Book Amnesia is terribly communicated


Although the central place for design discussion is ##crawl-dev on freenode, some may find it helpful to discuss requests and suggestions here first.

User avatar

Tartarus Sorceror

Posts: 1891

Joined: Monday, 1st April 2013, 04:41

Location: Toronto, Canada

Post Sunday, 24th July 2016, 23:55

Book Amnesia is terribly communicated

Book amnesia is the worst communicated mechanic in the game. As far as I know, it's only mentioned in the description of spell books, but if you don't know about book amnesia, you have no reason to actually look at the description of spell books, so most people go...forever? without knowing about it.

minmay also hates it, for other reasons, but I don't know what they are. This is his cue to post.
take it easy

For this message the author Arrhythmia has received thanks:
Sar

Dungeon Master

Posts: 3618

Joined: Thursday, 23rd December 2010, 12:43

Post Sunday, 24th July 2016, 23:59

Re: Book Amnesia is terribly communicated

Book amnesia is also not terribly important because there are so many amnesia scrolls around. Of course, that could easily be changed: imagine Crawl with only 50% as many amnesia scrolls, or 25%, or 0%.

For this message the author dpeg has received thanks: 2
Arrhythmia, ydeve
User avatar

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 4478

Joined: Wednesday, 23rd October 2013, 07:56

Post Monday, 25th July 2016, 00:10

Re: Book Amnesia is terribly communicated

dpeg wrote:imagine Crawl with only 50% as many amnesia scrolls, or 25%, or 0%.

I'm already liking it!
DCSS: 97:...MfCj}SpNeBaEEGrFE{HaAKTrCK}DsFESpHu{FoArNaBe}
FeEE{HOIEMiAE}GrGlHuWrGnWrNaAKBaFi{MiDeMfDe}{DrAKTrAMGhEnGnWz}
{PaBeDjFi}OgAKPaCAGnCjOgCKMfAEAtCKSpCjDEEE{HOSu
Bloat: 17: RaRoPrPh{GuStGnCa}{ArEtZoNb}KiPaAnDrBXDBQOApDaMeAGBiOCNKAsFnFlUs{RoBoNeWi

Tartarus Sorceror

Posts: 1739

Joined: Tuesday, 13th March 2012, 02:48

Post Monday, 25th July 2016, 00:35

Re: Book Amnesia is terribly communicated

FR remove book amnesia and supply 50% more amnesia scrolls.
User avatar

Tomb Titivator

Posts: 911

Joined: Thursday, 17th December 2015, 02:36

Post Monday, 25th July 2016, 01:29

Re: Book Amnesia is terribly communicated

Arrhythmia wrote:
PleasingFungus wrote: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.

Anybody tried using it in-game to some advantage? You have to look at what books you have, what spells are in what books, what books you can afford to destroy. Map it all out. This is necessary if you want to turn the maximum possible number of unwanted books into amnesia scrolls. And you need to plan this out ahead of time, because once you destroy a book, there's no going back. So get a pencil out. It's an uninspired minigame, shallow yet complicated.

Compare! Much better is the old suggestion to make amnesia free, and when a spell gets memorized, have that spell removed from that book. To boot, that would be consistent with the behavior of other reading materials found in the dungeon. Spell books comprise the only remaining text that doesn't disappear after use! (Random Uselessness used to sometimes re-assemble itself but RIP.)

For this message the author HardboiledGargoyle has received thanks: 2
Arrhythmia, ydeve
User avatar

Tartarus Sorceror

Posts: 1891

Joined: Monday, 1st April 2013, 04:41

Location: Toronto, Canada

Post Monday, 25th July 2016, 01:39

Re: Book Amnesia is terribly communicated

HardboiledGargoyle wrote:
Arrhythmia wrote:
PleasingFungus wrote: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.

Anybody tried using it in-game to some advantage? You have to look at what books you have, what spells are in what books, what books you can afford to destroy. Map it all out. This is necessary if you want to turn the maximum possible number of unwanted books into amnesia scrolls. And you need to plan this out ahead of time, because once you destroy a book, there's no going back. So get a pencil out. It's an uninspired minigame, shallow yet complicated.

