drop_good and drop_great

[fizzix]

Yeah, I'll be a-tweaking these things for 3.1.2 when I get back to coding.

I may try playing around with some of these ideas in a little bit. I have only looked at a little of the code, and I'm not much of a coder anyways. I've tried messing with the drop flags in the edit files, but that doesn't really help with many things.

Either way, if I do get to some modifications that I feel is a significant improvement I'll make sure to let you guys know.

[Sumendar]

Okay, I did the numbers, I think there might be a bug here:

as far as artifacts go, when you make an object it does a call to make_artifact() which has some percentage chance of making it an artifact. The exact percentage isn't interesting.

DROP_GREAT monsters make_artifact 4 times per object.
Note only a few uniques have DROP_GREAT

All monsters killed at level 32 or deeper are treated as if they have DROP_GOOD (this seems like a bug?)

good_chance = (lev+2) * 3
if (good || (randint0(100) < good_chance))
.....

At level 40 or deeper, each monster kill has a 50%
chance of making a 'great' object, which means power=2,
and one make_artifact call per object.

======================

It doesn't seem like the DROP_GOOD flag has any interesting effect which is why Killing a Great Wrym (which has DROP_4 | DROP_GOOD) currently has no
real difference between an Ancient Green Dragon (which has DROP_4).

Actually, DROP_GOOD does have noticeable effects. In the first function of actual item creation, make_object() , there are a couple of checks for DROP_GOOD flag which are not affected by depth:
In the first one, the odds of getting one of the special artifacts (lights, amulets, rings) is 100-fold for a DROP_GOOD drop compared to a normal drop.(btw, does a DROP_GREAT always have a DROP_GOOD flag with it?)

        /* Try to make a special artifact */
        if (one_in_(good ? 10 : 1000))
                return make_artifact_special(j_ptr, lev);

Then, DROP_GOOD drops get 10 added to their level when selecting the item type.

        /* Base level for the object */
        base = (good ? (lev + 10) : lev);

        /* Get the object */
        k_idx = get_obj_num(base, good || great);

Also, a DROP_GOOD (or DROP_GREAT) drop selects the item type from a smaller set, which includes most armour (rusty and other crap types excluded), most weapons (ditto), arrows&bolts, dungeon books, the deepest amulets (magi, weaponmastery, trickery, devotion), rings of speed. As a lot of item types with no artifacts are excluded, this makes artifacts more likely.

[fizzix]

Actually, DROP_GOOD does have noticeable effects. In the first function of actual item creation, make_object() , there are a couple of checks for DROP_GOOD flag which are not affected by depth:
In the first one, the odds of getting one of the special artifacts (lights, amulets, rings) is 100-fold for a DROP_GOOD drop compared to a normal drop.(btw, does a DROP_GREAT always have a DROP_GOOD flag with it?)

yup, but a standard orc pit has 117 monsters in it. Considering that killing an orc pit is significantly easier than many drop good monsters, if you're going for special artifacts, it seems that this is the way to go.

Also, a DROP_GOOD (or DROP_GREAT) drop selects the item type from a smaller set, which includes most armour (rusty and other crap types excluded), most weapons (ditto), arrows&bolts, dungeon books, the deepest amulets (magi, weaponmastery, trickery, devotion), rings of speed. As a lot of item types with no artifacts are excluded, this makes artifacts more likely.

However many useful and necessary consumables are not found in drop_good loot. This is the main problem. Many of these items that you mention are only good for the first one you get. Who needs 6 copies of Ethereal Openings? Once you kill Harowen, you never need another one anyway. However, potions of restore mana are always useful and are much more likely to turn up in an orc pit than in drop_good loot (since it's a 0% chance there.)

[ChodTheWacko]

Thanks for the clarification, Sumendar.
That does change things greatly.

yup, but a standard orc pit has 117 monsters in it. Considering that killing an orc pit is significantly easier than many drop good monsters, if you're going for special artifacts, it seems that this is the way to go.

Actually, no, not really, because orcs tend to have DROP_20 or DROP_60 which is a percentage chance of dropping an object or gold. It will depend on what orcs, but it's not nearly as high as you think. Same for Troll pits.

However many useful and necessary consumables are not found in drop_good loot.
However, potions of restore mana are always useful and are much more likely to turn up in an orc pit than in drop_good loot (since it's a 0% chance there.)

It's not difficult to add more items into the kind_is_good routine for them to show up if you kill DROP_GOOD, but now I'm not so sure you want to.

