Suggestion: Make ID scrolls much rarer


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Post Tuesday, 30th October 2018, 19:08

Suggestion: Make ID scrolls much rarer

With monster-equipment ID, a little more of the pressure on ID scrolls is missing.

I think the game would be much more interesting if you got ID scrolls say about as often as you get ?acquirement (or maybe !mutation), this would force you to quaff/read/wear ID a much more significant chunk of the time, which I think is more interesting than having a giant stack of ID scrolls that you can use by the time you get to V5 just because you don't feel like picking up that equipment from the floor to try it on.

This also puts a little more pressure on RC scrolls, as more wear-IDing means more being cursed.

Monster equipment now gives a totally safe source of equipment for most things if you're willing to be patient, so we don't need ID scrolls as a safe play way of getting equipment to stay on or near the power curve, so I think this is a win from the gameplay standpoint.

This would also make Ash's ID more powerful, and make playing with Ash a little more distinct from other god choices for playthrough purposes.
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Post Tuesday, 30th October 2018, 23:34

Re: Suggestion: Make ID scrolls much rarer

This would also increase the relevance of potion/scroll weight and vault knowledge spoilers (and the associated inventory bookkeeping), which are not good. I strongly object to any change that would force me to care more about these things. If you're willing to come up with a workaround for potion and scroll spoilers and really want to keep identification then I guess the proposed change works, though I also sure as hell don't think it's any more interesting to wear-id 10 different items on V:5 than it is to read ?identify on them.

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Post Thursday, 1st November 2018, 01:59

Re: Suggestion: Make ID scrolls much rarer

The identify game is only interesting in early on when items like amulet of harm, potion of mutation, and other major inconveniences still lurk. By the time a character gets to Vaults:5, chances are good they're only using identify scrolls on a subset of artefacts they find, but initially there are often meaningful decisions to be made in how to prioritize the use of scrolls. Reducing the rate at which ID scrolls generate would extend the period of time in which such relevant decisions remained.

The weight spoilers are a legitimate concern with or without an adjustment to the ID scroll drop rate, and aside from generating items with no random properties pre-identified, could be addressed by making all items within a category (scrolls, potions, rings, amulets, etc.) have an equal drop rate. Either approach may necessitate adjustment or removal of XP potions... maybe reduce XP granted, but amplify the effect towards removing Drain status so there's some incentive to save them?
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Post Thursday, 1st November 2018, 02:56

Re: Suggestion: Make ID scrolls much rarer

For a lot of people, identification is always gonna be pushin' buttons. That's always going to be true without a major change in the way ID works.

Brogue has a much better identification game because there are fewer items to identify, fewer items that do identification, and there's a mass pseudo-id item. I wouldn't say that brogue has a very deep ID game or that the choices made in identifying are very challenging or consequential, but there's a lot less pushin' buttons.

If I believed in crawl identification at all, this is what I would do to improve it:

First, make ID scrolls identify multiple items from inventory and the ground in a non-interactive, randomized way. Something like five or six at a time. That will eliminate a lot of button pushin' and some of the spoilery aspect of item generation. Adjust the number of ID scrolls available accordingly. The player could still manipulate ID by dropping things, so to really do it right, you might need some extra rules, like keeping track of items that have been dropped since the last ID scroll was used and including those in the bucket of ID eligible items, then give the player a notification that an item they dropped was ID'd by the scroll. They'll quickly realize they can't manipulate ID by dropping things.

Second, make equipment pseudo-ID much stronger. Stop bothering the player with wear-ID'ing non-artefact armor past the very early game. As soon as the player has a reasonable number of remove curse scrolls, it's just button pushin'.

Third, you don't necessary have to do this, but at least take a look at x-crawl's auto-ID after one rune thing. It's an idea whose time has come.

About the issue of dropping items in the first point, there's an easier way. Make identification based on seen items instead of carried items. Rename the scroll to "scroll of knowledge" or something, then ID a few seen consumables, regardless of whether they're in inventory, and identify something like half of the equipment seen in the game randomly chosen. Generate ID scrolls at something like a fifth of the rate they do now. Amazing. Unbelievable.
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Post Thursday, 1st November 2018, 03:50

Re: Suggestion: Make ID scrolls much rarer

Hellmonk wrote:relevance of potion/scroll weight

I enjoy using weight knowledge to increase my consumable-using efficiency, and I never looked up weights. But hey, the way this thread is going, let's just jump straight to having all items identified, because it seems like someone will always find something to complain about. Identification is inherently "spoilery". So it has to go, right? Also why don't we remove all monsters from the game, since knowing what monsters can spawn on a floor is a spoilery advantage.

