New Scroll Idea - Inversion

[killhour]

Crossposting from the brainstorm section of the Wiki.

Would take whatever rings you had equipped, and turn them into their antithesis (or whatever's closest). For example, a -2 ring of dexterity becomes a +2 ring of dexterity. A ring of hunger becomes a ring of sustenance, a ring of teleport control becomes a ring of teleportation, etc. This wouldn't necessarily be a good <--> bad transition, either. For instance, a ring of slaying +2 +3 becomes a ring of slaying +3 +2. A ring of see invisible becomes a ring of invisibility, and a ring of fire becomes a ring of ice. Rings with no suitable opposite like levitation are either unaffected or turn into a ring unavailable by any other means (levitation turns into a ring that increases item burden?).

Obviously, this would be a fairly rare scroll, but I think it would be fun, since it's intrinsically neither good, nor bad. If you use it carefully, it can turn a worse than useless ring into something extremely useful. If you use it recklessly, it can be disastrous.

**List of Inversions**

* +Dexterity <=> -Dexterity
* +Strength <=> -Strength
* +Intelligence <=> -Intelligence
* +Evasion <=> -Evasion
* Fire <=> Ice
* Protection from fire <=> Protection from cold
* Hunger <=> Sustenance
* Invisibility <=> See invisible
* Teleport control <=> Teleportation
* Slaying A B <=> Slaying B A
* +Protection <=> -Protection

**Possible Additional Rings**

* Levitation <=> Burdening (raises item burden)
* Poison Resistance <=> Poison Touch (gives poison brand while wearing ring)
* Poison Resistance <=> Poison Susceptibility
* Possibly do one of these for protection from cold/fire instead of treating them as opposites?
* Regeneration <=> Deterioration
* Regeneration <=> +MP Regen
* Sustain Abilities <=> Double stat loss
* Wizardry <=> Melee accuracy
* Wizardry <=> Worse spell success
* Ring of Life Protection <=> Vampiric Touch (gives vampiricism brand)
* Ring of Life Protection <=> Susceptibility to draining

Any thoughts as to balance issues / new ring ideas are welcome.

[Bim]

I always like ideas that make more stuff useful to more characters. Its painfully annoying when you find loads of great stuff your char can't wear/use, and I know that's part of the fun of Rougelikes, but it's still painful.

If this auto used on one of the rings in your inventory, this would be brilliant. It would stop players using up all of there scrolls as soon as they see a goblin in sight and have something that needs identifying, and would be a later game gamble, which is always nice. However, there is then the problem of as soon as you identify what it is, you'd just drop all your useful rings, and then you could just change what you want.

Possibly if it just simply randomly 're-rolled' a ring it would be better?

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

Erm, changing the effect of one of the rings you have... partially... with a sliiight chance... well, could be both nice and nobrainingly.

[killhour]

Well, it would work immediately on one or both rings in your inventory, so you don't have a chance to get out of it. It would only be "no-brainery" once it's identified in the same way enchant weapon 3 scrolls are - do you use this rare scroll on a ring of -2 dexterity now, or wait for a potentially better ring to use it on later? Also, it would give a use to rings that would normally be a no-brainer to throw away.

[Bim]

Yeah, it's not too overpowered, you don't tend to stack up loads of 'bad' rings and if it just did it to one random ring in your inventory and was as rare as a enchant weapon 3 that would be fine (and un-reversible, as in, once you've done it to a ring once, you can't do it again to change it back).
It would REALLY help stopping the mega scroll usage as soon as you have a need to identify something but the problem is that it would encourage you to drop all your good rings before you start spamming scrolls (although, with the possibility of such a valuable scroll, you might not want to risk it).

Good idea, I would really like to see this implemented.

[nicolae]

Of course, it'd be next to useless without a big list of spoilers telling you what the inversions are.

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

And, actually, it can be a killer scroll or a rejuvenator in the beginning.

[Bim]

It wouldn't need a list of spoilers, and I really don't think this is too complicated. All it does is reverse effects, and as stated, it could either skip or re-roll ring effects which don't have an opposite.

If this is too complicated (which, it really isn't) it could simply re-roll an amulets or ring. This would be a lot easier, and a really nice effect. It would be 'neutral' in effect, and just give you abit of a gamble, similar to decks.

