Proposal: Rework Item Destruction

[battaile]

Mmm... okay, interesting discussion so far, but what about this:

Instead of fire or ice attacks destroying the scrolls and potions outright, they damage them, making them unusable for a period of time.

You might also find the OP an interesting read.

[Bim]

It seems that everyone agrees that item 'destruction' should either make items temporarily unavailable (this doesn't need to be a completely insignificant amount of time) or that on using items they have a chance to be destroyed.

I'd say combine both. Some items are coloured red/blue (for firey/frozen) which are completely unusable, using other items has a chance of them also disintegrating. If these are too much, let trunk feedback decide which is better.

[siprus]

What very scroll was stored in fire proof scroll book, and potions in cold proof container. When you read a scroll there is certain chance that scroll you use catches of fire and chance that some of your unused scrolls catch on fire. (or maybe chance of scroll you read gets destroyed is really small (since you read it before it burn completely) while blunt of the damage is suffered by your unused scrolls) -> you can use scrolls to escape sticky situations, but you'll be losing other scrolls.

On hindsight, it wouldn't fix the most important problem, which that you can still save your consumables by dropping them.

[zugundertherug]

Just had a thought, if the "chance for destruction while hot/cold" idea is implemented the effect should be constant in Ghenna/Cocytus. Even if the idea isn't implemented for the rest of the game consider implementing it in just those two branches. It would fit the flavour of those places really well. "The searing heat burns your scroll before you could read it" or something like that.

[brendan]

Just had a thought, if the "chance for destruction while hot/cold" idea is implemented the effect should be constant in Ghenna/Cocytus. Even if the idea isn't implemented for the rest of the game consider implementing it in just those two branches. It would fit the flavour of those places really well. "The searing heat burns your scroll before you could read it" or something like that.

This idea was also floated for Volcano and Ice Cave.

[zugundertherug]

This idea was also floated for Volcano and Ice Cave.

Well it's a good idea Maybe Cerebov's place too.

[Amnesiac]

I think this will only make things more annoying and make people avoid those places, especially some classes who rely on potions and scrolls more than mages.

[1010011010]

I think this will only make things more annoying and make people avoid those places, especially some classes who rely on potions and scrolls more than mages.

no reason why preservation/conservation can't work here

[KennySheep]

You could add a mana-draining aura to Dis and Tartarus to make them suck for mage classes who don't rely on scrolls/potions to balance things out.

[Amnesiac]

And that would make THEM want to avoid more levels of the game. What's the point? And this time mana is the most important concern for them, so they will even suck more, unless they have a way of an unlimited mana channeling which will make the whole idea pointles. Anyway gimmicky restrictions are annoying and suck. Also, hells are dangerous enough as they are.

[Arrhythmia]

The problem with the Hells is that they're painfully homogeneous. Not as much as they used to be, and not as much as Pan is, but they're still pretty bad. Differentiating them with something like -scroll and -potion would be interesting.

That said, a magic draining aura would be positively crippling.

[KennySheep]

That wasn't a serious suggestion at all, btw.

[jejorda2]

What about a status from a monster attack or an area-of-effect aura that gave a ring-of-ice style negative enhancement to spellpower for one school? So charms suddenly have shorter durations, or bolt of fire is weaker for a few turns. That might cause as much change in tactics as a chance for consumables to fail.

It might not be very different from the new draining, though.

[twelwe]

What about a status from a monster attack or an area-of-effect aura that gave a ring-of-ice style negative enhancement to spellpower for one school? So charms suddenly have shorter durations, or bolt of fire is weaker for a few turns. That might cause as much change in tactics as a chance for consumables to fail.

It might not be very different from the new draining, though.

certain moths do things similar to this

[delarado]

Ive just started another whinge thread on item destruction.

For me, the main one is the sticky flame. Ice beasts, Fannar, and whatever else with Icy stuff is (Relatively speaking) Fine.

However, being sticky flamed by a mottled draconian that opens a door next to you and having approx 8 of the 15 scrolls you are carrying burned with NO WAY to stop it happening is plain ridiculous.

