Remove dig effect from wand of random effect

[VeryAngryFelid]

Yesterday I spectated a top player in Lair. He found an Oklob Plant, recognized the vault, moved about 30 tiles from the Oklob Plant, used a wand of random effects (no monsters were in view) on a wall to dig a corridor and got the loot without fighting any monsters.

I realize it is impossible to prevent players from recognizing vaults or change all vaults to have stone walls but is it possible to at least remove dig effect from wand of random effects?

[Siegurt]

Why?

Would it have been better if said player could only have gotten the loot with a wand of digging, disintegration, or lrd or shatter, or iood?

Why would the game be improved by your suggestion (show your work

[milski]

I'm not the OP, but:

All other effects on the wand of random uselessness attempt to affect an enemy target (though there are a couple buffs). Having digging on random uselessness is tedious, spoilery (you may not realize it can dig for many runs), and encourages inventory clutter. It also makes digging much more common (if unreliable) early on since digging wands seem to be rarer than random uselessness. By removing digging we can (slightly) focus the wand of random effects as an offensive wand, (slightly) make digging rarer and more intuitive, and unspoiler the wand.

I'm not fully sold on that argument, but I'd imagine if we were designing a random uselessness wand from scratch, it would likely not have digging on it for those reasons.

E: As for that specific situation, for argument's sake you could say it's just an example of how you can use tedious, spoilery behavior with wands of random effects in order to ninja areas. The fact the player needed two spoilery bits of information (random effects can dig, how the vault was designed) is kind of irrelevant.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Why?

Would it have been better if said player could only have gotten the loot with a wand of digging, disintegration, or lrd or shatter, or iood?

Why would the game be improved by your suggestion (show your work

Wands of digging/disintegration are much more useful and much more rare items, it is more acceptable to spend their charges to get the loot. Spells require some investment in corresponding schools.
Wand of random effects is garbage item which is often found before Temple and is risky to use in real fights unless you are standing on stairs and use it vs a monster far away because of invisibility, haste, polymorph.

TL/DR: Common junk item should not give free loot.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Also note that the wand has both digging and disintegration effects, I suggest to remove digging and make disintegration not affect walls.

[Siegurt]

I am not sure that it is especially spoilery to know that /random effects can dig, it is something that is readily learnable in game, and I personally would intuit it from the expectation that a wand of random effects could randomly duplicate any other wand effect....

[VeryAngryFelid]

I am not sure that it is especially spoilery to know that /random effects can dig, it is something that is readily learnable in game, and I personally would intuit it from the expectation that a wand of random effects could randomly duplicate any other wand effect....

The wand cannot give effect of wand of heal wounds.

[ydeve]

I had no idea it could duplicate dig before reading this thread. Disintegration makes sense, it's a battle mechanic. Dig is really weird on the wand.

[Siegurt]

I am not sure that it is especially spoilery to know that /random effects can dig, it is something that is readily learnable in game, and I personally would intuit it from the expectation that a wand of random effects could randomly duplicate any other wand effect....

The wand cannot give effect of wand of heal wounds.

No, and i don't think it can duplicate the newer attack wands either (acid, iceblast) i was saying that is how i *expected* it to work when i was a novice, and so digging was logical in that context.

[VeryAngryFelid]

No, and i don't think it can duplicate the newer attack wands either (acid, iceblast) i was saying that is how i *expected* it to work when i was a novice, and so digging was logical in that context.

I know what you mean, I spent many minutes trying to heal my rotting with wand of random effects in 0.12...
My point is that removing digging/disintegration does not break the flavor because the wand already is not identical to group of all existing wands.

[duvessa]

Wand of random effects having dig/disint is bad because zapping them at a wall over and over until you get dig/disint is annoying, yet optimal in many cases. The OP gave an example of one. Heal wounds was removed from random effects specifically because of people using it to cure rot; dig/disint on random effects is used for similar strategic purposes (tactical ones do not exist, since getting dig/disint from any specific zap is unlikely) and should be removed for the same reason.