Compare! Much better is the old suggestion to make amnesia free, and when a spell gets memorized, have that spell removed from that book. To boot, that would be consistent with the behavior of other reading materials found in the dungeon. Spell books comprise the only remaining text that doesn't disappear after use! (Random Uselessness used to sometimes re-assemble itself but RIP.)


To be clear, my non-committal position on book amnesia is just out of apathy for it. It'd be fine to remove it.
take it easy
User avatar

Tomb Titivator

Posts: 802

Joined: Sunday, 30th March 2014, 21:06

Post Monday, 25th July 2016, 01:41

Re: Book Amnesia is terribly communicated

The only time I'd ever use book amnesia was to forget corona on a DrEn to leave a more annoying ghost.
Comborobin Admin

Dungeon Master

Posts: 1051

Joined: Thursday, 12th June 2014, 05:19

Post Monday, 25th July 2016, 02:02

Re: Book Amnesia is terribly communicated

dpeg wrote:Book amnesia is also not terribly important because there are so many amnesia scrolls around. Of course, that could easily be changed: imagine Crawl with only 50% as many amnesia scrolls, or 25%, or 0%.

i think reducing the number of amnesia sources is a pretty bad idea; without sif amnesia, i've certainly ended up in situations where i very strongly desired amnesia but only had book amnesia available. this is especially common with veh, i think.

HardboiledGargoyle wrote:Anybody tried using it in-game to some advantage? You have to look at what books you have, what spells are in what books, what books you can afford to destroy. Map it all out. This is necessary if you want to turn the maximum possible number of unwanted books into amnesia scrolls. And you need to plan this out ahead of time, because once you destroy a book, there's no going back. So get a pencil out. It's an uninspired minigame, shallow yet complicated.

Compare! Much better is the old suggestion to make amnesia free, and when a spell gets memorized, have that spell removed from that book. To boot, that would be consistent with the behavior of other reading materials found in the dungeon. Spell books comprise the only remaining text that doesn't disappear after use! (Random Uselessness used to sometimes re-assemble itself but RIP.)

most of this is fair; the 'shallow yet complicated' sentence doesn't actually mean anything, but i wouldn't argue with the objection that 'optimal play' for book amnesia is unfun.

not super enthusiastic about free amnesia. i don't think book amnesia would need a replacement if it were removed, beyond maybe somewhat more ?amnesia, and i think deciding what to use spell slots on is probably going to be a much less interesting commitment if you don't have to worry about freeing them up after. the consequence of not being able to re-memorize spells you amnesia'd (without another book) seems like it'd be almost completely irrelevant.

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 3037

Joined: Sunday, 2nd January 2011, 02:06

Post Monday, 25th July 2016, 02:06

Re: Book Amnesia is terribly communicated

I usually use amnesia zero times over the course of a game, and don't feel that I'm particularly missing out. You just don't need that many spell levels worth of spells; you only need so many redundant spells from your specialization and it is rarely worth heavily investing in spell skills outside your specialization until very late in the game, at which point you've naturally accumulated more spell slots to work with. There are a few extant hyper-specialized niche spells that are only useful for a small section of the game, but removing both these spells and book amnesia is a more appealing solution to me than trying to force the use of book amnesia as a feature that affects the game.

Dungeon Master

Posts: 1051

Joined: Thursday, 12th June 2014, 05:19

Post Monday, 25th July 2016, 02:22

Re: Book Amnesia is terribly communicated

this is a tangent, but which hyper-specialized niche spells are you thinking of?

Tartarus Sorceror

Posts: 1667

Joined: Saturday, 11th October 2014, 06:12

Location: Brazil. RS, Santa Cruz do Sul.

Post Monday, 25th July 2016, 03:14

Re: Book Amnesia is terribly communicated

You could add a forget spell ability that when used will display all spells you current have memorized and the book for. Warns the player which book he is about to destroy and circle the question through every book the player currently is carrying that have the spell he wants to forget.
You shall never see my color again.

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 3037

Joined: Sunday, 2nd January 2011, 02:06

Post Monday, 25th July 2016, 04:21

Re: Book Amnesia is terribly communicated

PleasingFungus wrote:this is a tangent, but which hyper-specialized niche spells are you thinking of?


