, it does not match mine. I don't believe "same outcome" and "totally irrelevant by temple".

Please describe what makes it relevant beyond temple. Once you find a decent set of consumables(Tele, haste/invis/berserk/might, heal wounds, cure, ID obviously) then at that point you have all the things you need to survive in an emergency(assuming you have at least somewhat well versed in crawls fundamental strategies like positioning and picking battles) meaning that it becomes a no brainer to just wait until you get ID scrolls to identify the rest of your consumables. That for me normally happens by the time I reach the temple, and at that point the ID game becomes irrelevant because the only thing that makes it relevant to begin with is not allowing players access to consumables in case of emergency. Sure, certain other consumables might be better for certain situations, but in most cases the choice of when to !/? ID and when to not !/? ID is a no brainer beyond temple.

Also, the only important negative consumable is mutation, which has a small chance of screwing up a persons character, but most of the time is pretty harmless. Maybe some people will disagree on that, but I think for the most part people tend to not worry too much about negative consumables based on the fact that people don't seem to place a lot of value on them in these discussions.

[all before]

People defending the id game don't need to show the id game can be interesting.
People defending the id game need to show the id game is *more interesting* than choosing how to use consumables in the early game.

What decision would you rather make? 1) choosing what to id from a list of unknown items, possibly doing some arcane statistics to make a better guess, or 2) deciding which of your few consumables is best to use in a dangerous situation, and what constitutes a dangerous enough situation to merit using them.

[dpeg]

all before: Did you read what I wrote? If you had, then you'd know that your dichotomy is a fallacy. 0/10, would not answer again.

[Siegurt]

People defending the id game don't need to show the id game can be interesting.
People defending the id game need to show the id game is *more interesting* than choosing how to use consumables in the early game.

What decision would you rather make? 1) choosing what to id from a list of unknown items, possibly doing some arcane statistics to make a better guess, or 2) deciding which of your few consumables is best to use in a dangerous situation, and what constitutes a dangerous enough situation to merit using them.

1.

I do 2. Through the post id portion of the game and dont find it any more compelling, and at least in the current status quo i get some variation

[archaeo]

You would get the same "variation" in a game without ID and fewer consumables. It's just an added layer of interaction, a little speedbump.

dpeg: I think all before read what you said and disagrees that it's fallacious. Please assume good faith; nobody's trying to throw the baby out with the bath water here. To avoid KoboldLord's prediction and save ID, it needs to be more than a speedbump. I'm sympathetic to Tiktacy's point: maybe I'm just not clever enough to see how you make ID more interesting, but I do feel like all the "easy" solutions are undesirable, and would amount to raising the speedbump a bit.

That said, dpeg is right to criticize the "majority" language there, Tiktacy. We hear from a tiny faction of the people who play Crawl, after all.

So let me end on the wishy-washy note that we should respect each other's opinions here. There's no "right" answer, except perhaps that nobody thinks the status quo is perfect.

[Rast]

The worst part of item identification in Crawl is probably consumable identification. Keeping track of where each potion/scroll in your inventory generated, how many have generated, stacks, which ones were in monsters' inventories, etc. lets you improve your guesses as to which consumable is which.

My god, I never would have thought of doing that.

What kind of madman would subject themselves to something that like...

Nobody actually does it. Duvessa just complains about the possibility on the forum.

[dpeg]

archaeo: Alright, I'll spell out for you where I see the fallacy (I think I've said this all before, but here we go). Missing from the above list, so it wouldn't be a dichotomy anymore:
3) Whether, when and what to scroll-id or use-id.
Variables that I use (but some of you don't seem to) are: amount of ?ID found; amount of consumables found (this includes stacks -- large stacks encourage me more to use-id); power level (if I am weak, then knowing blink/teleport/etc. is more important, and I cannot wait as long to scroll-id consumables).