[Siegurt]

Wand of random effects having dig/disint is bad because zapping them at a wall over and over until you get dig/disint is annoying, yet optimal in many cases. The OP gave an example of one. Heal wounds was removed from random effects specifically because of people using it to cure rot; dig/disint on random effects is used for similar strategic purposes (tactical ones do not exist, since getting dig/disint from any specific zap is unlikely) and should be removed for the same reason.

Which is a much more reasonable argument imho than it being spoilery.

If we accept this argument and remove digging and plausibly disintegration from random effects, then, question it beings up, is does the earlier access to dig/disintegration provide anything that should, by implication, be compensated for, or is the loss not a problem, or even beneficial in its own right?

[infinitevox]

Does this actually happen often enough to really be a problem? Or are we essentially nuking a deer from orbit?

I assumed wand of random effects didn't cast acid/iceblast because the devs forgot to update its list of spells :p
I understand why HW was removed from its list, but if it's supposed to be random, shouldn't we be increasing the number of spells it casts instead of decreasing?

[duvessa]

If we accept this argument and remove digging and plausibly disintegration from random effects, then, question it beings up, is does the earlier access to dig/disintegration provide anything that should, by implication, be compensated for, or is the loss not a problem, or even beneficial in its own right?

Wands of digging/disint can generate as early as wands of random effects. Unless Ar desperately needs digging for some reason, this isn't an issue.

[Siegurt]

If we accept this argument and remove digging and plausibly disintegration from random effects, then, question it beings up, is does the earlier access to dig/disintegration provide anything that should, by implication, be compensated for, or is the loss not a problem, or even beneficial in its own right?

Wands of digging/disint can generate as early as wands of random effects. Unless Ar desperately needs digging for some reason, this isn't an issue.

Random effects is more common though, and hence you are more likely to see one sooner.

[duvessa]

The chance of a random wand being either digging or disint is 66% higher than the chance of it being random effects.

[Siegurt]

The chance of a random wand being either digging or disint is 66% higher than the chance of it being random effects.

Right, but by implication, it is 33% more likely that a random wand would be digging or disint or random effects, than it would be to be digging or disint.

Removing digging from random effects reduces the total amount of digging (in a way which is more significant early than it is late). The question i am asking is is that a good thing, it isnt terribly important the exact amount it reduces it by.

[crate]

I've never used random effects for digging that I can remember (maybe I did like, once). It's not important. The compensation for removing digging from /RE is that you remove digging from /RE (it makes the wand stronger in combat).

[Siegurt]

I've never used random effects for digging that I can remember (maybe I did like, once). It's not important. The compensation for removing digging from /RE is that you remove digging from /RE (it makes the wand stronger in combat).

So you don't think removing digging is a problem (which fwiw I feel like I agree with although I don't have solid reasoning for why, which is why i asked the question)

Would it be a problem that random effects would be a more reliable offensive tool? Does that constitute a buff for the wand? It's that just fine, or is it a problem?

[dpeg]

As far as wands go, I think these two immediate changes would help:

(1) Remove /disintegration.
(2) Reduce /random to combat effects only (i.e. damage and enchantments stay).

On top of that, inspired by duvessa's posting that there is too much digging around, it may be a good idea to also

(3) Make /digging a better tier wand (this means fewer charges etc.)

but there's more to be thought about on this one.

[CanOfWorms]

Would it be a problem that random effects would be a more reliable offensive tool? Does that constitute a buff for the wand? It's that just fine, or is it a problem?

It'll still have Haste, so removing digging would make it less reliable as an wand you point at monsters (if the relative weights are unchanged.)

[HardboiledGargoyle]

Attack wands are not a good target to give randomness that can backfire, because it encourages a lot of resetting of fights, especially with stairs, if things go wrong. A potion or self-targeted wand, like a scroll that randomly buffs/debuffs/damages the reader, would be a better "random effects"-type object, because you could still safely reset in case of bad effects, but without the hassle of using stairs or other ways of manipulating monsters.

[Rast]

Wands of random effects has too much randomness. It's OK to have attacks/hexes that are useless against some monsters (or useless in general, like puff of flame), but effects like invis just encourage player to reset the fight, and effects like haste encourage player to drop the wand as soon as he picks it up.

