Modded object file rarities for many items - anyone else want to test?

[Timo Pietilä]

It does say that it should support 2 such lines. A quick note, tho...I expect it was a typo, but allocation is the A: line.

I can confirm what ewert noted; it doesn't work right. What I did: modify the A lines for rounded pebbles and iron shots, first to this:

N:110:& Rounded Pebble~
A:100:0 to 10
A:10:11 to 100

Could this work:

N:110:& Rounded Pebble~
A:100:0 to 10 | 10:11 to 100

Like in resists?

[ewert]

Okay tested initially the | style, no parse errors, and scummed dlvl1 first room a bit and found some pebbles, so atleast it is not failing to generate the first part of the allocation. I will now mod my file to that format and test further.

[ewert]

Okay, new file again, went through again with the '|' to separate pairs of allocation info. Changed a bit of stuff again while going through. Testing myself now to see if it works, atleast no parse errors.

[ewert]

Dunno if it is working or not ... farming dlvl 95-96, but have 1 healing potion and I think picked it up before the alloc increase level ... and many end game staves, even seen most of the rods. But no healing pots. I think it does not work, now it just uses the first pair of the info (the lower lvl ones). Seems to be bugged, not working with multiple lines nor with |.

edit: Found wand of polymorph, which means the | worked. So it seems the problem with healing potions is, tadaa, force_good_great whatever coding?

[ewert]

Went through monster file checking drop_good, drop_great. Not too many monsters carry the flags, but many big droppers do.

I propose a change to the object.txt and object creation/allocation code so that GOOD or GREAT flags are in the object.txt file, not hardcoded.

[Timo Pietilä]

Went through monster file checking drop_good, drop_great. Not too many monsters carry the flags, but many big droppers do.

I propose a change to the object.txt and object creation/allocation code so that GOOD or GREAT flags are in the object.txt file, not hardcoded.

That's a good idea. Allows much easier modification of things.

OTOH I feel that there are now too many DROP_GOOD monsters around.

(I really need to get my "variant" playable. Unfortunately it is now way too hot to think straight).

[ewert]

I went through the code to creating items, but didn't get much intel TBH ...

But it got me thinking ... what if I drop all base weapon/armor items WAY down. I mean, any GOOD or GREAT drops force them to happen often enough already? That way people could hunt the big things for gear, and consumables would be dropping more from the stuff killed in the way ... Sounds like a plan to me.

I'm not quite sure if the | works properly, it certainly has dropped some items that would not have if it did not allow the latter allocation ratio to happen, but for some reason I've like drank 5 or so xp potions in the last hour or so of farming, but those healing potions just seem to be so ... rare.

I'll do an overkill armor/weapon allocation reduction version next to see what happens.

[ewert]

Okay so I'm thinking again, what could I do with the current code base. If I "overkill" weapons, and reduce low level item allocation values, cut some off (very few) altogether from deeper levels, then:

As levels get deeper, the "junk" get more rare due to increased number of different items available, as well as the new ones having higher allocation values. Thus deeper down more good stuff, less crap stuff.

I'll give it a whirl. I think I my mage will suicide so I can test the new file from ground up. He could take Morgoth anyways as soon as he had cleared some more uniques, already have the prereq of 4 healing/magi staves and Kelek's, that's infinite mana and healing more or less and banishes.

[ewert]

Okay so far my test is going okay, kobold warrior who zoomed to dlvl 20 with a nice *slay orc* weapon, a few artifacts dropped there that enabled him to get FA/SI and 5 blows with a nice weapon, so quite well set off and dropped down to 30. So far useful consumables have been nicely plentiful. Enough weapons/armor around too, not too many, but enough. The rods (traps, doors, treasure) have also been found so far, 1-2 of each so far, not bad (one from BM though). All in all am pretty happy at the moment. The char is quite powerful due to lucky artifact drops (those are unmodded by just object.txt modding so not my fault) at the moment, but yeah pretty happy at the moment with it.

Will see how stat gain goes next.

[ewert]

Rings of slaying had +hit and +dmg bonus ranges upside down, oopsies. Fixed that.

Okay my kobold warrior is now happily diving (not drop dead diving, just taking most downstairs if nothing nice in range) and around dlvl70. So far what I surmise from this test is:

Maybe too many healing potions. Yes, imagine that. Then again, my warrior has lucked out big time with randarts and is a nice killing machine with acid ring of about 700dmg/rnd against acid-susceptible. No lack of good weapons and armor, definitely seems that the good/great drop routines keep good care of that. I think it includes missiles. Plenty enough missiles IMHO.

Rods seem fine. Still no rods of detection for me, but I'm cool with that, I have traps/treasure/doors at the moment. Okay supply of those so far. Stat gain was not bad at all. I did not really stop for stat gain at all, just kept on going, as I found good drops around those levels to bring me to great dmg and basic resists anyways. STR/CON/DEX was maxed without being noticed much, which feels imho a good thing.

All in all so far it has felt quite nice. I have had much luck with artifacts though. But ... it feels quite nice change of pace, being able to just sort of casually descend and many consumables/nonarmor/nonweapons just falling somewhat in place. Late now so will leave the 80s and finally 95+ dlvls for later. Those should have really mostly just good stuff dropping, will see how it goes there.

[Timo Pietilä]

Sounds very good. Attach a copy here so that we can playtest it as well.

Zip it first. Oook has a very low limit for .txt but allows quite large .zip -files.

[ewert]

The original post has the updated object.zip whenever I make changes to it.

As an aside, since I squelch most wands/rods I don't use I don't know their appearance numbers, but considering I _have_ many of them squelched that "should" have appeared, for arcane object using classes I think it's working somewhat properly.

Mind you, if you test, don't freak out about accuracy rings. Yeah I doubled their +hit range, so +30 is possible. It's about creating choices. For warriors, even +30 is not enough as warriors already have great fighting skills. But for the other classes, it might actually be tempting to use a +30hit ring ...

[Timo Pietilä]

Mind you, if you test, don't freak out about accuracy rings. Yeah I doubled their +hit range, so +30 is possible. It's about creating choices. For warriors, even +30 is not enough as warriors already have great fighting skills. But for the other classes, it might actually be tempting to use a +30hit ring ...

Rangers definitely would benefit from those rings.

[ewert]

Yep, atleast more than before. To-hit formula though results in diminished gains if one already is in high to-hit chances.

Ps. This was written with Nokia 5230 handwriting. Whee! :P

[ewert]

Btw, the RNG is smiling at me, I'm swamped with artifact drops ... or atleast it feels like it. I don't see how it could be changed from adjusting object.txt allocation numbers, so it just must be the RNG ... =P