I was on D:27 and have done most of the main game, except for the rune levels. Having not found any conservation by this point makes the fire status extremely infuritating, I lost 3 scrolls of blinking and 2 scrolls of teleport that I know about, as well as various other misc scrolls.

I'm not against item destruction at all; but it needs to be made manageable. At the moment, there is one thing you can do to mitigate (note, NOT remove) it, and that is subjective to finding a relatively rare item.

To ask people to kill sticky flamers from more than 6 squares away is silly and not an option. Every character wearing MDA is not an option.

This is what I think should happen:

Implement a "cold" status from all cold attacks.
Leave the current "fire" status.

Make both of them destroy one random item each on infliction of the status:

"The potions in your inventory begin to frost over. Your potion of foo cracks, and the contents leak away"
"The scrolls in your inventory begin to blacken around the edges from the heat of the flames. Your scroll of bar tears clean through!"

You can cure either status with a potion of curing. The item destruction will accelerate if left un-resolved...

"Most of the potions in your inventory have frosted over. Your potion of A and your potion of B both shatter"
"All of your scrolls are beginning to wilt from the heat. Your scroll of C and your scroll of D are set ablaze!"

Maybe some sort of calculation can be implemented to accelerate the destruction at a linear but random rate...
E.g
Fire for 1 turn = 100% destruction of random potion
Fire for 2 turn = 100% destruction of random potion, 50% destruction of 2 potions, 5% destruction of 3 potions
Fire for 3 turn = 100% destruction of random potion, 80% destruction of 2 potions, 30% destruction of 3 potions
Fire for 4 turn = 100% destruction of 2 potions, 50% destruction of 3 potions etc...

I meant scrolls in the above but i already typed it and im too lazy to correct.

Item destruction should not be removed IMO, but being able to be set on fire and being forced to watch all of your scrolls burn is just criminal IMO. Something needs to be done to allow the player to stop it happening, but it still needs to have a penalty to stop the item destruction being a useless mechanic.

[and into]

I think badposting from a few people in favor of item destruction reform might have turned a few devs off to what I think is a very good idea.

Galehar is correct to point out that bringing all your scrolls along ALL the time does have a major impact for certain areas: Abyss and Pan. I think the benefits of item destruction reform outweigh, but don't eliminate, that concern. This does make any change here trickier, though; like food reform, it will involve doing at least two or three (if not more) things at once, which is more labor intensive and harder to balance off the bat. Nonetheless I think it is worth it, as item destruction rework is actually the single biggest thing we can do to make stashing unnecessary. There's a lot of irrational stashing behavior in some people's gameplay (my own included sometimes), but the RATIONAL part of it is protecting that cure mutation potion and those acquirement scrolls until you need them, whether you stash in Lair 2 or just anywhere out of the way on the dungeon floor.

So here would be my stab at a proposal:

1.) Heat and cold work basically the way bcadren originally proposed. The more damage you take from either source, the higher the percentage chance that using a consumable of the appropriate type (fire --> scroll, cold --> potion) will fail. Note that this means that rC and rF will naturally help, without hardcoding special stuff: The less damage you take from a source, the better for your ability to use consumables.
2.) Conservation / Preservation largely negates, but does not completely eliminate, the chance of the consumable you attempt to use being destroyed without having effect.

Now, the Abyss / Pan problem:
3.) A stack of more than X scrolls or potions takes up more than one slot. This actually makes sense somewhat "realistically," though in a game where magical cats kill dragons I know that's not a very good reason to implement any proposal. So like if you lug around more than 2 scrolls of *foo*, it takes up another space; if you lug around more than 3 potions of *foo*, it takes up one space in your inventory. You get 52 spaces in inventory, one for each letter of alphabet, lower and upper-case. Since ammo reform has already been implemented, this shouldn't be an undue burden on reasonable play, limits but does not eliminate (like fairly generous carrying capacity) stashing, penalizes (but doesn't prevent) taking all your blinking into Pan.
4.) In addition to / replacing 3, the random nature of these branches could make it so that item destruction (as CURRENTLY implemented) applies every time you are "dragged to a new area of the abyss" or else has an X% chance of happening every time you go to a new area of Pandemonium. This particular form of item destruction could be special-cased to apply only to CERTAIN items: NOT "enchant foo," but yes to all tactical items. This can be flavored as a malevolent, semi-conscious force that operates in these areas.... Abyss and Pan *feel* evil, ya know? Not like just the stuff in it, but the branches themselves. They are nasty. They like to mess with you. "The Abyss seeks to cripple you"—one of your heal wounds goes bye bye. Etc. For abyss you can have this ramp up as you go to deeper levels, with Pan it is less common overall, but a constant, flat risk every time you go through a portal to a new area of Pan.

