New ?vorpalise

[Doc Brown]

I just posted about this in the SA thread, but I figure here's the better place for that.

I was IDing scrolls in Lair, when my demon whip of freezing got vorpalised into a demon whip of protection. Since I was already aware of the change, I immediately thought "my fault for reading unidentified scrolls while wielding my best weapon", but should the game really encourage you to switch your gear every time you read a new scroll? That's not really consistent with how the rest of the ID minigame works, at least not how I understand it. A simple fix would be allowing you to cancel the action, like you can do with Amnesia or Blink scrolls. You should still lose the scroll, of course.

[Galefury]

Sounds good.

[Amnesiac]

this is why I don't ID-read scrolls later than on early levels of the dungeon. I think it's ok as it is(until it happens to me). At some stage I always consider that the scroll I read might be of vorpalisation.

[dck]

It's about as silly and spoilery as walking around without your weapon wielded when you worshiped xom used to be.

[battaile]

I agree, the only argument against that I can see is that now there is a minor decision point if you are read-id'ing and have both vorpalize and at least one of the enchant weapon scrolls un-id'd.

[ackack]

I was IDing scrolls in Lair, when my demon whip of freezing got vorpalised into a demon whip of protection. Since I was already aware of the change, I immediately thought "my fault for reading unidentified scrolls while wielding my best weapon", but should the game really encourage you to switch your gear every time you read a new scroll? That's not really consistent with how the rest of the ID minigame works, at least not how I understand it. A simple fix would be allowing you to cancel the action, like you can do with Amnesia or Blink scrolls. You should still lose the scroll, of course.

Vorpalise is usually one of the last scrolls you see. You can know that it's very likely to be coming and take steps then, or use id scrolls on unknown scrolls. I've historically done this anyway, as even with old vorpalise you often didn't want to read one by accident (e.g. you have a well-enchanted great mace that you eventually want to put flaming or freezing on.) If you happen to find it early, then it's not likely that you're wielding a weapon that you're going to be heartbroken if you lose the brand on. Basically, this doesn't seem like much of a problem to me.

[Amnesiac]

I'm surprised that Galefury liked the idea, but I think this game is not such that would allow this kind of mistakes or we need to remove a lot of other dangers. This is a game, where you learn from your mistakes. Next time you'll be careful about this possibility. It's not like this encourages removing all your stuff, it's just the weapon. Anyway it's well in line with other dangers of crawl, even though it's a new feature.

[Lasty]

Yeah, this isn't really a change: often you wanted to take into account the possibility of a scroll being vorpalization (or enchant weapon) before the change as well. The only change is in which circumstances result in regretting holding a given weapon while read-IDing.

[DracheReborn]

I also ran into this one (had my longsword of electrocution turn into freezing, no biggie) and figured I'd have to adjust to the new effect.

Like others said, I don't think it's a big change, as vorpal could already have unintended consequences. If EW and vorpal will be allowed to target inventory though (as often discussed), then yeah adding a cancel option would make sense.

[Doc Brown]

Vorpalise is usually one of the last scrolls you see. You can know that it's very likely to be coming and take steps then, or use id scrolls on unknown scrolls. I've historically done this anyway, as even with old vorpalise you often didn't want to read one by accident (e.g. you have a well-enchanted great mace that you eventually want to put flaming or freezing on.) If you happen to find it early, then it's not likely that you're wielding a weapon that you're going to be heartbroken if you lose the brand on. Basically, this doesn't seem like much of a problem to me.

I admit that I'm a bit biased because I had the same thing happen in both of my last games. Found a top tier weapon for my build before Lair, then accidently made it worse by reading a scroll only a few floors later. The fact that the scrolls are relatively rare doesn't really help, as there's still always the possibily that the next unknown scroll you read is of the vorpalise variety. I also don't think you can compare it to the old scrolls, as you're much more likely to find another unbranded weapon of your desired type than a weapon of the right type and brand.

You have a good point in that we can use scrolls of identification on unknown scrolls until vorpalise is IDed, after all that's what we already do for potions. I suppose only read-IDing a scroll if you have more than one of that type will minimize the chances of vorpalising your weapon by accident, but it's a bit spoilery. In any case it's true that this is not something that will be relevant in most games, so I' fine with it either way.

I'm surprised that Galefury liked the idea, but I think this game is not such that would allow this kind of mistakes or we need to remove a lot of other dangers. This is a game, where you learn from your mistakes. Next time you'll be careful about this possibility. It's not like this encourages removing all your stuff, it's just the weapon. Anyway it's well in line with other dangers of crawl, even though it's a new feature.

