Make stashes useless

[Sandman25]

How about making hostile monsters unable to pick up items dropped by player? That would make Lair 2 stashes obsolete since you will be able to drop items almost wherever you want. Of course it will also require either removing Jellies from monster-generation list or making Jellies unable to eat items dropped by player.

Personally I almost never use stashes (the only exception if I see Lair entrance, I drop items in Lair 1 instead of current Dungeon level) but it gets in the way of implementing other changes like remove chunk-eating

[Amnesiac]

I think if you just drop something in a corner it's unlikely to be picked up. Isn't it?

[Sandman25]

I think if you just drop something in a corner it's unlikely to be picked up. Isn't it?

Yes, that's what I do usually.

[Marbit]

Taht would encourage droping items in mini-stashes all over the dungeon. I think the objective is to make the player rely on its inventory.

[Sandman25]

Taht would encourage droping items in mini-stashes all over the dungeon. I think the objective is to make the player rely on its inventory.

Right, but you can do mini-stashes all over the dungeon any way.

[TeshiAlair]

Here's an idea- two inventories, one "active" (the current inventory) and one "passive" (let's call it the Bag of Holding)

If there is any potential threat on the field (monster, deep water that might have an eel, etc), you cannot access your BoH. Otherwise, as a long action (similar to putting on a CPA), you can dig through your bag and move items to your active inventory.

This way, you have to manage items on hand for strategic purposes, but you don't have to worry about stashes.

[and into]

I tend to be a pack rat in DCSS, even though I rationally know that I do not, and will not, use more than 1 or 2 of those potions of invisibility and thus don't need to keep 8 in the store room. I'm trying to break myself of the habit, though, as I think I'll enjoy the game once I learn to stop worrying and love the dungeon floor. I can generally resist the hoarding impulse when I'm playing high strength melee-based guys, but I still have a ways to go with my wizards.

I stash in lair simply for the reason that it is easier to set a waypoint, and hit "CTRL-G" then a number, rather than "CTRL-F," type in item (typo half the time, repeat action, remember that the game spells it "artefact", etc. etc.) and scroll through a menu. The "Find" interface is fantastic, it really helps a lot in Crawl, but for stashing purposes specifically, I prefer waypoints. I will set multiple waypoints for a couple of "mini-stashes," but more than three or four going and I tend to forget what thing is where.

So I don't see how making the floor items inaccessible for monsters will make stashing a lot better... If you are still making ministashes, etc., it will be just as tedious, that's the real problem, not the largely imagined worries about jellies and thieving hobgoblins. Various monsters having FULL access to the floor items also means that occasionally even a much lower level (compared to you) monster can be dangerous, this is a good thing, and even though you don't suggest removing that ability entirely, I wouldn't even want to see it significantly curtailed IMO.

[and into]

Here's an idea- two inventories, one "active" (the current inventory) and one "passive" (let's call it the Bag of Holding)

If there is any potential threat on the field (monster, deep water that might have an eel, etc), you cannot access your BoH. Otherwise, as a long action (similar to putting on a CPA), you can dig through your bag and move items to your active inventory.

This way, you have to manage items on hand for strategic purposes, but you don't have to worry about stashes.

Nothing should remove the ability of enemies to potentially get items (including ones that you have touched) against you.

However, I think a certain convenience measure could be added through the Find menu:

My Proposal:

On the find menu, in additional to the other options, give a specific "retrieve" option that will streamline the process. "Retrieve" goes back to get the item you requested and return to where you are. It automatically switches off the autoexplore display during the retrieval, and of course it is interrupted when a monster appears along the path you travel, or if you get hungry as you are traveling. Another key could be reserved for "repeat last retrieve" so you can automatically resume after killing the dude or chowing down. Same turn count, same basic mechanic, a lot more convenient. If you don't get hungry or encounter a wandering monster (so to speak), then it is basically like the game pauses for half a sec, and suddenly you are right back where you started with a bunch of turns added to your count, and item in inventory.

The game will check automatically to make sure that picking up the item will not burden you when you enter the retrieve command.

[Sandman25]

Here's an idea- two inventories, one "active" (the current inventory) and one "passive" (let's call it the Bag of Holding)

If there is any potential threat on the field (monster, deep water that might have an eel, etc), you cannot access your BoH. Otherwise, as a long action (similar to putting on a CPA), you can dig through your bag and move items to your active inventory.

This way, you have to manage items on hand for strategic purposes, but you don't have to worry about stashes.