[galehar]

the problem is that it would encourage you to drop all your good rings before you start spamming scrolls

This is a deal breaker.

[Bim]

Yeah, Its a bit of a problem, but I really like the idea of a scroll which stops 'scroll spamming'.
This was why I thought re-rolling would be better. You're not at all guaranteed to get anything good, neither are you going to want to scroll spam early on as you don't want to change your one good ring/amulet. If this also had a chance of adding or subtracting a +'s from weapons and armour, it would make it quite an interesting scroll to 'mix stuff up'.

At the moment the only scrolls that have any effect on you other than an inconvenience are immolation and torment, both of which directly damage you, everything else just makes your stuff better or helps you directly in some way. This is fine, but it means that there is no real harm in spamming all scrolls as soon as you need to identify something and have something you want to upgrade.

If re-rolling isn't an option, can anyone think of any other options to avoid scroll spam?

[nicolae]

If re-rolling isn't an option, can anyone think of any other options to avoid scroll spam?

Is scroll spam really a huge problem?

If something really needs to be done about it, there are easier ways to fix scroll spamming than including an excessively complicated scroll that encourages grindy behavior like dropping everything.

[KoboldLord]

Why is scroll spam bad? You can't identify scrolls without reading them, you know. Shops are possible, I suppose, but they're rare enough that it's nearly always a bad idea to wait for your first scroll shop before you start finding out which ones are for emergency escapes. Immolation and Torment are moderately annoying, but since there's no other viable way to sort them out, and you need to know what your scrolls do, the damage you take is simply a toll you pay to move on with the game.

Nethack can get away with scrolls that mutilate the user because Nethack supplies a wide variety of ways to directly or indirectly identify consumables, many of which are available early enough to make a difference. Crawl doesn't include a detailed item identification minigame, and Crawl's design philosophy tends to be at odds with the spoilers that such a minigame would require.

I would sooner take scroll identification out of the game entirely, and just have them all identified from chargen, rather than start introducing scrolls that ruin you if you don't take elaborate and arcane preparations to mitigate.

[Bim]

Well since I've begun playing (and I know this might be different for other people) as soon as I get an unidentified ring/amulet and a monster in view I just go through all of my scrolls, starting with the lowest number ones to the highest (on the basis that remove curse is usually more frequent). There seems to be no reason to do this later, as madly trying scrolls when you get cornered is next to useless, and teleport usually comes in significant enough numbers to not mind if you waste one.

It just seems a ritual which isn't needed, and I think a scroll which re-rolls some equipment or weapon/armour plus/negatives would slightly hinder players from just doing this. Sure, for optimal play you could get drop everything and do it by process of elimination, but that would be overly taxing and would still leave some variables left (no armour to enchant, same with weapons).

I also don't see how re-rolling is even vaguely complicated? The original proposal was far too spoilery, which is why I suggested randomness. Once it's identified, it would still be a complete gamble, as it isn't sure to make anything better or worse. Possibly it could not work on things that have already been cursed (similar to things that have already been re-rolled) which would stop you being able to always re-roll rings of hunger/teleport/whatever. As with everything in crawl, it's possible to do it absolutely the optimal way, and if you reallllly want to put yourself through that, I don't see that it should be a problem.

Simple tagline:

'A scroll that randomly changes the innate attributes of a weapon, an item of armour or a piece of jewellery.' - Nothing complicated or spoilery about that.

[KoboldLord]

It just seems a ritual which isn't needed, and I think a scroll which re-rolls some equipment or weapon/armour plus/negatives would slightly hinder players from just doing this.

You don't have a choice whether you want to do the ritual or not.

You need your teleport scrolls. Full stop. Also blinking, and identify, and many others. You will read-ID most of them, because shops and identify scrolls will not come early enough to do the job.

A scroll that randomly trashes your existing equipment won't change the fact that you NEED to know which of your scrolls are teleportation, but it will make finding out more painful. You still don't have a meaningful choice, but now you have the expectation that you may be kicked in the balls by this scroll around once per game.

[Bim]

Or it might make something better, just like if you try a cursed mace or put on an unidentified cursed ring. It works both ways, and just adds a bit more interest to trying scrolls, as at the moment they either help you or do something very minor.

