OOD objects too common?

[Derakon]

The "random subset" concept would certainly fail to please completionists, who would have no way of knowing if they were done or not. There's also some question of balance: certain artifacts are major "standard kit" these days, while others are completely ignorable; thus a game that uses a random subset can be made much harder if the standard kit items are removed, or changed not much at all if the "junkarts" are removed. Do we want that kind of uncontrolled variability?

I think it's entirely sufficient as a first pass to simply double the rarities of the rare artifacts. I don't know of the frequency of common artifacts has changed much; they aren't memorable enough for me to trust my memories from a decade ago. But the rares are certainly too common now. That'd be, let's see:

All rings of power (except the One Ring, maybe? I've still never found it)
Ringil
Feanor
Cubragol

Any others? There are other super-artifacts (like Doomcaller, Deathwreaker, and Bladeturner), but seeing as I haven't found any of them in ages (nor seen them showing up in others' dumps) I have trouble calling them too common as it stands.

And while we're at it, nix the combat bonuses on Elessar.

[d_m]

I don't like the "random subset per game" idea very much, although I don't have a good reason why.

I would prefer to just decrease how often (some or all) egos and artifacts are generated, or to remove particular egos/artifacts, or to weaken particular egos/artifcacts.

[Derakon]

As I understand it, junk items simply aren't dropped, but still count against the number of items the monster was supposed to generate; hence that should have no effect on the total number of good items generated.

(Does anyone have any feel for if egos are more common now than they used to be?)

[Nick]

Is it as simple as the less junk drops, the more good stuff drops? So it's Eddie's fault for complaining about TMJ

[Magnate]

Nomad's ideas are also nice, mostly number 1 because it seems that 2 and 3 punish you for playing conservatively which is not a good thing IMO.

I am opposed to having drops influenced by what has already dropped - that way madness lies. I am also aware that a number of players are completists - they like to collect everything (and were very upset when low-level artifacts could not be dropped beyond their max depths) - these are the people who want an infinite home, etc.

I do, however, really like the original idea of allowing only a random subset of the standard artifacts to be created in any given game. This will give a great deal of variety and replay value for people who want to play with the standard artifacts. (People who really want to know which ones can be generated can print the artifact spoiler to see.)

Since takk is allergic to option bloat, I'll see if he will support this as a change to nightlies for testing. There are over 130 artifacts, so randomising 80% would still allow over 100 (with sensible minima for each slot and at least one RoP).

[Philip]

Nomad's ideas are also nice, mostly number 1 because it seems that 2 and 3 punish you for playing conservatively which is not a good thing IMO.

[Nomad]

There is perhaps a way round this, although people might not like it.

At the beginning of each game, randomly select N artifacts. These artifacts will never be generated during the game by any means.

The player will have to manage his kit without those artifacts, because he will not find them no matter how long he looks.

Some other ideas:

1. Divide the artefacts up into groups according to power level, and limit how many the player can find from a given group; i.e. once you've found Ringil and one RoP, no chance that you'll find Feanor as well.

2. Give the player a pool of 'artefact points' to use up; crappy early game artefacts are only worth a few points, endgame quality use up a ton of them, and once you've maxed out your allowance in a given game, no more artefacts for you.

3. Simply code a flat maximum number of artefacts per game. If you use up your limit finding weak and useless ones before you get to the good stuff, well, better luck next time.

You could easily have "limit artefacts" as a birth option to turn on and off to taste, or even allow the player to set a sliding scale of difficulty.

[Philip]

There is perhaps a way round this, although people might not like it.

At the beginning of each game, randomly select N artifacts. These artifacts will never be generated during the game by any means.

The player will have to manage his kit without those artifacts, because he will not find them no matter how long he looks.

A.

A very nice idea. It could be fun never to see Thranduil and yet life would go on. Cap of telepathy. Just one idea. Never let the set go without one resist with rbase classed together. A bit like randart generation even(does that necessitate some resists being there?). I hope it can get implemented.

[Antoine]

Yeah, I don't think Hammerhand is out of whack while aggravation remains unchanged, but you're right that the problem is definitely related to stuff being too common. It's weird how that's happened - there isn't a change or set of changes to attribute it to, but endgame chars are now vastly better equipped much earlier.

What worries me is if we try to fix drops so that high-end artifacts become really rare again - is everyone going to whine about how they have to spend a million turns scumming for Ringil/Fingolfin/Feanor/RoP etc. etc.

There is perhaps a way round this, although people might not like it.

At the beginning of each game, randomly select N artifacts. These artifacts will never be generated during the game by any means.

The player will have to manage his kit without those artifacts, because he will not find them no matter how long he looks.

A.

[Philip]

They will whine about RoP being too hard to find, but I suspect that the others aren't too much of a big deal. Is anyone ever scumming for Ringil and having to have it to be able to win? I don't think so. It would be possible to win with Sting, Pete Mack did it once IIRC, and you are likely to find better stuff than Sting if you look for a bit longer, so I wouldn't be worried. Maybe if you could find one RoP, and one of the awesome other things with a pretty lucky character you would have it pretty much balanced, maybe just simple two of the overpowered at max for 1 million turn char. One should be about average for 1 million turns. No scumming neccesary, except for consumables(which is why I think priest is much better than ranger, 0 fail heal coupled with glyph is overpowered. No good way to fix it either.).

