FR: Remove Books

[Arrhythmia]

Books are such a god damned interface hassle. If I want to know what spells I have available at once, then I need to cart all of the books to a central location where I stash them, and head over there to check out the spells I can pick. If I don't want to deal with this nonsense, then I need to make peace in my heart that I may not know what spells my character could learn if possible. Such a pain.

SO

I propose that every character begin the game with a "personal spell book", an abstracted object. When they find a book, they copy down spells into their spell book, from which it can be memorized using the M screen, just like a status-quo character standing on a mound of books. Books would still generate as normal, though they'd be off of auto-pickup for non-Trog worshipers. Trog worshipers could still burn and carry books as normal, however, they are forbidden from copying spells into their personal spell books. This is to preserve the behavior that a character may choose to not burn a book, as the book would be valuable after abandoning Trog (e.g., Cantrips, Enchantments, etc.).

Book amnesia would also be removed, but that's just because I don't like book amnesia.

(yes, i know my title is a lie, and we'd keep books. sue me.)

[Baldu3]

I like your proposition more then the one i had some time ago, but in case it doesn't catch on for whatever reason I'll just add it here again: pressing * in memorize screen shows all spells available everywhere, choosing to memorize a spell from that list makes the character run to a location of that spell. Crossing fingers yours happens though, it's just better.

[ion_frigate]

Don't special-case Trog. Book burning is a combination of a slight piety gain and an incredibly clunky way to get a crappy version of Conjure Flame. It's very thematic, but it really isn't worth keeping.

Letting players choose whether to burn or not is an annoying special case. Automatically burning books would encourage weird behavior like staying out of places that have high concentrations of them (like Elf or Wizlabs). Having the same behavior as everyone else really is the best option.

[Arrhythmia]

Don't special-case Trog. Book burning is a combination of a slight piety gain and an incredibly clunky way to get a crappy version of Conjure Flame. It's very thematic, but it really isn't worth keeping.

Letting players choose whether to burn or not is an annoying special case. Automatically burning books would encourage weird behavior like staying out of places that have high concentrations of them (like Elf or Wizlabs). Having the same behavior as everyone else really is the best option.

My goal here is to improve the interface while keeping the mechanical status quo. Whether or not book burning is desirable is a conversation for another thread.

[yesno]

i've thought the same thing. it would be nice, i mean it's lame to carry around spellbooks you might want to learn from later. anything that cuts down on inventory juggling is good

[dpeg]

This is another problem solved by non-persistent items.

[ion_frigate]

My goal here is to improve the interface while keeping the mechanical status quo. Whether or not book burning is desirable is a conversation for another thread.

I do think it's worth considering, in this thread, whether book-burning is worth creating a special case for. I like your proposal, but in my opinion the strange and kind of spoilery special case for Trog worshipers is a point against it.

On the one hand, I understand the desire to keep the proposal as narrow as possible (i.e. keeping the mechanical status quo). But you have to weigh that against the fact that introducing a special case to keep the mechanical status quo actually does broaden the proposal from a both a technical and a cognitive-load standpoint.

[Rast]

Don't special-case Trog. Book burning is a combination of a slight piety gain and an incredibly clunky way to get a crappy version of Conjure Flame. It's very thematic, but it really isn't worth keeping.

Agreed, but here's how to keep the thematic portion:

For Trog followers, whenever a spellbook comes into LOS for the first time*, it explodes as a fireball**, except spaces containing you and your allies are skipped. The piety gain could remain, or not, doesn't really matter.

* Spellbooks seen before you convert to Trog are ignored
** spell power = max(50,piety)

[Arrhythmia]

My goal here is to improve the interface while keeping the mechanical status quo. Whether or not book burning is desirable is a conversation for another thread.

I do think it's worth considering, in this thread, whether book-burning is worth creating a special case for. I like your proposal, but in my opinion the strange and kind of spoilery special case for Trog worshipers is a point against it.