I don't like the ritual, but the only way to completely stamp it out is for scrolls to be Id'd at start. As that isn't going to happen, having this scroll would simply mean that you would have to be more cautious/think about things, which is better than just clicking on every scroll. It would also make id'ing scrolls more useful, and as we know, everyone always stacks up heaps of Id scrolls.

[nicolae]

As with everything in crawl, it's possible to do it absolutely the optimal way, and if you reallllly want to put yourself through that, I don't see that it should be a problem.

It's explicit in the design philosophy that if Feature X encourages tedious or grindy BS as optimal play then Feature X has to go. This is why shops don't buy anything, for instance -- it would simply encourage players to scavenge Every Single Thing On Every Floor and sell it.

A scroll of random enchantment might find a niche in the mid-game with the other keep-you-on-your-toes scrolls like immolation. But as an early game scroll with the explicit goal of making it more of a pain in the ass to identify necessary scrolls, it just feels like a dick move.

[Bim]

I Definitely agree it should be a mid game scroll, and as I said, everything could be done 'optimally' but I doubt many players do that, you always take a gamble on some things. Same with enchant armour/recharge, if you don't know, you have to take a guess, which isn't optimal, but is reasonable.

I really don't think it's any more grindy than dropping every thing other than the ring/weapon/armour item you want to keep to make sure you don't curse it, and I'd just like scrolls to have a stronger effect than minor damage or enchanting.

[nicolae]

I really don't think it's any more grindy than dropping every thing other than the ring/weapon/armour item you want to keep to make sure you don't curse it, and I'd just like scrolls to have a stronger effect than minor damage or enchanting.

The possibility of disenchantment is worse than the possibility of getting cursed, though. There's no need to drop your stuff if there's the possibility of a scroll of curse foo, because cursing just means you can't swap your gear until you find a scroll of remove curse, and it's usually not hard to have scrolls of remove curse coming out your ears by the time you've gone down a few floors. Disenchantment actually makes your items worse, and if it's possible to lose more than one enchantment level at a time (like going from +3 to -3), it will take a lot of enchant scrolls to either fix the damage or to bring a new item back up to speed (and there's no way to increase the enchantment on a ring as far as I know).

[KoboldLord]

Or it might make something better, just like if you try a cursed mace or put on an unidentified cursed ring.

This expectation is unrealistic. If I get a crappy mace welded to my hand, I'm going to remove it and get rid of it, not blind-read as many scrolls as possible in order to make it into a slightly less crappy mace that I'll still discard the moment I find a branded whip or any demon whip.

And if I could convert rings of teleportation into rings of teleport control, you can darn well bet that I'll be stockpiling those suckers for conversion.

It works both ways, and just adds a bit more interest to trying scrolls, as at the moment they either help you or do something very minor.

I don't like the ritual, but the only way to completely stamp it out is for scrolls to be Id'd at start. As that isn't going to happen, having this scroll would simply mean that you would have to be more cautious/think about things, which is better than just clicking on every scroll.

I understand perfectly well that you want to include a game-wrecking scroll equivalent to a mutation potion. Like the mutation potion, you would be punishing players for taking a risk that they're essentially forced to take, but unlike the mutation potion there's no alternative. You can't ID scrolls without reading some of them, since the ID scroll is a scroll.

It would also make id'ing scrolls more useful, and as we know, everyone always stacks up heaps of Id scrolls.

What game are you playing? The only time where I end up with heaps of identify scrolls is the endgame, where it no longer matters. I use up identify scrolls as they come available up until late Vaults at the very earliest in every game I ever play, and there's never quite enough to go around.

[killhour]

To the people who think this is too "gamey": Just because some people will equip a bad ring before reading unknown scrolls, that doesn't make the suggestion a non starter. Even that isn't a no-brainer, because equipping a bad ring is going to have bad effects. If you're equipping a ring of teleportation every time you read a scroll, you WILL end up teleporting right in front of Sigmund or a 5 headed hydra. Maybe a powerful monster will wander by while wearing a -3 ring of strength. In fact, it gets rid of several no-brainers that have been frequently ignored. Got a piece of equipment with only negatives? Drop it, since it will never be useful. That's pretty much the biggest no-brainer in the game, next to "don't die". Part of this is making it affect any equipped rings. If it affects a random ring in your inventory, that's just going to make people empty their inventories, which is too gamey. If it affects only worn rings, people will need to put bad rings on, and that's dangerous - especially if the scroll ends up being curse jewelry instead. Nothing gamey about that, just risk:reward (That's a pretty big risk, actually).

