Your views wanted on artifacts in V

[Baines]

One of the fundamental tenets of Angband is that every game is as easy/difficult as every other - this is why there is so much grief if items are tweaked to make the game noticeably easier or harder. Using a subset of artifacts will by definition make some games easier than others (do you get Ringil or not?), which I suspect would not be popular.

Every game is only as easy/difficult as every other in potential, not in practice. As your own example raises, not everyone gets Ringil. For practical purposes, it doesn't really matter why Ringil isn't always found. The point is that it isn't always found within a reasonable game length. (Yes, you could play indefinitely and be guaranteed Ringil, but that can easily be argued as a degenerate gameplay situation.)

(Even randarts have to be very carefully controlled - and there are already people who regard randarts as an easier option because you occasionally get quite obscenely powerful launchers.)

Tying randarts so closely to the regular artifact list may be a mistake. While some people will only tolerate the idea of modifying existing artifacts, it seems like creating "balanced" randart sets from scratch might be easier through a set of carefully designed construction rules. Such rules could be maintained easier if not tied to the vanilla list, and prevent weird cases from coming into play as well. (The problem might be keeping such rules in sync with a changing base artifact list, but the base list arguably shouldn't be changing much once set anyway.)

Having pebbles always be average (and therefore easily squelchable) and plentiful in the dungeon seems like a great idea to me. With all the tunneling going on and rubble you find all over the place, the floor's bound to be scattered with sling ammunition.

If this were anything other than Angband, I'd suggest a "gather stones" command that would create something like up to five pebbles inside your inventory. Different terrains might alter the number of pebbles found. You wouldn't want too many generated for weight reasons, and presumably it takes at least a few moments to find usable stones even in a rubble pile.

[Whelk]

You can sneak a strip of leather and some rocks around much easier than you can sneak a bow of any size and some arrows, I would think. Bows are pretty big and conspicuous.

That said, I prefer rogues myself, but if warriors got a speed boost as well or instead, it wouldn't bother me much. Anything to spiff up sling usage anywhere.

[TJS]

How's about giving warriors a bonus to slings as well/instead of rogues? I imagine the extra strength of a warrior would let him sling stuff faster. Wouldn't rogues be sneaky with a bow rather than carry and throw heavy rocks about?

[Whelk]

Having pebbles always be average (and therefore easily squelchable) and plentiful in the dungeon seems like a great idea to me. With all the tunneling going on and rubble you find all over the place, the floor's bound to be scattered with sling ammunition. The proposed idea for rogues getting more shots with slings would also make me happy. I'm all for any improvements to the poor, neglected sling.

[d_m]

UI sucks entirely.

By the time I find an amulet of the magi, I am using my amulet slot for rPoison. Not always, but 90%. If it doesn't have rPoison, I'd guess that I would hardly ever use it. I have no problem with the change -- I just don't see it being that relevant.

Sling ammo should be all over the dungeon, and the sling itself should sell for cheap. Price should not be just about value. For 1 AU you should have a launcher with essentially unlimited ammo. The problem with ammo everywhere is that you have to id it to know it is average to squelch it if you do not care to see it, but stones could be special cased if anyone agrees with me on this, until the world comes around to my view that "average" should be obvious on sight.

I think making smooth pebbles (or whatever) always average (like torches) is totally reasonable. I could also imagine making them do the same damage as bullets (but always start at +0/+0).

[PowerDiver]

I would suggest changing that resistance to resist blindness which seems to be much more uncommon, and is thematically appropriate to magi amulet. (god this UI sucks

Slings should have more powerful ammo.

UI sucks entirely.

By the time I find an amulet of the magi, I am using my amulet slot for rPoison. Not always, but 90%. If it doesn't have rPoison, I'd guess that I would hardly ever use it. I have no problem with the change -- I just don't see it being that relevant.

Sling ammo should be all over the dungeon, and the sling itself should sell for cheap. Price should not be just about value. For 1 AU you should have a launcher with essentially unlimited ammo. The problem with ammo everywhere is that you have to id it to know it is average to squelch it if you do not care to see it, but stones could be special cased if anyone agrees with me on this, until the world comes around to my view that "average" should be obvious on sight.

[Magnate]

Devotion is an amulet (and not very useful to priests either), but there are three items "of magi". Which one are you talking about? Amulet, cloak or crown? Amulet doesn't have ESP but cloak and crown can have. Crown especially is very good if it has ESP.
...
Apparently person you are quoting is talking about Amulet, which doesn't have random ability.

Sorry, my mistake. I was indeed muddling up a crown with an amulet. Looks like both amulets (Devotion and Magi) need to be shallower if they are to be useful. I did say I wouldn't mess with ego items, but ....