Is it really in line with the other dangers in the game? It seems more in line with something like the old trap/secret door mechanic that punished you if you didn't press 5 often enough. There's no strategy involved.

[Amnesiac]

figured I'd have to adjust to the new effect.

well said - you gotta adjust to crawl, not adjust crawl to you

Doc Brown, it's just like with potion of mutation. Actually I don't like the tendency for read-ID as it's kinda no-brainer-ish. It IS possible to find enough scrolls of identification to ID every scroll that usually doesn't create stacks of few. It's obviously a bad idea to read a single scroll as soon as you find it, and more so if you don't find more soon if it's not first few levels of the dungeon.

[DracheReborn]

well said - you gotta adjust to crawl, not adjust crawl to you

Well you can do both - that's why we're in GDD

[DracheReborn]

Is it really in line with the other dangers in the game? It seems more in line with something like the old trap/secret door mechanic that punished you if you didn't press 5 often enough. There's no strategy involved.

I think it's a bit of an edge case. The only time you'd really worry about new vorpal it is you have a really lucky early find, a weapon of both good type and brand (as you've pointed out). But really how often does that happen? Most of the time, it's a weapon that you're going to throw away eventually anyway, so you don't care as much.

So the solution, it seems to me, is to be more careful with read ID if you've found such a great weapon. Just as you'd be careful with read ID with old vorpal if you've found an unbranded weapon of good base type.

[Doc Brown]

figured I'd have to adjust to the new effect.

well said - you gotta adjust to crawl, not adjust crawl to you

Doc Brown, it's just like with potion of mutation. Actually I don't like the tendency for read-ID as it's kinda no-brainer-ish. It IS possible to find enough scrolls of identification to ID every scroll that usually doesn't create stacks of few. It's obviously a bad idea to read a single scroll as soon as you find it, and more so if you don't find more soon if it's not first few levels of the dungeon.

Honest question, why is it obviously a bad idea? I'll often come across a single acquirement scroll in the mid-game and with the exception of this one case none of the scrolls do much harm as long as I'm at full HP on a cleared level. I figure it's not a big deal if I burn an enchantment scroll on that crappy weapon I found on D:3 or a recharge on a wand of fire, at least it will help me kill things for a while.

I think it's a bit of an edge case. The only time you'd really worry about new vorpal it is you have a really lucky early find, a weapon of both good type and brand (as you've pointed out). But really how often does that happen? Most of the time, it's a weapon that you're going to throw away eventually anyway, so you don't care as much.

So the solution, it seems to me, is to be more careful with read ID if you've found such a great weapon. Just as you'd be careful with read ID with old vorpal if you've found an unbranded weapon of good base type.

I guess I can live with that. It doesn't come up all too often and it won't kill you, even if you're careless. In fact, I might have ended up with a speed brand instead of protection and never posted this thread.

[crate]

With single scrolls it is not obvious to me that it is a bad idea to read immediately; there are many strategic effect scrolls in the game (identify, amnesia, all four enchant scrolls, and obviously the bad/useless scrolls would be ok too) compared to not many tactical scrolls.

With potions it is a bad idea to quaff-id a single stack, because there are very few strategic potions and the ones that do exist are very rare.

[Amnesiac]

no, its not the same

[Igxfl]

It sounds pretty similar. Drop all scrolls before read-IDing vs unwield weapon before read-IDing. No real effect on the game either way except to be annoying.

[Amnesiac]

Personally, I wouldn't mind if immolation would destroy scrolls, for crawl it would be ok.

[dck]

let's not ask for even more god damn itemdest alright, especially ridiculous types like that

[rebthor]

Personally, I wouldn't mind if immolation would destroy scrolls, for crawl it would be ok.

You know that it used to do it and was removed because there was an easy fix which was to drop all your scrolls before reading an unknown scroll.

[BlackSheep]

There was a suggestion a little while ago to make EW scrolls targeted, and making ?Vorpal targeted too would help with this problem too.

[tsouns]

I didn't know about the change, read an not IDd scroll wielding my trident of pain, granted to me by my god Kiku.
It made my game a real pain to have a trident of flaming instead.

I really wished that this wouldn't have happened! And it feeled like it was not in line with Crawl spirit to overwrite brand given by a mighty god.

[Siegurt]

Although actually specifically in the case of the Pain brand, it's actually kind of nice once you've moved on to extended and pretty much everything's pain-immune to be able to rebrand your buff highly enchanted weapon with something else.

[Amnesiac]

Personally, I wouldn't mind if immolation would destroy scrolls, for crawl it would be ok.

