Ziggurat Zagger
Posts: 3037
Joined: Sunday, 2nd January 2011, 02:06
Sunday, 23rd January 2011, 22:47
item identification tangent
So as to not pollute the other thread with a tangent, it seemed like a good idea to move the item identification tangent to a thread of its own.
I assert that there is a single 'best' strategy for item identification in most games of Crawl, assuming reasonable play. While there are small variants possible due to unusual RNG behavior or particular starting equipment, ultimately the process of item identification has minimal impact on gameplay at least as compared to other roguelikes.
Scrolls
For identification of scrolls, I assert that use of scrolls of identify are almost never worthwhile until the midgame, and in the early game you should read-id every case as soon as possible with routine precautions. To take them individually:
Curse Weapon: Risk can be trivially averted by switching to a butchering weapon before testing scrolls, and scrolls to correct the problem are common. The risk is that if you prefer to use a non-butchering weapon you will waste an enchant weapon scroll on a weapon you don't plan to use, or that you will need to spend part of a level with a substandard weapon before you correct the problem. This is the single most dangerous scroll, but in almost all cases it is not.
Curse Armor/Jewelry: Useless and mostly harmless. Worst case scenario is that you have to use up a Remove Curse scroll, which is extremely common. Correcting the problem can even wait indefinitely until you want to swap, since the cursed item is still fully functional.
Blinking, Teleport: Unambiguous identification, and important enough to make waiting to identify scrolls unviable. Waiting for an emergency to happen is a terrible time to start identifying scrolls hoping for a teleport. Identification wastes one scroll.
Identify, Enchant Armor, Recharging: These behave the same, and unless you're a gambler at heart you're going to waste a couple at random to identify them. Targeting an unidentified armor or wand will unambiguously identify them, but is also unlikely to be where you'd want them used in the long run. You cannot delay identifying identify, but the other two can wait until you have plenty of identify scrolls if you can sort them out from the other important scrolls.
Remove Curse, Fear, Vorpalize Weapon, Holy Word: These will frequently refuse to autoidentify. Vorpalize Weapon and Holy Word don't usually show up early on, so early on you're trying to distinguish two stacks that might actually be important. After wasting one of each of Remove Curse and Fear, you waste one more of either to distinguish them, either by finding a rat or by getting something cursed while identifying other scrolls.
Acquirement, Detect Curse, Amnesia, Fog, Enchant Weapon I-III, Silence, Summoning, Vulnerability, Torment: Harmless to read-identify, and in the worst case wastes a scroll.
Paper, Noise, Random Uselessness: Useless and harmless, but will waste three scrolls of identify if you're trying not to read-id scrolls for some reason.
Discounting scrolls that appear after the early game, you'd need seventeen scrolls of identify to sort out your scrolls without read-identifying them. You aren't going to spawn seventeen scrolls of identify in the early game no matter what the RNG says, and they're better used on other things anyway. Missing out on an enchant armor or an amnesia is mildly annoying, but you really don't have a viable alternative if you haven't identified teleport, blinking, detect curse, etc. You need those scrolls identified quickly, and while it's still safe to do so. In almost every case, the risk associated with read-identifying scrolls is the waste of a scroll, which is either that same type of scroll or a specific other type that serves as a remedy. The same gameplay could be duplicated by simply not spawning the first one or two samples of the appropriate scrolls.
Potions
Potions are a slightly more interesting case. Potion identification is to quaff-id them in a cleared area until you find the essential ones, and then save the rest until you have a glut of scrolls of identify in order to avoid mutation.
Healing, Heal Wounds: Absolutely essential to every character. Poison and confusion are threats starting from D1, and you absolutely cannot wait until Sigmund or an orc wizard has you confuse-locked to start quaff-testing potions. You cannot wait on these, and you will not have sufficient scrolls of identify at this point for that to help. You will waste one of each.
Speed, Might: Essential to some characters. If you're one of those characters, you keep quaff-testing until you find them. You will waste one of each.
Confusion, Decay, Paralysis, Poison, Strong Poison, Slowing: Mash 5 to correct the problem, or in the worst cases burn one healing potion.
Degeneration: Usually irrelevant, but in the worst case you might have to keep quaff-identifying until you find restore abilities.
Restore Ability: Until the late midgame, the only sources of stat damage are shadows, quasits, and self-inflicted sickness or degeneration. Shadows and quasits should be avoided if you're critically low on the stat in question, but otherwise you won't need to identify this potion unless you're trying to identify potions. Minor stat damage can simply be ignored.
