DSM squelch as good!!!

[PowerDiver]

PowerDiver: again, comparing to per-ego-type squelch, the "with/out high resists" just seems clunky. What if I want to keep Dwarven armor but have no interest in armor of Resist Fire? The latter is a lot more common than the former...

Keeping dwarven while squelching resist fire is easy with the current scheme. What you can't do is keep resist fire while squelching dwarven. Is this a nomenclature problem? The squelch qualities form a total order with splendid [dwarven is splendid] at the top. The only way to squelch dwarven is to squelch all but artifacts.

Egos shouldn't even exist as a game mechanism the player worries about. If they are necessary for coding purposes, ok, but IMO Items should just have properties. That's just my personal view, but it directs the kind of code I am likely to write or port.

There is also currently an explicit assumption that the player is assumed *not* to know the entire list of egos, which is counter to how I play, and that screws me up whenever I try to think about these issues. I doubt I can even keep my arguments consistent.

If you code a patch to port NPPs ego squelching, I'd bet you could get someone with commit access to add it to the nightlies. If you do it, IMO it would be best to be in addition to current squelch without removing any of the existing quality stuff.

[PowerDiver]

What the heck. I'll try to code up ego squelching sometime in the next few weeks.

[Nick]

What the heck. I'll try to code up ego squelching sometime in the next few weeks.

FA has both ego squelch (courtesy of NPP) and something approximating rune-based ID - you might want to look at that.

[Timo Pietilä]

It is for when you do not wish to squelch

robe of permanence
boots of stability
crown of serenity
cloak of protection
shield of preservation

Once you are willing to squelch any of those, then you should probably squelch all but splendid in that inventory slot.

add "night and day" which is basically better version of seeing with light/dark resists but without PVAL to make it "splendid".

Unfortunately even that setting squelch footwear/handwear with FA, and FA can be more important than any of the resists in above list, especially handwear for mage-types.

[PowerDiver]

add "night and day" which is basically better version of seeing with light/dark resists but without PVAL to make it "splendid".

Unfortunately even that setting squelch footwear/handwear with FA, and FA can be more important than any of the resists in above list, especially handwear for mage-types.

Splendid means "has a flag that is obvious on wield" rather than limited to just pvals, so it encompasses SI(*) from "night and day" as well as FA on gloves for mage-casters.


(*) I don't think SI should be obvious on wield, but it is, and I can attest that it is a major pain getting learning code even close to correct for SI if it isn't considered obvious.

[PowerDiver]

FA has both ego squelch (courtesy of NPP) and something approximating rune-based ID - you might want to look at that.

I'll take a glance, but I have rune-based ID working already. Is there anything particular about your approach you think might be especially worthwhile?

[Timo Pietilä]

Splendid means "has a flag that is obvious on wield" rather than limited to just pvals, so it encompasses SI(*) from "night and day" as well as FA on gloves for mage-casters.


(*) I don't think SI should be obvious on wield, but it is, and I can attest that it is a major pain getting learning code even close to correct for SI if it isn't considered obvious.

AFAIK FA is not obvious on wield. At least not for non-mages.

I need to test this once I have a bit time.

[PowerDiver]

AFAIK FA is not obvious on wield. At least not for non-mages.

I need to test this once I have a bit time.

Perhaps I misunderstood you. Obvious to mages and rogues and rangers, but not to priests and paladins and fighters.

IMO if the difference in flexibility or whatever is a big enough deal to cost 1/4 mana it really ought to be obvious to all classes, but nobody ever agreed with that viewpoint when I asked about it in rgra.

[Nick]

I'll take a glance, but I have rune-based ID working already. Is there anything particular about your approach you think might be especially worthwhile?

Um, well on reflection I realise that it's not rune-based - I do recommend the NPP approach, though, wherever you get it from.

[Timo Pietilä]

Perhaps I misunderstood you. Obvious to mages and rogues and rangers, but not to priests and paladins and fighters.

IMO if the difference in flexibility or whatever is a big enough deal to cost 1/4 mana it really ought to be obvious to all classes, but nobody ever agreed with that viewpoint when I asked about it in rgra.

