Should weapon acquirement respect religion?

[Jeremiah]

I was a bit disappointed when as a worshipper of Zin, a scroll of acquirement gave me a vampiric randart lajatang. (Actually I was disappointed to get a lajatang at all, as I am a polearm wielder, but that's another story.)

I really think that when following a "good" god, if weapon acquirement is to be useful it should not give "evil" weapons, either evil brands like vampiric & draining or demonic weapon types.

[galehar]

if weapon acquirement is to be useful

I think the rule has always been that acquirement gives something usable, not useful.

[Grimm]

Acquirement is meant to be a crapshoot. Flavourwise, acquirement is magic, not religious, so there's no necessary connection between acquirement and current god.

[Blade]

Except that there is a connection, since Trog users will never get staves from staff acquirement.

(incidentally, do chei worshippers ever receive wands of hasting?)

[Jabberwocky]

(incidentally, do chei worshippere ever receive wands of hasting?)

I think I once got a wand of hasting from ?acquirement on chei worshiper.

[Stormfox]

Use that wand of hasting on the enemy to improve Slouch damage.

EDIT: Urk. Bad info.

[XuaXua]

Use that wand of hasting (or random effects) as a worshipper of Chei regardless of target to incur divine retribution.

Fixed that for you based on an experience I had with that wand and that diety.

[rebthor]

Use that wand of hasting (or random effects) as a worshipper of Chei regardless of target to incur divine retribution.

Fixed that for you based on an experience I had with that wand and that diety.

I had the same experience and it nearly killed me. "Ooh, a wand of hasting. Oh, Che. Ooh, I could zap it at that oncoming hydra and slouch it in one shot. *ZAP* Oh crap, lost slouch and a rampaging, hasted hydra a few squares away now what?!" The proper answer was read a scroll of teleport to get far away and then read a scroll of blinking to survive until the teleport kicked in but damn if I wasn't scared and upset for a minute.

[Tiber]

I had the same experience and it nearly killed me. "Ooh, a wand of hasting. Oh, Che. Ooh, I could zap it at that oncoming hydra and slouch it in one shot. *ZAP* Oh crap, lost slouch and a rampaging, hasted hydra a few squares away now what?!" The proper answer was read a scroll of teleport to get far away and then read a scroll of blinking to survive until the teleport kicked in but damn if I wasn't scared and upset for a minute.

And that is why you test out your clever ideas in wizmode first.

[njvack]

Or a rat for this trick. Testing clever ideas in threatening situations tends to go badly for me:

"Bet you're not so big SILENCED, Mara, huh? Oh, you are? Well, I'll just read this scroll of... fuuuuuuuuuuuu"

[eeviac]

I brought this up in ##crawl-dev and I feel like it should be discussed more.

(If I understand the code correctly) acquirement as it now stands attempts to give a useable item, weighted towards something good. This means it will never generate something greyed out for your character, e.g. body armour for dracs or boots for spriggans. The inconsistencies start showing up when religion comes into play:

TSO considers invisibility useless, and forbids evil/poison. Trog considers enhancer staves useless, and forbids magic. Acquirement will never generate the former but can create the latter. From a gameplay perspective, what differences are there between these examples?

- TSO's halo nullifies invisibility, whether on you or allies or enemies. It's genuinely useless.
- Evil/Forbidden weapons could potentially have good passive bonuses, so they're not guaranteed to be completely useless.
- Enhancer staves provide passive bonuses on wield, and on the off chance that you trained the magic school before joining trog, they can get their combat bonuses. They are, actually, not completely useless in any situation, save mummies + energy.
- Trog will ditch you for learning magic, but you can burn the book. A (very small) use.

My point is that current acquirement generation seems selective in what it respects, because forbidden and useless are classified differently. How is a randart vamp lajatang under zin any more 'useable' than an enhancer staff under trog?

I believe acquirement should respect both uselessness and forbidenness.

[pratamawirya]

I've tried it, and I never acquired a single spellbook under Trog. The scrolls only gave me manuals and sometimes tomes of destruction.

EDIT: And the manuals were all non-magic.