I don't think +2 might exists at all. That only applies to Bucklands and Lothlorien bows, and Buckland with +2 to PVAL makes it superweapon. Three shots with x4 and big to_dam (which they seem to always have) makes it equal to clvl 40+ Ranger with Longbow of Extra Might. Buckland is actually too good. Problem is that id you drop _one_ point off from it then they become useless compared to ordinary longbow of extra shots.

I vote for removal of Buckland.

I think I'm coming to like the earlier suggestion (and you're right, it's impossible to find it with ForumSuckUI(tm)) that the Buckland ego should be turned into an artifact: THE sling of Buckland, with +2 to might, shots, dex and (say) speed and hold life. Then we perhaps need a new sling ego that's like Lothlorien or Haradrim - powerful but not crazy. Something like a "sling of speed" with +2 shots, dex and speed, but no extra might.

Slings should have more powerful ammo. After all plate or ring mail might block arrow with no damage, but if you are hit by fast moving brick it hurts even if it doesn't kill. Also breaking sling ammo (especially metallic one) is nearly impossible, so one stack of very good ammo should last very long time, making good sling much more attractive.

This is an excellent idea. I'll draw Takkaria's attention to this bit of the thread (it'll be a miracle if he gets this far) and see if he'll let me overstep my remit and tinker with this. I think reducing the breakage for iron and mithril shots from 25% to 10% would do the trick. Doesn't look like much on paper, but they will last a lot longer. I'm not sure about jumping straight to 4d3 though. I agree that your calculation makes sense, but we're now into the territory of rebalancing missile weapons, so we might as well do it properly. Something like:

iron shot: 2d3
mithril shot: 3d4
seeker shot: 4d5

arrow: 1d3
mithril arrow: 2d3
seeker arrow: 3d3

bolt: 1d4
mithril bolt: 2d4
seeker bolt: 3d4

That's off the top of my head, but it brings endgame bow and xbow damage down by about 1/3, which I imagine is roughly what we need to do to address the current imbalance. It also makes slings really quite competitive - especially if rogues get extra shots with them ...

(This is why I don't develop software for a living - I'm hopeless at focusing on a task ...)

[Timo Pietilä]

Interesting. I don't do very well with priests, so I've never found "Devotion with one, and I haven't played paladins in years. Magi really is useful, especially with ESP.

Devotion is an amulet (and not very useful to priests either), but there are three items "of magi". Which one are you talking about? Amulet, cloak or crown? Amulet doesn't have ESP but cloak and crown can have. Crown especially is very good if it has ESP.

If the person you are answering is talking about amulet, then it rarely is useful because it is so rare, deep and resist confusion is rather common. I would suggest changing that resistance to resist blindness which seems to be much more uncommon, and is thematically appropriate to magi amulet. (god this UI sucks. I can't find that comment I'm actually referring to now, so I can't check what his/hers words were, and quoting your message doesn't include quotes you had in yours...ah, found it). Apparently person you are quoting is talking about Amulet, which doesn't have random ability.

I think the problem with slings is more fundamental than the absence of artifacts and the rarity of Buckland. There's just no real incentive for any class to use slings, when longbows do 50% more damage and have lighter ammo. Once in a thousand games you might find an early +2 might sling

I don't think +2 might exists at all. That only applies to Bucklands and Lothlorien bows, and Buckland with +2 to PVAL makes it superweapon. Three shots with x4 and big to_dam (which they seem to always have) makes it equal to clvl 40+ Ranger with Longbow of Extra Might. Buckland is actually too good. Problem is that id you drop _one_ point off from it then they become useless compared to ordinary longbow of extra shots.

I vote for removal of Buckland.

Slings should have more powerful ammo. After all plate or ring mail might block arrow with no damage, but if you are hit by fast moving brick it hurts even if it doesn't kill. Also breaking sling ammo (especially metallic one) is nearly impossible, so one stack of very good ammo should last very long time, making good sling much more attractive.

How about comparison: Sling of might (x2) (+15,+16) (+1) and Longbow of might (x3) (+15,+16) (+1)

Sling (4d3) (+10,+10) firebrand ammo
Bow (1d4) (+10,+10) firebrand ammo.

(4d3 +10 +16) * 3 * 3 = 306
(1d4 +10 +16) * 3 * 4 = 342

Which one would you choose to use if you know that sling ammo would last very long time? Damage difference isn't anymore that big. Swap that stack of sling ammo to better one when you find it.

[SilverD]

Nice. Addition of new artifacts sounds interesting. I'll say it right away - I'm a noob. I only play the game from time to time and only won twice. But, I started over countless of times and for as long as I can remember, I don't think I ever used any of the mediocre artifacts.

