Recharging

[fizzix]

I actually don't have a problem at all with the rarities of most consumables right now. As ewert notes, there needs to be a slight change in play style where you now use healing items on fights with high-end uniques instead of saving them for the last two fights. The result is that end game unique hunting is less of a pain because you're killing more of them on the way down, that seems good.

-speed, _healing, _banish, _power/holiness, _magi are all still pretty rare at the bottom levels of the dungeon, as they should be.

[Rizwan]

Ok, how about this solution then: not only do items recharge in the pack, but they also aggravate while in the pack ....?

Or how about going all the way and have items aggravate while sitting on the dungeon floor

MWA HA HA HA HA HA HA.

[AnonymousHero]

Re: Overpowered Clairvoyance with some of these changes.

You could just have the Clairvoyance activation (and maybe spell too?) aggravate the whole level. It kind of makes sense too since you're lighting everything up.

[Timo Pietilä]

Re: Overpowered Clairvoyance with some of these changes.

You could just have the Clairvoyance activation (and maybe spell too?) aggravate the whole level. It kind of makes sense too since you're lighting everything up.

I prefer that it doesn't show all the level, just maps and illuminates it and does detection to immediate area just like rod of detection. Leave floor grids as unseen, just lit. Maybe even remove that lite part and do just magic mapping for entire level. That would still be hugely useful by revealing you potential pits and vaults.

What makes clairvoyance so overpowered is item detection. Cast, "]", take stairs or get the item that is interesting and then take the stairs. IMO you should be required to do at least some exploring to find things in level.

[Atarlost]

Until recently* the Arkenstone gave clairvoyance. Without aggro. It was a no brainer at the time, but given the respective levels of the light artifacts that was appropriate. The Palantir aggravating is more about thematics than balance I think. That and getting stat bonuses from a slot that otherwise has a very narrow selection of available benefits.

* anything after I started playing is recent.

[EpicMan]

I like the Clairvoyance aggravating the level idea. That is taking a no-brainer decisions (hmmm, should I know in advance what is on the level and where it all is, or not?) and giving it a trade-off: While you now know there is a good item over on that side of the level, and where the stairs down/up are, now all of the monsters are actively looking for you. To use clairvoyance or not becomes less trivial because you need to be (a) not in LOS of dangerous breathers and casters, and (b) be near a staircase or have a level escape in case you get more than you bargained for in case of opposition.

Reducing the radius of object detection doesn't really change much, unless you are playing with disconnected staircases. It just means you have to scum for levels with good objects nearby instead of good objects somewhere else on the level. Although it does make clairvoyance scumming less fun, so I think it would be better to reduce item detection radius than to do nothing.

[Atarlost]

Is clairvoyance scumming really such a problem? If anything it encourages the scumming player to take risks he or she would not take is scumming with detection or detect objects. Crossing the level for an unidentified ring is not as safe as continuing to stairscum using detection until it shows up closer.

[fizzix]

Is clairvoyance scumming really such a problem? If anything it encourages the scumming player to take risks he or she would not take is scumming with detection or detect objects. Crossing the level for an unidentified ring is not as safe as continuing to stairscum using detection until it shows up closer.

My opinion is if people want to stair scum, then let them. After winning a couple times like that, they'll get bored and start playing with disconnected stairs.

[PowerDiver]

I want to be able to light levels. It's the poor man's alternative to ESP. Especially with talk of weakening ESP, I'll want it to remain.

I want to be able to see monsters that can breathe to kill me. Lighting corridors behind you and detecting dozens of times while creeping forward is oh so tedious.

All monsters have ESP, all of the time, and the ones you care about have a larger range than you will ever have. Is it really too much to ask to be able to see those in LOS that could breathe on you?

I still don't see whatever problem is causing this discussion. If you are opposed to the player choosing which levels to clear, why is there no cry to remove level feelings? Why did no one argue that the autoscum option should be eliminated on these grounds? [It was removed for different reasons.]

Also, does no one remember scumming for endgame consumables? It is clear that drop probabilities ebb and flow. I think that it would be a mistake to make game design decisions that depend upon the current drop rarities.

[Magnate]

It's trivial to do. All you have to do is embrace floating point arithmetic. Even subpar compilers for the slowest devices now have got to produce faster code than the best integer arithmetic in the 1980s.

You misunderstand me. I didn't mean it isn't technically feasible. I meant that it is not logically sustainable, even with buckets of disbelief suspended, that a rod of speed in your pack should recharge at a different rate to one on the ground.

[ewert]

You misunderstand me. I didn't mean it isn't technically feasible. I meant that it is not logically sustainable, even with buckets of disbelief suspended, that a rod of speed in your pack should recharge at a different rate to one on the ground.

Oh, I totally have enough of Suspension of Disbelief to weasel reasons for why it could, but then again, if mana regen is not affected by speed ... that combats some of those weaselings. :P If mana flow is not increased by character speed, then having recharge for magical items be affected by character speed indeed does get a bit illogical.

[Atarlost]

If the time bubble explanation is used, as I think it must be because everything is effected, not just movement, it would be rods on the ground recharging at the same rate as those in the pack that would not be logically sustainable.

[Timo Pietilä]

I still don't see whatever problem is causing this discussion. If you are opposed to the player choosing which levels to clear, why is there no cry to remove level feelings? Why did no one argue that the autoscum option should be eliminated on these grounds?

Level feelings are not accurate, Clairvoyance is. Clairvoyance as it is now takes away entire exploring the dungeon. You just cast clairvoyance and look whats there, that's it. Nothing in game is as powerful as that. This is not argue against scumming, this is argue against not needing to explore at least a little bit.

I'm fine with lighting entire dungeon. I'm fine with mapping entire dungeon. I'm not fine with seeing every single item in the dungeon with one move. In fact I'm pretty strongly against rods of detect treasure detecting items too.

I believe there is some floor flag that marks it as seen. Light the dungeon, but do not mark floor as seen at the same time. Make it work like lit room that you have not yet seen for entire dungeon.

[Derakon]

Clairvoyance is also a late-game power. Is it so bad that our incredibly powerful godslaying adventurers don't have to explore the dungeon any more?

[Timo Pietilä]

Clairvoyance is also a late-game power. Is it so bad that our incredibly powerful godslaying adventurers don't have to explore the dungeon any more?

Yes. Item detection for entire dungeon is bad. It suits for no exploring, give me everything now -style of playing. To speed things a bit more you could tweak item generation so that they all are in LoS when you enter the dungeon, or better yet piled under your feet with stairs up and down in either side of it. Why bother to walk there. Divers avoid most monsters, so why not also make squelch-options for monsters you don't want to fight. Makes playing a bit easier and you avoid the annoyance of needing to *destruct* or banish or TO them.

Seriously, where's the fun in that?

Clairvoyance it isn't that deep either. Potions appear relatively early and are very common after Ewerts changes, and priest spell is clvl 35, which you get way before endgame. Somewhere closer to 2500' than 5000'.

In old times it didn't matter, because you couldn't "L"ook what's outside of your LoS and there were no "show all items" button. | was just general blade until you could actually see it.