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Post Thursday, 1st November 2018, 07:06

Re: Suggestion: Make ID scrolls much rarer

Wahaha wrote:Also why don't we remove all monsters from the game, since knowing what monsters can spawn on a floor is a spoilery advantage.


I realize it was supposed to be sarcasm but actually it is a problem indeed, I often check elf monsters with Banishment using ?/m before deciding if I even want to enter Elf. We might have a new command to see which regular monsters can be present on current floor, and another command for uniques. If those commands are used on upstairs, they could display monsters for next floor.
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Post Thursday, 1st November 2018, 08:51

Re: Suggestion: Make ID scrolls much rarer

Siegurt wrote:I think the game would be much more interesting if you got ID scrolls say about as often as you get ?acquirement (or maybe !mutation), this would force you to quaff/read/wear ID a much more significant chunk of the time, which I think is more interesting than (...)

I just don't get it. If you find quaff/read/wear ID interesting, then why don't you just do it? Nothing forces you to read ID scrolls.
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Post Thursday, 1st November 2018, 09:18

Re: Suggestion: Make ID scrolls much rarer

Magipi wrote:
Siegurt wrote:I think the game would be much more interesting if you got ID scrolls say about as often as you get ?acquirement (or maybe !mutation), this would force you to quaff/read/wear ID a much more significant chunk of the time, which I think is more interesting than (...)

I just don't get it. If you find quaff/read/wear ID interesting, then why don't you just do it? Nothing forces you to read ID scrolls.


This is a pretty good criticism of the OP. The problem with ID isn't just that there are too many ID scrolls, a problem that the player can solve by using fewer ID scrolls as you say.

To circle back and drill down a bit:

tealizard wrote:Brogue has a much better identification game because there are fewer items to identify, fewer items that do identification, and there's a mass pseudo-id item.


There are three dimensions of improvement here where the OP's approach addresses only one. Fewer ID items in crawl, by itself, just displaces an ID scroll use with a use/wear ID action. This is not an improvement. It's actually worse in terms of key presses for equipment. You need either fewer items to ID or fewer ID actions to accommodate your identification needs before you see cleaner gameplay.

It's not that useful to think of identification as having "power" in the sense of changing your odds of winning, but looking at "identification power" as purely the effectiveness of ID scrolls at achieving the player's aims in finding out which items do what, giving the player a targeted identification effect is very "powerful." An effect that will often fail to identify what the player wants to identify at the moment due to randomization will produce situations where the player wants to use/wear ID something that wouldn't occur with targeted ID effects. This means you can make ID more consequential in more parts of the game, while also reducing the total number of ID actions the player needs to take. It's a win-win scenario.
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Post Thursday, 1st November 2018, 16:27

Re: Suggestion: Make ID scrolls much rarer

tealizard wrote:
Magipi wrote:I just don't get it. If you find quaff/read/wear ID interesting, then why don't you just do it? Nothing forces you to read ID scrolls.


This is a pretty good criticism of the OP. The problem with ID isn't just that there are too many ID scrolls, a problem that the player can solve by using fewer ID scrolls as you say.

This is actually a pretty terrible criticism. Nothing "forces" you to use a heal wounds potion if you're in danger of dying, nothing "forces" you to upgrade your weapon when an upgrade is available. The point is that an interesting choice is available when you're *forced* to deal with unidentifed things, like when there's not another choice, like using an ID scroll.

Is it optimal to burn potentially valuable consumables to use-ID them? Currently it nearly never is, unless you're in a real emergency very early (Which isn't really use-ID, it's more like desperate situations call for desperate measures). If that balance was changed so that you were going to have to wait a very very very long time to eke out an extra consumable by not use-IDing them, it brings the choice to use-ID much closer to one that you might make. (Knowing what effect a potion or scroll will have makes it about a billion times more useful)

In the game as it is right now, there's almost no reason to use-ID at all.
tealizard wrote:To circle back and drill down a bit:

tealizard wrote:Brogue has a much better identification game because there are fewer items to identify, fewer items that do identification, and there's a mass pseudo-id item.


