OOD objects too common?

[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.

[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).

[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

[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?)

[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]

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.

[Pete Mack]

I haven't found Ringil or Cubragol in forever. I agree Feanor is a little to common now, probably as a result of cleaning up all the unnecessary object types.

[PowerDiver]

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

I'll take half of the blame for pointing out the problem, but the other half goes to the people who refused to allow me to solve the problem through ID changes and better squelching. They seem happy to keep boosting items so that game balance is shattered.

[Antoine]

The "random subset" concept would certainly fail to please completionists, who would have no way of knowing if they were done or not.

What about a compromise - each game, adding X to the depths of Y randomly chosen artifacts? (Could try X = Y = 30.)

That way, those artifacts will be much rarer and harder to find, but completionists will still be able to get them (after killing M if necessary)...

A.

[Antoine]

I think it's entirely sufficient as a first pass to simply double the rarities of the rare artifacts. ... And while we're at it, nix the combat bonuses on Elessar.

Well yes that does sound like a sufficient first pass, I must agree.

(Are there other non-weapon arts whose combat bonuses should be reduced or removed, or is Elessar really the core of the problem?)

A.

[Derakon]

Elessar and the rings of power are the main offenders, I think. RoPs are expected to be powerful, though; the main issue is that they're too common as it stands. Though it's not like they need the combat bonuses either. Wouldn't hurt to nix 'em.

While we're at it, could we drop Cambeleg to (+6, +6)? Currently Fingolfin has trouble competing because Cambeleg provides almost as good combat boosts and better stat boosts.

[Antoine]

Elessar and the rings of power are the main offenders, I think. RoPs are expected to be powerful, though; the main issue is that they're too common as it stands. Though it's not like they need the combat bonuses either. Wouldn't hurt to nix 'em.

While we're at it, could we drop Cambeleg to (+6, +6)? Currently Fingolfin has trouble competing because Cambeleg provides almost as good combat boosts and better stat boosts.

What about halving the combat bonuses on ALL non-weapon, non-shooter arts?

Also, should we rethink DSMs of Permanence and Speed? I see these are very common on recent winners, they seem to be displacing arts and no doubt by supplying so many goodies, they free up other slots.

A.

[Nick]

Also, should we rethink DSMs of Permanence and Speed? I see these are very common on recent winners, they seem to be displacing arts and no doubt by supplying so many goodies, they free up other slots.

The thing with DSM (and I found it in FA, too) is that it's supposed to be super-cool rare armour - and nobody wears it if they find it. So adding egos is one approach.

IMHO Permanence should be Robes only, and I don't know what the best answer for DSMs is.

[Magnate]

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?

IMO yes. The whole "standard kit" concept is totally, totally wrong. (I'm not arguing that it exists, but that it shouldn't.) This is why I hate Thorin so much - far too findable and far too no-brainer-y. Ironically the ascension of Haradrim has finally addressed that a little, but I don't want Haradrim to become "standard endgame kit" either. (When +1 blows is replaced with a smaller increment to epb, it won't be such an obvious choice.)

I think the first step is to change the basic ego/artifact generation probabilities so that they are less common, more in line with 3.0.x, without re-creating TMJ. I have been focused on refactoring with my free time recently, but I'll try to put some thought into this and get something into nightlies for testing quite soon.

Once that's in, *then* we can look at specific issues (RoP, ego DSM, whatever). I think the basic problem at the moment is that ALL the good stuff is too common, so I don't think we should home in on anything just yet.

I also think we need to postpone the slashing of combat bonuses until the evasion/absorption stuff is merged for testing - that will essentially be a big reset button for melee damage, so we'll need to rebalance then anyway.

[Timo Pietilä]

While we're at it, could we drop Cambeleg to (+6, +6)? Currently Fingolfin has trouble competing because Cambeleg provides almost as good combat boosts and better stat boosts.

You can find Set of Caestus of Power (+5,+8) [3,+x] (+5) which clearly beat even Cambeleg if you are not in final two STR points short of 18/220.

Cambeleg is valued over Fingolfin because of CON-bonus, not because combat boosts. Also because those two last STR points increase your to dam by four it makes this +12 to dam at that point. However Fingolfin dex bonus gives you almost certainly higher to_hit.

Because there is ego which can be equally good or even better depending of the situation I don't see a reason to nix that combat bonus. Also combat bonus on handwear actually makes sense. Shield would be another place where it makes sense, so Haradrim combat bonus wasn't really what I don't like, extra blow is (how could it give extra blow anyway?).

Elessar (+7,+7) clearly is too high. Actually it would be pretty tempting even without combat bonuses at all with +2 speed, healing activation, resist poison and STR and WIS boosts but would probably lose to +4 Trickery unless you are playing priest or paladin.

Speaking of which, as much as I like Trickery it is a bit too strong amulet. +4 speed, DEX, stealth & infra, resist poison and nexus and sustain DEX makes that no-brainer to most chars at least until you find Elessar, and even then losing two points of speed, four to stealth and nexus resists makes you think twice. Maybe we should restrict that to +2 speed?

(btw, has anybody thought any practical use to search-bonus? Currently it is the most useless item feature. Maybe make that affect LoS trap detection range?)