Your views wanted on artifacts in V

[Magnate]

@magnate--sorry about that.
I actually like the changes for the most part. But I do think the changes to the +CON amulets are going to be too big.

As for the +2 blows and the rNether (possibly): mea culpa. That's what I get for trying to review your changes on an iPod while riding the bus.

No worries Pete - you might be right about the amulets, but I was coming from the POV that of all the equipment slots JLE boosted with new egos, amulets was about the biggest: Devotion, Weaponmastery, Trickery. So the artifact amulets needed a bit of a boost, I felt. But yeah, knocking one off the pvals of each with CON might be necessary.

[Magnate]

The fact that more negative qualities are coming relatively soon make me think that perhaps we could wait for that before tweaking artifacts.

I don't agree with you here: yes we know that Takk wants to rework curses for 3.2, but I don't think that obviates the need to tweak the artifact set now. The new curses will need lots of playtesting and balancing on their own, so I'd be surprised if he splattered them over artifacts right away.

Besides, I was a bit stuck on my more complicated tickets, and this one's been waiting for a long time ...

Also, I think concentrating on single artifact properties out of context is too much of a simplification. For example, while one might not use an artifact like Haradrim because of the aggravation, it comes back into consideration if you find the Palantir.

Agreed. What I've tried to do is make the individual aggravators more likely to be kept around to be used in combination.

In summary, you're all idiots and I'm great.

As a self-confessed idiot I have no argument with you there.

[Magnate]

I disagree. The current situation is too many useful artifacts being dropped. What we need is less junky artifacts, not more useful ones. If you want variety, than I suppose more numerically is fine so long as drop rates go down so there are fewer being generated.

My hunch is that you are in a minority in thinking that there are too many artifacts dropped. But I'm not sure of that, so I'm happy to hear other people's views. I find about 3-5 artifacts in an average game, in which I die somewhere around 3500' / 400k turns. Of those at least one, often two, are less good than egos I've found.

Obviously as you get down further you find more artifacts, and when you're prowling around at 4900' trying to find an endgame kit combination you could describe the process of discarding lots of artifacts that don't fit your desired combo as finding too many. But I remain to be convinced that anybody finds too many artifacts before 4000' - I'd be very interested to hear about that.

The brand egos have a rarity of 8 to 10. Surely the thancs should have a minimum rarity of 10. Telepathy has a rarity of 6, so Thranduil should have a rarity at least 6. I don't know what the odds of an ego turning into an artifact are, but even if it is 1 in 10 I think at a minimum the rarities on the artifacts should match the rarities on the lesser egos.

I think the odds of an ego turning into an artifact are way less than one in ten. Think about how many ego items you discard in a full game - hundreds. But I guess if you discard tens of artifacts then you would come to that view. I think if the 'thancs had rarity 10 they would be useless 90% of the time they showed up.

That said, I may well have got the depths and rarities wrong. I have no tools to model the frequency of them appearing at any given depth or time. We'll just need to test.

I'm probably going overboard here, but artifact inflation is out of control, so excuse me while I overreact.

You have a long view of inflation! Apart from a few tweaks to Elven rings the artifact set looked almost identical last week to how it looked after JLE's patch was incorporated into 2.9.3, the best part of a decade ago.

[PowerDiver]

You have a long view of inflation!

My view on artifact inflation is based on 3.1 vs 3.0, not about your particular recent tweaks. I assume it is a byproduct of ego inflation.

BTW - as to artifacts from egos - I mean 1 in 10 to *try* to make an artifact, not to succeed. That would be a 10% chance to make some rarity rolls. But I have no idea whatsoever how that number got into my head so it may have no relation to the code.

[Magnate]

I think the point is that just making an artifact useful is not good enough *if* it also obsoletes an ego item which won't show up until after you have the artifact. There is a very small window of the game in which a branded weapon is going to be your weapon of choice. If you find a more powerful artifact always before you find a branded weapon, what's the point of having branded weapons at all? So the problem isn't just useless artifacts, it's useless egos also, and artifact/ego balance.

One problem at a time. The problem I'm currently trying to fix is that some of the artifacts are junk - never ever used, or almost never. Either because they're just intrinsically unworthy, or because they're always found after a better ego. The clearest example here is the fact that Hithlomir was simply elvenkind with +4 pval and rdark as its high resist - in most cases you'd be better off with a +3 elvenkind with a better high resist, so Hithlomir needed a boost.

Ask yourself when was the last time you ever used a basic slay weapon in a game? Those have the smallest windows of usefulness of all.

I don't disagree with you that rendering ego types obsolete is a danger and should be addressed - but it's always been an issue, precisely as you note. The way I think we should approach it is to fix the capabilities of items first, and then fix the distribution (depths/rarities).

Regardless of whether we can agree with what I said above, I think we can all agree that we don't want a determined set of equipment. If you automatically wield *thanc at dlevel 5 and paur* at dlevel 10 every game then we've completely crushed the random aspect that makes the game so fun and replayable.