On the one hand, I understand the desire to keep the proposal as narrow as possible (i.e. keeping the mechanical status quo). But you have to weigh that against the fact that introducing a special case to keep the mechanical status quo actually does broaden the proposal from a both a technical and a cognitive-load standpoint.

I think that this would be precisely as spoilery as all of Trog's conducts are already. There are many, many ways to easily communicate this to the player, e.g, a message upon worshiping Trog, in the ^ screen, noticing that you don't copy a spell as soon as you find your first book. His 6* title is already "Ban of Scribes", so it seems entirely reasonable that he wouldn't let you, you know, scribe.

The extra technical burden is a good point.

[goodcoolguy]

You can find out what books are available by searching. If you don't know the contents of a book off hand, you can use '!' in the seach menu to see.

In my opinion, the annoying thing about books is having to autotravel to get them when you need them or carry them. Autotravel is surprisingly non-automatic with hunger messages and spawns everywhere. So I like the proposal in spite of the fact that you actually can determine what spells are available without any actual game time spent, though it's clunky and a bit laborious.

As long as autotravel is going to be interrupted by hunger messages and imp spawns, we should view books and other common sources of long distance travel with suspicion.

[Malevolent]

Don't special-case Trog. Book burning is a combination of a slight piety gain and an incredibly clunky way to get a crappy version of Conjure Flame. It's very thematic, but it really isn't worth keeping.

Agreed, but here's how to keep the thematic portion:

For Trog followers, whenever a spellbook comes into LOS for the first time*, it explodes as a fireball**, except spaces containing you and your allies are skipped. The piety gain could remain, or not, doesn't really matter.

* Spellbooks seen before you convert to Trog are ignored
** spell power = max(50,piety)

So I couldn't do the thing I did with my FeBe, not burning books, intending to convert later on? In that case...

Automatically burning books would encourage weird behavior like staying out of places that have high concentrations of them (like Elf or Wizlabs). Having the same behavior as everyone else really is the best option.

[PleasingFungus]

the basic problem you're describing, being unable to easily tell what spells you can memorize, is real & something i've seen people (justifiably) complain about before. two alternate thoughts for fixing it:

(1) allow (M)emorizing from any book that exists anywhere in the dungeon; destroying a book (with book amnesia, trog, tossing it into lava) means that you can't memorize from it anymore.

(2) keep the current mechanics, but change the (M) menu to list all spells in all books anywhere in the connected dungeon. spells in books that aren't in your tile display a location & distance, ala ^F.

either approach requires some careful caching, but should be do-able from a technical perspective. both, i think, are simpler in terms of changes from status quo, and don't require sacrificing any interesting mechanics.

[Arrhythmia]

the basic problem you're describing, being unable to easily tell what spells you can memorize, is real & something i've seen people (justifiably) complain about before. two alternate thoughts for fixing it:

(1) allow (M)emorizing from any book that exists anywhere in the dungeon; destroying a book (with book amnesia, trog, tossing it into lava) means that you can't memorize from it anymore.

(2) keep the current mechanics, but change the (M) menu to list all spells in all books anywhere in the connected dungeon. spells in books that aren't in your tile display a location & distance, ala ^F.

either approach requires some careful caching, but should be do-able from a technical perspective. both, i think, are simpler in terms of changes from status quo, and don't require sacrificing any interesting mechanics.

(1) is basically perfect.

Please do remove Book "The Worst Communicated Mechanic in the Game" Amnesia, though.

[PleasingFungus]

this is getting off-topic, but: if it were better communicated, would you still object to it? or is it just the awful UI that's the problem?

[Arrhythmia]

this is getting off-topic, but: if it were better communicated, would you still object to it? or is it just the awful UI that's the problem?

Just the awful UI.

