Diving, endgame and lack of consumables

[Timo Pietilä]

Hello.

This is first time in my games where my char is ready to M way before I have necessary consumables to finish the fight. I usually have overkill supply of items in my normal game, this however has been extreme diving.

In current vanilla consumables are practically nonexistant.

So: What is the absolute minimum I could use to try killing M? Comp char, so ranger is in question. Eddie suggested big pile of CLW, CSW and CLW with a lot of scrolls of phase door. I can see how that could work, but how much is enough?

[Derakon]

You probably have the strength to carry 80+ CCW, so why not?

My paladin beat Morgy using 43 CCW potions and, oh, maybe 15 casts of the Heal spell? And one *Healing* potion. Assuming you have enough Destruction to deal with summons, seems like you ought to be able to shoot Morgy down without needing any more than a full stack of CCW potions.

Then again, it's been ages since I took a ranger down to the bottom, so my advice could well be suspect.

[Timo Pietilä]

You probably have the strength to carry 80+ CCW, so why not?

My paladin beat Morgy using 43 CCW potions and, oh, maybe 15 casts of the Heal spell? And one *Healing* potion. Assuming you have enough Destruction to deal with summons, seems like you ought to be able to shoot Morgy down without needing any more than a full stack of CCW potions.

Then again, it's been ages since I took a ranger down to the bottom, so my advice could well be suspect.

I haven't seen any *healing* potions. One Life. Maybe two heal-potions which I immediately needed against some unique I was *hoping* would not use his worst possible attack as a very first move. I have found total whopping three *destruct* scrolls. One banishment and one mass banishment.

Those things are *rare*. All I get from drops is junk. More junk and yet more junk. Occasional artifact or "maybe useful" ego every now and then. BM has sold almost as many stat-potions as I have found in dungeon.

[PowerDiver]

For comfort's sake, you probably want 4 potions of LIFE and/or *HEAL. I typically use 2 or 3. As you reduce their number, you increase the likelihood you have to phase to heal in a dangerous situation. There is little need for plain !heal. If you are down 450 hp, 3 !CCW cure more than a !heal. And 2 CLW from MB1 are almost as good as a !CCW, but I didn't notice restore mana or debility in your char dump, so you might not have unlimited CLW.

You could always use a wand of clone monster and a death quasit, recharge or teleport other as needed, if you get desperate. That's what I had to do when I first started diving long ago.

[Fendell Orcbane]

I haven't seen any *healing* potions. One Life. Maybe two heal-potions which I immediately needed against some unique I was *hoping* would not use his worst possible attack as a very first move. I have found total whopping three *destruct* scrolls. One banishment and one mass banishment.

Those things are *rare*. All I get from drops is junk. More junk and yet more junk. Occasional artifact or "maybe useful" ego every now and then. BM has sold almost as many stat-potions as I have found in dungeon.

I feel your pain...I'm almost in the same bind. I'm not ready for Morgoth yet but I'm getting there. And yeah I've been getting a lot of junk from the Uniques.

[PowerDiver]

There is also a lot of variance. That goes with rarity of course. My most recent trip, from DL83 to DL96, using the Palantir on most but not all levels [didn't wait for recharge], I collected

2 !*HEAL
2 !LIFE
1 ?banish
1 _banish

No regular !heal. That's the variance I guess. I think the best sources are vaults and ancient dragons.

To put the drops in perspective, the lesser variance items are dungeon spellbooks. I collected 7 MB5, 5 MB7 and 2 MB8. There were probably more that I did not pick up. I didn't see any MB9, and I ignore MB6.

[Timo Pietilä]

And 2 CLW from MB1 are almost as good as a !CCW, but I didn't notice restore mana or debility in your char dump, so you might not have unlimited CLW.

I have seen few of those. Unfortunately in my usual games I had not need to rely on spells in fight with ranger so I have not collected those. I haven't seen any debility, only RM potions. Not many though. Not collecting those was a mistake.