The first ones I usually find are beaten by egos hands down and the artifacts only start getting interesting once the really good ones start dropping.

Personally, I don't have a problem with no-brainers like Ringil (which I never found). But, if it's rare enough - it deserves to be great enough IMO. No-brainers are only bad when you get them almost every game you play without grinding for days. And they are bad when there is no alternative for you to a slot that you keep filling with egos until you find that one piece that you're looking for. At which point the item hunting game for that slot is over - and if it's not rare enough, that's bad.

IM(H)O, what would be nice is filler artifacts between what is regarded as the best gear and the junk items. Maybe even give them an upper hand in some respects, like a resistance that isn't available on higher level artifacts.

And like most people out there, I frown upon any substantial nerfs to items that I regard as awesome items - if they're rare enough, I either got really lucky or I grinded for them for many hours/days. In either case, a nerf really hurts the feeling of accomplishment.

Increasing the depth/rarity of some of the "no-brainer" items (if they're not rare enough already) and filling the gap to make the item kits viable without them is sufficient enough, IMO.

Again, this is coming from someone who doesn't play day to day, but casually enjoys the game from time to time. Just my two cents. :-)

[Philip]

I think the problem with slings is more fundamental than the absence of artifacts and the rarity of Buckland. There's just no real incentive for any class to use slings, when longbows do 50% more damage and have lighter ammo. Once in a thousand games you might find an early +2 might sling, but that's about it. I think slings need to have some other property to make them attractive, like the massive +hit bonus NPP gives to rogues and brigands. One simple idea would be to give rogues extra shots with slings like rangers get with bows.

My High-elf warrior winner managed to find Buckland +2 and not even mini-Cubragol +8 to speed no firebrand could compete. Buckland and shot of acid is the Sauron killer and holy might for Morgoth would work.
But I think the phial is too rare now. Rarity 2 or 1 would be better. But yes, he used: a randart crossbow, then longbow, then longbow again (randarts), and than sling of buckland +2. It is the strongest launcher in the game, except for rangers or anyone who found cubragol or Belthrolding.
And, yes rogues should have extra shots with bows. There is no problem with the rarity of buckland because it is better than any of the other super-egos unless you play ranger or for some reason Haradrim is better.
But there should be seeker shots with 3d4 dice. Or maybe make the sling of buckland as an artifact like O, and add Ghan-buri-ghan. Currently the problem is terrible imbalance between shooting and magic, as mages turn into bad rangers.
*goes to do refresh on the oook page in a hope to find a new thread* (seriously, I do that.)

Edit: rogues should have extra shots with slings, not bows.

[Magnate]

Devotion is way too deep for how useful it is (as in, not very) Even if it was moved up to dlevel 40, it would really only find use if it had a pval greater than whatever wisdom amulet you were currently wielding. I also think Magi is too deep, but I haven't played a mage in forever, so I'm not sure if it's useful to that class.

Interesting. I don't do very well with priests, so I've never found "Devotion with one, and I haven't played paladins in years. Magi really is useful, especially with ESP. Lots of my mage-casters have found and used one.

And re: artifact sling. Something like a (+5, +5) sling with one extra shot and maybe +1 speed or something that appears between levels 10 and 20 about once every 10 games would see use.

Once every 10 games between 500' and 1000' is a very very common artifact. You don't even find the Phial that often anymore. (Well, I don't, but I don't clear levels any more, so maybe you do. Anyway...)

I think the problem with slings is more fundamental than the absence of artifacts and the rarity of Buckland. There's just no real incentive for any class to use slings, when longbows do 50% more damage and have lighter ammo. Once in a thousand games you might find an early +2 might sling, but that's about it. I think slings need to have some other property to make them attractive, like the massive +hit bonus NPP gives to rogues and brigands. One simple idea would be to give rogues extra shots with slings like rangers get with bows.

[fizzix]

Yes, although this will probably only apply to boots. I doubt I'll be creating more than one of anything else, as there are enough already for most other slots and I don't want to go overboard. The only other slot really in need of love is amulets, but I can't create any more of these until we sort out the "special" nonsense (this is why JLE created so many good ego amulet types).

Only because you brought it up.

Devotion is way too deep for how useful it is (as in, not very) Even if it was moved up to dlevel 40, it would really only find use if it had a pval greater than whatever wisdom amulet you were currently wielding. I also think Magi is too deep, but I haven't played a mage in forever, so I'm not sure if it's useful to that class.

And re: artifact sling. Something like a (+5, +5) sling with one extra shot and maybe +1 speed or something that appears between levels 10 and 20 about once every 10 games would see use.