There are three dimensions of improvement here where the OP's approach addresses only one. Fewer ID items in crawl, by itself, just displaces an ID scroll use with a use/wear ID action. This is not an improvement. It's actually worse in terms of key presses for equipment. You need either fewer items to ID or fewer ID actions to accommodate your identification needs before you see cleaner gameplay.

It's not that useful to think of identification as having "power" in the sense of changing your odds of winning, but looking at "identification power" as purely the effectiveness of ID scrolls at achieving the player's aims in finding out which items do what, giving the player a targeted identification effect is very "powerful." An effect that will often fail to identify what the player wants to identify at the moment due to randomization will produce situations where the player wants to use/wear ID something that wouldn't occur with targeted ID effects. This means you can make ID more consequential in more parts of the game, while also reducing the total number of ID actions the player needs to take. It's a win-win scenario.


Identification has a direct impact on winning power, every thing that you scroll-ID is something that you can use without wasting it, and without worrying that it's going to be a cursed downgrade, allowing you to upgrade items freely and maximize your consumable use.

The recent change to have monster's equipment pre-identified reduces the total number of ID actions needed, I didn't happen to think it needed any more.

Your suggestion (if I understand it properly, I think you're suggesting ID scrolls be basically "will identify some random item") is pretty bad, 1. It's possibly gamable, if it's "will identify some random item you have" you only need to divest yourself of all items except the one you want to ID to replicate the effects of targeted ID with lots more keypresses. 2. If it's not gamable because it will identify "some random item that exists" whether you have it or not (assuming that you're talking about either generated items or all items that ever will exist of a certain type) you are actually *increasing* the number of ID actions you need to take, since you need to ID a bunch of things that you don't care about before you get to the ones you do. 3. If it's not gamable because it's targeted, but might just fail to work, then it's the same as just reducing the number of ID scrolls, but with more keypresses.

So it's not a 'win-win' it's a 'lose-lose' or possibly a 'lose-lose-lose' depending on exactly what you're alluding to.

Also to be pedantic, use-ID'ing a scroll or potion takes less keypresses than scroll-ID'ing one. (2 vs 3)

FWIW I'd also like to reduce the number of remove curse scrolls available for similar reasons, but that's a separate issue (And I consider it less impactful).
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Post Thursday, 1st November 2018, 19:26

Re: Suggestion: Make ID scrolls much rarer

By fiddling with ID scrolls, you are directly affecting early game difficulty. While its true that the early game is a lot more lenient these days, its still the hardest block of the game. Changes like this should be part of an overall game difficulty adjustment. Perhaps, every item could be identified, but the spawn rates of potions decreased to compensate. That would lead to roughly the same difficulty early on, but harder rest of the game.
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Post Thursday, 1st November 2018, 21:51

Re: Suggestion: Make ID scrolls much rarer

Siegurt -- Let me correct you here: My proposed change is good. It maintains a role for use-ID, which you seem to like, while reducing the total number of ID actions by IDing numerous items or classes of items with each scroll. It also decouples identification from direct interaction with items through the inventory or the ground at the character's feet. It makes ID less predictable and harder to bend to the player's will.

It's good that you bring up curses, because clearly curses are a key part of the broader picture. Again, you suggest that the thing to do is fiddle with the numbers. That has the benefit of being easy to do, but it doesn't add any value to the game. Remove curse is a much more elastic resource than ID because it's not single-targeted, but targeted in a way that depends not just on inventory, but on equipment. Uncursing items in large batches can take a lot of "pressure" off remove curse resources at the cost of deferring equipment upgrades (a trivial price to pay, generally). I suppose your idea is that it would be good to nudge players in that direction. Gonna have to go ahead and kind of disagree with you there.

