Separate acquirement for spell books and manuals


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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Sunday, 26th August 2018, 20:49

Separate acquirement for spell books and manuals

I propose that spell books and manuals get separate categories in the acquirement dialogue.

First of all, there's no reason why they should be in the same category imo. Sure, both are books but they have nothing in common anyway mechanically. There's no reason for manuals to be books.

I think it is a bad thing that whether you get a manual from book acquirement is affected by whether you have spell skills trained or not. Rather let everyone choose a manual if they so wish.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Sunday, 26th August 2018, 21:11

Re: Separate acquirement for spell books and manuals

Can we just steal the scroll of acquirement from Crawl Light? Instead of showing the item categories, it shows the items you'd get, like:
  Code:
What item would you like to acquire?
[a] a +0 longbow of flaming    [b] a +1 helmet of intelligence
[c] the ring of Phasing {EV+8} [d] a book of Annihilations
[e] an uncursed staff of earth [f] a box of beasts
[g] 9 rations                  [h] 1190 gold (you have $724)
This way, acquirement is no longer 500 times better for spoiled players than it is for unspoiled players. You're comparing known items instead of unknown ones. Players no longer get a huge advantage from knowing the acquirement rules, because the results of the rules are laid out when you read the scroll.
Now, the obvious issue is to point at this and say the choice of item is always going to be a no-brainer. And that's pretty much true, but here's the thing: with current acquirement, the choice is already always a no-brainer if you're spoiled, and there's no realistic path to making it not a no-brainer. So if the choice being a no-brainer is a deal breaker, the scroll should be removed altogether. If it's not, the scroll should be changed in this way so that it doesn't reward spoiled players so much more than unspoiled players. Either way, the current incarnation of acquirement should not stay.
The other issue is that this is a buff to scrolls of acquirement, even if you're spoiled. But this can be solved by nerfing the individual acquirement categories. And book/staff/food/gold acquirement are already bad enough to be fine imo, so you really only need to nerf weapon, armour, jewellery, and maybe evocable.

And as a bonus, nobody will ever have to complain about armour acquirement giving shields or book acquirement giving manuals, ever again.

I'm aware there would still be some benefits to being spoiled about acquirement (mostly that identifying all armour/weapons in the dungeon gives you an advantage) but not nearly as egregious as with the current version.

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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Sunday, 26th August 2018, 23:08

Re: Separate acquirement for spell books and manuals

Yes, I would love that too. But still, manuals should be separated from spell books anyway.
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FeEE{HOIEMiAE}GrGlHuWrGnWrNaAKBaFi{MiDeMfDe}{DrAKTrAMGhEnGnWz}
{PaBeDjFi}OgAKPaCAGnCjOgCKMfAEAtCKSpCjDEEE{HOSu
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Post Monday, 27th August 2018, 06:23

Re: Separate acquirement for spell books and manuals

duvessa wrote:Can we just steal the scroll of acquirement from Crawl Light? Instead of showing the item categories, it shows the items you'd get, like:
  Code:
What item would you like to acquire?
[a] a +0 longbow of flaming    [b] a +1 helmet of intelligence
[c] the ring of Phasing {EV+8} [d] a book of Annihilations
[e] an uncursed staff of earth [f] a box of beasts
[g] 9 rations                  [h] 1190 gold (you have $724)
This way, acquirement is no longer 500 times better for spoiled players than it is for unspoiled players. You're comparing known items instead of unknown ones. Players no longer get a huge advantage from knowing the acquirement rules, because the results of the rules are laid out when you read the scroll.
Now, the obvious issue is to point at this and say the choice of item is always going to be a no-brainer. And that's pretty much true, but here's the thing: with current acquirement, the choice is already always a no-brainer if you're spoiled, and there's no realistic path to making it not a no-brainer. So if the choice being a no-brainer is a deal breaker, the scroll should be removed altogether. If it's not, the scroll should be changed in this way so that it doesn't reward spoiled players so much more than unspoiled players. Either way, the current incarnation of acquirement should not stay.
The other issue is that this is a buff to scrolls of acquirement, even if you're spoiled. But this can be solved by nerfing the individual acquirement categories. And book/staff/food/gold acquirement are already bad enough to be fine imo, so you really only need to nerf weapon, armour, jewellery, and maybe evocable.

