Feature Request: store restock, utility item frequency

[Pete Mack]

1. I've just spent about 10 minutes clearing out the Temple for CCW/CSW and the Alchemist for ?Recharge. I will probably spend another 10 minutes getting to 99 !CCW.

There needs to be a command for forcing restock at some fraction of total cost. (say, 50% for most stores; 100% for the Black Market, with possible full cost for expensive items.)

Or some other model for getting required supplies from the shops.


2. It used to be that critical utility items were modestly common at shallow depths, and fairly common at dl 90+. (!Heal, ?Banishment, etc.)
This is no longer the case, and it's a real drag for diving characters, who don't have a chance to accumulate the stuff at shallow levels. I ended up with:

4 !Heal (used 1 in play)
3 *Heal*
3 Life
3 !rMana
2 !Banishment
0 !Mass Banishment

The big healing potions are about what I would expect in a fast dive in 3.0.8 and earlier, but there would be at _least_ a dozen each of !rMana and !Heal to go with them.

I would also expect a few more Banishment scrolls, but that's not so important. It was a drag finding only 3 wands of Teleport Other in the entire game, and losing the first one on the first attempted recharge. :/
I think these used to be much more common too, but it could be the will of the RNG.

[PowerDiver]

Perhaps part of the problem is that with better drops you are reaching the end faster?

[Pete Mack]

Perhaps part of the problem is that with better drops you are reaching the end faster?

I thought about that, but I'm a little of out of practice, and I've spent ~500K turns: somewhat fast for me, but not record pace. Clearing pits at depth in older versions would certainly net some healing potions, but I've found essentially all of mine on the floor.

The one utility object that seems a little more common is !Aug, which makes up nicely for the reduced frequency in stat potions. IMO, stats are balanced pretty well. Also !EXP is less common at dl 99, which is probably a good thing. It used to show up scattered all over the place; in this game I've found about 4.

I'm not absolutely sure that ego items are that much more common than in previous variants, because there are fewer items altogether. It just seems they are everywhere, since there are essentially no ordinary items left at depth. I went from Armor of rFire to Isildur at 2500', which is about on pace for me. I've seen tons of egos, but only 1 or 2 endgame quality ego weapons, which is about average. One reason I think I've seen more egos because I was using more ID and less Acid Ball to winnow the junk.


There's one other thing: I used those Branded Rings for most of the game. They were very powerful with 3d8 weapons (Lance of Eorlingas, and Balli); I suspect they would be overpowered with uberweapons like The Glaive of Pain and big dice Weapons of Fury.

Maybe the ring brand should be reduced to x2 or x2.5, similar to the Ranger elemental branding spell in NPP.

Some comparisons:
At x2.0: 3d8 = +13.5; 9d6 = +31.5
At x2.5: 3d8 = +20.2; 9d6 = +47.2
At x3.0: 3d8 = +27.0; 9d6 = +63 (This seems like overkill.)

[Nick]

There's one other thing: I used those Branded Rings for most of the game. They were very powerful with 3d8 weapons (Lance of Eorlingas, and Balli); I suspect they would be overpowered with uberweapons like The Glaive of Pain and big dice Weapons of Fury.

Maybe the ring brand should be reduced to x2 or x2.5

FA 0.3.6 is doing exactly this (Psi thought of this independently of V!) with those rings - x1.3(ish) brand vs the usual x1.7. FA 0.4.0 will make the brand multiplier individual to the item...

[Psi]

2. It used to be that critical utility items were modestly common at shallow depths, and fairly common at dl 90+. (!Heal, ?Banishment, etc.)
This is no longer the case, and it's a real drag for diving characters, who don't have a chance to accumulate the stuff at shallow levels.

Nick has already mentioned the Branding rings thing (when I was implementing them in FA it quickly became obvious that they were just too strong with a full multiplier - it remains to be seen whether 1.4 is still too high), but critical items is another thing I have changed for FA 036. I'm not up on the V code, but in O/FA Wyrms could not drop !Healing or -TA etc because deep in the dungeon, these cheap items did not qualify as good drops. I made them guaranteed good drops and gathering consumables etc is no longer the drag it used to be (though in FA you could at least order potions through the merchant's anyway).

However I seem to remember stuff on the forum about Sauron dropping rubbish, so maybe all the DROP_GOOD/DROP_GREAT flags have now gone from V making this redundant?

Si

[Pete Mack]

I was thinking scaling it by some concave function, perhaps sqrt(d*(s+1)/2) would work, like

branding damage = base damage * 6 / sqrt(d*(s+1))

For 1d4, this is 6.7 extra damage, on average.
For 2d4, this is 9.5 extra damage, on average.
For 3d8, this is 15.6 extra damage, on average.
For 9d6, it is 23.8 extra damage, on average.