You know that it used to do it and was removed because there was an easy fix which was to drop all your scrolls before reading an unknown scroll.

I have to drop all my scrolls to kill a mottled dragons too. This is what I'd like to be removed. But it's a common knowledge, that this game is not for pussies, so it's ok. I mean we either remove jellies, sticky flame, torment, smiters and other annoying stuff(this is just what comes to mind, I'm sure there is a lot of more annoying stuff) or there is no point in fixing one frustrating problem. Anyway, I don't think it's a good idea to make this game more friendly, because it is not what this game is about.

[BlackSheep]

You really don't see a difference between fighting a monster and use-IDing a consumable?

[Amnesiac]

Not really, because both are situations that you need to be careful with.

[BlackSheep]

Yes, and one is totally in your control as to time and place and carries no risk of death.

[battaile]

this game is not for pussies

fo rizzle gangsta

[1010011010]

Dropping or rearranging inventory to read-id scrolls is 100% no brainer and a waste of time.

Vs

Dropping useful scrolls and burning turns during a fight is not always the best choice.

[Amnesiac]

ok, ok, but I'm fine with either. I mean this game is often frustrating and annoying and needs you to be strong(that's why I jockingly said that it's not for pussies) so it's ok to leave some of nasty stuff as it won't change much.

[1010011010]

Actually I'm reconsidering my position; recently I had a centaur hunter and read a ?EW1 then switched to bow from sword read the remaining unidentified scrolls and got EW2.

?VW and ?EW3 are both uncommon scrolls, I may not want to re brand my main weapon, but I also don't want to waste a decent enchantment scroll. It's not as no-brainer as I previously thought.

blinking has an opt out option because, I assume, you could blink to your current position and also there could be no other available spaces, I assume amnesia would be tedious if you had to choose a spell to forget just to relearn it.

the difference between immolation and vorpalise is that vorpalise isn't the only scroll to effect your held weapon.

[roctavian]

Crawl isn't designed to be frustrating or annoying, it's designed to be difficult and interesting.

[Amnesiac]

Tell me about this the next time you get hit with a sticky flame of acid corrodes you equipment.

[Doc Brown]

There was a suggestion a little while ago to make EW scrolls targeted, and making ?Vorpal targeted too would help with this problem too.

That's certainly a solution that could work. From the replies in this thread it looks like some really good players share my concern, so I hope one of the devs will find the time to comment.

[roctavian]

Tell me about this the next time you get hit with a sticky flame of acid corrodes you equipment.

Bad play leads to those consequences, and Crawl isn't designed to frustrate you in those situations, it's designed to penalize you. Players that find these situations frustrating are only angry with themselves.

In any case, ?vorp scrolls should be cancelable, to remain consistent.

[dck]

new ?vorp needs a change of course but itemdest is for the largest part completely avoidable and heavily encourages a very annoying play style.
Corrosion is stupid as well, especially from early Js.

[Amnesiac]

as far as I know, you can get attacked by those as soon as you enter their LoS. At least mottled dragons can't get you from the maximum range IIRC, but if you round a corner and stumble across one... the best decision might be to use a blink scroll, to not just get it destroyed along with other scrolls.

[XuaXua]

Easy fix. Keep it as-is and simply read another scroll of vorpalization. It's not like you haven't ID'd them.

[Arrhythmia]

Easy fix. Keep it as-is and simply read another scroll of vorpalization. It's not like you haven't ID'd them.

?Vorpalize can't affix four of the five god-associated brands, but it sure as hell can overwrite them. Do you now see the problem with your "fix"?

[Bloax]

Easy fix. Keep it as-is and simply read another scroll of vorpalization. It's not like you haven't ID'd them.

Unless they've started appearing more often than before, that scroll of vorpalise weapon is likely the only one you'd see in that game.

Oh and it just fucked up the brand on your dear weapon. Enjoy.

[1010011010]

IIRC the new ?vorpalise will brand randomly weighted towards the least rare brands (vorpal, flame, freeze ect.), very rarely creating vampiricism or electrocution. Why not make the re-branding depend on the current brand rarity

Rank 0
no brand

Rank 1
Vorpal
Flaming
Freezing
Draining
Protection

Rank 2
Chaos
Venom
Electrocution
Dragon slaying*
Reaching*
Reaping*

Rank 3
Speed
Vampiricism
Antimagic*
Distortion*
Pain*
Holy wrath**

*not all brands are attainable (ie god or weapon specific) but they have a position none the less.
**holy wrath can't be vorpalise but would be here.
this probably needs changing but stands as an example

when using a scroll of vorpalise weapon there's a 10% chance of a rank deduction, 50% chance of no rank change, 30% chance of a rank increase of 1 and 10% chance of a rank increase of 2. Any rank 0 or less calculated is changed to rank 1, so it's impossible to debrand your weapon. Any rank above 3 is changed to rank 3. The scroll on average makes your weapon branded with a rarer brand. Again, this is an example and the percentages can be changed.

