reduce artifact drop rate

[Tiburon Silverflame]

What is the difference between that and preventing generation in the first place?

How am I being prevented from generating a slay orc weapon, and what indirect effects does that induce on the items I can create?

It may be that they're functionally equivalent, but it could mean that, for example, that every ego item created at DL 70, is *really* good...but there wasn't any change in the probability that a Good item becomes an Ego item. So DL 80 might be awash in Buckland slings and Lothlorien bows and Gondolin weapons.

[Pete Mack]

Well, I can't see much use for Slay Orc (ever) or Slay Troll past dl 40 or so.
And I'd rather never see (say) a Blade of Chaos (Slay Orc), which is about the silliest ego combination imaginable.

[Derakon]

Actually, Slay Orc and Slay Animal are the only "Slay Foo" weapons that are remotely likely to be useful, simply because by the time the other monster types start being a problem, you've found better weapons -- even if they're just *Slay Orc*s and *Slay Animal*s instead. So I don't see much point for any of the other straight Slay Foo weapons; they're really only present for completeness's sake.

That said, a Blade of Chaos of Slay Orc is pretty damned silly.

[nullfame]

"never show me even un-ID'd items that are worse than this quality level"... is of course open to some abuse, though, since it means that every item you see must be notable at some level even if you don't know what it is yet.

Can I ask a possibly unrelated question: at what point, regardless of class (i.e., for a warrior), is ID practically unrestrained beyond taking up a slot? That is, when are money, weight, and mana no longer an issue? dl40?

[Hariolor]

a SoS MoD BoC of *slay dragon* or *slay demon* can be conditionally useful

as can a heavy crossbow firing either of the same

but it would be nice if ego weapon types were a little more "intelligently" distributed by the RNG, whether by applying min/max depths, context-sensitive generation, whatever.

And if we're griping about slays, how about brands, which are universally useless IMHO. Only a top-tier weapon "of acid" is ever useful, because it potentially frees up a ring slot against Sauron. If Vanilla implemented pokemon-style elemental interaction, this might rectify this - but that might also cause more problems than it solves...

[Derakon]

Can I ask a possibly unrelated question: at what point, regardless of class (i.e., for a warrior), is ID practically unrestrained beyond taking up a slot? That is, when are money, weight, and mana no longer an issue? dl40?

I suppose that depends on how heavily you focus on acquiring cash. Generally my warriors aren't too worried about running out of ID by dlvl 20 or so, though there's still the occasional burnt staff to slow them down. Even with that, though, I'm not able to ID every single item I see; most of the time I'm relying on pseudo to prune the list down.

a SoS MoD BoC of *slay dragon* or *slay demon* can be conditionally useful

I'm not arguing the utility of the *slay* weapons, since they have extra abilities and some of them have higher multipliers.

as can a heavy crossbow firing either of the same

Branded/slay ammo is also not what I'm talking about.

And if we're griping about slays, how about brands, which are universally useless IMHO. Only a top-tier weapon "of acid" is ever useful, because it potentially frees up a ring slot against Sauron.

You're fixating on the endgame. Branded weapons are very useful early on (through dlvl 40 or so) because their x3 multipliers apply to almost everything you meet. I had a priest who was ecstatic to find a shocking mace because it almost tripled his pathetic melee output.

In the midgame, non-acid brands become less useful, sure. But there's nothing wrong with that.

[fizzix]

It may be that they're functionally equivalent, but it could mean that, for example, that every ego item created at DL 70, is *really* good...but there wasn't any change in the probability that a Good item becomes an Ego item. So DL 80 might be awash in Buckland slings and Lothlorien bows and Gondolin weapons.

You've got it. That's why you don't go with the prevent creation route, you go with the automated squelching route. You don't want a +2 lothlorien bow or a +2 buckland sling showing up every game. Those should be as rare as the Haradrim shield (also too common).

[Tiburon Silverflame]

The notion of using item power is a good one, because the brand/slay in itself is only part of the overall damage equation. A katana of slay animal is going to remain a potentially useful choice longer than a whip of slay animal...albeit, probably not much.

This is kind of getting off topic from the original point, so I'll try it back together with a summary of my views. Point 1 is the most important and I would like to know if people agree. Anyway:

1. There are too many artifacts generated

Not necessarily. The problem may not lie with the number of artifacts; it may be with the quality. I like artifacts...even the lower-power ones. I'd rather find and use a 'thanc dagger than a generic trident of frost, even if they're probably pretty close to equally effective in melee (assume I enchant the trident to +9,+9 as I can).

The problem is more likely to be that the game-breaker artifacts are too easy to find...and I'll also toss in, that there's too much dead space in the dungeon.

