"Obscured" loot?

[njvack]

The point, I believe, is that books are typical loot (prize in a vault) and we don't want to give away that before actually getting there. Compare to how you don't know the enchantment and ego of mundane armour and weapons.

This got me thinking: if the main reason previously-known floor trash books aren't pre-ID'd for you is so they can be super surprise vault loot, what if there were a way for vault designers to flag placed items as "obscured"? Obscured items wouldn't be identified even if they're previously known, until you step on their square. Maybe base type and artefactiness of items would be visible ("An extremely magical triple sword") or one could even obscure them more than ordinary floor items ("Some kind of long blade").

Maybe those potions are Experience; maybe they're degeneration... wanna tackle the vault to find out?

[jejorda2]

Found two gift-wrapped potions and a creosoted axe.

[TwilightPhoenix]

Could add treasure chests, which are squares that, when stepped on and no monsters are around, automatically spill their contents onto the floor. Sure, chests are a bit cliche, but pretty much every gamer has it ingrained into their mind that chest = potentially valuable loot.

[jejorda2]

At some point, there was some kind of plan to make treasure chests that acted like stores, wasn't there? I guess custom stores could be used to provide obscured loot without adding any new code.

[jejorda2]

Would it upset things much if scrolls of identity could be used on items on the floor in addition to items in inventory? Is the decision to use a scroll too easy compared to the decision to go after the loot?

[Tiber]

I doubt it would be a balance issue, but it would be an interface issue. How would you use it on a floor item? How would it behave if you haven't identified it?

[dpeg]

Chests have been discussed at some point (as a feature for Vaults, I believe). Clearly, Crawl wouldn't bother with keys etc., but a "chest" on a square could just mean that you cannot see the contains unless you're on the square -- this is very close to the obscured loot idea from above. I am not sure how much this would add but I don't see any serious drawbacks.

[Wahaha]

Not being able to apport the items is one possible problem. Apporting items you can't see out of a chest would be strange. Of course not being able to apport some items isn't a big problem. Would jellies be able to eat items out of a chest?

[XuaXua]

Chests have been discussed at some point (as a feature for Vaults, I believe). Clearly, Crawl wouldn't bother with keys etc., but a "chest" on a square could just mean that you cannot see the contains unless you're on the square -- this is very close to the obscured loot idea from above. I am not sure how much this would add but I don't see any serious drawbacks.

Mih-mics up the yin-yang.