Double identify?

[Nightmarjoo]

Sorry if this has been addressed somewhere else, I didn't look to be honest.

I was throwing un id'd bolts and later iron shots at things, and as soon as I hit something with them the bolts were id'd as (+0,+0), and then a little later it tells me "the bolts are average" but I already knew that. The iron shots get id'd as (+5, +6), and then a little later "the iron shots feel magical". Kind of silly, but doesn't really hurt anything.

[fizzix]

Sorry if this has been addressed somewhere else, I didn't look to be honest.

I was throwing un id'd bolts and later iron shots at things, and as soon as I hit something with them the bolts were id'd as (+0,+0), and then a little later it tells me "the bolts are average" but I already knew that. The iron shots get id'd as (+5, +6), and then a little later "the iron shots feel magical". Kind of silly, but doesn't really hurt anything.

I think this is because, the game assumes that you haven't fully identified the bolts by just knowing their (+x +x) type. You could have found (+0, +0) or (+5 +6) bolts of slay giant and you wouldn't know that from just throwing them at townspeople.

Now you know that neither set of bolts have any slays or brands, and that's the reason for the pseudo-id.

[fph]

That's a consequence of the new ID-by-use feature. In the new versions, you get to know the +hit/+dam as soon as you hit something with the bolts. So, if you have 30 (unID'd) bolts of fire (+5,+4) and 30 "magical" bolts (+5,+4), and you hit an enemy with them, you get both "partially identified" as bolts (+5,+4). Nevertheless, the first are {excellent} and the second are {magical}, and eventually you pseudo-id them as such.
The interface would need to be reworked, though, because there is no way to tell the "normal identified magical (+5,+4) bolts" from the "(+5,+4) bolts that could still be excellent".

[Magnate]

I think this is because, the game assumes that you haven't fully identified the bolts by just knowing their (+x +x) type. You could have found (+0, +0) or (+5 +6) bolts of slay giant and you wouldn't know that from just throwing them at townspeople.

Now you know that neither set of bolts have any slays or brands, and that's the reason for the pseudo-id.

It's definitely a bug though - the pseudo messages should be suppressed if the plusses are already known. It's been reported as http://trac.rephial.org/ticket/936.

EDIT: having seen fph's reply, the "magical" messages should be changed (rather than suppressed), to something like "you sense that the bolts (+5,+6) have no special powers". The "average" messages should still be suppressed though, since nothing that is (+0,+0) can have any further powers.

[PowerDiver]

The interface would need to be reworked, though, because there is no way to tell the "normal identified magical (+5,+4) bolts" from the "(+5,+4) bolts that could still be excellent".

IMO this is the last remaining serious bug in ID-by-use.

I have fixed this, along with another half dozen things, and am playing a game to make sure things are working correctly. The fix should make it into the dev code fairly soon.

[PowerDiver]

The "average" messages should still be suppressed though, since nothing that is (+0,+0) can have any further powers.

Either the player should be given full id when the (+0,+0) is learned, and there is no pseudo to have a message suppressed, or else there should be an "average" message upon pseudo. If you don't believe the player should have knowledge of the edit files [the common viewpoint], it seems consistent not to believe the player should know (+0,+0) cannot be an ego. Sadly, I think the message needs to stay.

[Bill Peterson]

In the example the fact that both set of bolts have the same plusses but don't stack should be a clue that they aren't the same. So do you really want to call this case a "bug" or just let pseudo ID or further use resolve the question in due time?

If I were task leader I wouldn't have the developers spend valuable time on the (0,0) case when they could be working on real bugs.

[pampl]

The katana Aglarang is +0,+0. It gives +spd +dex so it'd psuedo as splendid as soon as you equipped it, so I guess there's still nothing that you'd learn was +0,+0 before knowing if it was an ego, but I wanted to make an irrelevant nitpick anyway