So, just getting abyssed and being unlucky about an exit, it isn't going to kill your consumables on average any more than now, for levels 1 and 2. But if you want the abyssal rune, you better be willing to pay the price. Much higher rate of consumable destruction. "You are dragged into a new area of the Abyss.... Not everything came with you!" -- Again, this item destruction would be limited to CERTAIN tactical items, not strategic ones.

Would that address all the concerns?


EDIT: Crossposting from thread delarado started:

Personally, I think this would all be in the numbers, though. If a single hit from an arrow of flame meant 50% failure, yeah, that's one thing. But if it scales up with damage (or whatever), kind of like antimagic but for consumables, I could see that being a much better take on consumable limiting. Also, that damage could be "absolute" (not relative to HP), so in early game it would make hardly any difference when a puff of frost or flame hits you from an orc wizard (since the fact that not many consumables have probably spawned by that point is a natural limiting factor early on), but becomes a major factor later, when consumables become, IMO, all TOO reliable in terms of letting your character escape when he needs to.

[delarado]

Or we could implement waiting as a means of item destruction prevention.

While your on fire, if you do anything except wait, something gets destroyed like now.

If you wait, "you fan the flames to keep them under control"

Could be interesting?

It makes the player choose between taking further damage (potentially dying) or losing scrolls.

Right now getting 10 scrolls burned by a lone mottled dragon is dumb, but a pack of draconians would still be a potent problem because you probably couldn't just wait out the destruction as you'd get pummelled.

[Amnesiac]

tl;dr but I agree that something should be done about sticky flame, so that I would use some armour other than MDA... Everything else is fine, though. The idea from a post above, might be interesting - choose to escape, fight or protect you scrolls.

[Implojin]

I agree that something should be done about sticky flame, so that I would use some armour other than MDA...

MDA grants good AC with an almost nonexistent penalty to EV and spell success rates. In my opinion it is probably too strong of an item for those reasons; enchanting a mottled dragon hide, should one spawn in your game, is a decision that requires zero thought on a majority of characters.

The rNapalm that exists on MDA is an irrelevant side bonus, and it does not protect your scrolls from being burned by the initial hit of Sticky Flame.

If you are choosing to use MDA based on some vague notion of scroll protection you are making the right armour choice for the wrong reason.

[Amnesiac]

That's how much I hate sticky flame. Otherwise any other dragon armour would be fine... I thint that 6 AC/1EVP is the best ratio, though, but if not for sticky flame, I'd go for whichever I find first of steam/swamp or mottled, especially if I want to do stabbing and cast spells. Also, talking about destruction on the initial hit of sticky flame is laughable. Any fire attacks burn scrolls, does that make burning 15 of them in one hit something exceptable?

[brendan]

As is, I don't think this is ever going to make it into trunk. I would be these status effects being present in Volcano and Ice Caves. Geh and Coc might also be appropriate, but I haven't played extended.

[delarado]

Why not Brendan?

I don't see anybody saying "NO! Keep item destruction exactly as it is now!)

All I can see is people not agreeing on how a change should be implemented.

I was playing last night, carefully luring dranconians away from a large pack, one by one with my plate armored gargoyle fighter on D:27. as mentioned, I saw two mottled draconians and lost pretty much all of my scrolls. I was fighting them on their own. This is unreasonable IMO, as heavy armor characters that do not train evocation cannot kill draconians from long range.

I'd personally (Of course) like to see my wait idea implemented. It allows the player to not lose too many scrolls if they are careful and intelligent about how they lure away and fight destruction capable monsters (In that they can kill it in a couple of terms and then wait the flame out) but they cant just barrel in to hordes of draconians in Zot and expect to just bully through them all, waiting out the flames while they get spat at and beaten on by 6 draconian's friends.

