Squelch by value

[scud]

Squelch by value seemed like a quick and easy solution which avoids the need to address the inconsistencies of the current quality squelching, or at least means I don't have to research what qualities render an item of any particular class as 'splendid'

Lokkak has just bequeathed me an example: a Halberd of Venom (+10,+5). I'm autosquelching 'excellent with no high resists' melee weapons; if I 'ignore' this halberd the 'b' option is 'all non-artifact...'. A blah of Venom simply should not be in the same category as Westernesses, Gondolins, Furies etc. Does any weapon actually flag up as 'splendid'?

[Derakon]

Sure. Halberds of Venom, for example. "Splendid" just means "has traits that are obvious as soon as you wield the item". That includes stat boosts, elemental brands, light, etc.

[scud]

So 'splendid' is a bit useless, and doesn't slot into the gap between 'excellent with no high resists' and 'non-artifact'?

I've now completely confused myself by picking up a Pointy Thing of Lightning and discovering it qualifies as 'splendid'. Have the four base brands always been at the highest level of non-artifact? That certainly isn't the case in the Imaginary Angband Release That Resides In My Head.

[scud]

See, now I've only gone and found a bleedin' Thing of *Slay Orc* which claims it's 'splendid' in the autosquelch hierarchy...

Madness, I tell you.

[Derakon]

As I said, "splendid" just means "obvious on wield". It doesn't say anything about how you might qualitatively rank various egos. The *Slay Orc* has a stat modifier, so it's obvious; the lightning-branded weapon arcs when you wield it, so it's obvious.

[scud]

So what's the 'best' non-splendid weapon? A regular 'slay'? Would that be an 'excellent with no high resists'? Would that be the only occupant of the 'excellent with no high resists' slot?

***

Edit: nope, '...no high resists' squelches 'slays'. So is there any melee weapon in that category?

[Timo Pietilä]

So what's the 'best' non-splendid weapon?

Probably Gondolin. Nothing immediately detectable in basic Gondolin, though it might have immediately detectable random ability (light or ESP).

[PowerDiver]

Probably Gondolin. Nothing immediately detectable in basic Gondolin, though it might have immediately detectable random ability (light or ESP).

Gondolin has SI, which is considered obvious, so it is splendid.

The non-splendid weapons currently are only the ordinary slay weapons.

I squelch all non-splendid weapons pretty early each game, autoinscribing those base weapons I care about if they are slay evil. If one didn't have to worry about heavy-cursed Morgul weapons, that would be a quick wield-and-squelch system, but unfortunately you either have to orb or wait for pseudo.

Morgul is an ego whose primary purpose, perhaps only purpose, is to discourage id-by-use. Why is it still in the game?

[scud]

I'm carrying a Gondolin, and it's 'splendid'. It has dark resistance, slows metabolism, prevents paralysis, and see invisible. Would the see invisible be the 'obvious attribute' (despite me having inherent see invisible)?

***

Edit: beaten to it!

[Timo Pietilä]

Gondolin has SI, which is considered obvious, so it is splendid.

If you are playing Hi-Elf or have SI from headgear or Star, it isn't obvious anymore. However Gondolin seems to have lite as fixed feature and not as random and that is always obvious (It glows!). Testing...SI seems to be recognizable even with SI already as ability.

I'm not sure how that is coded, but like FA from ethereal gloves is not obvious to mages I think having SI already should make that as well not obvious, at least it should if it is matter of detecting obvious features....unless we are going for rune-based ID, in which case once you have learned about feature you recognize it from items immediately (which is IMO how "ID by use" should work. Once you have recognized one weapon with fire brand you recognize other weapons with fire brand just by examining them. Optimally entire ID as spell should become obsolete).

[PowerDiver]

The problem with SI is that it is an enormous pain to get learning code for it to work completely correctly. I tried at least 3 times, and failed each time. I think part of the problem is that the visibility code doesn't always work properly.

I think it doesn't matter for the splendid/non-splendid discussion with the current ego list. I believe that every ego with SI, or even the possibility of SI, is already splendid.

[Timo Pietilä]

The problem with SI is that it is an enormous pain to get learning code for it to work completely correctly. I tried at least 3 times, and failed each time. I think part of the problem is that the visibility code doesn't always work properly.

I think it doesn't matter for the splendid/non-splendid discussion with the current ego list. I believe that every ego with SI, or even the possibility of SI, is already splendid.

You are correct, checked the object and ego-item.txt. Either they all have non-zero PVAL or light, which is always obvious (crowns of night and day did come to my mind, but that also has light).

However for whole squelch scheme obvious/non-obvious does matter, also for perhaps future item additions might change something that makes items with SI no longer immediately obvious. I still think that "ID by use" is right way to go, but unfortunately it is still way too slow for being practical deep in dungeon. We need a method to have immediate ID for high-level chars, and that is where rune-based ID comes in the picture. You learn features by use, but once you have learned the feature you should no longer need to wait for pseudo to get general idea of what the weapon is, or hit orc to the head to learn that weapon slays orcs. Only thing to learn from use deep in dungeon should be random abilities.

[gudjkrist]

Squelch should definitely still work. What kind of squelching (quality or item type) is failing, and how is it failing? Can you provide us with a savefile for debugging purposes?

Don't want to derail this thread, so just a quick answer. This only happened after I had gone through the menu and was fixed by "quit and restart". I haven't been able to reproduce this. If I do I'll flag this in the appropriate place (I believe that's Trac, here: http://trac.rephial.org/).

[PowerDiver]

We need a method to have immediate ID for high-level chars, and that is where rune-based ID comes in the picture.

I am the original proponent of rune-based ID, so you don't need to preach to me. I have it mostly working except that many unimportant messages are wrong, and my work is before a bunch of changes to the 3.3 codebase. Hopefully I can share it soon. Of course, I've been thinking that since February. Then there will have to be a process before it can even be considered.

The idea of noticing a rune that you have figured out before is pretty clear. However, you need some way to decide that there are no runes left to learn. I kept the idea of pseudo, changing the meaning to "you know the number of runes". I gave instant pseudo to all classes at varying levels, mages at CL 1. I also gave instant notice of attack and defence plusses to all classes at varying levels, warriors at CL 1. I'd be interested in better ideas on these issues.

[buzzkill]

I am the original proponent of rune-based ID, so you don't need to preach to me... The idea of noticing a rune that you have figured out before is pretty clear.

I don't know if I threw this out there before, but it's been banging around in my head for a while now. It's seems to me, having never used rune-based ID, that gaining nearly complete rune knowledge would come relatively early in a game as long as Angband.

I was thinking about having multiple runes for each trait. So, there might be three different runes for resist fire (and every other trait). Each item that grants resist fire will have (randomly chosen) one of the three runes. Until all three are learned, you wouldn't be able to reliably ID all items that resist fire, you might only recognize 1/3 or 2/3 depending on how many runes you've already learned.

Additionally, adjusting the number of runes, would easily change the difficulty of ID throughout the entire game.