I'm surprised. FA gauntlets are squelched from warriors, but not from mages. It really means that it depends of race/class as well as item property. That is why I got an impression about FA not being splendid. It isn't splendid for classes I usually play.

I guess this means that "night and day" are not recognized as splendid for high-elves...no still not getting squelched. Maybe it is that light-flag which is as obvious as they get that prevents it from being squelched. Weird, tried with pseudo-ID and it gets pseudo {ego}. Not excellent or splendid...took it off and put back on, and it said "It glows" and got {splendid}-flag. Bug?

How about regeneration?....that one gets squelched.

[EDIT] Alchemist FA gloves get squelched from mages too. No penalty FA or not, so no immediate recognition as FA either.

[buzzkill]

Regardless of what it squelches or doesn't "with/without high resists" is a poor description. While it may be technically accurate, what exactly gets squelched isn't obvious or intuitive or more importantly, practical. I've a fairly good idea of what it does (much better after reading this thread), but it's a setting I never use because I don't know exactly what's going to get squelched (because I don't have every item in the game memorized, nor do most players).

Will rune based ID, as is being discussed here, be about the same as "squelch by individual enchantment"? So, if you wanted to squelch "Boots of Stealth" would you have to squelch all items "of Stealth", or will you be able to specify equipment type.

[Derakon]

Rune-based ID and squelch are semi-orthogonal. What rune-based ID brings to the table is automatic identification of properties that the player has seen before. Thus, once you know the "slay animal" rune, you'll automatically recognize that all weapons with only that rune must be weapons of slay animal, without needing to muck about with pseudo or identification at all.

At that point, squelch-by-ego-type and squelch-by-property become significantly more powerful. I suspect the former is going to be more comfortable for people to use than the latter; it means slightly more squelch actions but doesn't require you to have memorized the ego list.

[PowerDiver]

I guess this means that "night and day" are not recognized as splendid for high-elves...no still not getting squelched. Maybe it is that light-flag which is as obvious as they get that prevents it from being squelched. Weird, tried with pseudo-ID and it gets pseudo {ego}. Not excellent or splendid...took it off and put back on, and it said "It glows" and got {splendid}-flag. Bug?

How about regeneration?....that one gets squelched.

[EDIT] Alchemist FA gloves get squelched from mages too. No penalty FA or not, so no immediate recognition as FA either.

Pseudo always says ego for any non-cursed ego. You have to wield to differentiate excellent vs splendid.

Increased light radius should be readily apparent on wield. "It glows" unfortunately is the default message for learning any flag for which no one wrote a specific learning message. You will get that message for things having nothing to do with light.

For whatever reason, regen is considered not obvious. You have to wait to see double hp or mana increase during recovery.

For now SI is obvious even to high elves. No one has coded otherwise. Bug or feature I don't know.

For a quick idea of what is obvious, wield something previously untried and unidentified. Then check the char screen before taking another turn. Any flag with a '?' is non-obvious, because if it were obvious it would be '+' or '.'. Any flag with a '.' is obvious, since you know the flag is not present only because it would be obvious if it were present.

[edit]That might not work for regen, depending if a hp or sp recovery occurred during the time from the wield to your next chance to move.

I didn't remember coding the alchemists' gloves that way, but that seems consistent. Perhaps they should have a separate quality squelch, the same way robes are separate from body armor in quality squelch. Also separate ego squelch, since you might want to squelch gloves of slaying but not alchemists' gloves of slaying.

[Estie]

... Perhaps they should have a separate quality squelch, the same way robes are separate from body armor in quality squelch. ....

Why do Robes get their own squelch class, but not dragon armor ?

[PowerDiver]

Why do Robes get their own squelch class, but not dragon armor ?

Because the person who added DSM egos didn't do anything to the squelch system to accommodate the change ([edit] except to include them with regular body armor). I didn't offer to do anything because I was hoping all DSM egos would go away, but it appears they are here to stay.

To get back to title of this thread, should every separate DSM have its own quality and ego squelch? I don't see any workable solution short of that in the current framework.

Another option is never to squelch DSMs. A related solution would be to have all DSM types start every game autoinscribed !k, even those not marked as everseen, so you have to remove the autoinscription to allow squelch.