Experiences with Frog-knows

[Magnate]

I just thought of something. Reject all summonees with speed > player speed upon un-id'ed use.

Thank you - that's an excellent suggestion that doesn't require messing around with energy.

[buzzkill]

Thank you - that's an excellent suggestion that doesn't require messing around with energy.

I disagree. Slower monsters are generally weaker monsters. You're violating a unspoken truth in an effort to protect the player from himself. An item shouldn't behave differently just because it's un-ID'd. It these are the means that need to be put into practice to insure the 100% adoption of ID-by-use, then its not worth it.

There are normal means to make testing un-ID'd scrolls relatively safe. Standing on a staircase, or better yet, on a staircase surrounded by granite on 7 sides or testing in town.

If this is where you're going to take it, then just get rid of the item because that's what this will (eventually) lead to.

[Magnate]

You're violating a unspoken truth in an effort to protect the player from himself. An item shouldn't behave differently just because it's un-ID'd.

Where does it say that? Leon Marrick, who was probably the best game designer ever to grace the Angband world, didn't think so - Sangband's ID-by-use system depends entirely on this not being true, and it works extremely well.

[Timo Pietilä]

If you see a potion of Death, grab it I just sold one for 11,209 gold.

IIRC reason for that is that that potion makes quite an impact when thrown. Potion of detonations should do the same. There are few others too like potion of poison, and mushrooms of unhealth but those make much less damage than those two high-level potions.

[UglySquirrell]

IIRC reason for that is that that potion makes quite an impact when thrown. Potion of detonations should do the same. There are few others too like potion of poison, and mushrooms of unhealth but those make much less damage than those two high-level potions.

Ill try that out thanks, the drops were, definately more random back then. Found the leather armor Hithlomer on level 5, the star on 15, one of the orc bosses dropped Eriril on level 13 the other a suit of bronze dsm! On 18. My favorite, even though its useless to me was a mace of disruption dropped by an ogre on level 16.

[Timo Pietilä]

Ill try that out thanks, the drops were, definately more random back then. Found the leather armor Hithlomer on level 5, the star on 15, one of the orc bosses dropped Eriril on level 13 the other a suit of bronze dsm! On 18. My favorite, even though its useless to me was a mace of disruption dropped by an ogre on level 16.

You have been way more lucky than I have. Only artifact I have seen this far is Phial, and I have only ego-helmet of infravision and katana of animal slaying, everything else is not even ego yet, and I'm as deep as you are. My luckiest find this far has been RoDam +6 dropped by some orc at 300' or so.

[UglySquirrell]

You have been way more lucky than I have. Only artifact I have seen this far is Phial, and I have only ego-helmet of infravision and katana of animal slaying, everything else is not even ego yet, and I'm as deep as you are. My luckiest find this far has been RoDam +6 dropped by some orc at 300' or so.

Got lucky with finding a whip of flame and a ring of damage fairl early, and bought another ring from bm. I'm taking it really slow. rerolled from helf to my current hobbit, starting stats are giving me 3 blows a round so that helps s lot.

[buzzkill]

Where does it say that?

It's unspoken.

Leon Marrick, who was probably the best game designer ever to grace the Angband world, didn't think so - Sangband's ID-by-use system depends entirely on this not being true, and it works extremely well.

My bad, I was under the impression that you thought that you were working on Vanilla Angband, not a variant of (which is what I've long suspected).

[Derakon]

It's unspoken.My bad, I was under the impression that you thought that you were working on Vanilla Angband, not a variant of (which is what I've long suspected).

That seems rather unkind. All development that is not strictly changes to the user interface will interfere with the balance, for good or ill, and everyone has a different opinion about what the "core" Angband experience is. If you don't like where development is going, feel free to say so (as you have been), but politely, hey?

And if you consider modern Vanilla to be a variant of the "true" Vanilla, well, that game's still available to play and/or fork.

[buzzkill]

That seems rather unkind.

Oh, come on. He set me up for the first line.

... but you're probably right. I'm on a bit of an (frequently posted) anti-Vanilla streak right now as a few topics that are, from my PoV, important have come up for discussion. It was all pretty much tongue-in-cheek. My apologies to those who may had been offended.

[Magnate]

Oh, come on. He set me up for the first line.

... but you're probably right. I'm on a bit of an (frequently posted) anti-Vanilla streak right now as a few topics that are, from my PoV, important have come up for discussion. It was all pretty much tongue-in-cheek. My apologies to those who may had been offended.

I'm ok with that. Just because something good happens to be in a variant doesn't mean that it can't be adopted by V - quite the opposite, in fact.

