So what else should we revert?

[Timo Pietilä]

The only change is that they are now theoretically survivable, which, as I said before, means that newbies have a chance to discover why FA is so important without losing a character to paralyzers.

I think the major effect is mid-game with chars that have high AC, HP and saving throw. Ghouls and Carrion Crawlers are no more instant death if you encounter them one at the time without FA. Later in game when losing one turn can kill you FA is still needed.

That change is like having possibility to get blinked by gravity breath out of gravity hound reach after already getting KO (happened to me once with double digit HP left). It is possibility of survival, not in any way guaranteed survival.

[Magnate]

But that's a change, not a reversion!

To be clear, my problem with value pricing less about the economics than the gameplay. Consider

cost to buy MB8 / price received selling an average ego weapon

cost to buy boots speed+10 / price received selling avg ego weapon

Those ratios have dropped enormously because of value pricing. If you reduce selling prices, that would at least address this issue.

That's my point. What started off as a simple "revert value pricing" subthread has ended up with an alternative solution which is not a reversion, and therefore keeps the good parts of value pricing while (partly) addressing the broken parts.

[Magnate]

I don't think it's necessary that items get a thoroughly detailed pricing scheme that precisely measures how valuable a particular item is to the player both right now and in the endgame. If nothing else, that would lead to oddities like shopkeepers dropping the price of items as the player acquires abilities the items provide ("Oh, you have Thranduil; guess I'll give you a discount on this Cap of Telepathy then"). Honestly, I think the current algorithm is not fundamentally flawed; it just needs to be tweaked for some of the abilities whose value can't easily be calculated from the datafiles.

That said, there might be some value in having a price factor that devalues abilities when they're readily available on multiple slots.

Eddie convinced me a year or two ago that the value of an attribute is, as Tiburon points out, dependent on the item slot - hence ticket #1005. A lot of what Tiburon says is spot on: a one-size-fits-all model can't work for everything, and adjustments are needed. I agree with you that this doesn't mean that the approach is fundamentally broken - but as I've said to Eddie and others many times, if anyone wants to send me a patch containing a better approach, I'm very happy to test it and commit it. In the meantime, I'll keep trying to improve the approach we have now. There are several tickets open which will improve various aspects, and I'm happy to hear further suggestions.

[Magnate]

ESP isn't worth 35 damage/blow on any equipment. (Though it may be worth it as a swap.) I would certainly use Ring of Acid + Glaive of Pain vs Sauron--+65--, even if I had to give up ESP. I would probably use a Ring of Slay Evil--+32--as well.

I agree with you - but hats of ESP are still coming out too cheap when they appear in the shops. It's this thing I mentioned earlier, that there are some prices that just don't feel right, even though mathematically they are about right. (Boots of Speed are the other key example.) When I've done the per-slot rewrite it might be better (hats of ESP way more expensive than a weapon with ESP and crappy damage).

[Magnate]

Haradrim +1 blow/+1 shot?

A.

Revert just the shot, or the blow too? Do me a favour folks - let's at least acknowledge that nobody used Haradrim before this change, and now everybody uses it. Ok that's gone a bit too far, even for an aggravating item, but it did at least address the original problem.

So what do people think about removing the +1 shot and keeping the +1 blow? Would anyone use it then?

[Magnate]

I would also say that any buffs that have been applied to the "core set" artifacts should be reverted. Here's the core set of armors as I would call them (with no indication of which, if any, have been buffed; I haven't tracked artifact changes):

Phial/Star/Arkenstone/Palantir
Narya/Nenya/Vilya/One Ring
Isildur/Rohirrim/Celeborn/Belegennon/Arvedui/Caspanion/Thalkettoth
Thorin/Celegorm/Anarion
Thranduil/Holhenneth/Gondor
Colluin/Holcolleth/Colannon/Luthien
Cambeleg/Cammithrim/Fingolfin
Dal-i-thalion/Thror

As I see it the game was feasibly winnable without relying on any buffs that these may have gotten, so buffing them, if it was done, was unnecessary. The same probably holds true for weapon artifacts, but I'm not about to list all of the weapons that any given player would commonly use in a single game.

I'm not sure if it wasn't clear at the time or if it's simply too long ago, but the changes to the standard artifact set were made purely to increase the usability of never-used or rarely-used artifacts. So I went out of my way to avoid changing any which I knew were commonly used - I even tried to downgrade one or two to make them less obvious no-brainers over others.

