Remove destruction of strategic items

[snow]

I don't mind having enchantment scrolls burn up. I can see where you're coming from but it's just never bothered me.

I however don't like how monsters can pick up your items, or worse, how jellies can eat them. Regardless of what changes are made I think players will still stash things... stashing is part of human nature... but I hate having to worry about (for example) separating bows and arrows just in case something might pick them up. It adds annoyance which in my opinion is worse than tedium. I also hate having to stash in specific places in case a jelly eats my stash (which has happened to me before in Lair 1).

[Blade]

All this proposal seems likely to do is make item destruction more arbitrary and illogical; strategic item destruction may be inconvenient, but saying "This scroll can be burned but this one is safe" would be worse.

The less radical alternative sounds like it could be nice, although you can already drop the items in corners and some other places with little to no worries. I don't think anything really needs to be changed.

[Tiber]

I see what you're getting at, but the risk of losing a valuable scroll while un-ID'd is interesting. So, I propose something that gives some of the same benefit as minmay's proposal, but without the loss of tactical decisions.

My idea is that you gain 2 new abilities: Mark stash, and send to stash. Mark stash must be used before send to stash is available. Send to stash opens the drop menu, and makes the selected items disappear. Then, the items will appear at your feet the next time you go to the floor you used mark stash on. Send to stash requires multiple turns (like 20 turns), and is interrupted if a monster comes into sight or you take damage. These abilities are naturally unavailable in places like the abyss. Jiyva can also eat items that have been sent to the stash. If you're worried about how this changes the food clock, you can make the ability cost a certain amount of food per floor times the difference in floors.

[dpeg]

I hope 0.10 will see restricted monster re-spawning (i.e. after monster placement during level building). This should get rid of respawned popcorn monsters and will also exclude jellies from respawning.

[XuaXua]

All this proposal seems likely to do is make item destruction more arbitrary and illogical; strategic item destruction may be inconvenient, but saying "This scroll can be burned but this one is safe" would be worse.

That is why I said they should be moved to another item category.

It's just a bad when you simply waste an Enchant I/II scroll because it didn't work... going from +4 to +5, let alone higher.

[Curio]

what about another stashing solution proposed by minmay? Make multiple entrances to the temple (like hell have now).
Say, a portal every 3-4 levels after first staircase at current 4-7 D range.
It will replace missing hive for mid-late dungeon and probably even replace lair stash as obsolete.
Such convinient stash should cure players paranoia about item destruction.
With such/similar change proposal in OP seems unnecesarsy.

[dpeg]

Strategic items are not used by monsters. If jellies are not re-spawned, there is no reason not to drop those items on a cleared level.

[snow]

You know how when you read a scroll of noise you hear shouts and such? Maybe EVERY monster on the floor can in some way respond (even silent enemies can make you feel an ominous force or something) so scrolls of noise could effectively tell you in a monster is on the floor or not.

Alternatively there could be a scroll of detect monster which adds the location of every monster on the floor to your map.

[Wensleydale]

I think it could be worth making an explicit separation between strategic and tactical items, thus I can see myself getting behind new-but-similar item categories for strategic items. For instance, strategic potions could become balms and strategic scrolls could become vellums. The (admittedly slightly unsatisfying) rationale being that balms aren't liquid, and that vellums, being made of animal hide, are resistant to fire. A little flimsy, yes, but there's already precedent for item destruction not affecting certain categories of items: fire attacks never burn books or wooden items in your inventory, and cold attacks don't cause your food to become frostburnt.

(And yes, I realize that it's weird that you'd have to quaff balms, these names are just placeholders.)

[kittel]

what about another stashing solution proposed by minmay? Make multiple entrances to the temple (like hell have now).
Say, a portal every 3-4 levels after first staircase at current 4-7 D range.
It will replace missing hive for mid-late dungeon and probably even replace lair stash as obsolete.
Such convinient stash should cure players paranoia about item destruction.
With such/similar change proposal in OP seems unnecesarsy.

This is to me the perfect solution. It could even be a bit more rare than every 3-4 levels, and still cure what is to me the single most annoying aspect of the game in a very elegant way (IMHO).

[o_O]

Even if they couldn't be destroyed you still would want to stash strategic items for inventory space reasons. I like Tiber's idea of just making stashing an ability, except it doesn't even need to be a physical location, your stash could just exist as a list and be accessed with a fixed food and turn cost. If you block it in Abyss, Pan, Hell, etc. then its just like stashing in the temple but automated.

[TwilightPhoenix]

Another method would be to just make all of the strategic items into artifacts. Not sure that's a good idea though.