To the people who think this is too "spoilery": I don't see how this is any less intuitive than glow, or brands, or scrolls of acquirement. Sure, there will always be people who look up what everything does on the wiki. I'm one of them, and it's a perfectly legitimate way to play. However, if done right, this shouldn't need the wiki at all - it should be perfectly intuitive. Whatever is chosen for a ring's "opposite" should be intuitive and consistent. If the opposite of protection from fire is an automatic fire brand ring (not saying that it should be, but it's a possibility since the opposite of defense is offense), then that should be the case for all protection from "x" rings. After using a few of these scrolls, you should know exactly what to expect from one. As long as the "opposite" rings are consistent with your expectations of what opposite is, there should be no surprises. Rings of hunger are opposite to rings of sustenance - I don't think you'd need to look that up. This will obviously take some balancing to figure out what makes the most sense, but what doesn't?

To the people that think this will be overpowered: I don't think it should only be able to affect a ring once. These should be rare enough that you can expect to get maybe 2 or 3 in a 3 rune run. Can they show up on L1 of the dungeon? Sure, but so can a gold dragon armor. Even if one did, it would probably be awhile before an appropriate ring to use it on was found. I think that this scroll SHOULD be able to give awesome rewards if used correctly, because the chances of doing so are very slim. Sure, this might lead people to look up the best rings to use, which goes back to the "spoilery" point, but the best rings should require the highest risk (chancing cursing a teleportation ring in an attempt to get control teleport, for example). Again, the exact rings available and the frequency of the scroll will need fine tuning to be balanced, but I don't see it being too powerful one way or the other if done correctly.

Or it might make something better, just like if you try a cursed mace or put on an unidentified cursed ring.

And if I could convert rings of teleportation into rings of teleport control, you can darn well bet that I'll be stockpiling those suckers for conversion.

I don't see why you'd save more than one, since that's all you really need. And besides, what's wrong with that? People already stockpile tons of other potentially useful items. It certainly beats the no-brainer of throwing away all your bad rings.

It works both ways, and just adds a bit more interest to trying scrolls, as at the moment they either help you or do something very minor.

I don't like the ritual, but the only way to completely stamp it out is for scrolls to be Id'd at start. As that isn't going to happen, having this scroll would simply mean that you would have to be more cautious/think about things, which is better than just clicking on every scroll.

I understand perfectly well that you want to include a game-wrecking scroll equivalent to a mutation potion. Like the mutation potion, you would be punishing players for taking a risk that they're essentially forced to take, but unlike the mutation potion there's no alternative. You can't ID scrolls without reading some of them, since the ID scroll is a scroll.

This is a legitimate worry, but it fits in with Crawl's design goals. Here's a quote:

From time to time a discussion about Crawl's unfair OOD (out of depth) monsters turns up, like a dragon on the second dungeon level. These are not bugs! Actually, they are part of the randomness design goal. In this case, they also serve as additional motivation: in many situations, the OOD monster can be survived somehow, and the mental bond with the character will then surely grow. OOD monsters also help to keep players on their toes by making shallow, or cleared, levels still not trivial. In a similar vein, early trips to the Abyss are not deficits: there's more than one way out, and successfully escaping is exciting for anyone.

Sometimes, Crawl throws you a curve ball. Reading this scroll accidentally is not game breaking. Sure, you might be pissed if you lost a ring of control teleport, but it's not unfair. Crawl already punishes players randomly, and in the end, this scroll would be so rare that it would almost never come up early on, and when it did, it could either be a blessing or a curse. Variety is the spice of life, after all.

It would also make id'ing scrolls more useful, and as we know, everyone always stacks up heaps of Id scrolls.

What game are you playing? The only time where I end up with heaps of identify scrolls is the endgame, where it no longer matters. I use up identify scrolls as they come available up until late Vaults at the very earliest in every game I ever play, and there's never quite enough to go around.

Again, this scroll would be rare enough that you wouldn't be required to start IDing all your scrolls. It would be a legitimate option, if you were worried about wasting one, but it would be far from mandatory. Besides, having lots of meaningful choices is one of the foundations of the game.

It just seems a ritual which isn't needed, and I think a scroll which re-rolls some equipment or weapon/armour plus/negatives would slightly hinder players from just doing this.

