Identify all jewellery/wands upon equip/zap

[greepish]

Definately agree with the wands. Nobody scroll ids wands.

Jewelry I think is hard to say. Technically you can use-id all of those, but personally I find it's usually too much of a hassle.

Edit: except those 5 rings, yeah that's silly.

[cerebovssquire]

Technically you can use-id all of those, but personally I find it's usually too much of a hassle.

That's exactly the point (in my opinion). Any character can just use-ID them if they want, with no risk and no or little consumable usage involved, but with tedium. For instance, you could take off all your armour and walk up to a jelly while wearing an un-IDed "rCorr or drop your scrolls and zap yourself with /flame with an un-IDed =protection from fire. That's annoying, and doesn't add to the game in any way, therefore it would be good to change it. It's a case of "optimal play is tedious".

[eeviac]

The crawl ID minigame has some oddities, but I fear if we take too much out, it'll become as shallow and pointless as Diablo II's. There's very little strategy or choice involved with ID'ing a wand, does that mean we should remove it entirely? Wasting a single charge is no big deal, why not just have magic sticks identify on pickup? (Charge count could remain unknown)

I'm not sure how to make auto-ID'd jewelry more interesting other than sprinkling in more 'bad' or 'trade-off' drops.

I think this is a good idea; I don't think it's a change that can made in isolation.

[KoboldLord]

We can go further with the wands, if there's no pointless trick required to identify one. Instead of requiring a zap, just autoidentify on pickup and generate the first wand of each type with one fewer charges. "The unfamiliar wand pulses as you pick it up, and a weak burst of fiery enemy bursts from the tip."

Inaccuracy seems to currently be an utterly pointless amulet ego at the current time, since Faith is too dangerous to risk use-identifying anyway. Perhaps it would be more useful as a randart quality, or the Amulet of Inaccuracy could become a fixedart along the same lines as Maxwell's Armour or the Shield of the Gong. Maybe a permanent Repel or Deflect Missiles effect, or a regenerating Shroud of Golubria. Something to make the inaccuracy go both ways, and make it tempting to use even if it might get you killed.

[rebthor]

Definately agree with the wands. Nobody scroll ids wands.

Jewelry I think is hard to say. Technically you can use-id all of those, but personally I find it's usually too much of a hassle.

Edit: except those 5 rings, yeah that's silly.

Well, sometimes I scroll ID wands. If I haven't IDed ID scroll and I also haven't IDed recharging but I have IDed enchant armor, then I'll use an scroll that prompts for inventory on a wand to find out if it's recharging or ID.

[Grimm]

Yes but you do that in order to ID the scroll, not the wand.

[KoboldLord]

That is certainly true. After the midgame, when scrolls of identify become so ubiquitous that I couldn't use them up if I tried, I do frequently scroll-ID any new wands I pick up if I happen to be holding a scroll simply because I can't be bothered to find a weak monster to zap-ID against. However, I don't think this choice makes the ID minigame any better. I make that choice because I literally do not care about wasting the scroll, not because I'm hoping to save a charge if the wand is especially good.

I really don't think this part of the ID minigame is worth protecting.

[dpeg]

minmay: No one from back then around anymore.

I guess that the reasoning was like this: testing every single randart item was a triviality (?DC, ?RC being even more abundant than ?id). With the change, you might end up with a randart of unclear status, and in particular, it might be potentially harmful. Thus you would, in theory, have to consider which randarts to properly identify, and in which order. This never really worked out as intended, I reckon, because there are just too many ?id generated, even ignoring the abomination that was the identify spell.

I believe that the concept has potential: you collect randarts and try to estimate their usefulness from what you get right away and can infer. After that, you have to decide which ones are potentially most useful and hence most urgent to read-id. In order to do that properly, one might want to:

1) Make sure that "infering" ego properties is not tedious. This can be done, but requires thought.
2) Re-think ego properties in general. Crawl's are not very interesting at the moment.
3) Reduce ?id generation (can depend on level, so you just get fewer later on).

[smock]

I don't even bother finding a rat. I just zap at a wall 2+ spaces away. If nothing happens, I get a little hurt and then zap myself. I think wands should auto-id.

As for amulets, I think they'd be more fun if there were several dangerous amulets. As present, only faith is dangerous when you have a scroll of remove curse handy. For example, what if !warding summoned a few hostile demons for "testing"? Or add an amulet of strangulation, which slows you, reduces your HP and MP regeneration rates, gives -5 AC, and gives -10EV. Really, if I get !faith early, then I have plenty of ?identify. If not, I burn !identify on amulets until I find !faith. If there were several dangerous amulets, I'd have choose read-id amulets until all the dangerous ones were id'ed.

[eeviac]

Why can you wear ID armour of fire/cold/magic resistance, yet it doesn't work for jewelry of those exact same types?

[smock]

I believe that the concept has potential: you collect randarts and try to estimate their usefulness from what you get right away and can infer. After that, you have to decide which ones are potentially most useful and hence most urgent to read-id.

I'd think you'd need more randart item categories for this to work, too. Every randart ring has the same chance of being something useful, after all.

True. Random blinking, ponderousness, hostile summons upon wielding, would be nice, dangerous features for randart jewelry. The MUT property could cause yellow/red contamination upon wearing.

Likewise, making more jewelry generate as randarts would help the ID mini-game. Of course, the randart property generation formula would have to be tweaked to prevent the players from finding many powerful rings. In addition, randarts are more strategically interesting than vanilla jewelry. It is worth wearing the randart ring with -5 dex, -4 acc, and cTele? This is certainly a more interesting decision than having a cTele ring and a -5 dex ring, in which case the choice is obvious, almost regardless of what other rings are available.

[plantaspoon]

I don't even bother finding a rat. I just zap at a wall 2+ spaces away. If nothing happens, I get a little hurt and then zap myself. I think wands should auto-id.

This is a great way to give yourself a game destroying mutation when the wand turns out to be polymorph.

[Jabberwocky]

And you mutate the rat.

[Grimm]

No he shoots a wall first.

Shooting a wall in order to ID wands is more efficient than finding a rat because there are many more walls than rats. Aim at an angle to avoid lightning reflection, and 3 squares away to avoid fireball. If "nothing happens" then shoot yourself. The only want that doesn't ID with this method is polymorph, therefore it IS ID'ed. An exceptional case is getting a wand of random effects that doesn't ID with either shot, or one that doesn't ID on the first then fireballs you on the second.

[Grimm]

How less effective? It gets wands ID'ed.

[roctavian]

A related thought I had recently: could polymorph wands bestow a cast of "beastly appendage" when you use it on yourself?

[Galefury]

That would probably be confusing. Temporary effect on self, permanent effect on monsters?

[plantaspoon]

Except it isn't because zapping a wand of polymorph at yourself does nothing at all.

Did this get changed? I've mutated myself before with a wand of polymorph, but it definitely wasn't recently. Like touching a hot stove, once was enough.