Edited artifact.txt

[jens]

From:

http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=4494

For artifact.txt:
A few new artifacts - not too many, and concentrate on areas where there aren't many (boots, for example). Try to make their depth/rarity commensurate with their power, and give them flavourful descriptions ...

... and although there isn't a ticket for this, I always meant to go through artifact.txt very carefully and separate out a lot of the pvals, now that there's no reason that an artifact has to have the same value for each pval. Thorin, I'm looking at you.

OK, I decided to do this :-) I've done quite a few changes, so a summary is in place:

Rescued Evenstar

Split pvals on several artifacts, sometimes improving the item, but most changes have been a slight nerfing.

Increased minimum allocation depth for several artifacts to match their base object minimum allocation depth (not really necessary, but it makes the real rarities clearer).

Made some of the most common artifacts more rare.

Reduced stealth a bit in general.

Added 3(4) artifacts:

the Wicker Shield of Elros
- Meant as a high end shield to compete with Thorin.

the Leather Boots of Radagast
- Meant as low end boots.

the Mithril Shod Boots 'Stormbringer'
- Meant as high end boots.

(
the Amulet of Amandil
- Meant to be a useful source of RES_STUN
But it turns out that adding amulet artifacts is a bit more complicated, so this is commented out for the moment.
)

If all 4 artifacts are added, and including the rescue of Evenstar; all slots will have at least 6 artifacts, except for light which has 3. All that needs to be done to test is to put this file in /edit, and edit the max number of artifacts allowed in /edit/limits.txt

[d_m]

Without actually looking at the patch I don't think you should use the name "Stormbringer" on boots.

If we were going to include an artifact with that name it would have to be a sword.

[Antoine]

Without actually looking at the patch I don't think you should use the name "Stormbringer" on boots.

If we were going to include an artifact with that name it would have to be a sword.

I dont mind what theyre called so long as its translated into Quenya

A.

[Derakon]

As I said in the other thread, howzabout "Stormwalker"?

[jens]

As I said in the other thread, howzabout "Stormwalker"?

I like :-)

I dont mind what theyre called so long as its translated into Quenya

A.

I did a bit of studying now... First, in that case I'd prefer Sindarin, since that would be more consistent with the flavor. But the Sindarin sources are not as good as the Quenya sources, so Quenya might be easier... So I tried with Quenya, turns out that making a good translation is quite hard, so after an hour or so I decided not to pursue this further ;-)

In any case I feel that using english is more evocative, because when you understand the name it carries more feeling. If it was an original from the book I'd go with Quenya...


On these boots I used a passage from the Silmarillion. How does that work with licences?


Nice with feedback :-) But does anyone have any feedback on the changes and artifacts themselves?

[myshkin]

On these boots I used a passage from the Silmarillion. How does that work with licences?

When I did my pass through the artifact descriptions, I tried to avoid quoting Tolkien directly, just to reduce the possibility of a question. I don't actually know what all the legal issues are.

[Nick]

I quote Tolkien all over the place, but I suspect that FA is even further below the radar than V.

Also, I suspect 'Raumovanta' is a reasonable translation.

[Magnate]

Well, nobody's said they hate it, which is good. I'm looking for a few more responses though - especially from Derakon, who I think was also intending to have a good look at artifact pvals.

Anyone?

[jens]

A newer version: Changed the name Stormbringer to Stormwalker, and did some further changes to Aglarang (always felt it should have BLOWS :-)

[Timo Pietilä]

A newer version: Changed the name Stormbringer to Stormwalker, and did some further changes to Aglarang (always felt it should have BLOWS :-)

Liked the changes. Some a bit less than others, but nothing too bad there (I still feel that Evenstar is useless, but maybe it is just me).

Especially Elros will be quite interesting item to find. With confusion resistance it definitely is good competition to Thorin.

[Magnate]

Liked the changes. Some a bit less than others, but nothing too bad there (I still feel that Evenstar is useless, but maybe it is just me).

But he's changed it - it's got +2 WIS now, and a couple of other differences. Better?

[Timo Pietilä]

But he's changed it - it's got +2 WIS now, and a couple of other differences. Better?

It is better, but still useless. For priests it doesn't beat even AoWis with high enough PVAL or Devotion, others than priests use other amulets, weaponmastery, trickery, magi, ESP or even Infravision, not to mention other artifact amulets. It is useful only if you find it really early.

Also there is the fact that too many artifacts make the artifacts in general dull thing to find. Fever artifacts make them move valuable, more exciting. There are too many artifacts currently, especially weapons. It isn't enough to make "the useless ones" better, because their very existence is the problem. Even if you had 100 Ringils, it would be a problem. Each one of them would obviously be useful, but only compared to case where you don't already have one.

Only way to make huge collection of artifacts exciting is to make them ALL so rare that you don't find most of them during one game, not even a long game, and in that case they need to beat the ego-items which are more common.

[Derakon]

Sorry, I haven't been playing Angband recently, and I probably won't get to this weekend, so I've not taken a look at these either. Go ahead and push 'em if you think they're good, and I'll follow along with my intended changes later.

[buzzkill]

I'm sure this has probably come up before, heck, I may have suggested it before, but instead of getting rid of powering-up or getting rid of useless artifacts, why not just exclude them (randomly) from some games. In other words, use a sub-set of the complete artifact list.

Give each artifact a % rating of how likely it is to be excluded from any particular game. Must have artifacts like The One Ring and a few others would be 0%. Most others would fall in the 1% - 10% range, a few mostly useless artifacts could be as high as 50% or more. Ideally, I'm thinking that I'd like to exclude about 10% of the complete set. It's really all about cranking up the rarity, to a point where scumming can't prevail, and if the mostly useless artifacts only appear only once in a while, at least they'll be a novelty. I'm sure the OCD crowd will object, but you can't please everyone (without lots of options).

[Magnate]

I'm sure this has probably come up before, heck, I may have suggested it before, but instead of getting rid of powering-up or getting rid of useless artifacts, why not just exclude them (randomly) from some games. In other words, use a sub-set of the complete artifact list.

Give each artifact a % rating of how likely it is to be excluded from any particular game. Must have artifacts like The One Ring and a few others would be 0%. Most others would fall in the 1% - 10% range, a few mostly useless artifacts could be as high as 50% or more. Ideally, I'm thinking that I'd like to exclude about 10% of the complete set. It's really all about cranking up the rarity, to a point where scumming can't prevail, and if the mostly useless artifacts only appear only once in a while, at least they'll be a novelty. I'm sure the OCD crowd will object, but you can't please everyone (without lots of options).

This is another way of describing what Timo was saying - make them so rare that in any given game only a subset will show up (and this way of doing it will allow the OCD crowd to scum dl127 for ten trillion turns if they want). I've always thought it ought to be that way - and indeed I think it was, many moons ago - I think artifacts have got imperceptibly more common in stages over the years, with the net result that they're now way too findable.

Now that we have a nearly-finished stats module, I will press takkaria for a dramatic scaling back of artifact findability for 3.4 - to coincide with the change to generation (using the special artifact process for all artifacts). Then we can argue about which ones are useless once they're all really special to find ...