Agility, Brilliance, Invisibility, Levitation, Magic, Porridge, Resistance: Nice to identify if you randomly happen upon them while quaff-identifying for other potions, but otherwise they can wait. Quaff-identifying wastes the one you had anyway.
Mutation: The Sword of Damocles hanging over your head. A bad mutation can kill you, and others make the game painful to play. This is the reason you stop quaff-identifying once you've found the four that are most important. If it didn't exist, potion identification would be meaningless.
Cure Mutation: Wasting one of these is actually a meaningful sacrifice, since they are rare and can be used to correct a dangerous handicap. Once mutation and cure mutation are out of the way, there is no reason not to quaff-id every other potion in the game.
Berserk Rage: Wastes the potion and some permafood. Very rare, so you're not likely to have any benefit from identifying it early.
Gain Stat, Experience: No reason not to use these as soon as possible, so the fact that they're not pre-identified is irrelevant. Saving Experience until just after you level up is a good way to start getting hit by cold attacks.
Blood, Water: Take care of themselves.
Other
Weapons, armors, and staves can be use-identified, and with the unusual exception of the distortion brand there is no risk involved.
Jewelry can sometimes be use-identified, and if it does not, then you burn a scroll of identify. It is not safe to wear unidentified jewelry, and if you have a choice between identifying an unknown bit of jewelry or identifying an unknown consumable, the jewelry is more likely to be immediately useful.
Conclusion
Item identification doesn't really do very much in the game. Wasting resources is only a threat to avoid if there's a viable alternative method that avoids the waste, otherwise it's simply an unavoidable toll. Crawl's punishments for overly ambitious item identification is intentionally minimal, pushing the point where you want to identify items to the earliest possible point. Waiting for a scroll or potion shop, or for a book containing Fulsome Distillation, is not a feasible alternative because they are relatively rare events and you need those essentials very early on.
As I see it, there is no problem to be corrected. Reducing item identification as a gameplay factor is an intentional design choice, and there is little incentive to modify it further. On the other hand, since the item identification subgame is intentionally minimized, it isn't a very persuasive argument against other proposed changes. Item identification is already largely irrelevant, and changes to it are likely to also be nearly irrelevant.
I assert that there is a single 'best' strategy for item identification in most games of Crawl, assuming reasonable play. While there are small variants possible due to unusual RNG behavior or particular starting equipment, ultimately the process of item identification has minimal impact on gameplay at least as compared to other roguelikes.
Scrolls
For identification of scrolls, I assert that use of scrolls of identify are almost never worthwhile until the midgame, and in the early game you should read-id every case as soon as possible with routine precautions. To take them individually:
Curse Weapon: Risk can be trivially averted by switching to a butchering weapon before testing scrolls, and scrolls to correct the problem are common. The risk is that if you prefer to use a non-butchering weapon you will waste an enchant weapon scroll on a weapon you don't plan to use, or that you will need to spend part of a level with a substandard weapon before you correct the problem. This is the single most dangerous scroll, but in almost all cases it is not.
Curse Armor/Jewelry: Useless and mostly harmless. Worst case scenario is that you have to use up a Remove Curse scroll, which is extremely common. Correcting the problem can even wait indefinitely until you want to swap, since the cursed item is still fully functional.
Blinking, Teleport: Unambiguous identification, and important enough to make waiting to identify scrolls unviable. Waiting for an emergency to happen is a terrible time to start identifying scrolls hoping for a teleport. Identification wastes one scroll.
Identify, Enchant Armor, Recharging: These behave the same, and unless you're a gambler at heart you're going to waste a couple at random to identify them. Targeting an unidentified armor or wand will unambiguously identify them, but is also unlikely to be where you'd want them used in the long run. You cannot delay identifying identify, but the other two can wait until you have plenty of identify scrolls if you can sort them out from the other important scrolls.
Remove Curse, Fear, Vorpalize Weapon, Holy Word: These will frequently refuse to autoidentify. Vorpalize Weapon and Holy Word don't usually show up early on, so early on you're trying to distinguish two stacks that might actually be important. After wasting one of each of Remove Curse and Fear, you waste one more of either to distinguish them, either by finding a rat or by getting something cursed while identifying other scrolls.