[takkaria]

1. I've just spent about 10 minutes clearing out the Temple for CCW/CSW and the Alchemist for ?Recharge. I will probably spend another 10 minutes getting to 99 !CCW.

There needs to be a command for forcing restock at some fraction of total cost. (say, 50% for most stores; 100% for the Black Market, with possible full cost for expensive items.)

Or some other model for getting required supplies from the shops.

I'm thinking of making things which are necessary never be out-of-stock -- you can buy 99 of them and the store still has 99 more.

2. It used to be that critical utility items were modestly common at shallow depths, and fairly common at dl 90+. (!Heal, ?Banishment, etc.)
This is no longer the case, and it's a real drag for diving characters, who don't have a chance to accumulate the stuff at shallow levels. I ended up with:

4 !Heal (used 1 in play)
3 *Heal*
3 Life
3 !rMana
2 !Banishment
0 !Mass Banishment

The big healing potions are about what I would expect in a fast dive in 3.0.8 and earlier, but there would be at _least_ a dozen each of !rMana and !Heal to go with them.

I would also expect a few more Banishment scrolls, but that's not so important. It was a drag finding only 3 wands of Teleport Other in the entire game, and losing the first one on the first attempted recharge. :/
I think these used to be much more common too, but it could be the will of the RNG.

I think that generally, the balance of combat gear to utility stuff in drops is too heavily biased towards the former, and I'm hoping to work something out in 3.1.1 that will redress this a bit.

[takkaria]

I'm not absolutely sure that ego items are that much more common than in previous variants, because there are fewer items altogether. It just seems they are everywhere, since there are essentially no ordinary items left at depth. I went from Armor of rFire to Isildur at 2500', which is about on pace for me. I've seen tons of egos, but only 1 or 2 endgame quality ego weapons, which is about average. One reason I think I've seen more egos because I was using more ID and less Acid Ball to winnow the junk.

That would make sense.

There's one other thing: I used those Branded Rings for most of the game. They were very powerful with 3d8 weapons (Lance of Eorlingas, and Balli); I suspect they would be overpowered with uberweapons like The Glaive of Pain and big dice Weapons of Fury.

Maybe the ring brand should be reduced to x2 or x2.5, similar to the Ranger elemental branding spell in NPP.

Some comparisons:
At x2.0: 3d8 = +13.5; 9d6 = +31.5
At x2.5: 3d8 = +20.2; 9d6 = +47.2
At x3.0: 3d8 = +27.0; 9d6 = +63 (This seems like overkill.)

I was thinking of making slays and brands cumulative and lowering the multiplier a bit, a la O, but I have a feeling that would require more rebalancing than I can manage before 3.1.1. Maybe the better solution is just to do what you say above.

[takkaria]

I was thinking scaling it by some concave function, perhaps sqrt(d*(s+1)/2) would work, like

branding damage = base damage * 6 / sqrt(d*(s+1))

For 1d4, this is 6.7 extra damage, on average.
For 2d4, this is 9.5 extra damage, on average.
For 3d8, this is 15.6 extra damage, on average.
For 9d6, it is 23.8 extra damage, on average.

I like that.

[PowerDiver]

The problem with those fancy brand damages for elemental rings is that the player will have to equip each item and inspect to see how much damage it does.

How about just making them do +20 elemental damage?

I think maybe they should work in combination with already branded weapons.

Also, are they so bad as they are? For the most part, they make melee competitive with missile attacks. Ring slots are precious, so they come at a price. If you do not have Ringil, Feanor, or Cubragol I might prefer a ring of speed +10. They make it feasible for a warrior to use a large defender weapon.

Initially, I thought the elemental rings were too much, but now the only serious problem to me appears to be Pain, and that could be fixed somehow. Make it 3d6(+0,+50) for example.

[Pete Mack]

I'm thinking of making things which are necessary never be out-of-stock -- you can buy 99 of them and the store still has 99 more.

Two problems with this:
1. It's not unreasonable that there should be some penalty for over reliance on the stores.

2. Occasionally I will buy out the stores for something other than the basics. (Recharge, Restore Strength, RCold, etc.) If the other slots are always at 99 items, how will I still be able to force restock of the less common items?

I think that generally, the balance of combat gear to utility stuff in drops is too heavily biased towards the former, and I'm hoping to work something out in 3.1.1 that will redress this a bit.

I suspect that returning to the (monster depth + dungeon level)/2 drop quality will help this. Orcs and Trolls should not drop Nenya and speed rings, but they should drop stat potions.

[Narvius]

Two problems with this:
1. It's not unreasonable that there should be some penalty for over reliance on the stores.

2. Occasionally I will buy out the stores for something other than the basics. (Recharge, Restore Strength, RCold, etc.) If the other slots are always at 99 items, how will I still be able to force restock of the less common items

Not being able to force restock them *is* the penalty?