To give some estimate how bad this lack of consumables really is, I have squelched only bad potions, scrolls, wands and staves (and non-ego weapons and armor, but these need ID before they get squelched). When I emptied a Troll Pit (95 monsters) I got approx five weapons & five armor, and few useless scrolls and something like three wands and rods and staves and one potion (of boldness IIRC). None of which had any use for me. That's about 20-25 items out of 95 monsters. Should be more like 75 items out of 95 monsters. It doesn't matter if they are mainly junk, point is that there needs to be more items.

This lack of consumables *really* need fixing. I thought that hunting uniques is boring, but hunting basic consumables is really tedious and boring. In order to get those you need to kill monsters that are absolutely no risk to you. Any monster with {good} drop is *not* wanted because you know that they cannot drop anything you want. That's opposite of what it should be.

[Magnate]

I have seen few of those. Unfortunately in my usual games I had not need to rely on spells in fight with ranger so I have not collected those. I haven't seen any debility, only RM potions. Not many though. Not collecting those was a mistake.

To give some estimate how bad this lack of consumables really is, I have squelched only bad potions, scrolls, wands and staves (and non-ego weapons and armor, but these need ID before they get squelched). When I emptied a Troll Pit (95 monsters) I got approx five weapons & five armor, and few useless scrolls and something like three wands and rods and staves and one potion (of boldness IIRC). None of which had any use for me. That's about 20-25 items out of 95 monsters. Should be more like 75 items out of 95 monsters. It doesn't matter if they are mainly junk, point is that there needs to be more items.

This lack of consumables *really* need fixing. I thought that hunting uniques is boring, but hunting basic consumables is really tedious and boring. In order to get those you need to kill monsters that are absolutely no risk to you. Any monster with {good} drop is *not* wanted because you know that they cannot drop anything you want. That's opposite of what it should be.

Leisa has shown me this problem as well, but I don't agree that the solution is more drops (and therefore more junk). If anything the number of weapons and armour needs to be toned down still further - I am throwing away 2-4 {splendid} weapons on every level. By contrast, the number of consumables (particularly potions, but less so for devices) needs to be increased quite a bit. I think Takk knows all this, and we should see some changes for 3.1.3.

[Timo Pietilä]

I think Takk knows all this, and we should see some changes for 3.1.3.

Which reminds me: Have anybody heard anything from Takk recently? Is he still alive?

All I see is lots of other devs talking about things and making changes here and there.

[Magnate]

Which reminds me: Have anybody heard anything from Takk recently? Is he still alive?

All I see is lots of other devs talking about things and making changes here and there.

Yes, he's around, just busy with RL at the moment. He's been clearing some old angband-dev emails very recently, so maybe he'll reappear and suddenly release 3.1.3 when none of us are looking!

[Timo Pietilä]

By contrast, the number of consumables (particularly potions, but less so for devices) needs to be increased quite a bit. I think Takk knows all this, and we should see some changes for 3.1.3.

Is there a code for "maximum depth" for devices and scrolls? Some practically useless devices/scrolls could be left out for deep levels.

In old version there were "rarity curve" for items which could be tuned using edit-files. Some items were very common deep, some very common early, some for entire duration of the game. in modern version there is this:

A: commonness : min " to " max

What does that mean? There is separate rarity and depth -setting.

[Magnate]

Is there a code for "maximum depth" for devices and scrolls? Some practically useless devices/scrolls could be left out for deep levels.

In old version there were "rarity curve" for items which could be tuned using edit-files. Some items were very common deep, some very common early, some for entire duration of the game. in modern version there is this:

A: commonness : min " to " max

What does that mean? There is separate rarity and depth -setting.

The A: line does exactly what you want: it sets a probability of generation (1 to 100) within a depth range (levels 0 to 127). So if you want to make useless devices/scrolls not appear below, say, 3000', set the "max" parameter to 60.