That's a good idea but unfortunately a bag is present on "never will be done" list.

[Sandman25]

I tend to be a pack rat in DCSS, even though I rationally know that I do not, and will not, use more than 1 or 2 of those potions of invisibility and thus don't need to keep 8 in the store room. I'm trying to break myself of the habit, though, as I think I'll enjoy the game once I learn to stop worrying and love the dungeon floor. I can generally resist the hoarding impulse when I'm playing high strength melee-based guys, but I still have a ways to go with my wizards.

I stash in lair simply for the reason that it is easier to set a waypoint, and hit "CTRL-G" then a number, rather than "CTRL-F," type in item (typo half the time, repeat action, remember that the game spells it "artefact", etc. etc.) and scroll through a menu. The "Find" interface is fantastic, it really helps a lot in Crawl, but for stashing purposes specifically, I prefer waypoints. I will set multiple waypoints for a couple of "mini-stashes," but more than three or four going and I tend to forget what thing is where.

So I don't see how making the floor items inaccessible for monsters will make stashing a lot better... If you are still making ministashes, etc., it will be just as tedious, that's the real problem, not the largely imagined worries about jellies and thieving hobgoblins. Various monsters having FULL access to the floor items also means that occasionally even a much lower level (compared to you) monster can be dangerous, this is a good thing, and even though you don't suggest removing that ability entirely, I wouldn't even want to see it significantly curtailed IMO.

If you have several stashes, you cannot just press Ctrl+G 3 because you are unlikely to remember which stash contains that cure mutation potion which you need so Ctrl+F is still used. If you have just 1 stash in Lair, it will be too far from late dungeon. Some suggest moving items from Lair into Vestibule but I really don't like it because it takes several runs usually. Ctrl+F has an added bonus that you see items in shops also. I tried setting waypoints for my stashes but found it is not needed if you are looking for a particular item instead of just "let's go to stash and see what I have there".

[Sandman25]

Here's an idea- two inventories, one "active" (the current inventory) and one "passive" (let's call it the Bag of Holding)

If there is any potential threat on the field (monster, deep water that might have an eel, etc), you cannot access your BoH. Otherwise, as a long action (similar to putting on a CPA), you can dig through your bag and move items to your active inventory.

This way, you have to manage items on hand for strategic purposes, but you don't have to worry about stashes.

Nothing should remove the ability of enemies to potentially get items (including ones that you have touched) against you.

However, I think a certain convenience measure could be added through the Find menu:

My Proposal:

On the find menu, in additional to the other options, give a specific "retrieve" option that will streamline the process. "Retrieve" goes back to get the item you requested and return to where you are. It automatically switches off the autoexplore display during the retrieval, and of course it is interrupted when a monster appears along the path you travel, or if you get hungry as you are traveling. Another key could be reserved for "repeat last retrieve" so you can automatically resume after killing the dude or chowing down. Same turn count, same basic mechanic, a lot more convenient. If you don't get hungry or encounter a wandering monster (so to speak), then it is basically like the game pauses for half a sec, and suddenly you are right back where you started with a bunch of turns added to your count, and item in inventory.

The game will check automatically to make sure that picking up the item will not burden you when you enter the retrieve command.

I like that. It can be implemented as a temporary hidden waypoint at current position.

[and into]

If you have several stashes, you cannot just press Ctrl+G 3 because you are unlikely to remember which stash contains that cure mutation potion which you need so Ctrl+F is still used. If you have just 1 stash in Lair, it will be too far from late dungeon. Some suggest moving items from Lair into Vestibule but I really don't like it because it takes several runs usually. Ctrl+F has an added bonus that you see items in shops also. I tried setting waypoints for my stashes but found it is not needed if you are looking for a particular item instead of just "let's go to stash and see what I have there".

Right, I mentioned that I keep it to one or two stashes. I end up using a bit of the Find menu and a bit of waypoints, in practice, but both have their little annoying quirks even though the overall convenience of the mechanism is quite high.

Good call on the hidden waypoint as a way to implement, Sandman25!

[spudwalt]

What I usually do is inscribe a junk item (like a single arrow or something) with a unique tag like "supplies", then drop that wherever I happen to make my stash (which is usually Lair:2). If I have to make a ministash, I usually find another junk item to inscribe with the word "drops", then drop that on top of my ministash. Once I've got that, I can just use Ctrl+F to travel to any stashes where I have useful supplies; if I need a specific item, I can just Ctrl+F for it, and stuff in shops can go on the shopping list with $. I didn't even know waypoints were a thing until just recently.