Agreed. I think fizzix's estimate of using a 'thanc roughly every five games is about right. More powerful artifacts less often, etc.

[Magnate]

My view on artifact inflation is based on 3.1 vs 3.0, not about your particular recent tweaks. I assume it is a byproduct of ego inflation.

Ah, I misunderstood. I thought you were talking about inflation of quality, but you mean inflation of quantity. Yes, that's a direct result of the increase in ego item generation. I think Takk will rein in ego generation a bit further for 3.2, as we're still getting too many (compared with stuff like stat potions and other high-end consumables).

[PowerDiver]

I am going to get to a long post about the artifact changes, but for the most part that will be explaining why they don't really matter. However, there was one huge change with far reaching effects.

Thorin no longer provides resistance to stunning.

This means that, compared to old time, opposition to stunning and confusion have both been removed. This is a very very very big deal.

In my mind, there was an implicit assumption that every endgame char would use Thorin. Thus in game design [well, item design] you don't worry overly about providing the player with anything Thorin would give him. You might manage some combination without Thorin, but the game designer could consider each such situation separately. I believe this is why the rarity of rConf turned into a big deal, and why now rSound will be a bigger deal.

The upshot is that now basically everything that provides rSound also provides rConf. This means that items only providing rConf without rSound, such as bronze scale or Thengel or even Caspanion are relegated to mid-game status.

All mages will be wearing plate mail, as Isildur becomes even more obviously required than Thorin used to be, unless you luck out with Gondor.

[Magnate]

I am going to get to a long post about the artifact changes, but for the most part that will be explaining why they don't really matter.

When you do that, be sure to distinguish between issues about generation and issues arising once they've been generated. I suspect that the reasons the changes don't really matter are mainly to do with generation.

In my mind, there was an implicit assumption that every endgame char would use Thorin.

I think there is a broad consensus that Thorin was too much of a no-brainer for the endgame, and removing rsound made it less of one. It's still a very good item, but other shields will get a look in.

The upshot is that now basically everything that provides rSound also provides rConf.

Except Numenor and Osondir, yes. I hadn't spotted that.

This means that items only providing rConf without rSound, such as bronze scale or Thengel or even Caspanion are relegated to mid-game status. All mages will be wearing plate mail, as Isildur becomes even more obviously required than Thorin used to be, unless you luck out with Gondor.

IMO the solution to this is to add rsound to a couple of other artifacts, not to put it back on Thorin. Any other views?

[PowerDiver]

Thorin was too much of a no-brainer for the endgame, and removing rsound made it less of one. It's still a very good item, but other shields will get a look in.Except Numenor and Osondir, yes. I hadn't spotted that.IMO the solution to this is to add rsound to a couple of other artifacts, not to put it back on Thorin. Any other views?

Who would consider Celegorm or Anarion when already wielding Isildur? You would prefer a shield of preservation to either of them. No one shoudl consider them without Gondor, and if they wield Gondor the change doesn't affect them either.

I think it is so much more complicated than adding rSound to a couple other items. Everything was set up under an assumption you want to remove. That means everything comes into question.

I think for starters that opposition to stunning [which is to sound as opposition to confusion used to be to rChaos] needs to be a random power. Then you might as well make opposition to confusion one as well. That will help in the midgame, but still in the endgame everyone will still use Isildur. That means that you have to do lots and lots of work. The full result is that by removing Thorin as a no-brainer you simply create a different no-brainer.

If you want there not to be no-brainers, you need to improve lots of things so that the typical endgame outfitted char has each resist covered multiple times, so that they can afford to remove items. That becomes about changing the approach from "how can I possibly cover all essential resists" to "what else do the great artifacts give me" and you'd have to shuffle all of the stat boosts and activations and immunities.

You could try to make lots more artifacts to choose from, keeping the "how do I cover resists" mentality, but that kills ironman chars and requires doubling the size of the home.

I don't see the problem with no-brainers. Every non-warrior carries the 4th town book for his class. Some things are just obvious.

[Magnate]

Who would consider Celegorm or Anarion when already wielding Isildur? You would prefer a shield of preservation to either of them. No one shoudl consider them without Gondor, and if they wield Gondor the change doesn't affect them either.

I think it is so much more complicated than adding rSound to a couple other items. Everything was set up under an assumption you want to remove. That means everything comes into question.

I think for starters that opposition to stunning [which is to sound as opposition to confusion used to be to rChaos] needs to be a random power. Then you might as well make opposition to confusion one as well. That will help in the midgame, but still in the endgame everyone will still use Isildur. That means that you have to do lots and lots of work. The full result is that by removing Thorin as a no-brainer you simply create a different no-brainer.

If you want there not to be no-brainers, you need to improve lots of things so that the typical endgame outfitted char has each resist covered multiple times, so that they can afford to remove items. That becomes about changing the approach from "how can I possibly cover all essential resists" to "what else do the great artifacts give me" and you'd have to shuffle all of the stat boosts and activations and immunities.