It would promote intelligent play, and discourage annoying, unavoidable for some characters brutal game mechanics.

Its just the sticky flame I have a problem with. Ice beasts / fannar / fire giants (to a certain extent) I don't have a huge problem with.

[sanka]

3.) A stack of more than X scrolls or potions takes up more than one slot.

Item destruction is bad because it's annoying, and it's annoying because optimal play involves a lot of fiddling with inventory. This proposal just would make it worse. I really do not like spending real time managing my inventory.

4.) In addition to / replacing 3, the random nature of these branches could make it so that item destruction (as CURRENTLY implemented) applies every time you are "dragged to a new area of the abyss" or else has an X% chance of happening every time you go to a new area of Pandemonium. This particular form of item destruction could be special-cased to apply only to CERTAIN items: NOT "enchant foo," but yes to all tactical items. This can be flavored as a malevolent, semi-conscious force that operates in these areas.... Abyss and Pan *feel* evil, ya know? Not like just the stuff in it, but the branches themselves. They are nasty. They like to mess with you. "The Abyss seeks to cripple you"—one of your heal wounds goes bye bye. Etc. For abyss you can have this ramp up as you go to deeper levels, with Pan it is less common overall, but a constant, flat risk every time you go through a portal to a new area of Pan.

The positive thing about item destruction as it is implemented now is that it somewhat depends on players skill. Not when you are sticky flamed after a corner, but many times it is. Random destruction is strictly worse in my opinion for many reasons.

[Amnesiac]

if we merge two ideas from this thread we get a good idea, it could be like this - you can't use scrolls while sticky-flamed. I'm fine with the idea about waiting out sticky flame, too

[sanka]

Just to add some of my brainstorming:

How would I design this part if crawl is a new game designed now?

Dropping items/leaving them behind is absolutely not interesting tactic but can be very tedious. So game mechanics should discourage it.

1. Never destroy strategial items. Yes, you could use them in Abyss/Pan. Who cares? If they are moved to a separate item category, it may change the id minigame. In my opinion it could change the id minigame to much better. I could elaborate it if somebody is interested. It would be even better if they would not take inventory slots and weight.

2. Severly discourage dropping tactical items. Optimal play would be to carry them all with yourself. For example effects destroy them on the ground 100% while in the inventory they are relatively safe. Make jellies frequently eating them offlevel - much bigger chance than destroying in the inventory. Or simply make them impossible to drop for whatever reason (while keeping offlevel jellies or something to discourage leaving them behind).

3. Tone down a little bit effects which can destroy your whole inventory, like sticky flame and freezing cloud. Improve things that lets good tactics avoid more item destruction: for example (almost) all item destructing effects should need a clear line (no or very rare smite targeting monsters), etc.

[dpeg]

sanka: I read what you write, and I find it very interesting. No promises I will have the energy to push for a change (this is a notoriously thorny subject, also within the devteam) but I'm definitely for a sensible discussion about the matter. It may takes several releases before a change materialises, but if your proposal is cool and consistent, perhaps earlier?

[galehar]

Why not Brendan?

I don't see anybody saying "NO! Keep item destruction exactly as it is now!)

Not all the discussion happens here. I think the destruction reform experiment was disliked by most of the devs. Its effect on gameplay is actually completely different than item destruction. So far, we have yet to see a convincing alternative proposal.

I was playing last night, carefully luring dranconians away from a large pack, one by one with my plate armored gargoyle fighter on D:27. as mentioned, I saw two mottled draconians and lost pretty much all of my scrolls. I was fighting them on their own. This is unreasonable IMO, as heavy armor characters that do not train evocation cannot kill draconians from long range.

You should probably train some form of ranged attack. But this isn't advice. Also, maybe you were carrying too much consumables, but your high AC protected your consumables from elemental beams (most common sources of destruction). This recent change should probably be expanded to other sources of item destruction, including sticky flame.

[and into]

sanka: You are right, the ideas I threw out about Abyss / Pan should be, well, thrown out, as they weren't very good. I think your approach is more promising and I'd be interested in hearing more, even if it is unclear whether this is going to change or not due to the developers being divided on whether item destruction could use a rework.

