Nightlies embark on long journey towards 3.3

[Magnate]

I thought this a bit and if I have understood correctly item quality is the determining factor of item monetary value in the game now. This leaves out the rarity and depth, which both are _real_ values of the how high people value things. Rarity and depth should matter, deeper the better and more rare the better.

Um .... sort of. This is taking us back about two years, to the power-pricing debate. If you have a pair of boots of speed, its utility (usefulness, value, whatever) is identical, whether you found it on level 100 or level 1. It's identical whether you have one pair or ten, since you can only wear one. So it's power rating should be absolutely of depth and rarity.

That said, *before* you have a pair, the amount you will be willing to pay will depend on how likely you are to find one. So depth and rarity should affect price directly, but not power.

So the simplest thing to do is to say that the object power determines the price of a level 1 item with alloc_prob 100. You then multiply that price by 100/alloc_prob and by level, so that The One Ring is about 10,000x more expensive than its power rating would suggest.

This would probably go a long way towards sorting out the undervaluing of speed items.

N.B. Please don't anybody assume that we would multiply the *current* prices by 10k. The power-pricing formula would need adjusting to take this into account. I'll do some experimenting and put something into the nightlies for testing.

[Timo Pietilä]

I'm not playing nightlies (because I want to get feeling of 3.2 first), but I think that has something to do with general undervaluing of armors. Rings of escaping and armor that gives same +4 cost about the same, and escaping has a bad drawback. In fact RoS +4 and Escaping cost exactly same and difference between teleportation and RoS +2 is negligible in 3.2.

I thought this a bit and if I have understood correctly item quality is the determining factor of item monetary value in the game now. This leaves out the rarity and depth, which both are _real_ values of the how high people value things. Rarity and depth should matter, deeper the better and more rare the better.

[Timo Pietilä]

You bought a pair of Leather Sandals of Speed [1,+6] (+5) for 15994 gold.

(I thought this was fixed? That is, no speed items in Armory, and speed items are seriously undervalued.)

I'm not playing nightlies (because I want to get feeling of 3.2 first), but I think that has something to do with general undervaluing of armors. Rings of escaping and armor that gives same +4 cost about the same, and escaping has a bad drawback. In fact RoS +4 and Escaping cost exactly same and difference between teleportation and RoS +2 is negligible in 3.2.

[Pete Mack]

You bought a pair of Leather Sandals of Speed [1,+6] (+5) for 15994 gold.

(I thought this was fixed? That is, no speed items in Armory, and speed items are seriously undervalued.)

[camlost]

I say have it do these things AND wreck items.

Now that's the sort of evil maintainer talk I was hoping for!

Perhaps hit everything, each with a percentage chance (modified for damage, quantity, and slot) including potions, scrolls, books, temporary buffs, and [equipped] items.

"That's 4 rolls on the major blunder table, and 3 rolls on the minor blunder table!"

[Nick]

After that, if you still want to make disenchantment nastier, add antimagic hounds...

From O:

N:624:Hound of Tindalos
G:Z:G
I:130:10d69:30:40:0
W:77:3:0:7000
B:BITE:HURT:1d18
B:BITE:HURT:1d18
B:CLAW:HURT:2d6
F:FORCE_SLEEP | FRIENDS | 
F:INVISIBLE | PASS_WALL | 
F:ANIMAL | NO_SLEEP
S:1_IN_5 | POW_0 | 
S:BRTH_NETHR | BRTH_DISEN | BRTH_TIME
D:"They are lean and athirst!"

[Derakon]

Mm, I'd say that it should simply be able to damage all equipment and destroy any consumable (/ de-power any equipment in inventory). Seems plenty nasty enough to me.

After that, if you still want to make disenchantment nastier, add antimagic hounds...

[Nick]

Alternately, we could move disenchantment to another effect, like mana drain, charge drain, removal of temporary buffs from the player, or addition or random negative buffs. This retains its "anti-magic" status, but moves it to temporary statuses rather than a permanent effect (unless you die).

I say have it do these things AND wreck items.

[Max Stats]

Actually -5000 was the highest possible (not anymore). That you got by drinking potion of death. I don't think I have done that, but I bet there has been someone who has.

*Raises hand.*

[celem]

I rather like disenchantment. I fall into that catagory of player who has no monster memory (on character or in my own head) and the first warning that ive met a new disenchanter is usually the bombing of my bow of power or melee artifact.

Yes it sucks, but its fun. I tend to patch acid damage to ego's up with enchant scrolls from the dungeon. Artifacts that fall but stay above +10....well, I learned a lesson didnt I?

P.S. Lesson was Death Molds suck.

Since mention was made of revisiting status effects anyway. I guess disenchant could be worked into this somehow. Maybe artifacts get disenchanted as a status (i.e. they recover it) while lesser objects take permenant hits.

[takkaria]

Alternately, we could move disenchantment to another effect, like mana drain, charge drain, removal of temporary buffs from the player, or addition or random negative buffs. This retains its "anti-magic" status, but moves it to temporary statuses rather than a permanent effect (unless you die).

I think that this is a more elegant solution than scrolls of repair item.

I like this idea, though there is still a place for just removing bonuses from items. 3.3 will be revisiting status effects so something like this would fit in quite nicely...

[takkaria]

I never thought disenchantment was broken in the first place. If you end up with Cambeleg (+5,+3), it's your own fault anyway.
Having Restore Item available in the stores to clean up acid damage makes a degree of sense, although I would have done this simply by removing enchant weapon (to_dam) from the stores.

The reason restore item is there was because I took away enchantment scrolls from the town. Given the goal of making the game harder, I'm not sure having it in the town is particularly helpful... I think it would be sensible if it was only available, rarely, in the dungeon.

[Magnate]

Magnate: aww, I'm not flawless in your eyes any more?

Put it this way, I'm no longer quite so worried about discovering long-lost relatives through Angband!

[Antoine]

I never thought disenchantment was broken in the first place. If you end up with Cambeleg (+5,+3), it's your own fault anyway.

+1

A.

(padding)

[camlost]

Alternately, we could move disenchantment to another effect, like mana drain, charge drain, removal of temporary buffs from the player, or addition or random negative buffs. This retains its "anti-magic" status, but moves it to temporary statuses rather than a permanent effect (unless you die).

I think that this is a more elegant solution than scrolls of repair item.