You could try to make lots more artifacts to choose from, keeping the "how do I cover resists" mentality, but that kills ironman chars and requires doubling the size of the home.

I don't see the problem with no-brainers. Every non-warrior carries the 4th town book for his class. Some things are just obvious.

We disagree on quite a few things here. First, Thorin is *much* more common than Isildur. So even if Isildur is now a no-brainer, that only applies if you find it. Second, I don't think rsound is essential - I don't know a quick way to grep the ladder (Pav?), but I wouldn't mind betting that a fair proportion of winners don't have it (unlike rconf). Third, despite the fact that I agree with you wholeheartedly about the sense of distinguishing between resistance to damage and immunity from side effects, I don't think this one change makes nearly as much difference as you claim - there are already plenty of combinations that cover all the important resists: people win without using artifacts at all. Fourth, and most importantly, I disagree that Thorin being a no-brainer is part of Angband's *design*. Artifacts were designed to be incredibly rare, so I don't think any of them were presumed to be part of a winner's kit. If you have any proof of your assertion, I'd be very interested.

[PowerDiver]

I remember finding Isildur far more often than Thorin. Just lucky?

Anyway, if you want to make Thorin less of a no-brainer, instead of removing rSound I would prefer than you add rSound to other items. Perhaps the Phial and the Palantir and two of the elven rings. Perhaps to one of the amulets besides Elessar. Melee weapons don't count.

[PowerDiver]

I think I can summarize my objections as follows. The game is a race to cover what you need to be able to kill the big guys, and perhaps all of the uniques. There are various possible combinations of equipment to reach that goal. When you reduce the flags on an endgame item, what you do is to reduce the set of combinations. Most likely, doing that to increase variation in one slot will reduce variation in another slot. If you wish to make a particular flag on a particular item less important towards finding a possible endgame combination, the way to increase variation is to add that flag to other items.

[PowerDiver]

I played a bit with the new artifact list, and found the changes mostly inconsequential towards which were junk. Given the primitive quoting on these fora, rather than making one long post I will make many short ones.

Found Hithlomir, dumped it. I would certainly dump it any time I had elvenkind armor. This is conceivably useful as a swap, but swap armors are generally a bad idea. The player would be better off playing the lottery for useful elvenkind.

I also dumped Celegorm without noticing the changes. I was playing a dwarf, so didn't notice rBlind. For non-dwarves this is non-junk in the mid game. In the end game, everyone should be assumed to be using the Palantir so it wouldn't help.

I tossed Thengel to keep serenity when without the change to Thorin I would have done the opposite.

[PowerDiver]

I actually used Hammerhand, but that was because of specific circumstances. It appears to be useful only to an ironman player who has already found the Palantir, which was my game.

It is a mistake to start a new level while aggravating, so a non-ironman should use the Palantir as a swap for its activation until the very end, so the assumption in non-ironman should be that you are not aggravating. By the time I found it, I had already seen two helms of might+3 and I saw two more, so the question is whether it is worth a home slot to store the thing until the final two fights for +9,+9. That seems very unlikely.

If I had not already found the Palantir, I would have tossed Hammerhand to keep might+3.

If you want Hammerhand to be relevant, at a minimum you should adjust rarity and depth so that you are most likely to find the Palantir first. It might be true already, I don't know.

[PowerDiver]

I used Thingol when I found it, seemed useful which seemed different, but I don't remember what it used to be.

The increased power on the thancs was entirely unnecessary, but I appreciated it in ironman. IMO if enchant scrolls are available in town, every artifact should start at a minimum of +10 in each of tohit, todam, and toac since that is achievable with scumming. I like the change to the thancs for that reason.

Gondricam remains junk. It's a defender lacking FA. The dex boost gives a chance at an extra blow, but its offense is too weak. If you want to do damage you use something else, and if you want defense you use something else. I dumped it for a 15 lb westernesse weapon without a second thought.

Aglarang like the thancs had decent plusses, favorable IMO for the same reasons.

I didn't notice a change on Elvagil, still junk.

Osondir has been beefed up, but is still junk. It is too heavy to get lots of blows with, and you certainly have much better offensive choice when you find it. In theory it should be useful to a spellcaster as defense, but my paladin was uninterested and I would have felt the same with a priest. Perhaps a mage or ranger could find it useful. It looks useful when you inspect the entry, but somehow it just wasn't.

I didn't find Til-i-arc, but looking at the entry it appears less useful than Osondir, and the same general argument that a minor boost on a heavy weapon is not enough to make it a viable offensive choice.

Avavir has the same problem too.

Totila tempted me the way Osondir did, but after a while I realized it was just like old times. You think it ought to be useful, but you never use it.

The immunity on Firestar made it worthwhile. That's one item that is no longer junk.