Ignite Poison is probably the most discussed example in previous threads on that very topic, but if we went spell-by-spell we could probably quite a few spells and maybe even entire book backgrounds that don't have a useful reason to exist. Dispel Undead is another example that's come up a bunch of times. If it seems like a good idea to prepare a spell and then amnesia it at a point you've planned in advance, then probably the spell balance is wonky and in need of review.
User avatar

Tartarus Sorceror

Posts: 1891

Joined: Monday, 1st April 2013, 04:41

Location: Toronto, Canada

Post Monday, 25th July 2016, 04:24

Re: Book Amnesia is terribly communicated

KoboldLord wrote:
PleasingFungus wrote:this is a tangent, but which hyper-specialized niche spells are you thinking of?


Ignite Poison is probably the most discussed example in previous threads on that very topic, but if we went spell-by-spell we could probably quite a few spells and maybe even entire book backgrounds that don't have a useful reason to exist. Dispel Undead is another example that's come up a bunch of times. If it seems like a good idea to prepare a spell and then amnesia it at a point you've planned in advance, then probably the spell balance is wonky and in need of review.


Ignite poison doesn't do that anymore; it only hurts monsters if they've already been poisoned.
take it easy

Dungeon Master

Posts: 1051

Joined: Thursday, 12th June 2014, 05:19

Post Monday, 25th July 2016, 04:29

Re: Book Amnesia is terribly communicated

imo make another thread wrt overspecialized spells/backgrounds; i'm very curious about this.

https://github.com/crawl/crawl/commit/6622a18fe0be here's a branch that removes book amnesia. will probably push it in a few days if no one objects.

For this message the author PleasingFungus has received thanks: 2
and into, Arrhythmia
User avatar

Tomb Titivator

Posts: 911

Joined: Thursday, 17th December 2015, 02:36

Post Monday, 25th July 2016, 05:05

Re: Book Amnesia is terribly communicated

Untitled.png
Untitled.png (12.18 KiB) Viewed 3553 times

For this message the author HardboiledGargoyle has received thanks: 2
Arrhythmia, PleasingFungus
User avatar

Tartarus Sorceror

Posts: 1762

Joined: Monday, 14th October 2013, 01:05

Post Monday, 25th July 2016, 08:36

Re: Book Amnesia is terribly communicated

Arrhythmia wrote:Ignite poison doesn't do that anymore; it only hurts monsters if they've already been poisoned.
KoboldLord didn't mention it hurting poison-body monsters though? I think they just mean that "Fire/Poison/Tmut spell which speeds up poison damage" is a hyper-specialized niche spell that is only useful for a certain portion of the game(I would agree).

For this message the author Shard1697 has received thanks:
duvessa
User avatar

Shoals Surfer

Posts: 298

Joined: Wednesday, 9th March 2016, 20:00

Post Monday, 25th July 2016, 12:17

Re: Book Amnesia is terribly communicated

PleasingFungus wrote:imo make another thread wrt overspecialized spells/backgrounds; i'm very curious about this.

https://github.com/crawl/crawl/commit/6622a18fe0be here's a branch that removes book amnesia. will probably push it in a few days if no one objects.


I don't see the need to make scrolls of amnesia even more common to compensate. Sif Muna still has that "forget spell" ability, doesn't she? Haven't played her since the Sif reform, but if it's still there, I see no reason to make the ability even less relevant. Amnesia scrolls are already common, and realistically, except for newbies who want to experiment with every spell in the game, most characters won't need to forget more than a couple of spells anyway, for which they already get enough amnesia. Scrolls of amnesia generation chance should stay as it is now, or even further reduced so that more than 1 in 1000 characters might have to consider limited supply of amnesia scrolls as a real concern.

Otherwise, removing book amnesia, and then the idea in the other thread where you can instantly access every spell from every book you read in the Memorization screen would be a nice way to streamline spell learning with pretty much no significant downsides.
If I play online, I do so under the screenname Marenglen.

Return to Game Design Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 32 guests

cron
Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group.
Designed by ST Software for PTF.