Experiences with Frog-knows

[buzzkill]

I think you're both being a litle melodramatic (timo, dm), but I've already said my piece and have nothing more to add.

[Nick]

Anyway, these are good ideas... I'll write them down.

Put 'em on the TODO list

[d_m]

I just got an idea about curses that create quests. How about removing curse requires killing the monster that created the curse, and that would restore the item at its full power. The stronger the original item, the worse the cursed variant of it should be.

I think something like that would work really well.

One example could be that you hit a level with Glaurung on it, so you become cursed by Glaurung (maybe some uniques have a % chance to do this). I'm not sure if the curse would make the item bad, or do something else, but the idea would be that until you kill Glaurung it'd stay around (and you'd probably see Glaurung more frequently than usual).

I also like items which start out cursed/bad (e.g. Calris) but instead of just using enchant scrolls you do something "quest-like" to restore it.

Anyway, these are good ideas... I'll write them down.

[Timo Pietilä]

I think the game would be more interesting if it was accepted that certain bad things sometimes happen to equipment, over and above losing plusses from disen. But people hated that idea last time it came up (and that was only for temporary bad things), so it looks like removing the scrolls is the only acceptable option in the current climate.

I just got an idea about curses that create quests. How about removing curse requires killing the monster that created the curse, and that would restore the item at its full power. The stronger the original item, the worse the cursed variant of it should be.

You could make monsters cursing your equipment, when you kill the monster in question the curse dissolves. If you change level without killing the monster curse becomes permanent (or requires something really rare to remove it) unless the monster was unique in which case you get a second chance removing it.

Initially cursed artifacts could list which unique monster has cast that curse. As long as that unique is alive you could find only cursed version of the thing, when it is dead only non-cursed would appear. Obviously only "smart" monsters could create curses.

I haven't thought that thru, just writing before I forget it.

[Magnate]

I agree with Timo here... my most common reaction to reading Curse Weapon or Curse Armor is to quit Angband. Maybe later I'll go back, try to remove the curse, etc. but usually it just pisses me off.

The effect is exactly what I think is wrong with the ID minigame. Things like Potion of Sleep, Potion of Poison, Potion of Slowness, etc. are all fine... if I start drinking them in desperation during combat they may kill me, but if I survive then things are fine. In fact, I would argue that I mind Potion of Death less than Scroll of Curse Armor just because the game makes the choice about whether I should try to continue for me

Someone had the idea that the scroll should just apply a curse (without killing enchantments). That might be OK instead. But my preference is for removing the scrolls.

I think the game would be more interesting if it was accepted that certain bad things sometimes happen to equipment, over and above losing plusses from disen. But people hated that idea last time it came up (and that was only for temporary bad things), so it looks like removing the scrolls is the only acceptable option in the current climate.

[d_m]

I agree with Timo here... my most common reaction to reading Curse Weapon or Curse Armor is to quit Angband. Maybe later I'll go back, try to remove the curse, etc. but usually it just pisses me off.

The effect is exactly what I think is wrong with the ID minigame. Things like Potion of Sleep, Potion of Poison, Potion of Slowness, etc. are all fine... if I start drinking them in desperation during combat they may kill me, but if I survive then things are fine. In fact, I would argue that I mind Potion of Death less than Scroll of Curse Armor just because the game makes the choice about whether I should try to continue for me

Someone had the idea that the scroll should just apply a curse (without killing enchantments). That might be OK instead. But my preference is for removing the scrolls.

[Timo Pietilä]

Yes. It is CURSED. It was never intended to junk. It was always intended to be harmful. Not everything should be useful. I don't know where the notion come from that everything must be somehow useful, and there can't be purely evil items that the player must beware of.

I'm not against junk items, but those scrolls are just annoying. IMO they should be just plain removed because they do not provide anything useful to game. ID or no ID. No excitement, no challenge, only annoyance. Even potion of death was more interesting, at least you would be dead and not crippled after drinking one.