The reason why I am suggesting this mechanism for the scroll is that I don't feel that an opt out is consistent with the weapon scrolls, but making your weapon better is. This means ?VW isn't a completely random game, currently you can use 3 ?VW on 3 GSC and pick the best one, here you can spread 3 scrolls across 3 GSC and get a range of low level brands or 3 scrolls on one GSC for a chance of a vampiric/speed GSC, more decisions. This also means that ?VW on a god brand isn't as bad (you might actually go for a chance of another rank 3 brand).

[jejorda2]

The ranking idea is appealing. But you want multiplicative brands on slow high-damage weapons and additive brands on fast low-damage weapons, and a dagger can count either way depending on whether you are stabbing with it, so sometimes ranks one and two need switching and sometimes they don't. It seems like it would be pretty fiddly to guess what you want based on what you've trained, because you are probably training based on what you have.

[Amnesiac]

This 10% chance to increase the rank by 2 is even higher than the chance to get electrocution(or was it 15%), meaning that you'll be able to make a GSC of speed from a GSC of freezing. That's not good.

[Arrhythmia]

This 10% chance to increase the rank by 2 is even higher than the chance to get electrocution(or was it 15%), meaning that you'll be able a GSC of speed from a GSC of freezing. That's not good.

Well, first of all, the chance to get electricity as is from ?vorpalize is actually 10.1%, so the chance to go up two ranks is already lower than the chance to get electrocution. Second, it's a 10% chance to go up two ranks, but then there's two affixable brands for a GSC up there, so it would be 10% / 2, or 5%. Really, please, think before you post.

Anyways, I kind of like the ranking idea. Obviously the rankings would need a bit of tweaking (i.e., venom on the same level as electrocution?), but that's an easier problem.

Personally though, I think the easiest solution would just be to add your god's brand to the roulette if you worship them. Making it cancelable is another option I like too.

[Amnesiac]

Yeah, except - 1) I didn't say that there is a 10% chance to get a speed brand in my post(talking about thinking before posting), 2) getting a vampiric one will totally screw me, u-huh.

[1010011010]

This 10% chance to increase the rank by 2 is even higher than the chance to get electrocution(or was it 15%), meaning that you'll be able to make a GSC of speed from a GSC of freezing. That's not good.

10% is quite low, with the aforementioned percentages you have a 44% chance of a rank 3 brand after 4 scrolls on a unbranded weapon.

Well, first of all, the chance to get electricity as is from ?vorpalize is actually 10.1%...

where did you get these number? do I have to sift through code?

Personally though, I think the easiest solution would just be to add your god's brand to the roulette if you worship them.

I like this Idea but it still goes against the concept that only a god can brand such brands, I'm annoyed at how many brands I put in each set. I sorted them based on my personal preference and the spell levels of the charm equivalent.

We could always just make god branded weapons (one that the player has specifically offered) unchangeable with a message along the lines of "how dare you try to remove my gift" then you get blasted with wrath, like what is done with current weapons of holy wrath.

[Siegurt]

Note that you can't re-brand weapons whose base type have been changed by TSO (Trishula's, eudemon blades etc.) But you *can* change other "Holy wrath" branded weapons

And current rebrand chances are:

  Code:

new_brand = random_choose_weighted(
                                    30, SPWPN_FLAMING,
                                    30, SPWPN_FREEZING,
                                    20, SPWPN_VENOM,
                                    15, SPWPN_DRAINING,
                                    15, SPWPN_VORPAL,
                                    15, SPWPN_ELECTROCUTION,
                                    12, SPWPN_PROTECTION,
                                    8, SPWPN_VAMPIRICISM,
                                    3, SPWPN_CHAOS,
                                    0);


That's a total of 148, so Electrocution chance is 15 in 148 (or just over 10%)

[Amnesiac]

Why is there no speed brand there, I wonder?

[Arrhythmia]

Why is there no speed brand there, I wonder?

Because there's no way to temporarily affix the speed brand.

It's not like it's horribly powerful and imbalanced, it adds less damage on most weapons than freezing/flaming/holy add to the vulnerable.