I can't swear that I didn't change anything on your list - I know I added something to Celegorm (after seeing a thread about how useless it was), and I think I added something to one or two of the cloaks - but in general my approach was the same as yours - these items were fine as-is, and I just focused on the others. From the threads I've read since, a number of those changes have resulted in previously unloved artifacts seeing a lot more use ('thancs, Paur..s, Gondricam, Forasgil, etc. - there was even a thread where Eddie said he had been using Turmil for the first time ever and couldn't work out what was different!). As with Haradrim, it's possible that some of the changes were slightly overkill (there was a worry at one point that people were finding 'thancs every game, before finding any comparable ego weapons - but this seems to have gone away) - so I'm happy to revert any that are.

(This assumes that you're not referring to the previous set of changes to standard artifacts, which were part of the JLE patch.)

[PowerDiver]

Revert just the shot, or the blow too? Do me a favour folks - let's at least acknowledge that nobody used Haradrim before this change, and now everybody uses it. Ok that's gone a bit too far, even for an aggravating item, but it did at least address the original problem.

So what do people think about removing the +1 shot and keeping the +1 blow? Would anyone use it then?

Probably not.

It is too hard to balance an aggravating item. You will either make it grossly overpowered or else people won't even consider it until they are wielding the Palantir. If you want to make a mod, take out the aggravation.

[Timo Pietilä]

It is too hard to balance an aggravating item. You will either make it grossly overpowered or else people won't even consider it until they are wielding the Palantir. If you want to make a mod, take out the aggravation.

I agree. Aggravation is difficult thing to balance. It kind of has breakpoint because that effect is not cumulative any additional aggravating item doesn't matter. Until that breakpoint is breached nobody would use it, and after it doesn't matter and you use multiple. And that breakpoint is multi-item breakpoint, not single.

Like if you already have Doomcaller or Deathwreaker, Palantir and Hammerhand aggravation in Haradrim doesn't matter at all. If you use Aule, Arkenstone and Gondor aggravation in Haradrim prevents its use completely.

So: both, shots and blows away, and aggravation away.

Or remove entire shield.

IMO it is broken enough that it can't be used as it is, and if you remove the broken part it becomes so weak that nobody will use it anyway. It is not needed or missed if it simply goes away. It's one of the JLE-added shields anyway and not part of the original set. Removing that increases odds that something useful gets generated instead.

[fizzix]

So: both, shots and blows away, and aggravation away.

Or remove entire shield.

I'd prefer to leave it as is and just make it very rare. Like Ringil rare. It's fine to have incredibly powerful items, it's not fine if every player finds them...

[Derakon]

I'd say take away the shot, the blows, and the aggravation, then increase the STR/CON boost to +3. That way it competes favorably with Thorin if you don't need the resists that Thorin gives.

[Magnate]

I'd say take away the shot, the blows, and the aggravation, then increase the STR/CON boost to +3. That way it competes favorably with Thorin if you don't need the resists that Thorin gives.

This is hilarious - four different suggestions from four different posts.

Just in case people aren't aware, fixing aggravation (and re-vamping curses in general) was right at the top of Takk's to-do list for 3.1.3 - so hold your breath folks, we're nearly there!

[PowerDiver]

This is hilarious - four different suggestions from four different posts.

Just in case people aren't aware, fixing aggravation (and re-vamping curses in general) was right at the top of Takk's to-do list for 3.1.3 - so hold your breath folks, we're nearly there!

If the long term solution is that aggravation will change so it doesn't matter so much, why isn't the short term solution to remove it and then later add it back? Why boost it to be powerful even with aggravation, knowing that aggravation will be weakened later?

[Rizwan]

Would going to themed attributes help? Like ESP can only be on head gear and maybe amulets, speed can only be on boots or maybe also armor, +blows can only be on swords and such and +shots can only be on launchers etc.

[fizzix]

Would going to themed attributes help? Like ESP can only be on head gear and maybe amulets, speed can only be on boots or maybe also armor, +blows can only be on swords and such and +shots can only be on launchers etc.

I think that'd lead to very stale inventory decisions.

The randart code already favors these attributes on specific items, although I think the favoritism could be heavier. For example I think that a game with no randart helms + ESP should be a very large outlier, maybe like a 1% chance. Similarly with no boots with +5 speed or greater. I've seen the lack of ESP helms in 2 games so far, and getting boots with high speed almost never happens.

[konijn_]

I'd prefer to leave it as is and just make it very rare. Like Ringil rare. It's fine to have incredibly powerful items, it's not fine if every player finds them...

Close enough.

It's fine to have incredibly powerful items, it's not fine if every player finds all of them...

T.