And as a bonus, nobody will ever have to complain about armour acquirement giving shields or book acquirement giving manuals, ever again.

I'm aware there would still be some benefits to being spoiled about acquirement (mostly that identifying all armour/weapons in the dungeon gives you an advantage) but not nearly as egregious as with the current version.


God I would VASTLY prefer this than the current crapshoot. Nothing worse than acquiring a piece of total trash.

Also, please separate shields from armor anyhow because yes I WILL complain about it if my armor spot has a shield in it half the time when I read this scroll.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 27th August 2018, 07:01

Re: Separate acquirement for spell books and manuals

duvessa wrote:Now, the obvious issue is to point at this and say the choice of item is always going to be a no-brainer.

Btw. I disagree with this. So you're saying that if the scroll offers a decent weapon, piece of armour, ring and evokable, the choice will always be a no-brainer. I don't get why you think this way. Surely there can be items that seem to be of equal value to a certain character?
DCSS: 97:...MfCj}SpNeBaEEGrFE{HaAKTrCK}DsFESpHu{FoArNaBe}
FeEE{HOIEMiAE}GrGlHuWrGnWrNaAKBaFi{MiDeMfDe}{DrAKTrAMGhEnGnWz}
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Post Monday, 27th August 2018, 08:05

Re: Separate acquirement for spell books and manuals

Sprucery wrote:Surely there can be items that seem to be of equal value to a certain character?
I've never found two different items that were equally good. But I've only played a handful of Crawl games, I suppose.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 27th August 2018, 09:22

Re: Separate acquirement for spell books and manuals

duvessa wrote:I've never found two different items that were equally good.

I don't think that you can prove that you always make the correct decision about which of several items is best for a certain character.

Personally, I struggle with this in every game, when my inventory gets full and I try to decide which item to drop. It's a hard decision even when you know you can just come back and pick the stuff back up later :)

But anyway, I really hope this Crawl Light model will be introduced in DCSS (and manuals separated from spellbooks). It would be nice to hear what the devs think of this...
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FeEE{HOIEMiAE}GrGlHuWrGnWrNaAKBaFi{MiDeMfDe}{DrAKTrAMGhEnGnWz}
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 27th August 2018, 13:23

Re: Separate acquirement for spell books and manuals

The "no-brainer" thing is not always true. Let's suppose that it is optimal to always go for armour. Then consider a character with excellent armour pieces but who lacks a good weapon or good rings.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 27th August 2018, 13:26

Re: Separate acquirement for spell books and manuals

VeryAngryFelid wrote:The "no-brainer" thing is not always true. Let's suppose that it is optimal to always go for armour. Then consider a character with excellent armour pieces but who lacks a good weapon or good rings.

I assume duvessa means that _for a given character_, the choice is always a no-brainer.
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FeEE{HOIEMiAE}GrGlHuWrGnWrNaAKBaFi{MiDeMfDe}{DrAKTrAMGhEnGnWz}
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 27th August 2018, 14:54

Re: Separate acquirement for spell books and manuals

Sprucery wrote:I assume duvessa means that _for a given character_, the choice is always a no-brainer.


Maybe if the player is as knowledgeable as duvessa is who can estimate probabilities of finding loot. Personally I would spend much time choosing between +5 ring of slaying, +6 quickblade, +8 CPA etc.
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Post Monday, 27th August 2018, 14:58

Re: Separate acquirement for spell books and manuals

duvessa wrote:And that's pretty much true, but here's the thing: with current acquirement, the choice is already always a no-brainer if you're spoiled, and there's no realistic path to making it not a no-brainer.

Is this true? As someone who's played a lot but hasn't looked up the acquirement rules or anything, I think I get decent things from most acquirement categories (books, armour, jewellery and weapons) at decent but not great rates, and I don't find the decision a no-brainer at all. Is that just wrong?
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Post Monday, 27th August 2018, 15:14

Re: Separate acquirement for spell books and manuals

Odds wrote:
duvessa wrote:And that's pretty much true, but here's the thing: with current acquirement, the choice is already always a no-brainer if you're spoiled, and there's no realistic path to making it not a no-brainer.

Is this true? As someone who's played a lot but hasn't looked up the acquirement rules or anything, I think I get decent things from most acquirement categories (books, armour, jewellery and weapons) at decent but not great rates, and I don't find the decision a no-brainer at all. Is that just wrong?