(when I say once in x games, what I mean is it will appear on those levels as either a drop or a ground item once in x games. So if you clear those levels completely you find it that often. Divers have to adjust accordingly. Yay for calculability)

[PowerDiver]

Essentially, an artifact is a super-ego that only applies to a particular object. E.g. the ego "defender" applies to all weapons, but the super-ego "Ringil" applies only to longswords. There's not much more to it than that. The only substantial difference is in the generation of artifact light sources and jewelry.

[Magnate]

1) I've been playing a lot of randarts lately because of the greater variety in what appears, when, and where.

Great to hear - found any bugs yet? If you're playing nightlies, I'd be interested in any really broken randarts you find - but perhaps in a different thread!

2) ESP could have several levels of effectiveness (even make it cumulative?). This would be a more significant change than the scope of this thread alone, but I could see increasing radius with multiple ESP wielded, and/or increasing likelihood to detect hard-to-detect creatures. This would allow weak ESP to be found sooner in the game, but not become devastatingly useful until multiple items had been acquired.

I like this idea a lot - I created http://trac.rephial.org/ticket/1015 for it.

4) Using the flag to lose artifacts when leaving a level is definitely something that IMHO should remain optional; but how about decreasing the seed of artifacts in a given game? One thing I notice is that sometime around stat-gain I start swimming in artifacts, and usually sell most or all of them (hoarding those that might be useful later on). I am not sure how the code currently works to seed artifacts into a game, but if there were only, say, about thirty artifacts seeded at the outset of each game, it'd make them seem that much more special. it might also discourage scumming around DL 99 waiting for that last piece of your kit to pop up, as you'd be able to more or less know if you'd found all the artifacts in the dungeon or not...

Ok, here's how it currently works: every single artifact is read into the a_info array - doesn't matter whether they're randomised or not, the only difference is that randarts have different depths and rarities. Every single artifact is available every game, and has exactly the same chance of appearing every game. The "swimming in artifacts" phenomenon is a direct result of the overabundance of ego items - you can expect this to be addressed in 3.1.2 (Takk has said so explicitly, and fewer ego items means fewer artifacts).

I don't really have an opinion on the alternative approach of only using a subset of the artifacts in any given game. OT1H it provides more variety in games and prevents scumming for artifacts that may never be generated, but OTOH it would be very hard to balance for the standard artifact set (and if you're using randarts you don't need a subset because the scumming problem doesn't occur - you could easily just make fewer randarts). One of the fundamental tenets of Angband is that every game is as easy/difficult as every other - this is why there is so much grief if items are tweaked to make the game noticeably easier or harder. Using a subset of artifacts will by definition make some games easier than others (do you get Ringil or not?), which I suspect would not be popular. (Even randarts have to be very carefully controlled - and there are already people who regard randarts as an easier option because you occasionally get quite obscenely powerful launchers.)

Yet another option, used by several variants, is a hybrid of the two. You have a small set of fixed artifacts (say about half the current set), and a similar amount of randarts. This is one of those things that looks good on paper but nobody actually likes it - if you're a randarts person you get bored with half the artifacts being the same, and if you're not you don't like half of them being random.

[Hariolor]

Just a few quick thoughts from someone who consistently gets deep, but never manages to win...

1) I've been playing a lot of randarts lately because of the greater variety in what appears, when, and where.

2) ESP could have several levels of effectiveness (even make it cumulative?). This would be a more significant change than the scope of this thread alone, but I could see increasing radius with multiple ESP wielded, and/or increasing likelihood to detect hard-to-detect creatures. This would allow weak ESP to be found sooner in the game, but not become devastatingly useful until multiple items had been acquired.

3) I second the notion that more, not fewer, artifacts is a good thing. One of the irritating things about Angband for me is that, despite infinite replayability, every game seems to have a small set of keystone items that are not merely *the best*, but that I suspect for most players (save the real experts on here) feel like must-haves. Having more options to make a decent kit is a good thing, and does not have to mean an overall increase in the ease with which said kit is assembled.

4) Using the flag to lose artifacts when leaving a level is definitely something that IMHO should remain optional; but how about decreasing the seed of artifacts in a given game? One thing I notice is that sometime around stat-gain I start swimming in artifacts, and usually sell most or all of them (hoarding those that might be useful later on). I am not sure how the code currently works to seed artifacts into a game, but if there were only, say, about thirty artifacts seeded at the outset of each game, it'd make them seem that much more special. it might also discourage scumming around DL 99 waiting for that last piece of your kit to pop up, as you'd be able to more or less know if you'd found all the artifacts in the dungeon or not...