Additional issue with that line of reasoning: there is no objective measure for "more interesting". If I proclaim that current ID is more interesting, then that's the end of the story. And, of course, tables reversed, if you say it not interesting at all for you, then I couldn't ever argue with that (but I've said that all before). This is why I am trying to move on to talk about actual decisions (including, if you're in the other camp, non-decisions, i.e. how you trivialise the ID system, thereby showing that it does not generate decisions in your games) -- I could have a blind spot and "use-id as soon as you have duplicates" *is* the best approach, after all. But this is the very thread you mentioned. It should exist

Regarding tone: I think I showed reasonable goodwill towards Tiktacy. That said, after having spent several carefully written and elaborate paragraphs I'll stop communication when I get slapped "extremely tedious / majority of players" in my face. Waste of my time.

[duvessa]

Nobody actually does it. Duvessa just complains about the possibility on the forum.

I do it...

[dpeg]

duvessa: That's good to know (because it means addressing this issue is not just a theoretical endeavour). Part of the problem are vaults, especially portal vaults. I guess a good solution would be to pre-id items there and/or place items as by the generator. ("KITEM: d = potion" would mean "roll a potion for absdepth of player.)

[Tiktacy]

archaeo: Alright, I'll spell out for you where I see the fallacy (I think I've said this all before, but here we go). Missing from the above list, so it wouldn't be a dichotomy anymore:
3) Whether, when and what to scroll-id or use-id.
Variables that I use (but some of you don't seem to) are: amount of ?ID found; amount of consumables found (this includes stacks -- large stacks encourage me more to use-id); power level (if I am weak, then knowing blink/teleport/etc. is more important, and I cannot wait as long to scroll-id consumables).

Additional issue with that line of reasoning: there is no objective measure for "more interesting". If I proclaim that current ID is more interesting, then that's the end of the story. And, of course, tables reversed, if you say it not interesting at all for you, then I couldn't ever argue with that (but I've said that all before). This is why I am trying to move on to talk about actual decisions (including, if you're in the other camp, non-decisions, i.e. how you trivialise the ID system, thereby showing that it does not generate decisions in your games) -- I could have a blind spot and "use-id as soon as you have duplicates" *is* the best approach, after all. But this is the very thread you mentioned. It should exist

Regarding tone: I think I showed reasonable goodwill towards Tiktacy. That said, after having spent several carefully written and elaborate paragraphs I'll stop communication when I get slapped "extremely tedious / majority of players" in my face. Waste of my time.

I think you have treated me very well, its extremely easy to misunderstand written language as being aggressive but you've taken the high road and assumed the best of me.

Also, perhaps the use of majority of players is a bad argument, but there is nothing wrong with calling something tedious when you have an argument to back it up. Buzzwords are often times toxic, but sometimes they can be important when it comes to clarity. I've tried to avoid using the term "ID Minigame" out of respect since I learned from my last thread that plenty of people are very attached to ID'ing and feel offended when people slap on psuedo-insults.

The part about your variations list that I disagree with is that just because there are variables doesn't mean that the decision is interesting enough to outweigh its mid-lategame tediousness. To use my example again, there are plenty of variables worth considering when it comes to similucrums and what chunks to hold on to: The HD of the monster, how rotten the chunks are(how long they will last, the speed of the monster, and how many chunks of that monster you actually have. But of course, keeping track of this causes inventory clutter(which IDing currently does in similar ways, i.e. you will often have useless unID'ed potions in your inventory) on top of breaking the flow of the game and forcing tedious behavior, so naturally it was removed from the game and changed significantly. Many of these qualities are shared with the ID system, and is arguably an even larger problem since simulacrum was not used in every(or even most) games.

[all before]

dpeg: I think you're misunderstanding what I'm saying. I'm not disagreeing with your claim that "whether, when and what to scroll-id or use-id" can be a meaningful set of decisions. I hold no opinion on that. I'm saying that you need to compare that set of decisions with the decisions that would exist if identification were removed.

And it is a real dichotomy, precisely because the id-game denies access to the (informed) use of consumables in the early game.

It's not purely subjective which is better. The ideal way to handle consumable identification is, I imagine, as follows: identify absolutely nothing until a situation arises which you recognize in advance is dangerous enough to merit using one. You retreat to a safe position using stairs, and then make a choice of what to identify based on your meticulously kept records of when everything you have dropped, knowledge of how the game generates items, and assessment of what the best consumable to use in that situation would be. You still have a fairly high chance of getting some worthless item by the rng.