[genericpseudonym]

The chance of a random wand being either digging or disint is 66% higher than the chance of it being random effects.

But if a player has both /random and /dig it's optimal to empty out the /random at the wall first, since digging charges are more generally useful/valuable.

[duvessa]

On top of that, inspired by duvessa's posting that there is too much digging around

I have never said that or anything close to that. Ever.

[Sprucery]

Wands of random effects has too much randomness. It's OK to have attacks/hexes that are useless against some monsters (or useless in general, like puff of flame), but effects like invis just encourage player to reset the fight, and effects like haste encourage player to drop the wand as soon as he picks it up.

No it's still a perfectly good wand to use at range while standing on stairs. Zap that hydra a couple of times and if gets hasted go upstairs.

Of course it's another question if Crawl should have a wand that you should usually only use while standing on stairs. Removing invis and haste would of course make it more usable.

[adozu]

Attack wands are not a good target to give randomness that can backfire, because it encourages a lot of resetting of fights, especially with stairs, if things go wrong...

well if the random "bad effect" is haste that generally makes retreating to stairs a much riskier proposition.

[Sprucery]

well if the random "bad effect" is haste that generally makes retreating to stairs a much riskier proposition.

You're supposed to be already standing on the stairs.

[TeshiAlair]

1. I have used random effects to dig an embarrassing amount of times, and it always feels bad.

2. Changing disintegration I think is a good idea. What about Wand of Force- acts like force lance.

[VeryAngryFelid]

https://github.com/crawl/crawl/pull/270

[Rast]

If they merge it, try removing invis and haste next.

[Speleothing]

Wands of random effects has too much randomness. It's OK to have attacks/hexes that are useless against some monsters (or useless in general, like puff of flame), but effects like invis just encourage player to reset the fight, and effects like haste encourage player to drop the wand as soon as he picks it up.

You haste even one monster* and you may as well have never even carried the wand because you're going to spend more consumables trying to escape.


*monster dangerous enough to be spending zaps on.

[njvack]

On top of that, inspired by duvessa's posting that there is too much digging around

I have never said that or anything close to that. Ever.

Except for the thread the other day where you suggested removing digging. One plausible interpretation is "there is too much digging" I think?

[duvessa]

The obvious meaning of that statement given the context was "Orb run and digging cannot coexist", not "there is too much digging".

[Sprucery]

You haste even one monster* and you may as well have never even carried the wand because you're going to spend more consumables trying to escape.

Nah, just press '<'.

[Rast]

You haste even one monster* and you may as well have never even carried the wand because you're going to spend more consumables trying to escape.

Nah, just press '<'.

If you have to retreat back to stairs before even trying to zap, it's not worth carrying around.

At least with the invis result, you can retreat afterwards.

[duvessa]

If you have to retreat back to stairs before even trying to zap, it's not worth carrying around.

Good point, I'll make sure to never carry amulets or potions of berserk rage from now on.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Good point, I'll make sure to never carry amulets or potions of berserk rage from now on.

Berserk is an unique effect while you can easily replace wand of random effect with one of several wands without risking to get haste, invisibility or polymorph. If you have multiple wands, you can even pick the best wand vs specific monster (like wand of iceblast vs hydra or fire dragon).

Edit. Of course you can still use wand of random effect before you are limited by inventory slots if you want to retreat to stairs. Typically when you have 52 items, you have at least one wand lying on the floor which is strictly better than wand of random effects.

[njvack]

The obvious meaning of that statement given the context was "Orb run and digging cannot coexist", not "there is too much digging".

If you were likely to find only one or two uses of digging in a game, I don't think the interaction with the orb run would be bad at all. You wouldn't pre-dig, because mostly that would save turns that wouldn't have been threatening to begin with. Maybe you'd make a killhole somewhere. Maybe you'd dig your way out of a situation where you're trapped, instead of teleporting. (Even killholes are probably OK in very limited quantity.)

Maybe if digging were as common as /HW or /Haste charges, it'd be common enough that one might still pre-dig? But there is definitely some minimum quantity of available digging where that would obviously be a poor use of a consumable.

[ZipZipskins]

wands of random effects suck because random effects suck so maybe just take them out?