No, you're having exactly the intended experience that a "normal" player is supposed to have.

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Barkeep

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Post Monday, 27th August 2018, 15:16

Re: Separate acquirement for spell books and manuals

I guess I should point out that "no-brainer" decisions usually require a pretty deep knowledge of how the game works — a good deal of brain, actually. You can more accurately replace "no-brainer decision" with "easy decision for experts to make" and I think non-experts will better understand what you mean.

But: Once you know a lot about Crawl, there is basically always going to be give unambiguously the best odds for a given character in a given situation. I don't think that's an argument for or against any feature, it's just what expertise is.

Anyhow! I'm +1 both on the OP's suggestion (spellbooks and manuals are really not the same kind of thing) and duvessa's. Current acquirement is way too strongly improved by knowledge of its mechanics.
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Post Monday, 27th August 2018, 15:22

Re: Separate acquirement for spell books and manuals

Odds wrote:Is this true? As someone who's played a lot but hasn't looked up the acquirement rules or anything, I think I get decent things from most acquirement categories (books, armour, jewellery and weapons) at decent but not great rates, and I don't find the decision a no-brainer at all. Is that just wrong?


You might have noticed you have worse luck with books than armour in particular. Duvessa wrote a guide once but it's outdated and I'm not linking to it anymore by request.

Most of the rules in the flowchart are pretty logical (if you're missing armour, acquire it, if weapons are important to you and your current weapon isn't very good, acquire weapon) but book acquirement in particular is kind of bizarrely bad.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 27th August 2018, 16:44

Re: Separate acquirement for spell books and manuals

God, what can I do to get people to stop linking to this? I don't have the imgur link to delete it. I already put huge, bold, red, underlined text in the original thread, explicitly telling people that it's out of date and they shouldn't link to it, and yet people like you are still passing around that flowchart as though it applies to versions other than 0.18 (it doesn't!). It makes me feel like I'm partially responsible for people giving bad acquirement advice. And that feeling really sucks!
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Post Monday, 27th August 2018, 16:50

Re: Separate acquirement for spell books and manuals

Mod note: Deleted link to outdated guide. Yes, I know I'm moderating a discussion I'm in, please forgive my transgression

Non-mod-note: Sorry!
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Post Monday, 27th August 2018, 16:56

Re: Separate acquirement for spell books and manuals

Well to be clear, if you want to link to it and say it only applied to 0.18, that's fine.

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Post Monday, 27th August 2018, 17:56

Re: Separate acquirement for spell books and manuals

Okay as someone who participated in the 0.22 tournament the current flowchart is like:

Are you starving with 0 food (impossible)? Acquire food
Is there something shiny in a shop that you can't afford and want? Acquire cash
Do you use weapons to kill things but currently lack a good weapon? Acquire weapon
Do you use magic to kill things but lack good upper-level spells (pretty much just Wz starts)? Maybe acquire book
Do you have a bunch of good pieces of armor you won't replace but mundane and crummy rings+amulet? Acquire jewellery
Else, acquire armor


Probably a couple other cases I forgot about so use your judgment but, yeah, current acquirement is not great
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 27th August 2018, 18:01

Re: Separate acquirement for spell books and manuals

Food with Fedhas is still solid I assume. Also evokables can be a good choice sometimes.
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FeEE{HOIEMiAE}GrGlHuWrGnWrNaAKBaFi{MiDeMfDe}{DrAKTrAMGhEnGnWz}
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Post Monday, 27th August 2018, 18:16

Re: Separate acquirement for spell books and manuals

My current SpNe game had a while on like D3-4 where he was hanging out at zero rations and therefore had a decent chance of starving to death. As a result I saved a scroll of acquirement that I found early until I was sure I had enough food, and this was the right decision. Very unusual for this to be the right decision, but it can happen.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Tuesday, 28th August 2018, 01:07

Re: Separate acquirement for spell books and manuals

Doesnt wrote:Maybe acquire book
had to un-thank when I read this part

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Post Friday, 31st August 2018, 21:54

Re: Separate acquirement for spell books and manuals

njvack wrote:But: Once you know a lot about Crawl, there is basically always going to be give unambiguously the best odds for a given character in a given situation.


FR: Remove D:1-15, it's too much of a no-brainer.

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