If anything, the idea of remove curse scrolls itself is problematic. They come with all the usual problems of being an item, jamming your inventory with junk that is useless in combat. XP-gated uncursing has a lot more potential, frankly, and it would be a lot more likely to achieve your goals of having an ID game that is full of real decisions (let's not go wild with talk of "interesting decisions").
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Post Thursday, 1st November 2018, 22:51

Re: Suggestion: Make ID scrolls much rarer

tealizard wrote:Siegurt -- Let me correct you here: My proposed change is good. It maintains a role for use-ID, which you seem to like, while reducing the total number of ID actions by IDing numerous items or classes of items with each scroll. It also decouples identification from direct interaction with items through the inventory or the ground at the character's feet. It makes ID less predictable and harder to bend to the player's will.

It's good that you bring up curses, because clearly curses are a key part of the broader picture. Again, you suggest that the thing to do is fiddle with the numbers. That has the benefit of being easy to do, but it doesn't add any value to the game. Remove curse is a much more elastic resource than ID because it's not single-targeted, but targeted in a way that depends not just on inventory, but on equipment. Uncursing items in large batches can take a lot of "pressure" off remove curse resources at the cost of deferring equipment upgrades (a trivial price to pay, generally). I suppose your idea is that it would be good to nudge players in that direction. Gonna to have to go ahead and kind of disagree with you there.

If anything, the idea of remove curse scrolls itself is problematic. They come with all the usual problems of being an item, jamming your inventory with junk that is useless in combat. XP-gated uncursing has a lot more potential, frankly, and it would be a lot more likely to achieve your goals of having an ID game that is full of real decisions (let's not go wild with talk of "interesting decisions").

Can you explain what your proposal actually *is* it was fairly vague and I'm not confident that I actually understand what you're actually suggesting.

I've proposed in the past a number of more interesting things to do with curses, generally speaking the result has been inertia (which is unsurprising, honestly) Small changes are easier to get done than large ones, and so if there's low hanging fruit available I see no reason not to pick it while we wait for someone to take up the mantle of overcoming the status quo with a larger more invasive, change that requires both more work and a more staunch advocate on the dev team...

If you consider all non-tactical resources to be problematic, then you're going to have to fight a long uphill battle to see your vision realized, mostly because while DCSS has a large tactical following, it's still partially an RPG.
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Post Thursday, 1st November 2018, 23:13

Re: Suggestion: Make ID scrolls much rarer

Certainly. The idea is that instead of identification scrolls' current behavior of identifying a single, targeted item either in inventory or on the ground at the character's feet, identification scrolls operate on seen items, that is to say all items the player has seen in the game, in an untargeted, randomized way and identify numerous items (or for consumables classes of items) in a single use. The scrolls would also generate in smaller numbers.

The details of how things should be identified are a bit fuzzy, but I suggest two possible models above. The first chooses a number of random items (the number could be somewhat randomized of course) and identifies them (this is the model I suggest for consumables). The second randomly selects a specific fraction, like a half, of possible items (this is what I suggested for equipment). In fact, it would probably be fine just to go with the second option for all items, consumable and otherwise, rolling for each piece of equipment and class of consumable independently.

This resolves most of the vault/item weight spoiler issue, since the player has very limited control of how items are chosen for identification. The decision is about position or timing, not the specifics of the items available. Does the player want to get more ID out of each scroll or do they want to know what's available to them in the next fight?

The scroll would have to notify the player of which items are identified, which should be no problem for consumables. For equipment, some sort of digest of interesting items could be generated or a full listing could be presented using the search menu. Recently ID'd items could get a special search tag.
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Post Friday, 2nd November 2018, 01:10

Re: Suggestion: Make ID scrolls much rarer

tealizard wrote:This resolves most of the vault/item weight spoiler issue, since the player has very limited control of how items are chosen for identification.
The main issue with vaults and weights is that they let players identify the item without using the item or having a scroll. Not that they help you choose which stack to use the scroll on.