You don't have a choice whether you want to do the ritual or not.

You need your teleport scrolls. Full stop. Also blinking, and identify, and many others. You will read-ID most of them, because shops and identify scrolls will not come early enough to do the job.

A scroll that randomly trashes your existing equipment won't change the fact that you NEED to know which of your scrolls are teleportation, but it will make finding out more painful. You still don't have a meaningful choice, but now you have the expectation that you may be kicked in the balls by this scroll around once per game.

Crawl loves kicking you in the balls. Again, this scroll will almost never come up before you identify ID scrolls, but if it did, it wouldn't completely screw you over either (unless you had a cursed teleport control ring on, or something - which, again, probably won't happen before you find an ID scroll and wouldn't screw you over more than randomly trying on a ring of teleport, anyways).

I'm not sure why some people are getting the feeling that the dungeon would literally be littered with these things, and they'd turn all your good rings into "banish you to the abyss, and oh by the way it's cursed and gives you -30000 to hit" rings as a matter of course. It all comes down to finding a good balance.

Edit: Sorry if it feels like I'm picking on you, KoboldLord. I just noticed that every quote I replied to was written by you. You just explained your objections very well, and I feel that I want to address those points.

[jejorda2]

What if instead of "inverting" or picking new jewelry at random, it used something like the acquirement methods to generate an unidentified piece of jewelry? I'd say generating randarts should be prohibited unless the ring that's taken away is a randart. Maybe it could be weighted towards more frequently generating the least valueable jewelry that hasn't been identified.

[mumra]

To be honest (irrespective of any comments against the idea itself) considering the sheer amount of development work to code all the special cases for every single possible item type, and the huge amount of balancing and tweaking then required to ensure that this isn't just ridiculously overpowered, is it likely to be worth any developer's time implementing something so rare and only marginally useful?

What if instead of "inverting" or picking new jewelry at random, it used something like the acquirement methods to generate an unidentified piece of jewelry? I'd say generating randarts should be prohibited unless the ring that's taken away is a randart. Maybe it could be weighted towards more frequently generating the least valueable jewelry that hasn't been identified.

In fact, that's pretty much exactly what Jewellery Acquirement does; why would a new scroll be indeed?

[Bim]

To be honest (irrespective of any comments against the idea itself) considering the sheer amount of development work to code all the special cases for every single possible item type

I have to agree, and I think the original idea is too strong, being able to convert rings of sustenance to hunger is abit too powerful. Again, this is why I said re-rolling/adding/taking away enchantments. It avoids it being spoilery and is quite simple to code.

It is slightly like an acquirement scroll, but acquirement nearly always gives you something vaguely useful, this could turn a ring of rC+ to a ring of hunger and vice versa.

I really like the idea, and as I said, adds some more interest to the otherwise bland scrolls.

[killhour]

To be honest (irrespective of any comments against the idea itself) considering the sheer amount of development work to code all the special cases for every single possible item type

I have to agree, and I think the original idea is too strong, being able to convert rings of sustenance to hunger is abit too powerful. Again, this is why I said re-rolling/adding/taking away enchantments. It avoids it being spoilery and is quite simple to code.

It is slightly like an acquirement scroll, but acquirement nearly always gives you something vaguely useful, this could turn a ring of rC+ to a ring of hunger and vice versa.

I really like the idea, and as I said, adds some more interest to the otherwise bland scrolls.

All this would be then, is a far less useful scroll of acquirement. What would be the point? The entire idea behind it being predictable is that it's a scroll that's useful when used correctly, and dangerous when used incorrectly. I can see how some people might consider it too much work with too little payout, but I'm sure there's someone willing to code it (hell, I know C++, I can give it a stab). There aren't that many different kinds of ring, so balancing would just take a few hours in wizard mode to test out any rings that only exist for this scroll, if any, since we know that all the current rings aren't going to break the game any more than finding them on the floor, which you can already do. You could still only have it affect rings that already have an opposite (although, finding out what rings have an opposite seems kind of spoilery, so I don't really like that idea).