Really, making a stash is a player's way of keeping important items in an easy-to-find place where stuff can't get into them; the game doesn't force you to make a stash, and it's possible (though inefficient) to play through a game without making a central stash. I'm not sure why the OP thought this was something that merited removal; Lair:2 can be kinda inconvenient for the later game, but you don't *have* to make your stash there, and you can always make a second stash farther down in the Dungeon or in the Vestibule.

[Amnesiac]

I can generally resist the hoarding impulse when I'm playing high strength melee-based guys, but I still have a ways to go with my wizards.

Shouldn't it be backwards? I mean you can carry those 20 rations you won't ever use with a HO/Mi/OgFi/Be, but with a DEWz you are not allowed even to carry more than two wands, a bit of food and 3 bottles of each most useful type. I used to play DEWz with 4 str and no str gains a lot and it teached me a lot about inventory management. In my latest game I just turned off auto-pickup by the end of the dungeon and I think it's the way to go.

[and into]

As a wizard I tend to keep all my books, etc. in one place. I stash enchant armor and the like in either case. It isn't a question of inventory management or of knowing what I need, but of an OC impulse on my part to keep items of dubious usefulness in my stash. I tend to be better at resisting this urge with tanky melee guys than with the more magic-centric characters I roll.

In any case, I think I will propose the retrieve command in a new thread? We can continue to discuss stashes (and perhaps any changes that could be made to make them completely unnecessary), but I think the "retrieve" idea perhaps should be a thing regardless. I'll start a new thread in GDD tomorrow, I imagine if a dev likes the idea and if it won't be too hard to code (hopefully not) maybe it will find its way in at some point down the line.

EDIT: I generally cut off autopickup at some point too with most characters. Autopickup casts a wide net, as it should, but that tendency becomes more annoying later on and less helpful.

[Amnesiac]

I think it's a better idea to just go to that item and then think once again where do you want to go next.

[Maynot]

How about making hostile monsters unable to pick up items dropped by player? That would make Lair 2 stashes obsolete since you will be able to drop items almost wherever you want. Of course it will also require either removing Jellies from monster-generation list or making Jellies unable to eat items dropped by player.[/url]

Dropping items anywhere you want would make it so you end up trying to remember where on what floor you put something. As for myself, I like to hoard all sorts of things including stuff that I will likely never use and would not want monsters to use. You should see the massive pile of items I have just inside the Temple. It is nice to have it all in one spot for that one chance you have found an item requested by a treasure trove.

If you would like to make stashes more dangerous, you could have tripping over massive piles or maybe even have that massive stack of books fall on you creating a scatter effect. (and yes, I am an old fashioned RPG item hoarder, love those shiny mega-elixirs)

[savageorange]

^ Not a great user of Ctrl+F, are you?

[galehar]

On the find menu, in additional to the other options, give a specific "retrieve" option that will streamline the process. "Retrieve" goes back to get the item you requested and return to where you are. It automatically switches off the autoexplore display during the retrieval, and of course it is interrupted when a monster appears along the path you travel, or if you get hungry as you are traveling. Another key could be reserved for "repeat last retrieve" so you can automatically resume after killing the dude or chowing down. Same turn count, same basic mechanic, a lot more convenient. If you don't get hungry or encounter a wandering monster (so to speak), then it is basically like the game pauses for half a sec, and suddenly you are right back where you started with a bunch of turns added to your count, and item in inventory.

The game will check automatically to make sure that picking up the item will not burden you when you enter the retrieve command.

It can be probably implemented with a bit of lua. You can already achieve almost the same thing with existing commands (^F, select item, enter, ^G enter to resume if interrupted, pick stuff, ^G D$). The only difference is that it doesn't allows you to get more than one item and forces you to go back to the same place. I don't think assigning a whole new command for such a narrow usage is a good idea.

[and into]

It can be probably implemented with a bit of lua. You can already achieve almost the same thing with existing commands (^F, select item, enter, ^G enter to resume if interrupted, pick stuff, ^G D$). The only difference is that it doesn't allows you to get more than one item and forces you to go back to the same place. I don't think assigning a whole new command for such a narrow usage is a good idea.

Fair enough. What about if the autotravel display toggled off automatically when you were using ^F, ^G, though? I understand why, when you press "o", your view speeds up considerably but doesn't skip ahead. What's the rationale for why the ^F, ^G doesn't just display as a "smash cut" between where you were and where you were going. [EDIT: Obviously, unless interrupted, in which case it cuts to the point at which you were interrupted.]