Your proposed change would be a huge interface improvement but it wouldn't really help solve the item tracking or spoiler aspects.
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Post Friday, 2nd November 2018, 01:31

Re: Suggestion: Make ID scrolls much rarer

It's true that it does not completely eliminate the advantage the careful expert gains over naive play by tracking items. I think it does, however, bring the outcomes of naive play and careful/spoiled play closer together by clobbering much of the advantage the expert gets by IDing the offending items anyway and saving the naive player from wasting scrolls on items the expert IDs through spoilers.
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Post Friday, 2nd November 2018, 01:48

Re: Suggestion: Make ID scrolls much rarer

FWIW the spoiler problems of consumable generation are not impossible to overcome. You could do the following:
  • Automatically identify any vault-placed item that isn't fully randomized within its category. It'll look a little weird but some vaults already identify certain item types.
  • Remove the prohibition on generating certain items outside of vaults before D:4
  • condense the different potion and scroll weights into clean categories, label them, and provide them to the player in the item description
If you implement these rules, then the player no longer gains any advantage from consumable location bookkeeping (in essence it is done "automatically" where useful) and you can also inform the player how common a consumable type is, reducing the number of games required to infer drop rates while retaining the gambling aspect that id game proponents seem to enjoy. Once you handle this stuff, there's room for a fluid id system with a good interface that requires the player to make decisions throughout the game. The problem w/ the op is not that a good id system is impossible, it's that the change as proposed makes a bunch of tedious but optimal out of game bookkeeping more important and does not fix the interface problems of lategame id.

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Post Friday, 2nd November 2018, 02:07

Re: Suggestion: Make ID scrolls much rarer

Well, if nothing else, making the ID scrolls much rarer will bring forward and make very evident what the problems with ID are, and I believe that would encourage those things being addressed more quickly and would result in a better game in the interem.

Hellmonk's suggestions (regarding creating a few small categories of rarity for consumable generation, and removing the restrictions that vaults so that they aren't "metagame ID scrolls" are both good ones.)

I feel like four categories common, uncommon, rare, and legendary feels about right to me, personally.

However even if Hellmonk's suggestions were taken, I would still want there to be less ID scrolls in the game then there are now.
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Post Friday, 2nd November 2018, 02:10

Re: Suggestion: Make ID scrolls much rarer

Siegurt wrote:Well, if nothing else, making the ID scrolls much rarer will bring forward and make very evident what the problems with ID are, and I believe that would encourage those things being addressed more quickly and would result in a better game in the interem.

Hellmonk's suggestions (regarding creating a few small categories of rarity for consumable generation, and removing the restrictions that vaults so that they aren't "metagame ID scrolls" are both good ones.)

I feel like four categories common, uncommon, rare, and legendary feels about right to me, personally.

However even if Hellmonk's suggestions were taken, I would still want there to be less ID scrolls in the game then there are now.

I think i would even like the unidentified consumables to have the catgories pre identified
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Post Friday, 2nd November 2018, 02:37

Re: Suggestion: Make ID scrolls much rarer

Siegurt wrote:I believe that would encourage those things being addressed more quickly
Historically, the only time this worked was with Tornado. There are far more times where the "temporary" change that was intended to force further changes was just...kept without making further changes. Deflect Missiles and Okawaru piety for example.

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Post Friday, 2nd November 2018, 03:00

Re: Suggestion: Make ID scrolls much rarer

duvessa wrote:
Siegurt wrote:I believe that would encourage those things being addressed more quickly
Historically, the only time this worked was with Tornado. There are far more times where the "temporary" change that was intended to force further changes was just...kept without making further changes. Deflect Missiles and Okawaru piety for example.

Well, i would like reduced id scrolls to persist as a change by itself whether or not any subsequent changes happened. So even if it didn't result in any further change i would still consider the game improved.
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Post Friday, 2nd November 2018, 07:32

Re: Suggestion: Make ID scrolls much rarer

duvessa wrote:
Siegurt wrote:I believe that would encourage those things being addressed more quickly
Historically, the only time this worked was with Tornado. There are far more times where the "temporary" change that was intended to force further changes was just...kept without making further changes. Deflect Missiles and Okawaru piety for example.

Just curious, what happened to Tornado, Deflect Missiles and Okawaru piety?

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Post Friday, 2nd November 2018, 09:01

Re: Suggestion: Make ID scrolls much rarer

Tornado got a negative spell enhancer for 0.8, in a commit stating it would be reverted later, and it was. (Probably should have been more specific about this given the amount of stuff that happened with Tornado.)
It's not explicitly mentioned in the commit but I always assumed giving Deflect Missiles an infinite duration was intended to force further changes, since it breaks the spell, but it's stayed like this for over four years.
The commit changing Okawaru piety, on the other hand, was explicit:
I'm forcing this for now to give us an incentive to do something to monster generation, if it won't be fixed we can disable this for a yet another release.
And it was never touched again. (Unless you count the roughly 27% piety-on-kills increase when corpse sacrifices were removed.)