I can understand that people would be wary of adding something that only shows up a few times in a game, but if someone put the time in, I think it could be interesting enough to warrant the time spent. The only issue that I really can't downplay is that any new rings would need to have an opposite coded in, so the game doesn't break. The easiest way I can think to do it would be to have a new tag in the config file for rings that states their opposite (I haven't looked at the code, but I assume you use config files for items, rather than hardcoding them all). Also, having all rings, or maybe even all jewelry have a "rival" ring could potentially open up other gameplay features, or at least give them flavor. Most already do, and it would be cool if that came into play at some point. Maybe finding a cursed bipolar ring that switches back and forth randomly? I don't know, I'm just throwing ideas out there.

I guess it's going to come down to someone taking the time to code and balance it. I might take a stab at at least testing out the functionality, and seeing how hard it is to implement.

[Kate]

Random bad stuff happening is one thing (Zot traps, OOD monsters), but random bad stuff that's also easily and tediously avoidable (potion-decaying mummy death curses, immolation burning other scrolls in your inventory - both since removed) is not okay. As galehar already mentioned, that's the dealbreaker.

[killhour]

Random bad stuff happening is one thing (Zot traps, OOD monsters), but random bad stuff that's also easily and tediously avoidable (potion-decaying mummy death curses, immolation burning other scrolls in your inventory - both since removed) is not okay. As galehar already mentioned, that's the dealbreaker.

I'm not sure how avoiding bad stuff from this would either be easy, or tedious. In fact, other than a scroll of identify, I can't think of a perfectly safe way to ID this scroll. If you take off your jewelry before reading scrolls, you won't ID it. If you put on a bad ring before reading scrolls, you run the risk of reading a scroll of curse jewelry (far more common). If you wear your normal rings, you could ruin them. Even if you have curse jewelry ID'd, putting on a bad ring is still dangerous for reasons I already mentioned. If you're reading all your scrolls in the temple to avoid wearing bad jewelry in dangerous areas, you'll waste all your fear scrolls and never ID them. If you can think of a way to safely ID this scroll without going to absolutely ridiculous lengths to do so at the cost of something else, I'd love to hear it. Even if there is, those issues can be ironed out. I don't understand your position that any way to mitigate danger makes things a non-starter, since those things can be balanced and thought through. Just saying "This idea will never work because 'X'" isn't really helpful. Make some suggestions to mitigate the problem if you see one.

[nicolae]

I'm not sure how avoiding bad stuff from this would either be easy, or tedious. In fact, other than a scroll of identify, I can't think of a perfectly safe way to ID this scroll. If you take off your jewelry before reading scrolls, you won't ID it.

You also don't mess up your rings, and having an unID'ed scroll sitting in your inventory with a {tried} afterwards is really not a problem compared to having a ring of +5 dex turning into -5 dex. Adding this scroll would just mean more people save their ID scrolls for their other scrolls.

I don't understand your position that any way to mitigate danger makes things a non-starter, since those things can be balanced and thought through.

Any problem can be mitigated. The problem is when the only way to mitigate problems involves dropping everything you own before entering any situation where those things might be damaged because there's no other way to deal with the risk.

Just saying "This idea will never work because 'X'" isn't really helpful. Make some suggestions to mitigate the problem if you see one.

I think all of the devs posting in this thread have suggested a solution to mitigate the problem. The same solution, actually. Specifically, not implementing the scroll of inversion. It really isn't all that interesting. It's way too complicated for what basically amounts to "Your good rings will get crappy, your bad rings might turn okay, and your okay rings will just stay okay, and you have to read a bunch of spoilers to know what will happen. Also you have to take off all your rings every time you want to read-ID some scrolls". I'm sorry, but this is not a good scroll.

[galehar]

I think all of the devs posting in this thread have suggested a solution to mitigate the problem. The same solution, actually. Specifically, not implementing the scroll of inversion. It really isn't all that interesting. It's way too complicated for what basically amounts to "Your good rings will get crappy, your bad rings might turn okay, and your okay rings will just stay okay, and you have to read a bunch of spoilers to know what will happen. Also you have to take off all your rings every time you want to read-ID some scrolls". I'm sorry, but this is not a good scroll.

Yeah, that. It's not a terrible idea, but it's not a good one either. The bad effects can be trivially (and tediously) avoided in almost all cases and the good effect isn't really interesting. You seem to think that the dungeon being littered by useless items is a problem. It annoys some players, but it has never been considered to be a design problem.

[killhour]

I'm not sure how avoiding bad stuff from this would either be easy, or tedious. In fact, other than a scroll of identify, I can't think of a perfectly safe way to ID this scroll. If you take off your jewelry before reading scrolls, you won't ID it.