Anyway, adding multiple Temple entrances would certainly help with stashing. It'd also make the majority of the gods more accessible throughout the game, which is not a bad thing. Players might be a little more willingly to try swapping to other gods if they're constantly teased with the Temple and don't have to cross the whole dungeon to get there.

[daggaz]

How about a stash command, you could base it off of traps and secret doors, which would effectively hide your items from prying eyes. Monsters would get some checks to stumble upon/find the stash if they cross the area. This would be very difficult at least for popcorn vs a high player skill, and would give incentive to raising the skill past ten or so, given a player might want to stash on Pan or what not. Jellies would be excluded simply because they are mindless and its assumed that even with a minimal skill, you are smart enough to stash out of their reach. Stashed items could be marked by an S, or have their tiles slightly grayed out, or something..

[daggaz]

Fully aware of the problem as you posted it. But notice, one of the main issues is that stashing is tedious. Rather than put in flavor-bending and somewhat contorted changes to reduce stashing, you could just as well reduce the tediousness of it. That keeps true to the philosophy of crawl, while avoiding wierdness. As well, there would still be some risk to your stash (something I have a feeling the DMs appreciate -go figure) which requires an investment to counterbalance. To top it off, theres another thread about the traps skill where it is pointed out that there isnt much strategy involved, you pump the skill until you avoid crap i mean traps and thats that. This would add some strategy to that, considering you could balance it against where/how often you really want or need to stash.

[ryak]

I think the real problem is item destruction from fire and ice is too common in general. It is easily possible for an attack which does a completely negligible amount of damage to destroy several items, and it really shouldn't be possible. Conversely, if you take 50+ points of fire damage, its perfectly reasonable for some things to be destroyed.

What happened to the discussion about making item destruction dependant on some other factor to make it more reasonable? (AC/GDA/raw damage would all be potential candidates)

[Danei]

I don't really mind the status quo, and I don't personally find stashing to be that tedious in Crawl, but I also think multiple temple entrances are a cool idea.

[dpeg]

Torchlight solved the problem in an elegant way (you have a sidekick who can be sent off to town, selling all the trash). But Crawl has neither sidekicks nor selling. Then again, it has travel and search.

There are two complaints mixed up here:
1. Item destruction. This makes stashing useful, not tactically irrelevant items (e.g. ?EA etc.) a good idea.
2. Stashing is tedious.

The first is addressed by jellies not appearing on cleared levels. Then you can drop stuff on a convenient place on such levels. This does not mean that item destruction is bad, mind you.

The second is mostly psychological and I don't feel like giving in to bizarre traits. If you want to lay out your items in elaborate piles, please do so. But don't expect the game to come with a "lay out items in nice piles" command. Also, there is autotravel and search. I don't think anything else is needed.

[Tiber]

I don't think the 2 are necessarily mixed up. Problem #1 leads to problem #2, so solving either problem at least makes the other one happen less often.

Limiting Jelly spawns would definitely help, but it still leaves the issue that you wouldn't want to pick certain items up unless you know there's a jelly around. And by leaving items everywhere, it makes things inconvenient when you actually want to use those items, since they're scattered all over.

Autotravel is somewhat tedious as well, so it's not just player quirks that make stashing boring.

[dpeg]

Your definitions of inconvenient, tedious and boring are not mine.

http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm019.html

[sanka]

I do not really understand why nobody supports minmay's proposal. Destruction of strategic items are never interesting, how convenient the interface or stashing mechanism is.

To never pick them up, altough fine, is a rather strange and artifical behaviour, and it's annoying to collect them when they are needed. And usually you should pick them up anyway (because the level has not been cleared and can contain jellies), and bring them back to at least the previous level immediately (to minimise risk meeting with orc wizards and such) - quite annoying, and also very artifical. And I see no benefits in any ability that can destroy them, it's not quite interesting even if you find them in the Abyss or Pan, where you can not stash them, so item destruction (and conservation amulet) have effect on them.

I would either make safe stashing of strategic items impossible (that way you would have a decision to use them now or risk destroying them), or make them indestructible (like artifacts). Convenient stashing, convenient leaving them anywhere does not answer the question: why do you need to do it in the first place? What's the decision you got? If no decision, why I have to press any key, autotravel or search?

Yes, I'm aware that this may change the id minigame, but for strategic items it's not very interesting anyway. You lose one when you auto id it, and thats all.

All I wanted to say, I support minmay's proposal.

[mumra]

Destruction of strategic items are never interesting

This is the part that's simply not true.