Compare that to the ideal way to handle consumable usage without identification existing: you play the game until a situation arises which you recognize in advance is dangerous enough to merit using a consumable. You make an assessment of what the best consumable to use in that situation would be, and then use it.

I hope you can see how the latter situation includes everything meaningful in the former situation, while leaving out the need for stair abuse, arcane knowledge of item generation, and higher chance of getting dicked by the rng.

[bananaken]

While I never bothered to optimize this strategy by code diving and/or testing with wizard mode, I always considered frequency and location of scrolls and potions to be an useful indicator for use-ID. It's definitely saved me more times than I can count.

I don't feel like employing this use-ID strategy is particularly fun (easily the main reason why I never tried to improve my decision making with said strategy), but I'm also not convinced starting with everything ID'd is a better alternative, either.

I don't think this hasn't been mentioned yet, but what if potion/scroll generation was reduced somewhat as well as their types being uniformly distributed? Would this be too unbalanced? You could make an exception for the most powerful items, but make it so you're equally likely to find most potion and scroll types so use-ID basically just comes down to: pick a random scroll/potion.

[sanka]

If ID is to stay, than I would like if posessing a rune would auto identify everything. The ID game is way over by then.

Even better would be if you could autoid everything by an earlier point in the game, for example in lair or orcish mines. You could flavor it as meeting with an oracle or something.

[infinitevox]

I've mentioned before that I think one way to change things and keep everyone happy is to have the Temple have an NPC in it that will identify items for you.

I like the ID minigame early on, taking a gamble on the enchanted armour/weapon is fun. Consuming !scroll or !potion on D:2 and getting acquirement/experience is very exciting
Coming across that bold white text of a randart/artifact is mysterious and alluring.
Once I hit around Lair though, and the un-ID'd items start to pile up, it does tend to get a tad tedious.I've never been outright, "Ugh, I HATE this," however. Just mildly frustrated. (Especially with the introduction of Amulet of Harm, *Fragile, and I'm missing one more - I'm not trying to start a discussion about that stuff in this thread, I mention them to help illustrate my point.)
With all of that in mind...

I suggest:
1. Reduce the chance for ID scrolls to spawn overall - This will make those early potion/scroll/wand identification decisions matter even more
2. Add a Demigod Wanderer unique who is the "Temple Caretaker" who will identify items for you - Get it? They have no bias towards any one god! (Will totally hustle Gozag worshipers for more $$$ though)
2a. He/She could require a "Temple Donation" to identify an item - Like 25 - 50 gold? Some small amount, but also an amount that will add up over time.
2b. He/She could have an ID timer, so they will only identify X number of items every XXX turns. - "I've got better things to do than show you which end of the stick is pointy!"
2c. He/She acts similarly to a Treasure Trove... complete the task/quest they propose and they'll teach you the "secret to understanding the dungeon." - Causes all items to auto-id on pickup.

Thoughts?

[HardboiledGargoyle]

Hello, my friend. Stay a while, and listen...

[Siegurt]

I've mentioned before that I think one way to change things and keep everyone happy is to have the Temple have an NPC in it that will identify items for you.

That would make me unhappy.

On the broad level, I would like for unidentified items to remain a relevant thing for more of the game, not less, and regarding your specific proposal, having to frequently auto travel to the temple sounds awful.

[Hurkyl]

I don't want identification game, as is, to remain relevant through more of the game! Through most of the game, its most significant effect is that it encourages hoarding (so as to keep track of all items one might want to identify) which runs into interface problems, particularly inventory limits. Alternatively, it drives people to bad behaviors like ignoring loot entirely, or wear/wield IDing items so they can rule out the items immediately rather than waiting for the best time to do so.

[Siegurt]

I don't want identification game, as is, to remain relevant through more of the game! Through most of the game, its most significant effect is that it encourages hoarding (so as to keep track of all items one might want to identify) which runs into interface problems, particularly inventory limits. Alternatively, it drives people to bad behaviors like ignoring loot entirely, or wear/wield IDing items so they can rule out the items immediately rather than waiting for the best time to do so.

I think running into inventory limits, and being forced to decide if you wear or use id something immediately or wait, are the best things about identification.