You also don't mess up your rings, and having an unID'ed scroll sitting in your inventory with a {tried} afterwards is really not a problem compared to having a ring of +5 dex turning into -5 dex. Adding this scroll would just mean more people save their ID scrolls for their other scrolls.

I don't understand your position that any way to mitigate danger makes things a non-starter, since those things can be balanced and thought through.

Any problem can be mitigated. The problem is when the only way to mitigate problems involves dropping everything you own before entering any situation where those things might be damaged because there's no other way to deal with the risk.

Just saying "This idea will never work because 'X'" isn't really helpful. Make some suggestions to mitigate the problem if you see one.

I think all of the devs posting in this thread have suggested a solution to mitigate the problem. The same solution, actually. Specifically, not implementing the scroll of inversion. It really isn't all that interesting. It's way too complicated for what basically amounts to "Your good rings will get crappy, your bad rings might turn okay, and your okay rings will just stay okay, and you have to read a bunch of spoilers to know what will happen. Also you have to take off all your rings every time you want to read-ID some scrolls". I'm sorry, but this is not a good scroll.

Again, you're just bringing up balancing issues. You're running under the assumption that this scroll's rewards won't be worth the risks. This comes down to the rings you can get out of the scroll, which can be ironed out. This, here:

"Your good rings will get crappy, your bad rings might turn okay, and your okay rings will just stay okay, and you have to read a bunch of spoilers to know what will happen."

will specifically NOT happen. Your really good rings (+5) will go really bad (-5). That's true. However, it works both ways. Your bad rings won't just be okay, they could be just the ring you need to get past "x".

"Also you have to take off all your rings every time you want to read-ID some scrolls"

Why don't you do this already? The only scroll that affects jewelry is curse jewelry. That's it. You should be taking off both your rings AND your amulet EVERY TIME you read-ID a scroll.

I could go on, but that's probably not going to help. I'm going to say that it makes the game interesting, and you're going to say that it makes it tedious. We could go in circles forever about it, and in the end, you're going to think I'm daft because I keep beating a dead horse, and I'm going to think you're just shooting me down without letting me work out all the bugs. Instead, I'm going to completely ignore you, and expand on my idea to the point that probably nobody will like it.


Killhour, what the hell are you going on about?

Glad you asked! I was driving to the store and thinking, and it occurred to me that there were some very good points made. Namely that it would be too much effort for something that would have too little effect on the game, except that some people would be paranoid as all hell about it and go completely mental if their +5 ring was ruined, so they'd never read any scrolls without stripping naked in the middle of the Lair. Fair enough, being ultra paranoid is a perfectly legitimate way to play. So, how can I make these people happy without giving up on something I think could be fun if done well? Simple, make the scroll incidental to the idea.

The IDEA©

I like the thought of rings having opposites. It gels with me in a good way, and seems to fit the theme of a magic ring. So let's run with that. Instead of saying opposite, let's say "rival". Rings have rivals, and those rivals are listed in their description. Maybe some rings are just nice and friendly, and don't have rivals. Kind of like Switzerland. That's fine too, but let's also mention that in the description. Good, now that we've gotten rid of people looking on the EVIL© Wiki, lets make a rival mean something. It's not a game mechanic if it doesn't affect the game, right?

The Mechanics

Rival rings love to fight. They just can't separate long enough to cool off. When two rival rings become active (I.E.: You wear them both at once), they curse themselves (though they can be uncursed and taken off) and are both ID'd (since they make it pretty obvious what they are). For most characters, that's the extent of it. Every once in a LONG while, you might find a scroll of rivalry that would turn a ring into its rival, but it would be rare enough that if you're taking your rings off to ID scrolls, you're wasting your time. Basically, just common enough to be a quirk that you might have to deal with once in 10 games or so. Now that we have a scroll that almost never comes up, and an entire game mechanic that does almost nothing (Nothing useful, anyways), let's make it useful.

The God

There should be a God that loves rings. It makes a ton of sense - they're shiny, they have personality, and they're important to not dying. This God would prefer you wear rings that are rivals. He would make them get along, to an extent, and give you bonuses for doing so. Say, wearing both a ring of fire and a ring of ice would give you both resistances instead of them cancelling out. Or a ring of teleport and teleport control together would allow you to evoke the ring of teleport instead of doing it randomly. This God would also allow you to uncurse your jewelry in exchange for piety and food, so you don't burn through scrolls of remove curse, and would give gifts of rings and scrolls of rivalry.

