Playing 3.4.1 after a few years off

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Just learning the Identify spell could make you automatically identify all items when picking them up. Carrying an Idol of Identify or some such in your pack could do the same thing.

Satisfy hunger could function similarly.

[Derakon]

Some items in vaults need to be unidentified, so the risk/reward is not 100% knowable until afterward.

Easily fixed by not IDing the items until you pick them up. I agree that items should not auto-ID at a distance.

Maybe the problem is monster pits?
I feel like all pits should be rarer. They should be a interesting and exciting event, not an expected part of every dive.

There's a difference between the pits full of trash mobs and the pits full of dangerous enemies. Orc pits rapidly become ho-hum, as do troll pits; dragon pits are also often not very dangerous though they have higher potential for wearing you down through attrition, especially if you have trouble with great wyrms. But zoos, undead pits, ainu pits, and demon pits all are very dangerous, and by association they make the rest of the dungeon very dangerous. And that's interesting. If deep levels weren't commonly infested with large numbers of dangerous, awake enemies, then they'd be much easier to explore when underequipped.

[Antoine]

Just add a deep Rod of Mass ID

Problem solved

A.

[emulord]

I agree graveyards, zoos, Ainu pits are scary and awesome for how they affect the entire level's dynamic.
Giant pits / Demon pits are interesting because they are conquerable, but still risky.
Jelly pits teach newbies an important lesson: Dont try to kill everything even if you can. Sometimes its not worth it.
However, being able to kill 50 dragons/orcs/trolls and get piles and piles of loot for low risk and a lot of tedium is a problem.

If you want to fix these issues while retaining danger levels at deep depths, decrease pit rates and increase number of random enemies as dungeon level increases from 50-100 or 75-100. This prevents totally underequipped characters diving as well as creating more interesting tactical situations through more monsters interfering with fights.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Just add a deep Rod of Mass ID

Problem solved

Well, a large part of the problem would be solved for non-spellcasters. ID system would still require a little manual labour that doesn't add any fun.

Many mages and rangers would choose not to carry the rod.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Actually just making room in your inventory to pick up stuff for identification is quite bothersome.

[buzzkill]

Not everything needs to be identified. What you miss, you will find again. I think players are attached to identify in the same way that players were attached to selling (before no selling came along). Just leave the crap laying on the ground un-ID'd and leave the level. It won't kill you. You might even get used to it after a while.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Not everything needs to be identified. What you miss, you will find again. I think players are attached to identify in the same way that players were attached to selling (before no selling came along). Just leave the crap laying on the ground un-ID'd and leave the level. It won't kill you. You might even get used to it after a while.

In any case, the ID system would still be reducing from my fun (in a different way), not adding to it.

[TJS]

I quite like the idea of an ID minigame, but in reality it doesn't add all that much fun to the game.

Thinking about it, I'd quite like to try a version with no ID at all.

Any idea how I could hack it in?

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Thinking about it, I'd quite like to try a version with no ID at all.

I'd like to see a little variant with no ID, food or light items...

[Timo Pietilä]

Try no-selling. Money drops are much higher.

Second vote for this. It feels odd at first for someone that has played selling game for ages, but very soon becomes natural and you start to think "this is how the game should have been in first place!".

It removes a) need to carry things with you at the shop and b) makes money actually useful. You actually want to kill those creeping adamantium coins and if something can drop item or money money drop doesn't feel complete loss.

IMO this should be default.

Note that "no-selling" does not mean that you can "give" items in shops, you just won't get any money from it. This allows you to use shops as ID services.

[fizzix]

I quite like the idea of an ID minigame, but in reality it doesn't add all that much fun to the game.

Thinking about it, I'd quite like to try a version with no ID at all.

Any idea how I could hack it in?

You could do this by setting the probabilities of all the ID items to 0. You'd also need to remove the spells from the various classes (or you could just choose not to learn them)

I'd also recommend either mitigating or removing the "curse" scrolls in a full ID-by-use game. Testing them is painful (remove all equipment, read unknown scroll, etc.)

[TJS]

You could do this by setting the probabilities of all the ID items to 0. You'd also need to remove the spells from the various classes (or you could just choose not to learn them)

I'd also recommend either mitigating or removing the "curse" scrolls in a full ID-by-use game. Testing them is painful (remove all equipment, read unknown scroll, etc.)

Actually I probably wasn't being clear, I want to try a version where everything is identified as soon as you see it, rather than unknown until you've jumped through a few arbitrary hoops.

I'd like to see a little variant with no ID, food or light items...

Actually I was planning on making a variant a bit like this, with possibly the map revealed to you and also monster positions ie. ESP for all monsters types (if I can figure out how to do any of that).

[Mikko Lehtinen]

To start with, to make weapons and armor already identified, try adding the flag EASY_KNOW for each item. (IIRC. I did this in Mist.)

[fizzix]

Actually I was planning on making a variant a bit like this, with possibly the map revealed to you and also monster positions ie. ESP for all monsters types (if I can figure out how to do any of that).

Revealing the map just means casting clairvoyance (or enlightenment if you want to know items too) automatically.

To reveal all monsters, check the wiz command u. That displays all monsters. You can copy that command and run it before every player movement.