[Tiktacy]

I don't want identification game, as is, to remain relevant through more of the game! Through most of the game, its most significant effect is that it encourages hoarding (so as to keep track of all items one might want to identify) which runs into interface problems, particularly inventory limits. Alternatively, it drives people to bad behaviors like ignoring loot entirely, or wear/wield IDing items so they can rule out the items immediately rather than waiting for the best time to do so.

I think running into inventory limits, and being forced to decide if you wear or use id something immediately or wait, are the best things about identification.

Or you could just drop it and ID it later.

[Hurkyl]

I don't want identification game, as is, to remain relevant through more of the game! Through most of the game, its most significant effect is that it encourages hoarding (so as to keep track of all items one might want to identify) which runs into interface problems, particularly inventory limits. Alternatively, it drives people to bad behaviors like ignoring loot entirely, or wear/wield IDing items so they can rule out the items immediately rather than waiting for the best time to do so.

I think running into inventory limits, and being forced to decide if you wear or use id something immediately or wait, are the best things about identification.

This requires explanation, since it looks like you just said "I think it's a really good idea to add an interface tax to good play, so that players have to decide whether they want to pay the tax".

[Siegurt]

I don't want identification game, as is, to remain relevant through more of the game! Through most of the game, its most significant effect is that it encourages hoarding (so as to keep track of all items one might want to identify) which runs into interface problems, particularly inventory limits. Alternatively, it drives people to bad behaviors like ignoring loot entirely, or wear/wield IDing items so they can rule out the items immediately rather than waiting for the best time to do so.

I think running into inventory limits, and being forced to decide if you wear or use id something immediately or wait, are the best things about identification.

This requires explanation, since it looks like you just said "I think it's a really good idea to add an interface tax to good play, so that players have to decide whether they want to pay the tax".

Only if you interpret inventory limits strictly as an interface tax, which i don't.

[svendre]

Remove identification? What? Huh?

I like ID scrolls. I also like choosing what to ID. What I ID and why can certainly matter in a game. I like that things aren't identified by default, because it often leads to fun and/challenging situations. This sounds like an awful idea, that wouldn't be fun or add anything at all to the game. Quite the opposite, it would detract from the game.

[Hurkyl]

I think running into inventory limits, and being forced to decide if you wear or use id something immediately or wait, are the best things about identification.

This requires explanation, since it looks like you just said "I think it's a really good idea to add an interface tax to good play, so that players have to decide whether they want to pay the tax".

Only if you interpret inventory limits strictly as an interface tax, which i don't.

Whatever other merits or demerits inventory limits may have are an unrelated topic, though.

[Deso]

Indeed the need of identification should go - it only adds gamble (burn up resources), make you hoard stuff (specially remove curse scrolls), mess up wand charges (at low evocation).

If there would be a common potion of randomness and a common scroll of randomness early game the gamble aspect could be kept for those desperate moments.

[kuniqs]

Consumables and wands are plenty. Personally, I always like the ID game early, as ID a stack of blink scrolls, haste potions, or a good wand is a huge power/ego boost early.

ID game is tedious late game and extended. It's never tedious to me early.

[Quazifuji]

I think remembering to backtracking (or waiting until I've cleared the level) to read-ID scrolls if I haven't identified TP and noise yet is pretty tedious. Using ID scrolls on new unidentified potions is quite tedious. Browsing the list of unidentified things to try to figure out whether to read-ID scrolls or quaff-ID potions in midgame is also fairly tedious.

Sure, the ID game does occasionally result in some interesting decision making early game, but I'm not sure if it's worth the tedium it provides throughout the entire game, including long after it's become irrelevant from a decision standpoint. Even if there were no early game tedium, I think it would be debatable whether some occasional interesting decisions in the early game are worth the moderate tedium throughout the entire rest of the game, but I think the fact that the early ID game is split 50/50 between tedium and actual interesting decisions, in my opinion, makes it not worth having.

[Blomdor]

I've not personally noticed the identification minigame's influence in a long while and question how much it actually matters to the game, but it's part of a triumvirate of ancient, arguably tedious roguelike standards along with curses and food. They're just...there, and I suspect they're here to stay for a while yet, for whatever reasons.

[Sprucery]

I like the ID game and would hate to see it go...

[duvessa]

I hate the ID game and would like to see it go...