I like the idea that the end gameplay is to Kill tougher DROP_GOOD monsters for artifacts/power items, and to kill weaker monsters for other items that you might need for the endgame.

- Frank

[Bagplant]

That's not a bug, no, it's a feature, the idea being that anything that's not at least {good} by dlev32 is junk at that depth.

I just found this thread, which explains a lot. I'm slowly playing my way through a game in one of the more recent versions (3.0.9b I think) and enjoying it for the most part, but stat gain is proving to be a nightmare. I have two stats near maxed (fortunately one of them is CON or I think I'd be dead by now) but the other four are still at 18 or lower base. I am currently at 3500' and have been at stat gain depth or below for about half a million turns. I didn't even identify one of the stat gain potion types until 3000'.

Now I understand why: if I'm reading this correctly, no monster at or below 1600' will ever drop a potion! They will only ever drop weapons, armor, spellbooks, or rings of speed (i.e. 'good' items).

If you are really going to enforce that kind of restriction, then I strongly agree with the original poster that you should expand the definition of 'good' items. In particular, don't assume that anything without the 'good' flag is junk, as it sounds like you have done from the quote (which I actually think is self-evidently untrue if you look at the list of non-good items in the first post, many of which have native depth much lower than 1600'). In earlier Angband versions, when I was preparing to take on Morgoth, I used to actively avoid monsters with DROP_GOOD. I already had all the speed and spellbooks I needed plus an endgame artifact equipment set - what I needed was to stock up on potions and scrolls, and I couldn't get them from monsters with DROP_GOOD. In the latest versions, I now realize, I won't be able to get them from any monsters at all, and will have to floorscum for them - a prospect that is sufficiently depressing to make me consider killing off my current character and starting over in a later version if this gets resolved. (I don't like floorscumming at all).

The scarcity of stat gain potions has actually made the game quite interesting in some ways - I've never been this deep with such low stats before - but I do think it would make the game harder than intended for new players.

(I should perhaps mention that I'm playing with autoscum off, so I don't see all that many vaults).

[Nightmarjoo]

But don't forget that once you max out your stats, stat potions are junk. Sure they're sellable, but by the time you max out your stats they're not even worth dragging home to sell unless you have to cut your dungeon time short for some reason. I'd rather carry home x weapons of westernesse/holy avengers with good to-hit/to-dam and sell them for 20k-30k each, stat potions sell for what, 7.5k? The only time they'd be useful to sell is when you need them most in the game.

Though at the same time, I'm scumming dl 98/97 long before I max my stats.

[dhegler]

Am I just a really slow diver? I have a level 40 (I think) warrior, at dungeon level 46 in vanilla.

I have maxed out 3 stats already and am 2 potions away from maxing 2 more. I get 1-3 stat potions per level it seems. Monsters all drop potions at some point for me... "Good" items are a huge waste after dungeon level 20 IMHO. I don't even look at anything that is "good", and almost have been thinking to stop saving most/all "excellent" items - I rarely save them to sell anymore.

When I used to play earlier versions in years past, it seemed like I could find artifacts much easier. Now, I have found maybe 12 so far, but uniques have RARELY dropped them for me. I must have killed the first 50 uniques by now and got maybe 3 artifacts from them, all others on the ground, half of them in vaults of some sort.

Why do uniques (at least up to about level 50) only drop "good" objects for the most part anyway? Why not increase some of them to start dropping "excellent/great" objects? I think that would make it much more fun to go after uniques.

[fizzix]

Am I just a really slow diver? I have a level 40 (I think) warrior, at dungeon level 46 in vanilla.

I have maxed out 3 stats already and am 2 potions away from maxing 2 more. I get 1-3 stat potions per level it seems. Monsters all drop potions at some point for me... "Good" items are a huge waste after dungeon level 20 IMHO. I don't even look at anything that is "good", and almost have been thinking to stop saving most/all "excellent" items - I rarely save them to sell anymore.

When I used to play earlier versions in years past, it seemed like I could find artifacts much easier. Now, I have found maybe 12 so far, but uniques have RARELY dropped them for me. I must have killed the first 50 uniques by now and got maybe 3 artifacts from them, all others on the ground, half of them in vaults of some sort.

Why do uniques (at least up to about level 50) only drop "good" objects for the most part anyway? Why not increase some of them to start dropping "excellent/great" objects? I think that would make it much more fun to go after uniques.

I played a game once where I hacked the edit files so uniques dropped excellent items. It made @ way too powerful way too quickly. If you don't believe me it's pretty easy to make this change yourself and try it out.