I think what I'd rather see, is a *massive* reduction in the number of ego weapons produced, to put more of a spotlight on the low- and mid-power artifacts for longer in the game. For the late-game and end-game artifacts, work on rarity and min depth. If we're gonna stay with 100 levels, *at least* 40 of which are basically pointless, then Ringil shouldn't be popping on DL 20...even occasionally. Note that this is *especially* true if an item can start popping above stat gain...because the one stretch of levels that most people work fairly extensively, is the stat gain region. We're searching for stat boosts, for rPois, rConf, and ESP in that DL 35 to DL 40 range, so the fact that Ringil *can* show up, starting on level 20, means that it becomes disproportionately like TO show up, simply because of the time we're spending and therefore the number of items that will get produced.

[nullfame]

If we're gonna stay with 100 levels, *at least* 40 of which are basically pointless, then Ringil shouldn't be popping on DL 20...even occasionally. Note that this is *especially* true if an item can start popping above stat gain...because the one stretch of levels that most people work fairly extensively, is the stat gain region. We're searching for stat boosts, for rPois, rConf, and ESP in that DL 35 to DL 40 range

The problem is not that 40 levels are pointless. The problem is you are spending too much time on 35-40 waiting for the gear and stats that render them pointless. If you didn't do that I think you would have a different perspective on those levels. IMO.

I would be okay with reducing drop rate. IIRC doesn't the game force a drop to be good at a certain point as a TMJ measure? What if instead of forcing them to be good suppress creation of non-good items. I.e., if a standard whip would have been dropped, drop nothing.

[Magnate]

So, looks like we might be getting somewhere.

We clearly don't want to go back to TMJ, where lots of things drop but most of them are useless.

We also seem to have a consensus that the current situation is undesirable: although there isn't the TMJ problem, there are still too many items in total, particularly artifacts (I am conflating this thread with the consumables issue following Ewert's changes).

I understand the argument that preventing generation of crud is likely to exacerbate the problem of too much good stuff dropping - I fully agree that Of Buckland, Gondolin etc. should be rare and awesome finds, like artifacts.

So it seems to me that there are two choices:

1. Reduce the number of drops in total.

2. Implement the "hard squelching" suggested by fizzix, using a minimum object power for a given depth.

These two should result in a similar number of items being dropped, but one shackles the RNG to a narrower range of (higher) quality. I am assuming that we would tone down the quality ascension in both cases, to reduce the issue with the number of artifacts dropping.

I must be a bit perverse, because I actually like the idea of a weapon on slay orc dropping at dl99 - occasionally (it would I admit cease to be funny the fifth or tenth time). I am all in favour of leaving the RNG totally unfettered, and allowing players to choose their squelch settings. (That reminds me - Jeff: if you've updated to the 3.1.x codebase, it should be much easier for us to pinch your superb squelch UI, yes?)

[PowerDiver]

I don't like the move to smaller drops. It used to be that you could go down and find a usable weapon on your first trip, or a find restore potion deep if you needed one. Now if you count on anything, you have to plan to buy it in town.

The problem remains, as it always has been, the need to identify to know what wieldables do before you can squelch them.

[Magnate]

I don't like the move to smaller drops. It used to be that you could go down and find a usable weapon on your first trip, or a find restore potion deep if you needed one. Now if you count on anything, you have to plan to buy it in town.

The problem remains, as it always has been, the need to identify to know what wieldables do before you can squelch them.

Then you are in favour of fizzix's idea, which is essentially squelch-without-ID?

[PowerDiver]

Then you are in favour of fizzix's idea, which is essentially squelch-without-ID?

I don't see how you can make that work. People are complaining that detection is too good already.

Full id on walkover seems like a better solution. Before worrying about particulars such as what it takes to recognize a flag, keep in mind that you cannot squelch unless you know the damage dice and plusses. No point in worrying about anything else until you deal with that.

[ewert]

I agree with PowerDiver, squelch-pre-id will give massive boost to clairvoyance for example, and regular detects too. We can't really pre-squelch-destroy items if we have any kind of item detection without giving huge amounts of info to players on whether to go clear some area or not. Auto-id on pickup so that energy is used (after classlevel x or something), and ego-type spesific squelching ought to work good enough for the normal/ego items. I think I will put in autopseudo and autoid based on classlevel to my modified .exe ...

But this will not affect artifact rarity at all, so is a bit beside thread subject.

[fizzix]

I'm currently playing a standart game and artifacts seem much less common than in randarts games. In fact, I have yet to find any artifact weapons (at dlevel 70). It is possible that it's just the randart frequency that need to be adjusted.