Of course, item destruction by itself isn't hugely interesting; but it has a number of interesting impacts over the course of a game, because of the relationship those items have with other game factors.

Firstly, though, I must say that item destruction has never made me inclined to immediately stash every consumable I find (and if it did, I'd perhaps start thinking it was time to consider other options, e.g. going outdoors and spending a day or two in the daylight). I will do a stash run when my inventory gets full (and at that point I'll offload any scrolls or potions that I have an excess of; to conserve weight, not because I'm thinking about them getting destroyed). Item destruction does perhaps tend me towards using certain consumables immediately (e.g. Enchant Armour, Acquirement, unidentified potions) - but to be honest I'd tend to use them immediately anyway; I'd rather have +1 AC on this standard hat now than wait to find, say, an MR hat to enchant later. These might all be artefacts of the type of characters I tend to play - low strength wizards. But with this general strategy, I find I have a huge surplus of consumables sat in my stash by the end of the game, consumables that I'll never use (and stash runs are manageable, actually they're sometimes a nice breather). This only goes to prove that there are plenty enough consumables in the course of a game and you can afford to lose a few, if you choose to play a character that can carry more.

Basically, I don't see what the fuss is about. Crawl is cruel, and destroying your items is one of the many ways it will try to ensure you have a challenging (and therefore fun) game.

What happened to the discussion about making item destruction dependant on some other factor to make it more reasonable? (AC/GDA/raw damage would all be potential candidates)

Well, that discussion happened, and as far as I'm aware it was generally supported, and sounded likely to be implemented at some point.

[Cybermg]

Interestingly, you can replace 1 and 2 with "Having strategic items in your inventory places you at a disadvantage because you can carry fewer tactical items," and apply this to books. It's not quite as true because books have a very slight tactical value (memorizing/forgetting spells on the fly, although I've never actually done this), and the disadvantage in this case is very minor (although worth a strength point or two in low strength races).

[dpeg]

I'll certainly agree that it is inconvenient if you feel compelled to carry every new scroll of Enchant Armour to the Temple (or also just one level above). Then again, I never do this, but the fact remains that it's optimal to do so... a circumstance which has triggered other changes as well (labyrinths, the upcoming traps).

Let me get one bit straight: compulsive stashing hinges on jelly creation. I don't buy the additional complaints -- laying out piles in Lair:2 is an acquired behaviour that is certainly far from optimal, too.

So the real, underlying issue is not stashing but not-carrying strategical items. What choices do we have to address that?

1) Do nothing. Require players to drop items on the spot. This is not so bad (i.e. I can live with this for the time being). Of course, they can still stash, but don't really have to, so we ignore the complaints.

2) Make strategical items indestructable. One way would be to notice that potions are biased towards tactical use and scrolls are slightly biased towards strategical use. We could make the distinction absolute and remove scroll burning. Another one is to keep mixed use as now, but make strategical items excempt from destruction (e.g. with a change in terminology as suggested by Wensleydale).
Another option along these lines is to shove all permanent effects to miscellaneous items. (The most problematic item I see is the scroll of identify. Of course, we could have single cards replace certain scrolls.)

3) Much more radical (and hence definitely despised by most players) but perhaps interesting nonetheless: have strategical items crumble upon dropping. There are variants of this: Make all potions and scrolls crumble upon dropping. That'd be hard to swallow for all the packrats (and I am one myself) but it'd trigger a number of decisions. There could be less harsh versions that allow carrying for some time etc.

[Tiber]

This is a slightly weird idea, but it could work.

By reading an enchant scroll, rather than enchanting an object immediately, you gain the (a)bility to enchant an object later. So you can read the scroll right when you pick it up (assuming you know what it is) and not have to worry about it being destroyed, but save the decision making part for later.

[njvack]

Let me get one bit straight: compulsive stashing hinges on jelly creation.

This is almost entirely true -- !hw has the strategic use of healing rot in addition to the tactical use of making you not die (and being consumed by every intelligent monster). And by the end of D, if you're in over your head, !hw is almost never going to save you -- it essentially changes from a tactical item to a strategic item at the point when you can expect to take more damage than they heal in a turn. That's a pretty edge-y edge case, though.

Making potions and scrolls destroy-on-drop... part of me kind of loves the idea, actually. But I suppose it'd just make me never pick up consumables until I was ready to use them; jellies aren't that common.

[dpeg]

Let me get one bit straight: compulsive stashing hinges on jelly creation.

This is almost entirely true -- !hw has the strategic use of healing rot in addition to the tactical use of making you not die (and being consumed by every intelligent monster).