[sanka]

dpeg: Thanks for encouraging. I may start a new thread with my ideas about item destruction. It is such a complex subject (for example I have already mentioned that it may affect the id minigame) that it's not easy to come up with a big, consistent proposal.

However, my biggest fears are to find good flavor for some mechanics.

For example I have a wild idea to discourage leaving tactical items behind (my point 2.). Tactical items get a lifetime when they generate on the ground. This lifetime is big enough to usually clean a level, but not much bigger. After the time is passed, the item is destroyed like corpses/skeletons (or transformed to a useless item for flavour reasons). You could hold the item in your inventory tough for indefinite amount of time. If you drop the item it's destroyed like when its time has passed.

This change would have the following effects:
1. No more annoying stashing. Carrying everything you could would be optimal for very obvious reasons.
2. It's encouraged a little bit to quickly explore a level. It's discouraged to leave some parts of a level (for example a vault) for later. This may pose some problems, but I have some ideas to solve them.
3. It's a not needed boost to Ash (because item detection would be more useful). We may lessen the powerful skill boost a little to compensate.

I think I would not need to mention that it's only good if at least some source of item destruction (sticky flame, freezing cloud) are toned down, and some vaults that use clouds may need rethinking.

I have no good flavor idea tough, and it would be very important to let the new player immediately recognize this mechanic, like she will recognize the decaying of corpses.

[galehar]

developers being divided on whether item destruction could use a rework.

I think all devs are aware that item destruction is somewhat problematic and could be improved. However, many think that a status effect which prevent or impair consumable usage is not a proper replacement and comes with its own issues.
I like the recent change which give AC a preservation effect and I think it should be expanded. I know, I already said that a couple of posts above, but I tend to be wary when I see "reform", "rework" or "overhaul" proposals.

[dpeg]

galehar: I know what you mean, but I think we should encourage people rather than discourage them. In my opinion, development has become a lot more timid and conversative over the years (one reason for this is certainly the larger number of developers) but that is not good. Of course, not every wacky idea is worth is exploring, but listening to apparently outlandish ideas can be only good. If developers cannot think out of the box anymore, it's great if players do.

[Galefury]

While a more sophisticated approach may be even better, I still think that crawl would be a better game if item destruction were simply removed, without a replacement or other changes. Further changes might further improve crawl, but even just getting rid of item destruction would already be a net positive.

[dpeg]

Galefury: I am not so sure -- this is where the disagreements start For example, I think that jellies are good.

[and into]

developers being divided on whether item destruction could use a rework.

I think all devs are aware that item destruction is somewhat problematic and could be improved. However, many think that a status effect which prevent or impair consumable usage is not a proper replacement and comes with its own issues.
I like the recent change which give AC a preservation effect and I think it should be expanded. I know, I already said that a couple of posts above, but I tend to be wary when I see "reform", "rework" or "overhaul" proposals.

Fair enough, although in some cases people will say "overhaul" and then actually propose rather small and reasonable changes. Sometimes, one man's "rework" is another's moderate tweaking, and I'd imagine that sometimes there's a big gulf between what has to happen to the code versus what changes in game. So some changes could be at the same time overhauls in terms of coding, but mere tweaks in terms of game play mechanics, or vice versa.

Anyway I agree entirely about AC's preservation effect being a big step in the right direction, without introducing sweeping changes in one go.

This change would have the following effects:
1. No more annoying stashing. Carrying everything you could would be optimal for very obvious reasons.
2. It's encouraged a little bit to quickly explore a level. It's discouraged to leave some parts of a level (for example a vault) for later. This may pose some problems, but I have some ideas to solve them.
3. It's a not needed boost to Ash (because item detection would be more useful). We may lessen the powerful skill boost a little to compensate

Aside from making such a system intuitive to people (and reasonable flavor explaining the mechanic would help that a lot), I'm not sure that the items need to decompose (or whatever) that quickly in order to avoid stashing. Any timer at all would basically make stashing these items a waste of time and actually detrimental to survival (rather than just detrimental to enjoyment of the game), so it wouldn't need to be fast enough to have any meaningful impact outside of discouraging that behavior (while other changes make the alternative, carrying the stuff around, actually viable).

