Robes

[Timo Pietilä]

Maybe, instead of artifacts you could remove the resistance and elvenkind.

...from robes, I assume. Otherwise that would be bad change IMO.

[UglySquirrell]

Oops sorry, yeah from robes. Another option would be to make a powerful artifact robe but make it insanely rare. Would make identifying them at high levels more interesting

[Magnate]

Problem with gobs of artifacts is that they tend to turn out boring grey mass. Every artifact should be clearly distinguishable from each other (unless there is a set of items, like Paur* and *thanc).

It should never be "oh, I found YAArtifact, lets see if it is any good....I think I saw this one in my last game, but it had different name"

I agree - but Derakon is right that there are two different issues here.

One is that there are too many artifacts dropping each game - this has been a problem since at least 3.1.1, and is now fixable (thanks to stats) and a high priority for 3.4

The other is that there are no standart robes (or for certain other base items). This is easily fixable by anybody: post a new artifact.txt with some new artifacts in (and some removed, if you want). It's easy for us to incorporate them and put them in a dev version for testing, and for people to comment and suggest improvements.

[Timo Pietilä]

I agree - but Derakon is right that there are two different issues here.

One is that there are too many artifacts dropping each game - this has been a problem since at least 3.1.1, and is now fixable (thanks to stats) and a high priority for 3.4

The other is that there are no standart robes (or for certain other base items). This is easily fixable by anybody: post a new artifact.txt with some new artifacts in (and some removed, if you want). It's easy for us to incorporate them and put them in a dev version for testing, and for people to comment and suggest improvements.

"Easy" is not the word I would be using, because main issue here is that there are too many artifacts already. If you do an artifact robe I expect that you remove some existing artifact form the list. I would start with practically duplicate weapons: Eowyn and Fundin.

I don't see any real issue in lacking robe artifacts. To me that sounds like proposed change because of change, not because there is something wrong. Or because "it would be cool to have these".

[Magnate]

"Easy" is not the word I would be using, because main issue here is that there are too many artifacts already. If you do an artifact robe I expect that you remove some existing artifact form the list. I would start with practically duplicate weapons: Eowyn and Fundin.

I don't see any real issue in lacking robe artifacts. To me that sounds like proposed change because of change, not because there is something wrong. Or because "it would be cool to have these".

Well, people have noted for a long time that certain items don't have any standarts, that's all. I agree that it's not the biggest problem facing Angband - but since it's very easy to fix, I thought I would offer some encouragement.

I don't think it's necessary to move to a one-in, one-out policy just yet. First we need to address the other issue, and once we have artifact drops back to 2.9.x levels, then we can see if we have too many.

(That's not to say that there aren't separate reasons why some of the artifacts could be removed - weapons in particular.)

[Tiburon Silverflame]

I'd also argue that a fairly powerful artifact robe starts with a significant drawback anyway: very low AC, especially with the adjusted AC for heavy armors. Even the +35 robe I posted, is likely at least 20 points lower than several others which are very good, and perhaps 60 below the best choices.

[bio_hazard]

I think a robe would be nice from a flavor perspective- someone might want to play a wizard or monk-like character and keep them in a robe and staff.

In general I'd favor keeping or adding artifacts to the list, but making them more rare so that you don't see virtually all artifacts during a given game. To be honest finding artifacts is probably my favorite thing in the game, and it would be even more exciting if there was more game-to-game variety in what you got, at least in early/mid game. I suppose one could argue that is what randarts are for though...

[ChodTheWacko]

To be honest finding artifacts is probably my favorite thing in the game, and it would be even more exciting if there was more game-to-game variety in what you got, at least in early/mid game. I suppose one could argue that is what randarts are for though...

I agree entirely.

Questions going slightly off topic:
What exactly does the randart mechanism need? Just artifact.txt?
How much info does that file actually need?

I'd honestly like to see a more random (but not completely so) artifact mode, where artifact.txt (or whatever) just has lines of:
power: X rarity:Y Depth:Z

and everything else is open season.

I'd even like to see the power/rarity/depth randomized to some degree, perhaps with a tunable 'difficulty setting' which allows new folk to break into the game easier (artifacts have more power, artifacts/objects show up at lower depths), and allow long time players like me to gradually depower artifacts on the quest to playing artifactless.

This is too radical for Vanilla, of course, but a separate program to generate artifact.txt should be trivial to write.

It would be fun, I think, for replayability. Mixing it up can add interesting new gameplay decisions. It should be a bell curve type of thing, where on average you have the current distribution, but I love the idea of every now and then you have a game where the artifacts are generated in a way that force you to rethink your strategy. If it's random, you shouldn't expect or enforce balance.

- Frank

[Derakon]

Currently randarts use the following pieces of information for each artifact:

* A derived power level, based on the item's stats and base object
* If the item is a ring, amulet, or light source.

Thus the Arkenstone of Thrain will always generate a randart Arkenstone with a similar power level (and the same activation), and Nenya will always result in a randart ring with a similar activation and power level, but weapons can become armor and vice versa.

Eventually the plan is to change how artifacts get generated, at which point I wouldn't be surprised if the ring/amulet "locks" get broken (so a longsword could become a ring, or Nenya could become a crossbow). Possibly even with light sources as well. Presumably there'd be rules to ensure that there's enough light sources, rings, and amulets in the generated randart list.

As for effective power level, randarts are expected to have a higher variance than standarts do, so yes, sometimes you'll find superpowered stuff, and sometimes you'll find cruddy stuff.

[Magnate]

Eventually the plan is to change how artifacts get generated, at which point I wouldn't be surprised if the ring/amulet "locks" get broken (so a longsword could become a ring, or Nenya could become a crossbow). Possibly even with light sources as well. Presumably there'd be rules to ensure that there's enough light sources, rings, and amulets in the generated randart list.

Indeed. Sorting out the "special"/non-special distinction is top priority. What I'm not sure about is whether to make randarts more random, and use absolute metrics to try and ensure balance, or whether to stick with using artifact.txt as a reference. I'm also not sure whether we should move towards the Sangband/Crawl/Z/Un/ToME model, with both fixed and random artifacts. I could try persuading takkaria on the basis that it would remove another option!

As for effective power level, randarts are expected to have a higher variance than standarts do, so yes, sometimes you'll find superpowered stuff, and sometimes you'll find cruddy stuff.

I'd go so far as to say that it's mathematically impossible to achieve the same progression that standarts have - the very act of randomisation introduces chaos, which prevents them having the same power profile through the dungeon.

[d_m]

I just want to say that I like the idea of being able to mix standarts and randarts.

In fact, my ideal option/version/change would be to keep some of the most memorable, fun, interesting artifacts (even just the ones with the best names/histories/descriptions) and then use random artifacts for the rest.