Artifacts found at 600ft

[Ashkir]

Not Vanilla, but having read this thread earlier today thought this deserved a mention.

Just killed Bill Ferny in Un at 200ft and he dropped Dethanc!!!

This is definately the best drop I have had so early in any variant.

[ZenDragon]

I find that any time the RNG smiles at me early in the game, its a warning to watch my step cause I'm gonna die shortly there after.

[Ed_47569]

Okay I was trying a run with a half-troll warrior, I am a little uncertain about running warriors as I like my detection spells. Boy what a run so far....I just found the rapier Forasgil lying on the floor at 600ft. Then I just killed wormtounge on the same level and he dropped the long sword Evagil. Has anyone else noticed this same rapid find of artifacts. The level feeling said I felt a little lucky, boy what an understatement.

My current warrior found the boots Dal-i-Thalion after killing Smeagol at 150'. Now these also have +5 speed boost, it does seem rather overpowered!

[d_m]

These stories are interesting--I don't think any significant changes to the probabilities have happened, so I think these are just part of the natural range of item distributions.

That said, I have a level 32 dwarven priest on dungeon level 80 that has STILL not seen a wand or rod of teleport other, or *any* item providing resist poison (although I have most other resists covered). It's getting pretty hairy!

[buzzkill]

These stories are interesting--I don't think any significant changes to the probabilities have happened, so I think these are just part of the natural range of item distributions.

What's missing from this thread is the innumerable times when I trudged ever downward with the slightest scent of an artifact before succumbing to a pack of dreads.

[Malak Darkhunter]

These stories are interesting--I don't think any significant changes to the probabilities have happened, so I think these are just part of the natural range of item distributions.

That said, I have a level 32 dwarven priest on dungeon level 80 that has STILL not seen a wand or rod of teleport other, or *any* item providing resist poison (although I have most other resists covered). It's getting pretty hairy!

That's strange I've already found 3 wands of teleport other, and several rods of detection as well I'm just on level 30.

[Magnate]

These stories are interesting--I don't think any significant changes to the probabilities have happened, so I think these are just part of the natural range of item distributions.

There have been a few significant changes since 3.1.1 - Elvagil certainly being one. But Dal-i-thalion is as rare as it ever was, so getting it from Smeagol is extremely lucky.

[Magnate]

This is a real problem making the game way too easy. To the extent that artifacts are made more useful, they need to be *less* common. That's to maintain game balance.

We should be thinking about changing the name from "vanilla" to "easyband".

You can lay that squarely at the feet of JLE - Timo has written many a convincing essay on this. More interesting and powerful ego items meant a lot more artifacts became junk, and we're into escalation.

As you know, when I tweaked the artifacts I adjusted the rarity only in a very few cases where I felt the actual item was not improvable - Elvagil being one. (I think Forasgil was another, but I'm not 100% certain without looking it up.) Yes, it would be a problem if they dropped in every game, but there are plenty of people who don't see (m)any artifacts still. I've had several characters get beyond 3000' with nothing but a 'thanc or equivalent low-level randart.

It's possible that some artifact tweaks will go the other way for 3.1.3, if it emerges that people are finding too many too often. But that's not evident yet. In the meantime I persist in being pleased that people are actually using artifacts which previously were always junk when found.

[PowerDiver]

You don't use more than 20 ego+ melee weapons in a game. Well, I don't anyway. If you make something not junk, that necessarily makes something else be junk. There is no solution to this.

I don't see that JLE changed that. Some egos get preferred to some artifacts, but for the most part you will use about the same number of items for each particular slot each (winning) game. The only thing that changes is which items you use.

IMO the only thing buffing artifacts accomplishes is to make the game easier. The way to make artifacts "special" is to remove the weaker ones, not to buff them up.

[Malak Darkhunter]

You don't use more than 20 ego+ melee weapons in a game. Well, I don't anyway. If you make something not junk, that necessarily makes something else be junk. There is no solution to this.

I don't see that JLE changed that. Some egos get preferred to some artifacts, but for the most part you will use about the same number of items for each particular slot each (winning) game. The only thing that changes is which items you use.

IMO the only thing buffing artifacts accomplishes is to make the game easier. The way to make artifacts "special" is to remove the weaker ones, not to buff them up.

In most of my games, I end up selling most of my artifacts, because there are to many that I just don't need or use, some I think are just red herrings with no real use at all, other than to look at. That's why a lot of people are calling for museums, to store them in. Now granted that different character classes might use different artifacts, but even them most of the others get sold. I sometimes think about turning artifacts off completly, so I won't be bothered by hunting for them.
Really if you think about it, by the time you find cool ego weapons that have properties of lets say (of westerness) you may have found an artifact already that makes those cool ego weapons useless.
How about moving artifacts deeper in the dungeon, past level 50, and just leaving the more powerful artifacts to find so they will still be kind of rare. in example how many longsword artifacts are there, I can think of several.
Then you can leave the first 50 levels for the better ego weapons, so they might have some better use. (HA) (of westerness) (Defender).
The game would be fairly more challenging in the beginning levels, but a little better balanced in terms of power.

[Magnate]

You don't use more than 20 ego+ melee weapons in a game. Well, I don't anyway. If you make something not junk, that necessarily makes something else be junk. There is no solution to this.