[Magnate]

Elessar is too good, and the Rings of Power are too common. It used to be a Big Deal to get even one of them. That comes down to general artifact frequency, though.

Hammerhand can be tricky to use because of its lack of things head slots usually cover (ESP, confusion/blindness, INT/WIS boosts), but if you can use it, it's quite nice.

Yeah, I don't think Hammerhand is out of whack while aggravation remains unchanged, but you're right that the problem is definitely related to stuff being too common. It's weird how that's happened - there isn't a change or set of changes to attribute it to, but endgame chars are now vastly better equipped much earlier.

What worries me is if we try to fix drops so that high-end artifacts become really rare again - is everyone going to whine about how they have to spend a million turns scumming for Ringil/Fingolfin/Feanor/RoP etc. etc.

[Derakon]

Elessar is too good, and the Rings of Power are too common. It used to be a Big Deal to get even one of them. That comes down to general artifact frequency, though.

Hammerhand can be tricky to use because of its lack of things head slots usually cover (ESP, confusion/blindness, INT/WIS boosts), but if you can use it, it's quite nice.

[Magnate]

Current chars do more than twice the damage old time chars did.

Thanks for the analysis - until you summarised it like that I had no idea quite how much difference the off-weapon damage makes. And Haradrim is clearly way too findable!

Please rest assured that this will be addressed for 3.3 ...

[PowerDiver]

Plain color tells you general type of the monster, not exact type, which is enough. Balance dragons are violet, so they are easy to recognize. More difficult cases are impact/earth hounds, gravity/inertia hounds and stuff like that. Now that we have more colors used distinguishing monsters from each others is rather easy.

So your goal is to hide the difference between an ancient green dragon and a swamp wyrm, so that the player does not know if rPoison is necessary before stepping into LOS? I can't see much point beyond that if you are willing to give the color.

I am sufficiently color blind that I cannot make so many distinctions. At a minimum the look command should list the specific monster types that match the color.

[Timo Pietilä]

Dos350 has it right this time, for a variety of reasons.
1. Functional
Monster symbol can be overriden by prf file. So are you going to use the original symbol/color for modified monsters, or the prf-file specified symbol? If the former, the UX is terrible: players must remember the original symbol and the new symbol. (This is a complete disaster for players who use graphics.)
If you use the new symbol, prf file configuration will have an impact on game-play. This is even worse!

I don't see any problem there. Monster symbols are not supposed to be changed, if you change them, result is your own responsibility. Tweaked graphics is no different to tweaked edit-files, no guarantee for the result.

2. Logical
Assume there is a workaround for (1). Then you are biasing the game even more in favor of cautious play. Don't know what that dragon is? Better not crack the vault or go near the 2x2 moated room.

What's wrong in cautious play? Isn't that how you should play the game? Cautiously. This teaches people a valuable lesson: you can't deal with everything. If you can play recklessly and win then there is something seriously wrong in the game.

3. Gameplay
Assume you do run into that 40 level out-of-depth GWoLaw, and get killed. If you are a relative newbie, you have no way to know in advance that such a beast exists. So you stop playing in disgust. If you aren't a newbie, you are just pissed off because you forgot that there is another monster with the same symbol.

...but not color. There is no same color D as GWoLaw. Your mistake, deal with it. You learn fast which monster types can be deadly, which is good. If you are relative newbie then you should be careful around monsters which are unknown to you. That is a one of the main rules I have posted here many times:

If you don't know what it is, assume it can kill you.

For making things harder, nerf player capabilities, don't nerf the UI.
Examples include:
* Reduce damage (e.g. for off-weapon bonii)
* Reduce hit chance for crippled characters (blind/confused/stunned/infravision/stuck in the dark.)
* Reduce healing capabilities for non-priest-casting characters

All good ideas. All of my recent chars have been using combo Haradrim, Hammerhand, Big-dice fury +2, off-weapon acid brand against Sauron, and usually that big-dice Fury also against Morgoth with change of biggest to_dam ring I can find (current char has Ringil, I don't think I can find better weapon than that with both ring slots used to damage boosts).

Having combo:
RoP (+6/8/10, +6/8/10)
Elessar (+7,+7)
Haradrim (+5,+5) +1 blows
Hammerhand (+9,+9)
Cambeleg (+8,+8)
STR 18/220

You have +1 blows and +55-59 off-weapon bonus. Add a 8d4 SoS of Fury +20 with off-weapon acid brand you have +80 to that with two additional blows.

5-blows base that is 8 blows with 137 (Nenya) = 1096 against Sauron, 8*107 against Morgoth = 856 (not counting criticals).

Compare to old-times superhero with +2 blows non-fury SoS.

RoP, no bonus
Elessar, didn't exist
Haradrim, didn't exist
Hammerhand, no bonus
Cambeleg (+8,+8)
STR 18/220

Non-Fury means less than +20 bonus. You lose external brand, extra blow and 27-31 points of off-weapon damage, also because speed was seriously more difficult back then you wouldn't have a ring slots to use anyway for anything else than RoS.

That's 5 blows base 7 blows with 8d4 + maybe 40 total (28+12) = 420.

Current chars do more than twice the damage old time chars did.