[galehar]

have you tried setting travel_delay to -1?

[argonaut]

The nice thing about stashes is that you can stand over your huge pile of books and the memorize command will show you all available spells. Much nicer than using "Ctrl-F book" and looking at each book individually.

I'd like to see the temple have gates scattered through D just like Hell or Pan. Then you could get back to your books without so much backtracking.

[Siegurt]

The nice thing about stashes is that you can stand over your huge pile of books and the memorize command will show you all available spells. Much nicer than using "Ctrl-F book" and looking at each book individually.

I'd like to see the temple have gates scattered through D just like Hell or Pan. Then you could get back to your books without so much backtracking.

Note you can do "Control-F" "Spellname" and it will list all the books with that spell in it, so you can go to the closest one of those to memorize it, should you know what you're looking for.

[MoogleDan]

The nice thing about stashes is that you can stand over your huge pile of books and the memorize command will show you all available spells. Much nicer than using "Ctrl-F book" and looking at each book individually.

I'd like to see the temple have gates scattered through D just like Hell or Pan. Then you could get back to your books without so much backtracking.

Note you can do "Control-F" "Spellname" and it will list all the books with that spell in it, so you can go to the closest one of those to memorize it, should you know what you're looking for.

True, but it's nice to have a full list of what all your options are in one big pile.

Apart from the fact that it's inefficient for turn count and burns through food a little, what's the problem with stashes? I don't understand all the hostility toward what seems to be a fairly harmless practice.

[Lasty]

I think the hostility is because 1) it is a suboptimal and largely needless practice, but 2) because people believe otherwise, they frequently request new features or gameplay changes based on their desire to stash things.

[ontoclasm]

Yes, nobody cares if you stash. What's annoying is people constantly complaining that stashing is hard or annoying. Imagine if lots of people insisted on never using any weapon with a base delay over 11, and every couple of weeks we got a Tavern thread demanding we buff short swords or implement more options for 11-and-under-ites. It won't affect the high-level players, so why not give us a break, devs???

[Amnesiac]

just play one game without stashing items and just leave them on the floor in the nearest corner, it's not all that bad... don't forget to use ctrl-f, of course

[Siegurt]

Yes, nobody cares if you stash. What's annoying is people constantly complaining that stashing is hard or annoying. Imagine if lots of people insisted on never using any weapon with a base delay over 11, and every couple of weeks we got a Tavern thread demanding we buff short swords or implement more options for 11-and-under-ites. It won't affect the high-level players, so why not give us a break, devs???

Well to be fair no matter *what* you do or don't do people are going to complain about it

[sanka]

Yes, nobody cares if you stash. What's annoying is people constantly complaining that stashing is hard or annoying. Imagine if lots of people insisted on never using any weapon with a base delay over 11, and every couple of weeks we got a Tavern thread demanding we buff short swords or implement more options for 11-and-under-ites. It won't affect the high-level players, so why not give us a break, devs???

Wiht all my respect to the developers who devote a lot of valuable time to improve this already good game, I do not think your argument has much sense.

[MoogleDan]

While I'm sure this is inviting a shitstorm upon me, I figure I might as well ask; I just rewrote the CrawlWiki article for stashing (http://crawl.chaosforge.org/Stash) to take a more neutral tone on the topic. If anyone feels like pointing out any Pros / Cons I left out, feel free to suggest them here. Be aware that I've always been a Lair and Vestibule stasher myself, so if I misinterpreted the proper Drop It Anywhere technique... *shrug* It's my first day.

[Turukano]

What's annoying is people constantly complaining that stashing is hard or annoying.

Well, stashing *is* annoying.

Other annoying things in crawl and their solutions:

• annoyed about bad mutations -> Zin
• annoyed about item destruction -> Jiyva
• annoyed about wandering in the abyss -> Lugonu
• annoyed because divinations have gone -> Ashenzari
• annoyed about stash management -> god X who allows Y?

[Sandman25]

Large stashes being suboptimal is kind of the problem - I'm pretty sure the optimal behaviour for survival involves maintaining lots of small stashes on stairs and carefully keeping track so that you never allow monsters to pass over them (hence nothing can get destroyed, and you use fewer turns than you would with a large stash) but it's so incredibly annoying to optimize that nobody does it. And then someone tells you to just leave everything on the floor or in inventory, which is a non-trivial survival detriment. "Nobody cares if you use autoexplore, it's suboptimal, so you shouldn't do it and you should stop complaining that it doesn't work in Shoals. If using optimal manual exploration is too tedious just hold down the direction keys, I'm sick of you people constantly complaining."