I don't see that JLE changed that. Some egos get preferred to some artifacts, but for the most part you will use about the same number of items for each particular slot each (winning) game. The only thing that changes is which items you use.

IMO the only thing buffing artifacts accomplishes is to make the game easier. The way to make artifacts "special" is to remove the weaker ones, not to buff them up.

I know we enjoying disagreeing as a sort of sporting principle, but you are in a tiny minority if you really think JLE didn't change much. Sure, he didn't change the basic issue that you only use 20-odd weapons in a game (if that), but he certainly changed the relative desirability of most existing egos and artifacts. I'm not saying it's a bad thing (many of his changes were interesting) simply that the artifact tweaks in 3.1.2 were a long overdue response to that. You were among the crowd complaining about the large number of junk arts.

It is of course a valid alternative approach to remove the junky ones instead of making them better. I chose not to do that, and yes, it is possible to argue that the game has been made slightly easier as a result. I estimated that the total increase in artifact power was of the order of 1%, so you could argue that that makes the game about 1% easier. Something like that. If you tried to claim a 5% difference I'd take some convincing - there are very few people (you and Timo aside) who claim that the game is too easy or indeed at all easy.

P.S. Given the outcry about the one artifact I wanted to weaken, what do you think would have been the response if I'd wanted to remove it altogether, along with a couple of dozen others?

[PowerDiver]

I estimated that the total increase in artifact power was of the order of 1%, so you could argue that that makes the game about 1% easier. Something like that. If you tried to claim a 5% difference I'd take some convincing - there are very few people (you and Timo aside) who claim that the game is too easy or indeed at all easy.

P.S. Given the outcry about the one artifact I wanted to weaken, what do you think would have been the response if I'd wanted to remove it altogether, along with a couple of dozen others?

I think it is much more than 5% easier. The power of the artifacts as a whole doesn't matter. Finding a boosted artifact 10 DLs sooner than you would have found the junkier version can easily be the difference in keeping a weak starter alive through the early levels when they tend to die.

The outcry of removing Thorin entirely would of course be tremendous. It was designed to be assumed to be used in the endgame, or equivalently the egos were designed assuming you would have Thorin available in the endgame. Removing it breaks fundamental assumptions that were used to set up the definitions of what powers should be in which other artifacts and egos and flavors That's entirely different from doubling or tripling the power of early chars sooner by giving them more frequent more powerful early artifacts.

Why not start every char with Dethanc? That is just a frequency issue and wouldn't change the overall power of the artifact set more than 1%, so should be OK if your point about total artifact power were relevant. Yet, it would ruin the game. You ought to have to work for your rewards. Boosting and increasing the frequency of early artifacts takes that away.

The current object generation system generates lots and lots of artifacts. I just checked my wife's current game [randarts], in which she doesn't repeat levels but clears each DL once, and the first artifact at DL 13, six by DL 30, and a dozen by DL 38. IMO we should be increasing artifact rarities, not decreasing them.

[SilverD]

Just confirming something, it was said that recent versions generate more egos than older versions, and that directly increases the success of artifact generation. I think lowering the ego frequency is in a todo list for 3.1.3.

IMO, I agree that they are too frequent. I too clear ever DL level without repeating, and I think I found ~110 artifacts before reaching level 127. Including the One Ring and Soulkeeper.

I think the improvements to the artifacts themselves individually are very nice, but the amount of egos definitely needs to go down. Or at least, the success of generating an artifact in general appeared to be way too high in this current game.

[Malak Darkhunter]

Im on DL42, I have already found (Thorin,Thakkletoth,Thranduil) along with about another dozen artifacts.
One thing I noticed, there are *Tons* of junk ego's I find several on every level, I almost can't carry them back to town to sell, so I quit picking them up entirely. Most of the ego's I have found are practically worthless, they are very weak powered for DL42, basically *junk* The weaker versions need to be on the low-levels, getting progressively more powerful the deeper you go. As it is now the weak versions are generated in with the more powerful ones, basicaly the more powerful ego's are (drowned out) by the weaker ones. From what I can tell there is about 60/40 chance between finding a regular magical item and an ego item.
With artifacts I would say I am finding 1 out of every 50 items dropped, but that could be just because I have had a lucky run.

[Derakon]

Looking at the ego item distributions (as of 3.1.1, so this may have changed), the vast majority of ego types have a native depth of 0. A very few ego-types have deeper native depths:

30: cloaks of the Magi, weapons of Gondolin
40: gloves of Thievery, weapons of Fury, slings of Buckland, ammo of Holy Might
50: gloves of Combat, bows of Lothlorien, bows of the Haradrim

There are no maximal depths in sight, though, which means that when you're generating an ego-armor at depth 100 you have the same ratio of Resist Acid to Elvenkind as you do at depth 0. IMO this contrtibutes strongly to the "too many junk egos" problem. IMO armor of (basic low resist) should just stop getting generated by, oh, level 30 or so; if you get an ego armor at that point, it'll be of Resistance, Elvenkind, Permanence, or Dwarven, since those are the only types left available.

Then we can make ego items in general less common, secure in the knowledge that if they do get generated they're more likely to be useful. The actual number of useful generated ego-items is the same (more or less), but fewer are created.