I'm working on V because I enjoy working with a friendly bunch of other devs, not because I have any purist vision of what it should be. If you have one - and you seem to have strong views about what we should and shouldn't be concentrating on - post it somewhere for people to discuss. Start a poll. Write a patch, or a bunch of edit files. Write a spec for how your pet peeves could be solved and I'll try and code it in a branch. Do something that says "I'm not just taking pot-shots, here's my contribution towards making V what I want it to be".

And in case there's any doubt, I don't agree that there's ever been any rule, unspoken or otherwise, that objects have to behave identically before and after they're identified.

[Timo Pietilä]

And in case there's any doubt, I don't agree that there's ever been any rule, unspoken or otherwise, that objects have to behave identically before and after they're identified.

There is. It becomes from the quite old standard newbie question "do I have this and that bonus even that I don't know it?". Standard answer to that is "yes". Now having something act differently without knowledge than with it breaks that rule of things do exactly same thing with or without knowledge.

This should be universal law of things in angband.

Thing in question here is summons. IMO summons should always start with zero energy without exception. Call that "summoning sickness" if you wish, or surprise delay of action.

If they still are faster than you and can kill you the turn they get, then you are too slow / have too few HP.

[Magnate]

There is. It becomes from the quite old standard newbie question "do I have this and that bonus even that I don't know it?". Standard answer to that is "yes". Now having something act differently without knowledge than with it breaks that rule of things do exactly same thing with or without knowledge.

This should be universal law of things in angband.

I agree that once you have wielded/worn something, its properties should not then change just because it is IDd. I can't imagine anyone wanting to change that for wearables. (As an aside, I quite like the idea of certain things that can't be IDd *until* you wear them, but that's a different issue.)

Thing in question here is summons. IMO summons should always start with zero energy without exception. Call that "summoning sickness" if you wish, or surprise delay of action.

If they still are faster than you and can kill you the turn they get, then you are too slow / have too few HP.

I think it's a little different for consumables though. Most deaths in Angband are due to mistakes - it should be all deaths, but you and I are both of the view that the very occasional unavoidable death from a hugely OOD monster actually adds to enjoyment of the game rather than detracts from it.

By contrast, I think deaths from ID-by-use would not add anything to the game for most people. If we want to encourage people to ID things by use (with the ultimate aim of removing the need for magical ID), they need to be able to do so without getting killed. Lots of roguelikes do this quite well - Crawl uses hardly any magical ID, and I've already mentioned Sangband. I believe FA does this pretty well too ...

So while I agree that summons arriving with 0 energy is fine and doesn't need to be messed with, I don't see any harm in ensuring that monsters faster than the player are not summoned when the scroll/staff is used unIDd. I see that as an acceptable measure to encourage ID-by-use.

[buzzkill]

I don't see any harm in ensuring that monsters faster than the player are not summoned when the scroll/staff is used unIDd. I see that as an acceptable measure to encourage ID-by-use.

The harm isn't in this particular change (though it does make the game easier). The harm is in the overall notion that the player needs to be protected from his own voluntary actions. I stand my previous post where I explained why this isn't necessary because there are other easily accessible ways to mitigate the threat of summoning (stairs, ASC or pseudo (natural) ASC, haste).

If you're dead set on this path, may I suggest allowing monsters up to +10 speed faster than player, in order to allow stronger summons, but have them 'slowed' (for 1 turn).

[Magnate]

The harm isn't in this particular change (though it does make the game easier). The harm is in the overall notion that the player needs to be protected from his own voluntary actions. I stand my previous post where I explained why this isn't necessary because there are other easily accessible ways to mitigate the threat of summoning (stairs, ASC or pseudo (natural) ASC, haste).

In general I would agree that we're not about protecting the player from him/herself. But I think ID-by-use is an exception: if people have to find stairs or dig an ASC before trying to ID anything, they'll not bother with it.

If you're dead set on this path, may I suggest allowing monsters up to +10 speed faster than player, in order to allow stronger summons, but have them 'slowed' (for 1 turn).

Now that's a good idea. I had tried to do it this way by using the "nice" flag, but that gets cleared in between the summonee arriving and the start of the next turn, so it wasn't a viable option (I didn't want to make any fundamental changes to the way "nice" is handled). But it would be possible to adjust the monster speed in the summoning function, with a single turn of MON_TMD_SLOW. So in fact all we need to do is say if monster speed > player speed, set one turn of slowing. If you happen to summon something that's +20 speed faster than you and it *still* gets a move before you do, then you were way OOD when you read the scroll and that's fair enough.