You can also have multiple A: lines, to give yourself a rarity curve, e.g.:

Potion of Decreasing Usefulness
A:90:1 to 30
A:50:31 to 50
A:25:51 to 70

Etc.

[Timo Pietilä]

The A: line does exactly what you want: it sets a probability of generation (1 to 100) within a depth range (levels 0 to 127). So if you want to make useless devices/scrolls not appear below, say, 3000', set the "max" parameter to 60.

You can also have multiple A: lines, to give yourself a rarity curve, e.g.:

Potion of Decreasing Usefulness
A:90:1 to 30
A:50:31 to 50
A:25:51 to 70

Etc.

Should we then re-visit old edit-files? They did have that rarity curve using multiple depth-rarity settings.

BTW, every single item here has "max" set at 100. Levels end to 127. Bug?

Also some of the useful rods have way too low rarity setting:

N:448:Restoration
G:-:d
I:66:19:0
W:80:0:15:25000
A:6:80 to 100
P:0:1d1:0:0:0
F:EASY_KNOW | IGNORE_ELEC
E:RESTORE_ST_LEV:1000

6/100 possibility of getting rod of Restoration from way reduced drops is borderline impossible to find. BoS are way more common than that it is. I think Ringil is more common.

Reading description of different fields Rod of Curing (currently useless) has this:

N:446:Curing
G:-:d
I:66:17:0
W:65:0:15:15000
A:35:20 to 100
P:0:1d1:0:0:0
F:EASY_KNOW | IGNORE_ELEC
E:CURE_TEMP:100

And should have this:

N:446:Curing
G:-:d
I:66:17:0
W:0:0:15:15000
A:35:20 to 100
P:0:1d1:0:0:0
F:EASY_KNOW | IGNORE_ELEC
E:CURE_TEMP:10

Then it could be useful. Activate as dlvl 0 item while found at dlvl 20 and up with rarity 35/100, means you can actually use it to cure side-effects, I also changed recharge speed for it.

[Magnate]

Should we then re-visit old edit-files? They did have that rarity curve using multiple depth-rarity settings.

BTW, every single item here has "max" set at 100. Levels end to 127. Bug?

Also some of the useful rods have way too low rarity setting:

N:448:Restoration
G:-:d
I:66:19:0
W:80:0:15:25000
A:6:80 to 100
P:0:1d1:0:0:0
F:EASY_KNOW | IGNORE_ELEC
E:RESTORE_ST_LEV:1000

6/100 possibility of getting rod of Restoration from way reduced drops is borderline impossible to find. BoS are way more common than that it is. I think Ringil is more common.

Reading description of different fields Rod of Curing (currently useless) has this:

N:446:Curing
G:-:d
I:66:17:0
W:65:0:15:15000
A:35:20 to 100
P:0:1d1:0:0:0
F:EASY_KNOW | IGNORE_ELEC
E:CURE_TEMP:100

And should have this:

N:446:Curing
G:-:d
I:66:17:0
W:0:0:15:15000
A:35:20 to 100
P:0:1d1:0:0:0
F:EASY_KNOW | IGNORE_ELEC
E:CURE_TEMP:10

Then it could be useful. Activate as dlvl 0 item while found at dlvl 20 and up with rarity 35/100, means you can actually use it to cure side-effects, I also changed recharge speed for it.

Happy to make -Curing easier to use and quicker to recharge: I think I would also make it shallower and worth less, so that it's actually something one might use for a few levels, instead of an obvious sell.

The -Restoration used to have rarity 16, and all A lines were initially done with 100/rarity, which is why it ended up with A:6. But yes, since devices don't appear in DROP_GOOD or DROP_GREAT, that is a bit rare.

I think the maxima being 100 rather than 127 is deliberate - anyone who footles around after defeating Morgoth deserves what they (don't) get!

[andrewdoull]

Is there any reason that potions and scrolls are not generated in stacks once they are sufficiently in depth?

It worked a treat in Unangband and would directly address this problem, as well as making other effects worth attempting to use...

Andrew