This isn't a DCSS-exclusive thing either. Software development protip: your "temporary" change is probably permanent.

Sorry to have derailed the thread this much...

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Post Friday, 2nd November 2018, 17:08

Re: Suggestion: Make ID scrolls much rarer

Okawaru piety works pretty well. The first paragraph of the commit describes a problem that doesn't exist.

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Post Friday, 2nd November 2018, 19:08

Re: Suggestion: Make ID scrolls much rarer

duvessa wrote:Tornado got a negative spell enhancer for 0.8, in a commit stating it would be reverted later, and it was. (Probably should have been more specific about this given the amount of stuff that happened with Tornado.)
It's not explicitly mentioned in the commit but I always assumed giving Deflect Missiles an infinite duration was intended to force further changes, since it breaks the spell, but it's stayed like this for over four years.
The commit changing Okawaru piety, on the other hand, was explicit:
I'm forcing this for now to give us an incentive to do something to monster generation, if it won't be fixed we can disable this for a yet another release.
And it was never touched again. (Unless you count the roughly 27% piety-on-kills increase when corpse sacrifices were removed.)

This isn't a DCSS-exclusive thing either. Software development protip: your "temporary" change is probably permanent.

Sorry to have derailed the thread this much...

Yes, that's *definitely* true (Most software development I've worked with for the last 35 years falls into the 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it, no matter how broken it seems' category), however my suggestion was not that this was a temporary change, my suggestion was that this was intended as a permanant change, that might also make people go "hey you know, now that I see it all the time, additional changes would also be good" which is a change of a slightly different nature than the ones you refer to.
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Post Friday, 2nd November 2018, 23:58

Re: Suggestion: Make ID scrolls much rarer

Getting a rune IDs all items and obsoletes ID scrolls.

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Post Saturday, 3rd November 2018, 01:03

Re: Suggestion: Make ID scrolls much rarer

edgefigaro wrote:Getting a rune IDs all items and obsoletes ID scrolls.


Though I would give x-crawl a mixed review overall, the fork has been bold enough to implement this idea. You can try it online at CPO or x-crawl.de.
This is where mechanical excellence and one-thousand four-hundred horsepower pays off.

Mines Malingerer

Posts: 36

Joined: Saturday, 10th December 2016, 15:38

Post Saturday, 3rd November 2018, 08:35

Re: Suggestion: Make ID scrolls much rarer

Adding more luck based elements / dice rolls is never a step forward in game design.

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 8786

Joined: Sunday, 5th May 2013, 08:25

Post Saturday, 3rd November 2018, 08:46

Re: Suggestion: Make ID scrolls much rarer

Scuka wrote:Adding more luck based elements / dice rolls is never a step forward in game design.
If that's a step forward, then I will face God and walk backwards
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Vaults Vanquisher

Posts: 454

Joined: Thursday, 1st November 2018, 02:33

Post Saturday, 3rd November 2018, 12:48

Re: Suggestion: Make ID scrolls much rarer

It's as easy to go wrong through over-randomization as it is by increasing the role of player choice. Choices that are easy and repetitive create tedium. Direct choice in place of randomization increases the player's control of the game in ways that could be spoiler-y or create balance problems. You have to go into it with your eyes open either way.
This is where mechanical excellence and one-thousand four-hundred horsepower pays off.

For this message the author tealizard has received thanks:
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Slime Squisher

Posts: 406

Joined: Thursday, 1st March 2012, 01:42

Post Saturday, 10th November 2018, 15:55

Re: Suggestion: Make ID scrolls much rarer

I feel identification is a hard thing to get right.

If its too easy might as well not have it, if its so hard its a pain in the ass its going to actually make the game less fun and more spoiler-dependent. There is a good balance somewhere, but its pretty hard to get right.

I feel similarly about most hunger clocks in roguelikes.

Another alternative, would be to rework curses and remove Scrolls of Remove Curse. This would put more pressure on item identification

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