The Bottom Line

All of these things are just ideas, and are subject to change, and will probably never be put in trunk anyways. Feel free to suggest ways to improve upon or balance these ideas, or even change them completely. If you have a concern that Octopodes would be completely unbalanced with this God (they would - severely), then feel free to mention that, and perhaps suggest what can be done about it (other than throwing the idea out completely - that's not helpful). If you think that it should be the god of jewelry in general, and named "Mr. T", let me know. If nobody has anything to add, I'll assume that everyone just thinks it's a horrible idea and let the thread die.

Edit: Took out some passive aggressive things, and generally made the post less caustic. Sorry.

[nicolae]

Why don't you do this already? The only scroll that affects jewelry is curse jewelry. That's it. You should be taking off both your rings AND your amulet EVERY TIME you read-ID a scroll.

Because cursed jewelry has no worse effects unless it's teleport or hunger, and I wouldn't be wearing those anyway. This is a really really important distinction. Cursing an item just reduces your tactical options until you find remove curse. Cursing a ring of +5 dexterity doesn't take away the dexterity, it just means if I want to swap rings later on I have to burn a scroll. This is annoying but if I've got some scrolls of remove curse or an item setup that's working for me, it's no worse than an inconvenience. Hell, there's a whole god based around the idea. But on the other hand inverting a ring actually changes its nature, which could make it actually worse. Inverting a ring of +5 dexterity, or inverting a ring of needed resistance before doing, or while playing in, an area where I need that resistance, makes those rings worse for me.

Now that we have a scroll that almost never comes up, and an entire game mechanic that does almost nothing (Nothing useful, anyways), let's make it useful.

So instead of suggesting a deity that helps deal with an existing gameplay feature or issue, you just invented a whole feature that's not very interesting in itself and then made a god to fix it.

[killhour]

Fair enough. I still think that rings and amulets are boring, and scrolls in general are, too. I'm a bit in love with the idea of rings having a duality, but since not all rings have an opposite, it's probably not a great way to go about making them more interesting. I think more can be done with them, but I'm not sure what. I'll have to think about it.

[galehar]

Why don't you do this already? The only scroll that affects jewelry is curse jewelry. That's it. You should be taking off both your rings AND your amulet EVERY TIME you read-ID a scroll.

There's a big difference between a temporary effect which can be cleared with just a ?RC (the most common one) and a permanent effect.

[nicolae]

Fair enough. I still think that rings and amulets are boring, and scrolls in general are, too. I'm a bit in love with the idea of rings having a duality, but since not all rings have an opposite, it's probably not a great way to go about making them more interesting. I think more can be done with them, but I'm not sure what. I'll have to think about it.

Why are rings and amulets boring? They're things you wear for a (usually) passive benefit. Scrolls are utility items to help in situations. What more do you really need from them? More ways to use a ring or scroll could be interesting (using them as spell reagents?) but making them more complex to use seems like the wrong way to go. Rings having duality doesn't do anything to give players more strategic options with rings, since, at least with your initial idea, it makes using certain pairs of rings inconvenient to use. That makes certain options less attractive, not more -- options which didn't need to be limited in the first place. (Also, with your idea, since rival rings ID each other when worn, for any player with n unidentifed uncursed rings, it would be optimal to try on all n(n-1)/2 possible pairs of those rings in order to identify every ring they could.) The idea of duality and rivality might work in a special case for an unrandart, maybe: a ring that could be evoked to switch between cold or fire resistance, or a set of unrandart rings that refuse to be worn together, but as a central game mechanic it doesn't have much going for it.

[mumra]

Why don't you do this already? The only scroll that affects jewelry is curse jewelry. That's it. You should be taking off both your rings AND your amulet EVERY TIME you read-ID a scroll.

There's a big difference between a temporary effect which can be cleared with just a ?RC (the most common one) and a permanent effect.

The other thing is that you can't id curse scrolls unless you're wearing the respective types of gear, and you can't id Remove Curse without having some cursed gear. So those are all just elements of the id game, which a hugely game-breaking scroll as described here would completely change.