There would be very bad interactions with things like shaft traps—if you can't or don't rush onward, you potentially lose a lot of good items. I don't think shaft traps need a buff, and even if they were to get one, not a buff of this kind.

Easy work around is that timer only starts once the item has been viewed. And the timer needn't be *too* strict—it is meant to discourage stashing, or at least extreme stashing, of certain items. It would basically be like the OoD rate going up after a long time spent on a level, in order to discouraging scumming, it shouldn't really be noticeable unless you actively are engaging in the behavior that is trying to be curbed. Also we shouldn't design things that encourage imprudent play to that degree. Time-out portals are great, but a constant similar effect on a very useful, indeed pratically necessary, item category would be way too much.


I agree Ash doesn't need a boost, but if the item timer doesn't start until you actually see (with your own eyes, not Ash's detection) the item, then it isn't really a boost for him as far as I can see. The already very handy and situationally, extremely powerful Apportation spell, becomes a bit better I suppose. But again, so long as the timer is reasonable, the buff to Apportation wouldn't be that big of a deal. Its major abusively powerful effect will remain ninjaing runes from dangerous vaults.

[sanka]

Your idea is even better mechanically, but it's even harder to find a good flavor for it (at least for me).

[Galefury]

Galefury: I am not so sure -- this is where the disagreements start For example, I think that jellies are good.

Sorry for not being clear, I meant destruction of items in the inventory. Making me actually carry the things I want with me is a lot less annoying than making me not carry them. I'm not sure I actually like jellies, but at least I don't hate them.

[MoogleDan]

My one concern with a timer would be that this really buffs strength above dexterity and intelligence. Low strength characters would be unable to lug around the majority of what they come across, basically guaranteeing item destruction for most of the consumables in the game. This seems like it would have to come with a serious shift in item weight as well.

[dpeg]

MoogleDan: I haven't really read the proposals carefully yet (will reply later on them) but what you say sounds pretty good to me: for the first time, carrying capacity would really matter (not just as a convenience), and low Str types would be forces to priorise harder. What's not to like?

[MoogleDan]

MoogleDan: I haven't really read the proposals carefully yet (will reply later on them) but what you say sounds pretty good to me: for the first time, carrying capacity would really matter (not just as a convenience), and low Str types would be forces to priorise harder. What's not to like?

True, it'd be tough but fair most of the game, but I'm mostly worried about extended here (Hell effects and Tomb); the lowest HP species are also the lowest carrying capacity ones generally, and I can imagine a lot of felids and spriggans dying from half their HP pool rotting away or getting destroyed by a streak of unlucky strength damage blasts. By then all the cures in the game have up and evaporated.

[BlackSheep]

In the short term, could AC somehow be applied to sticky flame, please? Right now it's time based. I'm not sure exactly how AC would interact with it, though. Maybe for sticky flame only, fire resistance could have an effect?

[rebthor]

Galefury: I am not so sure -- this is where the disagreements start For example, I think that jellies are good.

Sorry for not being clear, I meant destruction of items in the inventory. Making me actually carry the things I want with me is a lot less annoying than making me not carry them. I'm not sure I actually like jellies, but at least I don't hate them.

Well, I hate them with a passion because "You hear a distant slurping sound." doesn't tell me anything other than a jelly is on the level and they're the most dangerous when you can least afford it.

Nonetheless, I wouldn't bundle them at all with the frustration of losing a speed pot or blink scroll to a random spell from an orc wizard that happens to show up in vaults. I think jellies are pretty well designed for what they are. I haven't played trunk since they got a speed boost though, so I may rescind that approval later on .

[Mankeli]

In the short term, could AC somehow be applied to sticky flame, please? Right now it's time based. I'm not sure exactly how AC would interact with it, though. Maybe for sticky flame only, fire resistance could have an effect?

Above:

You should probably train some form of ranged attack. But this isn't advice. Also, maybe you were carrying too much consumables, but your high AC protected your consumables from elemental beams (most common sources of destruction). This recent change should probably be expanded to other sources of item destruction, including sticky flame.

[galehar]

Maybe for sticky flame only, fire resistance could have an effect?