Good point. It is not a clear-cut distinction. There are other edge cases: ?EW are strategical until you really need to uncurse that weapon.

[njvack]

The Obsidian Axe, anything -Cast or Anitimagic, maybe *Rage... all could kill you on the way from Zot to Lair, depending on your char.

EDIT: And anything Int-3 or worse on my TrBe would be a very pressing problem indeed.

[dpeg]

Safe items on the floor will come, hopefully more a matter of days than of weeks.

[nicolae]

Safe items on the floor will come, hopefully more a matter of days than of weeks.

And reverted within hours, as thousands of Crawl fans protest the addition of engraving "Elbereth"...

[AtT]

Is it not strategic to carry enchant scrolls/ whatever potions around (if you don't mind the weight) to protect your valuable ones?

[rchandra]

Is it not strategic to carry enchant scrolls/ whatever potions around (if you don't mind the weight) to protect your valuable ones?

It is not, as that doesn't work. any effect destroying your items checks individually for each item, so the more stuff you have, the more you will lose on average.

[AtT]

I stand corrected.

[greepish]

Not sure how this would work on stacks of items, but what about some ability that the player himself could use to make items indestructable? Like scrolls of permanency or whatever kind of other affect.

[Zelkelion]

I've made a separate post with some ideas that might help with this issue in this same forum. Take a look!

[dpeg]

I want to keep item destruction because it means that can never rely on your toolkit. This is good!
I understand the sentiment to make certain items indestructible: in principle, you could move every Enchant Armour scroll to a safe place -- there is little reason it should burn under an orc wizard attack. The clocks (piety or food) are of no help here: "safety" could just mean "one level up" or also "drop right away". Since the former is no fun and I don't want to force players into the latter, the problem is real.
As I probably said elsewhere, one somewhat radical solution is to make all tactical items potions and all strategical items scrolls. This would lead to funny things like potion of fog and scrolls of cure mutation. So more thought is needed.

[dassem]

I want to keep item destruction

I now have a vague fear that someone will suggest making runes flammable...

This would lead to funny things like potion of fog and scrolls of cure mutation.

Actually, I could live with both of those: A potion that evaporates as soon as you open it and a scroll that you read to cast a magical restoring spell would both work for me.
However, I suppose a potion of blinking would probably be pushing it a bit.
Also, the potions: ice and scrolls: fire vulnerabilities might be a bit unbalanced too.

[KoboldLord]

As I probably said elsewhere, one somewhat radical solution is to make all tactical items potions and all strategical items scrolls. This would lead to funny things like potion of fog and scrolls of cure mutation. So more thought is needed.

You could also move the strategic items to another category. One of Zin's communion wafers could be eaten to possibly cure mutations. A magically charged smithing hammer can be evoked to temper armor instantly, turning into a normal tool for which the player has no further use.

Back of the envelope, assuming we don't care about the identification subgame:

amnesia: incense that clears the mind and sharpens concentration
enchant armour: charged smithing hammer
enchant weapon: charged whetstone
identify: magical clay that imprints on magic auras, creating patterns that can be interpreted accurately
recharging: Tesla coil
remove curse: purified salt that leeches out trace magic that causes sticking
cure mutation: communion wafer dedicated to Zin
experience: crystalized life energy
gain (stat): spinach, ginseng, tea leaves
levitation: skyweed, a kelp-like plant harvested from clouds and floating islands
mutation: communion wafer dedicated to Xom

If the identification game needs to be retained, a biscuit is probably the best new form for strategic potions, since you can handwave almost any effect if you bake the raw materials into a small brown wafer. The strategic scroll version doesn't really leap out at me, although I do like the idea of a character shooting the strange energy from an unknown Tesla coil at random possessions to figure out what it does.

[greepish]

Well one thing you could do is use that idea, but lump all those into some set object name when unidentified. Like "A mysterious object", or somethingless stupid sounding, so you woulnd't know if its a tesla coil or a crystalized life energy. Usage would be converted from whatever they currently had to evoking each of them.

And dpeg, what about the reverse? Tactical = scroll, strategic = potion. It's mostly that way already. Scrolls make sense no matter what you do with them, (they're just "magic") and potions can be thought of as "applied". Like you coat a weapon/armour in a potion of enchant X. I guess the only one that wouldn't make sense is "potion of acquirement", but since that usually gets used right away you could just leave it as a scroll *shrug* And also I can more easily see scrolls getting burned up then potions getting shattered, so it makes sense in that aspect.

[ElectricAlbatross]

Huh? Scroll of curing? Scroll of heal wounds?