Acquirement, Detect Curse, Amnesia, Fog, Enchant Weapon I-III, Silence, Summoning, Vulnerability, Torment: Harmless to read-identify, and in the worst case wastes a scroll.
Paper, Noise, Random Uselessness: Useless and harmless, but will waste three scrolls of identify if you're trying not to read-id scrolls for some reason.
Discounting scrolls that appear after the early game, you'd need seventeen scrolls of identify to sort out your scrolls without read-identifying them. You aren't going to spawn seventeen scrolls of identify in the early game no matter what the RNG says, and they're better used on other things anyway. Missing out on an enchant armor or an amnesia is mildly annoying, but you really don't have a viable alternative if you haven't identified teleport, blinking, detect curse, etc. You need those scrolls identified quickly, and while it's still safe to do so. In almost every case, the risk associated with read-identifying scrolls is the waste of a scroll, which is either that same type of scroll or a specific other type that serves as a remedy. The same gameplay could be duplicated by simply not spawning the first one or two samples of the appropriate scrolls.
Potions
Potions are a slightly more interesting case. Potion identification is to quaff-id them in a cleared area until you find the essential ones, and then save the rest until you have a glut of scrolls of identify in order to avoid mutation.
Healing, Heal Wounds: Absolutely essential to every character. Poison and confusion are threats starting from D1, and you absolutely cannot wait until Sigmund or an orc wizard has you confuse-locked to start quaff-testing potions. You cannot wait on these, and you will not have sufficient scrolls of identify at this point for that to help. You will waste one of each.
Speed, Might: Essential to some characters. If you're one of those characters, you keep quaff-testing until you find them. You will waste one of each.
Confusion, Decay, Paralysis, Poison, Strong Poison, Slowing: Mash 5 to correct the problem, or in the worst cases burn one healing potion.
Degeneration: Usually irrelevant, but in the worst case you might have to keep quaff-identifying until you find restore abilities.
Restore Ability: Until the late midgame, the only sources of stat damage are shadows, quasits, and self-inflicted sickness or degeneration. Shadows and quasits should be avoided if you're critically low on the stat in question, but otherwise you won't need to identify this potion unless you're trying to identify potions. Minor stat damage can simply be ignored.
Agility, Brilliance, Invisibility, Levitation, Magic, Porridge, Resistance: Nice to identify if you randomly happen upon them while quaff-identifying for other potions, but otherwise they can wait. Quaff-identifying wastes the one you had anyway.
Mutation: The Sword of Damocles hanging over your head. A bad mutation can kill you, and others make the game painful to play. This is the reason you stop quaff-identifying once you've found the four that are most important. If it didn't exist, potion identification would be meaningless.
Cure Mutation: Wasting one of these is actually a meaningful sacrifice, since they are rare and can be used to correct a dangerous handicap. Once mutation and cure mutation are out of the way, there is no reason not to quaff-id every other potion in the game.
Berserk Rage: Wastes the potion and some permafood. Very rare, so you're not likely to have any benefit from identifying it early.
Gain Stat, Experience: No reason not to use these as soon as possible, so the fact that they're not pre-identified is irrelevant. Saving Experience until just after you level up is a good way to start getting hit by cold attacks.
Blood, Water: Take care of themselves.
Other
Weapons, armors, and staves can be use-identified, and with the unusual exception of the distortion brand there is no risk involved.
Jewelry can sometimes be use-identified, and if it does not, then you burn a scroll of identify. It is not safe to wear unidentified jewelry, and if you have a choice between identifying an unknown bit of jewelry or identifying an unknown consumable, the jewelry is more likely to be immediately useful.
Conclusion
Item identification doesn't really do very much in the game. Wasting resources is only a threat to avoid if there's a viable alternative method that avoids the waste, otherwise it's simply an unavoidable toll. Crawl's punishments for overly ambitious item identification is intentionally minimal, pushing the point where you want to identify items to the earliest possible point. Waiting for a scroll or potion shop, or for a book containing Fulsome Distillation, is not a feasible alternative because they are relatively rare events and you need those essentials very early on.
As I see it, there is no problem to be corrected. Reducing item identification as a gameplay factor is an intentional design choice, and there is little incentive to modify it further. On the other hand, since the item identification subgame is intentionally minimized, it isn't a very persuasive argument against other proposed changes. Item identification is already largely irrelevant, and changes to it are likely to also be nearly irrelevant.
- For this message the author KoboldLord has received thanks:
- evktalo