Why? I don't like this kind of exception. I'd rather just nerf the effect rather than special case fire resistance for it.

[BlackSheep]

It was the only idea that sprang to mind after looking at dec_napalm_player() and not seeing a good way to fit in AC.

[ontoclasm]

If everyone hates how many scrolls get burnt by sticky flame, why don't we just lower the burn chance? If I recall correctly, it's something ridiculous like 12% per scroll per turn, when getting firebolted in the face is only 4% per scroll. There's no reason for that except for "realism" and "nobody's seen fit to change it."

I'm personally with Galefury on this: just torch the whole spiel. It reminds me of old draining: you've got some attacks that you can't really avoid running into (shadow dragons / yaktaurs with flaming xbows), which deal usually-irrelevant strategic damage (exp loss / consumable loss), and which are only mitigated by wearing specific and otherwise-almost-useless equipment (rN / conservation).

From what I've heard it seems like the main impetus for keeping it around is "but if there's no item destruction then players will just carry EVERYTHING!" ...but we have not just one, but four other systems already in place to stop that: the 52 slot limit, carrying capacity, consumable generation rates, and the overall difficulty of the game (you can't carry around 10 speed potions if you've only found 12 and been forced to use 11 of them).

[zugundertherug]

From what I've heard it seems like the main impetus for keeping it around is "but if there's no item destruction then players will just carry EVERYTHING!" ...but we have not just one, but four other systems already in place to stop that: the 52 slot limit, carrying capacity, consumable generation rates, and the overall difficulty of the game (you can't carry around 10 speed potions if you've only found 12 and been forced to use 11 of them).

As someone who already does carry everything I can and feels like a moron when cure mut shatters, concerning what you listed:
1) 52 slots - usually only relevant very late in the game from my experience, and only if I'm hoarding elemental evokables.
2) Carrying cap - this seems to matter a lot more for low to mid (15ish) strength characters. This is never an issue for any character that relies on strength to do damage/wear armour, barring large rocks.
3) Generation rates - Obviously could be tweaked if item destruction is revamped. As is if you have conservation then there's usually plenty, even with item destruction. Without is a different story, a sticky flame or two and most of your scrolls are gone. Potions usually last much longer since freezing cloud is rarer than sticky flame, and you have options to get out of the cloud. Also concerning potions two of the most important (haste/heal wounds) are also in wand form. Barring the odd Zot trap this negates much of the effect of potion destruction.
4) Difficulty - Varies from player to player. Ironically one of the best ways to save consumables is to use buffing consumables at the start of a tough battle, not in the middle of it. Many players don't do this from what I've seen, probably because they don't realize a battle is going to be rough.

Concerning item destruction in general, there's a few items that virtually all players stash and never use in combat: Enchant scrolls, acquirement, and cure mut. Simply making these items indestructible would cut down on stashing/backtracking a lot. Enchant/acquire scrolls have zero combat value anyways, and cure mut's main value isn't during combat but after combat, most notably in Pan/Abyss since you can't get back to the stash easily.

[spudwalt]

I like the idea of scrolls/potions being risky to use when you've taken lots of fire/cold damage (though I haven't actually tried the destruction test branch yet, so I might feel differently after experiencing the effect myself).

One idea I had was, instead of (or perhaps in addition to a reduced chance of) outright destruction, you could have some sort of scroll/potion debuff that could happen whenever you tried using a consumable in a hazardous situation. So, for example, your scroll of blinking might send you on an uncontrolled blink instead of a controlled one, or your potion of heal wounds would restore less HP.

[delarado]

I just lost seven scrolls in one turn to sticky flame.

[Lasty]

The way item destruction works right now there's nothing to prevent you from losing all of your scrolls in a single turn to any fire source that has a chance to burn scrolls. All consumable destruction is implemented as a flat percent for each individual consumable in your inventory to be destroyed, as I understand it.

Of course, for that to happen, you have to get pretty unlucky.

[Amnesiac]

Looking at ratings of messages voting against destruction of items, everybody hates it... What stopps devs from removing it? Do they really love it that much? Are they trolls that like to make people suffer and laugh? I'd just decrease drop rates if destruction is for balancing numbers of items for convenience and less moral damage.