[eeviac]

Are you in trunk or .10? Trunk is acquiring spellbooks under trog.

[pratamawirya]

Trunk (0.11-a0-2716-g62b6e10).

[eeviac]

Hm, it looks like when I create a berserker, wizmode will acquire nothing but manuals. But if I create another char (HEHu, DDWr), and convert then acquire, it creates spellbooks. This may be an unrelated bug? But I think my original points still stand.

[nago]

After I got a double sword of draining, one vampiric (fuck!) and two demon sword of mocking with my HoHe, yes I totally agree that acquirement should respect religions.

Unless the very rare case you get a forbidden randart so awesome that breaks the game, I don't believe it's worthy to abandon your chosen god, losing all his powers and benefits, possibly suffering his wrath just for one item: therefore, that item tends to be unusable.

Returning to my example: yes, a vampiric demon sword/double sword is an awesome weapon for normal game, but Elyvilon with 20+ invo is tenfold better - thanks acquirement, I've just got a item I couldn't never use.

[galehar]

Hm, it looks like when I create a berserker, wizmode will acquire nothing but manuals.

Seems like what prevents a berserker from getting spellbooks is having no magic skills, not worshipping Trog. Otherwise, I kinda agree.

[Tenaya]

Use that wand of hasting (or random effects) as a worshipper of Chei regardless of target to incur divine retribution.

Fixed that for you based on an experience I had with that wand and that diety.

But what if you needed a wand of hasting for a treasure trove?

[Deimos]

Since when do you actually need to use the item a treasure trove asks for?

Picking up a wand of hasting wont procure divine retribution from chei, just like picking up spellbooks is fine with trog.

[Tenaya]

[quote="Deimos"]Since when do you actually need to use the item a treasure trove asks for?

Not needed for use, but needed for offering.
i.e. the trove wants a wand of hasting, but the character doesn't have a wand of hasting. So, given sufficient wand discovery in the game, one way to get a wand of hasting is to use a scroll of acquirement. Although if this were disallowed and wands of hasting were not given to Chei worshippers then one could abandon Chei, read the scroll of acquirement, then rejoin Chei; but that seems like a very unintuitive leap.

[cerebovssquire]

but that seems like a very unintuitive leap.

I agree that something that is unintuitive but actually very helpful is probably a bad thing. However, setting your Chei piety to a very low level just for a medium chance of entering a trove seems like a big mistake to me. Chei at low piety, especially later on when sources of haste are readily available, is terrible - you get his worst penalty (no hasting allowed) and are less than speed 10, without many of his benefits. Depending on where you are in the game, this can be very risky.

Anyway, even if I'm wrong, I think that the frustration of acquiring a vampiric demon blade under Elyvilon (see: nago) exceeds the frustration of not being able to acquire the wand under Chei, and as galehar pointed out in his commit the new rules are more consistent, so I think the change seems good overall.

[mageykun]

Acquirement could just take the requests of known troves into account.

[njvack]

It could -- though I don't know that complexity is needed. The chances that you're following a god who hates an item, a trove is asking for that item, you haven't already found that item, and acquiring that item is a reasonably good use of your scroll seems vanishingly unlikely.

Chei and the wand of hasting sounds like about the only plausible case. Maybe good gods and demon weapons -- but acquiring weapons is quite the crapshoot...

[eeviac]

Demon weapons aren't rare, find a pack or two of hell knights and a single balrug and you'll have them all.

[Tenaya]

but that seems like a very unintuitive leap.

I agree that something that is unintuitive but actually very helpful is probably a bad thing. However, setting your Chei piety to a very low level just for a medium chance of entering a trove seems like a big mistake to me. Chei at low piety, especially later on when sources of haste are readily available, is terrible - you get his worst penalty (no hasting allowed) and are less than speed 10, without many of his benefits. Depending on where you are in the game, this can be very risky.

I think that a (30% chance of getting the wand, access to the trove, and penance) is better than a 0% chance of access to the trove. The penance issue I don't see as much of a problem since one can just regain piety. Characters can abandon gods and take on new ones all through the game. The bigger issue, in my opinion, is that unless a player was aware of this change, they wouldn't know that their chance of acquiring the wand is 0%.
This is not to say that I disagree with acquirement respecting religion, it is just that trove payment came to my mind when I read the topic.