I am not sure stairs are optimal for stashing unless my information is wrong and monsters are not generated near stairs mostly.

[savageorange]

^^^ Looks good to me!

On the subject of this:

Tracking Inventory - Keeping all of your consumables in one place allows you to easily take stock of what you have and what you're lacking. Also, poring over your inventory may remind you that you have resources you'd forgotten about, and which would have otherwise gone to waste.

.. is it possible to have a searchable keyword like 'mine' that applies to all items which were ever in your inventory? That measure would effectively near-eliminate this pro, since the ! command in ctrl+f allows you to inspect items' descriptions; you could remote-inspect your entire stash (for a somewhat more promiscuous definition of 'stash')

[Sandman25]

While I'm sure this is inviting a shitstorm upon me, I figure I might as well ask; I just rewrote the CrawlWiki article for stashing (http://crawl.chaosforge.org/Stash) to take a more neutral tone on the topic. If anyone feels like pointing out any Pros / Cons I left out, feel free to suggest them here. Be aware that I've always been a Lair and Vestibule stasher myself, so if I misinterpreted the proper Drop It Anywhere technique... *shrug* It's my first day.

There is one more con to stashing: you can get your item destroyed while you were bringing it to the stash. Also there is another approach - you can stash in deep water if you are Mf/Op/Dj/Te/Ga or just have flight/ice form, it does not protect vs Jellies but protects vs land based monsters. I have just analyzed source code and it looks like Jellies are generated only on floors 5-15 ({ 5, 15, 514, SEMI, MONS_JELLY } from mon-pick-data.h) so deep water approach is safe on other floors.

[Galefury]

IIRC only Mf can retrieve items from deep water.

[MoogleDan]

There is one more con to stashing: you can get your item destroyed while you were bringing it to the stash. Also there is another approach - you can stash in deep water if you are Mf/Op/Dj/Te/Ga or just have flight/ice form, it does not protect vs Jellies but protects vs land based monsters. I have just analyzed source code and it looks like Jellies are generated only on floors 5-15 ({ 5, 15, 514, SEMI, MONS_JELLY } from mon-pick-data.h) so deep water approach is safe on other floors.

Much appreciated! I've added all that in, though are you certain about the flying races being able to access items dropped into deep water? That seems off... >_>

[BlackSheep]

IIRC only Mf can retrieve items from deep water.

Octopodes and grey draconians, too.

[Amnesiac]

you can stash in deep water if you have flight/ice form

I seriously doubt that.

[bcadren]

you can stash in deep water if you have flight/ice form

I seriously doubt that.

I'll second that. Hell, Merfolk can't even get items from deep water if they are in form and Pre-0.11 you couldn't pick ANYTHING up while flying. Only Grey Drakes and Merfolk can make deep water stashes.

[Amnesiac]

And Op. In other words only amphibious guys can. I even checked it, because my current character was near water and had flight.

[Sar]

Is there any point of using tele trap stashes, unless maybe you spend a lot of time on your "stash level" for some reason (travelling around?). The edge case is worshipping Jiyva (and people often recommend tele stashes to Jiyva worshippers), but I remember reading that code just randomly destroys some items off-level, without checking if they lie on a tele trap or not.

[Sandman25]

When you climb a staircase up, you generally end up on the same tile as a staircase down...do I really need to explain this?

This is really confusing but I think I know what you mean.

edit: and since I'm sure you'll bring this up, yes, you can use teleport traps too

Your thoughts analyzer is broken.

[XuaXua]

Part of what is broken is inventory management. Three nets take up one slot, but if one is torn and one is falling apart, they take up three slots. One grape takes the same room as fifteen rambutan or one gold dragon armour.

[rebthor]

IIRC only Mf can retrieve items from deep water.

Octopodes and grey draconians, too.

And Fedhas worshipers, although it would be annoying to sunlight dry out everything when you wanted it and then rain it again to put it back under deep water. I don't know if the game would keep track of it on the CTRL-F screen under Fedhas either.

[rebthor]

Part of what is broken is inventory management. Three nets take up one slot, but if one is torn and one is falling apart, they take up three slots. One grape takes the same room as fifteen rambutan or one gold dragon armour.

But it's a really, really good grape. It's so good thatFedhas would trade you a friendly Oklob for it. You don't even need to water it.