Auto-scummer

[ewert]

I guess it was taken away in the new(sort of) version(s), any reason why?

Atleast personally I feel much more bored about most levels now. And I rather play for excitement than routine "detect, nothing interesting, move, detect, nope nothing here either, lets go to another level ... again" myself. I like tackling pits, vaults are even more of a bonus (maybe too much equipment laying around tbh) but even pits often would be more fun.

Did I miss some discussion about it? Searched a quick peek, only came with "should not need it anymore" pretty much.

PS. Playing a troll mage, love the new mana costs, LOVE one of the new artifacts (+50 armor defender artifact weapon, OMG! =P), but also rings of escaping are still "broken" for mages ... cheap early +4 speed rings with pretty much zero drawbacks, even for a troll mage ...

[Napsterbater]

I guess it was taken away in the new(sort of) version(s), any reason why?

Game balance. An autoscum game is significantly different from a regular game, to the point where making changes would require two different codebases, one for regular games and one for autoscum games. Think about regular angband vs. ironman. Arguments against changing vanilla are often that it would hurt ironman. But V isn't ironman. At some point you just have to make a decision as to what needs to go in Vanilla and what should be left for the variants. There's a variant already tailored toward ironman style play, so it's not brought up as much anymore.

If you're really craving novelty in your roguelikes, you should try a variant or two.

[ewert]

Actually I am back with V since lots of new changes. Was just wondering, as it was a birth option anyways, why was it taken away ...

I like NPP style quest type levels, though the caverns can be a "bit" time consuming...

Oh well, I guess will play some kind of priest after this troll mage, or hope for a lucky palantir while stat-gaining at lvl60 ... =P

[PowerDiver]

If you clear some DL in 3.1, on average you will get more egos and artifacts than if you cleared the same DL playing with autoscum in 3.0. That's not actually been measured by anyone that I know of, but I believe it to be true.

[ewert]

While that may be true, I guess I am coming at the issue from the "other" direction. Excitement in doing stuff, as in clearing stuff & killing stuff. Kinda like I mentioned vaults have tbh too much stuff lying around.

I'd love an autoscummer that would scum for either unique monsters or atleast pits for each level. Stuff to do, people to kill. Loot happens anyways, I rather it comes from killing than on the ground ...

[Magnate]

While that may be true, I guess I am coming at the issue from the "other" direction. Excitement in doing stuff, as in clearing stuff & killing stuff. Kinda like I mentioned vaults have tbh too much stuff lying around.

I'd love an autoscummer that would scum for either unique monsters or atleast pits for each level. Stuff to do, people to kill. Loot happens anyways, I rather it comes from killing than on the ground ...

You're missing the point. "Scumming" arose because the level generator wasn't doing its job properly. Takk fixed it, so the autoscummer is no longer needed. Yes there are still issues with item drops - you can never get these things perfect - but asking for an autoscummer is asking to go backwards. Just ask for improvements in level generation - there are devs interested in improving it.

[ewert]

Okay, I'll rephrase not using autoscummer as it seems that was more loot oriented? =)

Any coders, variantbuilders etc. considering something like making generated great objects (OoD egos, artifacts) not just lie on the floor, but "spawn" pits or vaults or uniques holding them over themselves? =P And put in higher chances for pits and uniques in general if it is otherwise a boring level? =P

I'm not looking after the loot at all in regards to autoscumming ... I just like whittling away at pits etc. much more than breezing past areas detecting and killing single monsters. TBH single monsters don't cause any difficulties anymore, and since am careful enough usually I don't tackle foolishly difficult ones anymore even if I have dived fast.

I even often kill hydras ...

[zaimoni]

Actually I am back with V since lots of new changes. Was just wondering, as it was a birth option anyways, why was it taken away ...

Considering that the current monster and item generation gives you the best of both worlds regarding autoscum (monsters are not effectively autoscummed, objects are effectively autoscummed): what is there to complain about? (Of course, some future version will partially undo this in the name of balance....)

[PowerDiver]

While that may be true, I guess I am coming at the issue from the "other" direction. Excitement in doing stuff, as in clearing stuff & killing stuff. Kinda like I mentioned vaults have tbh too much stuff lying around.

I'd love an autoscummer that would scum for either unique monsters or atleast pits for each level. Stuff to do, people to kill. Loot happens anyways, I rather it comes from killing than on the ground ...

When I say "clear" a level, I mean collect the drops from all of the monsters that start on the level. There are fewer vaults and perhaps fewer egos and artifacts on the floor. Fewer non-egos are dropped than before, but significantly more egos and more artifacts are generated.

[ewert]

Zaimoni, I guess I'd like an autoscummer for monsters (uniques, pits, no-artifacts-on-the-ground vaults) then, maybe I'm strange that way. =P

PD, okay I get what people mean, artifacts and egos drop rates and such are better than autoscummer floorcreation rates and previous drop rates combined. I really never had a problem with droprates, I just have a feeling that autoscummer also created more interesting levels (am I right? I don't know) on a stuff-to-kill basis that I sort of miss.

Or maybe I'm just having long streaks of boring levels and it is the RNG messing with me.