[buzzkill]

This is about ID-by-use without ID spells available, so "past that point" doesn't apply. Current item distribution is too unreliable to be sure that you do find those at shallow depths, someone just recently commented that he found wand of magic missiles at dlvl 90+ down, and I have also found shallow items first time very deep in dungeon (different variations of scrolls of blessing for example).

That's a farily good argument in favor of keeping ID around beyond full scale ID-by-use.

Because something is annoying to you personally isn't a reason to lobby for it's exclusion. Tell me how losing a single piece of non-artifact armour is game breaking instead.

Finding low level items extremely deep is an abnormality (likely heavily tied to play style) that shouldn't be accounted for in game balance, any more than egos or artifacts should be nerfed because they are sometimes found very early.

Curse armor/weapon has no other use, so it is not just junk, it is harmful junk. Potions of confusion etc. do have other uses especially with ID-by-use, so they cease being pure junk.

Yes. It is CURSED. It was never intended to junk. It was always intended to be harmful. Not everything should be useful. I don't know where the notion come from that everything must be somehow useful, and there can't be purely evil items that the player must beware of.

AAMOF, although I wouldn't want to play every game with the following feature, I'm having a great time playing my FA comp 110 character with severe buginess that basically restricts her to only cursed weapons and armour, and an extraordinarily limited selection of those.

[Timo Pietilä]

Again, I'm not talking about losing an artifact or even some good ego armor. I'm talking about if you read the thing when you're in the 500'-1500' range, which should be before you've found any armor you'd consider remotely vital. Past that point you'll be IDing everything before using it so Curse Armor stops being a factor.

This is about ID-by-use without ID spells available, so "past that point" doesn't apply. Current item distribution is too unreliable to be sure that you do find those at shallow depths, someone just recently commented that he found wand of magic missiles at dlvl 90+ down, and I have also found shallow items first time very deep in dungeon (different variations of scrolls of blessing for example).

Curse armor/weapon has no other use, so it is not just junk, it is harmful junk. Potions of confusion etc. do have other uses especially with ID-by-use, so they cease being pure junk.

Especially full artifact ID requires quite a few tests if we don't do rune-based system.

Rune-based system OTOH can be too fast unless you make knowledge of those grow gradually (first item having tested known feature doesn't yet trigger automatic recognition, tenth does. Something like that), so you might want to have those test-methods available even for that.

[Derakon]

Again, I'm not talking about losing an artifact or even some good ego armor. I'm talking about if you read the thing when you're in the 500'-1500' range, which should be before you've found any armor you'd consider remotely vital. Past that point you'll be IDing everything before using it so Curse Armor stops being a factor.

[Timo Pietilä]

Curse Armor isn't too bad. You can live without one of your armor slots for quite a long time, and it makes for an interesting challenge. At least, that's my opinion on it after it happened to me.

I find losing even one point of enchantment permanently extremely annoying (Cambeleg with +7,+7, Pain with +29). Losing entire armor would lose my interest of that character. I rather take potion of death than those scrolls. I know it doesn't make sense in long run, but that is how I feel and why I said it being too annoying, not fatal.

Potion of ruinations is also item that could be added back if those two scrolls stay, because same justification applies to it too.

[UglySquirrell]

Cool, just found the short sword "Gilettar" in a small vault on level 29 now I just need to figure out what it does.

[Nick]

"Good idea! I'll have to add that to FAAngband!"

No, on this occasion it was "If you had FAangband curses already, you wouldn't have to", followed by the explanation that Curse Weapon and Curse Armour would just add a few more curses, not be totally destructive.

But that was a good guess

[Derakon]

Surely I don't have to say what everyone knows I'm going to say here...

"Good idea! I'll have to add that to FAAngband!"

[Nick]

I agree with this. An item that is useless (and maybe tactically bad) but which doesn't cripple your character seems fine. You make a good point about Curse Weapon and Curse Armor.

In my branch which makes artifacts 1/2 as common I will remove Curse Weapon/Armor as a reward to see how it plays

Surely I don't have to say what everyone knows I'm going to say here...