A couple ideas

[Jay]

Some ideas about the game have occurred to me recently and I thought I'd post them here to see what people think.

Specifically, I'm wondering if Angband would be a better game if acquisition of artifacts was more closely tied to defeating uniques. Personally, I'm always a little disappointed when I go to the trouble of taking on, say, the Tarrasque, and being rewarded with relatively useless stuff.

So, would the game be improved if artifacts could only be acquired through killing uniques? You'd still be motivated to take on mobs to acquire ego items and consumables (not to mention items like RoS, armor and shields of permanence, etc.), but if you wanted artifacts, you'd have to risk a little bit more to get them. (It's possible that there's already a variant that has taken this approach and I just don't know about it.)

I suppose you could also reconfigure ?Acquirement so that they were both much rarer and always resulted in manifestation of an artifact. That sort of boost has worked well before — chests used to be filled with junk before they were beefed up.

That's it, those are the ideas. Thoughts?

[PowerDiver]

The problem is that you simply do not use that many items in a game. I write notes [using ':'] when I play and try to note every item I wield or take home to store in hopes of wielding in the future, except maybe a second torch. That's counting even a ring of searching I buy from the magic shop or a ring of teleportation from floor. I checked 2 deep dumps by hand and got to less than 60 items noted in a game assuming I can read and count. Perhaps I missed the note taking on a few, but I doubt I ever get to 100.

I don't bother to note armor without runes. I don't consider those items to be meaningful. I don't buy them, but I will wield what I pick up if it does not slow me or reduce my mana. In my current game, I didn't fill all the armor slots until 1750'.

Most drops are disappointing. There's no way to fix that.

I do testing and debugging as I play, technically save scumming, so I usually don't post to the ladder. I'll post a char and you can look through the notes and count items if you care.

[Selkie]

By the time I'm tough enough to take on the Tarrasque I'm rarely even bothered about artifacts. I usually only kill it just for the challenge

[Pete Mack]

I used to take it on sometimes as a mage, at long distance with double fire and cold resistance, with chaos strike. Unique hunting paid off well with the old spell set for a mage not yet able to cast Mana Storm. There just aren't enough high-value non-evil ordinary monsters to rely on nether bolt, and meteor storm is expensive in both mana and gear. With the new spell set, there is no real benefit to unique hunting.

[Sky]

TBH i used to feel the same way for the same reason. You waste so much potions and mental effort in killing the Terrasque and all you get is a couple of ego drops.

But, since i practically only play Mage these days, and i can just MBan whole vaults and take my pick of the best Dragon Armor artifacts, i dont mind so much anymore.

[Estie]

You should try necromancer.

[Jay]

So, my takeaway from the replies is this:

- Players don't use that many items in a game (probably less than 60) (which I think is a totally valid point)
- At least some uniques are generally too much trouble to be bothered with and can mostly be ignored

Those answers make me think that the game might be more entertaining (or certainly more challenging) if artifacts were acquired primarily through offing uniques.

It would be a huge change from the way things are now, so I won't harp on it, but maybe it's something to be considered for a future iteration — Angband 8.0 or something. Or, perhaps someone will be inspired to create a variant.

In the meantime, I can always change my style of play to put less emphasis on killing all the bad guys and focus more on just Sauron and Morgoth.

[Selkie]

I would say most of my artifacts, certainly in the early/mid game when arguably they matter the most, are obtained from killing uniques.

I think to change the current system would spoil the other methods of acquiring artifacts. As annoying as it is to kill Azog and get a barely enchanted sling, it's so exciting when a random snaga drops an artifact or a chest contains a ring of power.

[Grotug]

I think about item generation a lot and how it could be tweaked to make the game better. I also like the idea of uniques providing good items, and they do, and I have always played in a combative style of killing as many uniques as I can for their drops. But I think I agree with others that changing the code to increase the chance a unique drops something worthwhile or higher chance of artifacts probably imbalances other aspects of object acquisition. My endgame gear is usually more than half from killing monsters rather than finding items in vaults.

Case in point: in my current DL87 game, of the 12 equipment slots, 4 items are from the floor of vaults, 3 are taken from chests, one conjured forth by magic, one dropped from a sorcerer and the rest dropped from uniques. I think this is pretty perfect and represents a very healthy, interesting and balanced way in which high level items are being acquired in the game (4 from vaults and 4 from uniques). I love that chests have been buffed and think they are perfectly balanced in how good the items are from them now. I'm pretty sure at least one of those chests/?Acquirement were dropped, too. And anyway, Azog dropped an arkenstone I'm still using.

My only complaint about the current version(s) of angband item generation is that speed items seem a little too common. Even in smaller vaults it's common these days to find 3 rings of speed. Despite this fact, I do still sometimes have games where I find speed items a little late, but, nevertheless, I think speed items need to be about 30 to 50% more rare.

[Sky]

... i mean, this could be implemented easily. Just roll the drops of each unique at game start, with their native depth as item roll. Then save it to a file.
Voila', whichever artifacts are generated in those rolls cannit be generated on the floor.

[smbhax]

I agree with what Selkie said, and I think that "if artifacts could only be acquired through killing uniques" the game would be less surprising and mysterious. It's a thrill to find a new item of power in some dark corner of the dungeon that you took the trouble to explore. It gives a reason to take on all those other monsters; a proposal like the one in this thread could start to lead people to skipping everything EXCEPT uniques, which would greatly reduce exploration and gameplay variety.

Acquisition of powerful items is not supposed to be predictable. It would make the game narrower and much less interesting.

Also, it would make you feel FORCED to take on every unique, rather than having the option to evade those you find too risky to take on. Again, less player choice, less gameplay variety, less fun.

[Nick]

Also, disappointment and frustration is a key part of the experience

[Pete Mack]

Also, Rogue would become impossible, and fulfill all Nick's secret wishes about the class.

[Nick]

Also, Rogue would become impossible, and fulfill all Nick's secret wishes about the class.

You could still steal artifacts

[Jay]

I like Sky's idea. From his description, it makes me wonder if something like this could be implemented via having "Include a higher percentage of artifacts in Unique drops" as a birth option.

BTW, I don't mean to suggest that the only way to get artifacts would be to kill uniques. First off, a scan of both the standard and a randart spoiler file shows me that there are about 135 artifacts generated, and there are only 96 uniques (97 if you include Father Christmas). Subtracting Morgoth and his two drops leaves 95 uniques and 133 artifacts, so if every unique drops an artifact you'd still have roughly 38 artifacts to be distributed through other means (random monster drops, treasure chests, vaults, the dungeon floor, etc.). I wouldn't think Farmer Maggot, Grip, and Fang need to drop artifacts either, but those details could be worked out later. (That said, Father Christmas should definitely drop an artifact. He's all about giving gifts!)