[eliotn]

the basic problem you're describing, being unable to easily tell what spells you can memorize, is real & something i've seen people (justifiably) complain about before. two alternate thoughts for fixing it:

(1) allow (M)emorizing from any book that exists anywhere in the dungeon; destroying a book (with book amnesia, trog, tossing it into lava) means that you can't memorize from it anymore.

(2) keep the current mechanics, but change the (M) menu to list all spells in all books anywhere in the connected dungeon. spells in books that aren't in your tile display a location & distance, ala ^F.

either approach requires some careful caching, but should be do-able from a technical perspective. both, i think, are simpler in terms of changes from status quo, and don't require sacrificing any interesting mechanics.

The only problem I see with (1) and (2) is with books found in the abyss/zot/other portaled levels. Can spells from them still be memorized?

[duvessa]

book amnesia is an awful mechanic even once you know about it

[Arrhythmia]

hey look everyone i made a thread about this.

I'm very glad this conversation is digging up so many hidden grievances! Very successful, IMO.

[Malevolent]

Isn't book amnesia mentioned in the tutorial? (Too lazy to actually check, but I vaguely recall learning about it there.)

[Arrhythmia]

Isn't book amnesia mentioned in the tutorial? (Too lazy to actually check, but I vaguely recall learning about it there.)

i don't know, maybe if you go post in the book amnesia thread you'll find out

[PleasingFungus]

The only problem I see with (1) and (2) is with books found in the abyss/zot/other portaled levels. Can spells from them still be memorized?

you'd be able to memorize from them as long as you were in the level, or if you carried them out. this would be most obvious in version (2), I think, since it'd be clear why you wouldn't be able to memorize from the books (you couldn't get to them anymore!) - (1) has the issue of not really being clear about why you wouldn't be able to memorize from books after losing access to them, both wrt disconnected levels & book amnesia, trog burning, whatever.

tiny note: zot isn't a problem here, but pan & zigs are. you're probably thinking of the latter?

[Arrhythmia]

The only problem I see with (1) and (2) is with books found in the abyss/zot/other portaled levels. Can spells from them still be memorized?

you'd be able to memorize from them as long as you were in the level, or if you carried them out. this would be most obvious in version (2), I think, since it'd be clear why you wouldn't be able to memorize from the books (you couldn't get to them anymore!) - (1) has the issue of not really being clear about why you wouldn't be able to memorize from books after losing access to them, both wrt disconnected levels & book amnesia, trog burning, whatever.

tiny note: zot isn't a problem here, but pan & zigs are. you're probably thinking of the latter?

I think the easiest way to communicate it would be to colour the spells in the M screen different (i'm partial to purple/pink for this). We already colour spells differently to indicate temporary Vehumet memorizations pretty clearly, so I think extending this would play out pretty well.

[PleasingFungus]

this would be colouring spells in books in disconnected levels? would anyone be able to guess what that meant?

[Arrhythmia]

this would be colouring spells in books in disconnected levels? would anyone be able to guess what that meant?

More specifically spells in books that you aren't carrying in disconnected levels. More clearly, "spells you will lose access to if you leave the branch/portal right now". Maybe people will be able to guess it, maybe not; my worry would be people connecting the colouring with something else (oh this means the spell is BETTER to memorize!).

[Arrhythmia]

this would be colouring spells in books in disconnected levels? would anyone be able to guess what that meant?

More specifically spells in books that you aren't carrying in disconnected levels. More clearly, "spells you will lose access to if you leave the branch/portal right now". Maybe people will be able to guess it, maybe not; my worry would be people connecting the colouring with something else (oh this means the spell is BETTER to memorize!).

[goodcoolguy]

It would be better to make books map features rather than items. It makes absolutely no sense for players to have to take books out of portals if they don't have to travel to them to memorize spells. The books could be replaced with engravings on floors or statues, book shops with some kind of museum. No need to worry about weird rules for portals, just make it a deal where you see it once, you can memorize forever. If you really need that Trog interaction, then make Trog guys smash the engravings/statues.