[galehar]

Acquirement could just take the requests of known troves into account.

I don't see any reason why it should. Troves aren't guaranteed after all.

[Tenaya]

Acquirement could just take the requests of known troves into account.

I don't see any reason why it should. Troves aren't guaranteed after all.

I don't see any reason why it shouldn't.
Getting good items from scrolls of acquirement is not guaranteed, either, but this whole thread is about taking away frustration. I don't see why you would take away some frustration but then add it in somewhere else. I guess either way is not a big deal, the information could just be added to the knowledge bot as a means of informing players.

Somewhat off-topic, but do players really use scrolls of acquirement for weapons? I just can't imagine wasting a scroll like that, unless it is far better than Okawaru gifting. Weapons along with enchantment scrolls and books with vorpalizeable buffs are lying around the dungeon; while getting a good set of jewellry or a complete wand set seems a far better use of acquirement scrolls. But who knows, maybe I'm missing out.

[danharaj]

A game change always introduces frustration while removing it. This particular change seems to remove a great deal more frustration than it adds. Your scenario seems a bit remote, although possible (especially counting how many games are played every day). On the other hand, acquirement with so many conduct gods is bound to produce more frustrating moments than what you suggest. It seems like a net positive.

[Kate]

Somewhat off-topic, but do players really use scrolls of acquirement for weapons? I just can't imagine wasting a scroll like that, unless it is far better than Okawaru gifting.

Scroll weapon acquirement is far better than god weapon acquirement, yes.

[Blade]

Somewhat off-topic, but do players really use scrolls of acquirement for weapons? I just can't imagine wasting a scroll like that, unless it is far better than Okawaru gifting. Weapons along with enchantment scrolls and books with vorpalizeable buffs are lying around the dungeon; while getting a good set of jewellry or a complete wand set seems a far better use of acquirement scrolls. But who knows, maybe I'm missing out.

Weapon acquirement is far better than jewellery acquirement in general; it is one of the best choices when you get an early acquirement scroll (especially if you aren't worshiping a gifting god). As MarvinPA said, it is much better than god weapon gifts; it is heavily weighted towards weapons you haven't seen before and weapons of the same type as your highest skill. For example, a long blades user would be very likely to get a demon blade, a double sword, or a triple sword, often with useful brands or artefact properties.

[galehar]

Getting good items from scrolls of acquirement is not guaranteed, either, but this whole thread is about taking away frustration.

Not getting useless items from acquirement is guaranteed, and that's what this thread is about. And consistency.

[Tenaya]

Getting good items from scrolls of acquirement is not guaranteed, either, but this whole thread is about taking away frustration.

Not getting useless items from acquirement is guaranteed, and that's what this thread is about. And consistency.

Please don't get me wrong, it is a good change. My only point is that trove-requirments are not useless items. Therefore, I think that including trove-requirements into account with acquirement would be a happy thing. And I think that not doing so would be spoilery. (I think that sums up my point, so I'll drop it from here.)

Also, it doesn't seem such a corner-case to me. I am quite accustomed to seeing a wand of healing or hasting as a trove-requirement.

[TwilightPhoenix]

I think that a (30% chance of getting the wand, access to the trove, and penance) is better than a 0% chance of access to the trove. The penance issue I don't see as much of a problem since one can just regain piety. Characters can abandon gods and take on new ones all through the game. The bigger issue, in my opinion, is that unless a player was aware of this change, they wouldn't know that their chance of acquiring the wand is 0%.

I don't know. To me, being at full piety is guaranteed to be useful to you, whereas you're not guaranteed to acquire the trove item and you're also not guaranteed the trove will even have anything useful in there. Or even anything good. Sacrificing your guaranteed power, even for a short time, just sounds like a bad tradeoff for a low chance of getting something you need to access something that has a low to medium chance of being useful.


Besides, if you really, really want to get into that Trove, you can always chill out in the Abyss or Pan until you find what you need. So I do not really see the problem.