Lantern of Brightness > Phial of Galadriel?

[Snoozer]

Recently started playing again after years away and picked up 3.4. It's great! Glad to see that people are keeping this great game alive.

I finally found the Phial of G and it seemed a little...dim. Light radius 2. I thought I remembered it being 3; was it reduced at some point? A bit deeper I found a Lantern of Brightness, Radius 3 which I'm now using instead. It seems funny that this lantern would be brighter than the artifact. Was this an intentional change, and if so what was the reasoning? If this was discussed already a link to the appropriate thread would be appreciated. Thanks!

[Derakon]

Odd; the Phial really ought to have a radius of 3. Sounds like a bug to me!

[fizzix]

Phial activates for illumination, that's its advantage. I wouldn't be opposed to changing it to radius 3, but I'd also like to hear the counter-arguments.

[Derakon]

It should have a light radius of 3 because it's the freakin' Phial and should be a no-brainer improvement over other light sources. The advantage to getting the Phial is that you no longer have to deal with worrying about your light supply. It's been that way for time immemorial, so frankly at this point it's one of Angband's sacred cows -- You Just Don't Change It.

[fizzix]

It should have a light radius of 3 because it's the freakin' Phial and should be a no-brainer improvement over other light sources.

To play the devils advocate. Why should the weakest artifact source be better than a top level ego item?

Honestly, I'd rather change the phial's activation to heroism than any of the other suggested changes. It's more fitting thematically.

[Derakon]

To play the devils advocate. Why should the weakest artifact source be better than a top level ego item?

Because tradition. Honestly that should be good enough for this one. But if you really want better reasons:

1) All two of the light egos are pretty weak, so "top level" is damning with faint praise.

2) The entire purpose of the Phial is to obsolete fuel-using light sources (and to provide a way for warriors to light rooms without having to use rods of illumination). It's a nice regret-free equipment upgrades, and those are part of what makes the game fun.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Fuel-using light sources are very boring in Angband since fuel rarely runs out. Phial gets rid of that boredom. Could we have a thematic low-level artifact to do the same for food?

[Derakon]

A little digging reveals that Magnate made this change based on a change that Takkaria had made, or something along those lines. I'd be interested in hearing the case for this change, from either of them (or anyone else, for that matter).

[Snoozer]

Well, I suppose one could argue that reducing it to 2 provides a sort of raison d'etre for the Lantern of Brightness. At radius 3 The Phial is totally superior to any non-artifact light source, but at radius 2 you have to choose between the Phial's activation ability and the extra radius a Lantern Of Brightness provides. I chose the extra radius. One could argue that interesting choices are more fun than just finding a series of items clearly superior to the one you found previously, and that this radius reduction provides another opportunity for choice and variation vs. homogeneity of equipment.

But personally, I like the sacred cow approach to this one

[Shockbolt]

Fuel-using light sources are very boring in Angband since fuel rarely runs out. Phial gets rid of that boredom. Could we have a thematic low-level artifact to do the same for food?

Done, at least the artwork for them

Bag of Feeding(activate to eat):



Cup of Drinking(activate to drink):

[Magnate]

A little digging reveals that Magnate made this change based on a change that Takkaria had made, or something along those lines. I'd be interested in hearing the case for this change, from either of them (or anyone else, for that matter).

Well, I don't claim to speak for takkaria, but my recollection is that the change was made as part of a series of changes to *torches*, not lanterns. Torches were reduced to radius 1, and can no longer refuel other torches - thereby making the running out of fuel issue less boring. The phial is clearly a no-brainer upgrade over a torch of any sort, which is what Derakon would want.

EDIT: here's the original pull request.

I think takkaria also made ego lanterns rarer and deeper at the same time, and I think the problem is that this didn't go far enough (EDIT: the problem is that in fact this change didn't happen). I think the intention was (and here I am guessing) that a lantern of Brightness should indeed be a difficult choice vs. the Phial (and there's no guarantee which you'd find first). Do you go for the extra radius, or do you stick with the infinite fuel and the useful activation?

If people don't want that kind of interesting choice in the game, and are keen to keep it as broken as it's always been, by all means return the Phial to its sacred radius. Personally I'm proud to have been involved during the period when there were no sacred cows, and I think the game is more interesting for it.

EDIT: I think if you make ego lanterns rarer than the Phial (or at least the Brightness ego), the no-regrets-upgrade feel should return.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

That's convincing, Magnate. If I had to make a choice, I could go either way.

Just one counter-argument: it's better to offer interesting choices in areas that are the game's strengths. Light and food clocks are Angband's weaknesses to me (if you're not playing ironman). An interesting choice that also includes player tedium in the equation tastes a bit diluted to me.

[Magnate]

That's convincing, Magnate. If I had to make a choice, I could go either way.

Just one counter-argument: it's better to offer interesting choices in areas that are the game's strengths. Light and food clocks are Angband's weaknesses to me (if you're not playing ironman). An interesting choice that also includes player tedium in the equation tastes a bit diluted to me.

I don't disagree with this. Nobody has really done a proper job of ego lights in V - other variants have a fantastic range of ego light types, which makes the light clock much more interesting. One thing I thought of was a fast-burning lantern that uses twice as much fuel (making the clock even more irritating) in return for greater benefits (higher light radius, or detection of invisible monsters, or blindness resistance, or whatever). You could also add a half-fuel usage if you felt like making more variations on standard fuel/no fuel.

I think I'd remove the NO_FUEL flag from all non-artifact lights, and introduce these other fuel variations instead. Then an artifact light source would always be an upgrade, even if you might have to trade off something you wanted (like SI or rBlind).

We also don't have any implementation of Unlight in V, so we can't yet do the lanterns of Shadows and their kin.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Nobody has really done a proper job of ego lights in V - other variants have a fantastic range of ego light types, which makes the light clock much more interesting.

Like torches in Halls of Mist.

I think I'd remove the NO_FUEL flag from all non-artifact lights, and introduce these other fuel variations instead. Then an artifact light source would always be an upgrade, even if you might have to trade off something you wanted (like SI or rBlind).

That sounds very good.

I suggest removing the option to extinguish a torch or a lantern. If fuel ever starts to run low, the things that the player must do to save fuel are the very definition of tedium. Then you could also offer oils with magical properties -- these would really make the light clock interesting. (I know, I did a similar thing with torches in Mist.)

[Magnate]

I suggest removing the option to extinguish a torch or a lantern. If fuel ever starts to run low, the things that the player must do to save fuel are the very definition of tedium. Then you could also offer oils with magical properties -- these would really make the light clock interesting. (I know, I did a similar thing with torches in Mist.)

I don't think I realised that V allowed people to extinguish light sources. I know S does, as part of the shadow implementation. I'm not sure it matters too much - doing without light is very tough for non-shadow characters.

I do like your idea of magic oils - these are essentially temporary buffs for a lantern. What do you do when a lantern that's half full of Oil Of Brightness (+1 radius) gets filled with Oil Of True Seeing (SI/rblind) - do you allow the oils to mix and the bonuses to stack? Or do you have the new oil's bonuses replace the old one's?