I think you are fooling yourself that Preserve mode is intuitive, perhaps because you're used to it from Angband. A true Preserve mode, which allowed artefacts to be generated again whether they'd been identified or not (so long as there was never more than one on the level), would at least be simple, if somewhat odd. Having differing behaviour based on whether something has been identified is really quite strange.
I'm not sure you're engaging with the answers we're giving. I explained that the problem is not the luck-based variance, but giving regular characters enough artefacts to have fun with while not making things ridiculous for the power characters.
This might make the standard deviation of number of artifacts found greater, but the average the same. That sort of randomness is fun in its own right, and is a core gameplay principle of roguelikes, to me.
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