reducing detection importance?

[Timo Pietilä]

A common theme on these boards, and an important lesson that I'm still learning, is just how critical it is to detect. So much so that if a priest or mage loses book 1 before getting a better means of detection, they may as well haul @$$ back to town and buy another because they're sitting ducks.

The end result is that most everyone macros up detection and spams it constantly. This seems a bit....ham handed.

While I realize it's a pretty low priority, all else considered, I am wondering if anyone had toyed with the idea of dramatically increasing the range for light sources and infravision.

I'm thinking triple the range for infravision, and maybe pentuple for light sources.

That wouldn't reduce the importance of detection. You still wouldn't see around corners and not know if there is pass_wall monster right next to you in other side of the wall.

I have sometimes thought of separating telepathy from ESP. ESP is acronym of "extra sensory perception" which can mean a much more than telepathy. Something like detecting dungeon structure, practically magic-mapping while you walk, doors, traps etc. and monsters but not tell you what kind of monster it is (gray moving question mark perhaps). Maybe cumulative or with pval-controlled so that if you have perfect ESP you detect everything while walking. Maybe distance-limited with pval. Something like that.

[Magnate]

That wouldn't reduce the importance of detection. You still wouldn't see around corners and not know if there is pass_wall monster right next to you in other side of the wall.

I have sometimes thought of separating telepathy from ESP. ESP is acronym of "extra sensory perception" which can mean a much more than telepathy. Something like detecting dungeon structure, practically magic-mapping while you walk, doors, traps etc. and monsters but not tell you what kind of monster it is (gray moving question mark perhaps). Maybe cumulative or with pval-controlled so that if you have perfect ESP you detect everything while walking. Maybe distance-limited with pval. Something like that.

This is a nice idea. As an easy start, I like the idea of tripling infravision too.

[Zikke]

Magic Mapping while you walk would be pretty neat, even if Telepathy items were made more rare.

[fizzix]

make hats and amulets of infravision give something like +5 to +15 bonuses. I remember playing a game where my first usable amulet was infravision and same with my first hat, so I had +10 infravision. It was insanely useful in the early levels, until the cold-blooded monsters start showing up.

[Zyphyr]

I have sometimes thought of separating telepathy from ESP. ESP is acronym of "extra sensory perception" which can mean a much more than telepathy. Something like detecting dungeon structure, practically magic-mapping while you walk, doors, traps etc. and monsters but not tell you what kind of monster it is (gray moving question mark perhaps). Maybe cumulative or with pval-controlled so that if you have perfect ESP you detect everything while walking. Maybe distance-limited with pval. Something like that.

Great idea.