OOD objects too common?

[Philip]

Downside? Really? I wouldn't say so. I think it has no major problems. Subset of the standard set or rest replaced by randarts, I'm quite in favor.

[EpicMan]

I vote for the subset of the standart list. Angband has a massively variable difficulty curve - see the recent posts about early finds of BoS or the flaming ego weapon,

The biggest upside I see is not the change in difficulty of endgame fights, but the increased variety of tactics/events that will occur because player X is missing artifact Y this game.

For the sake of completionists, include the number of unknown artifacts in the knowledge menu so players can see how many more are left. This info should be presented anyways, as a spoiled/veteran player knows the total # of artifacts currently anyways.

The main downside is it changes the current "I can collect any amount of anything I want if I scum long enough" gameplay of Angband.

[Magnate]

Sangband makes randarts out of the unused artifact IDs. Perhaps we could instead randomize some artifacts instead of discarding them.

That still doesn't solve the problem of quantity/rarity/power, but helps alleviate the "wait for [artifact] to complete" syndrome.

Some people have proposed this before for V, but my feeling is that it's never managed to reach a majority. V seems to be a straight choice between a standart set (which has long been crippled with a "standard endgame kit" problem) and a completely randart set (which has recently been overpowered).

[camlost]

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.

Sangband makes randarts out of the unused artifact IDs. Perhaps we could instead randomize some artifacts instead of discarding them.

That still doesn't solve the problem of quantity/rarity/power, but helps alleviate the "wait for [artifact] to complete" syndrome.

[Nick]

(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?)

I liked the idea in this thread.

[bulian]

I think the underlying question to the DSM debate is where do ego DSMs fit in the power curve? Are they endgame armor, or should artifacts be better than them? If they are end game armor, make them deeper. If an ego is better than the most common end game artifacts for a slot, that seems to me to be a problem. DSM of permanence has been mentioned several times as always being better. It is.

DSM of speed being so good comes down to the power of large amounts of speed on items. A bigger problem to me is that =Barahir and =Tulkas are NEVER used once =speed is found. I'd rather see all end game artifacts get a small speed bonus and do away with the required ego of speed.

[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?)

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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]

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.

[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.

[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.

[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.