Finding a solution to ID

[Nick]

As Timo pointed out in the favourite change thread, ID is still something of a pain, especially deep in the dungeon where you're generating tons of loot and then having to sort through it all.

Rune-based ID has been suggested for a while, and it may well be a good idea, but I'm not sure how much it will help; there is another solution in play in the current comp, where fizzix has made it that perception rods activate for "ID everything in line of sight". In any case, I would like to hear any further suggestions on how to make ID less annoying and more interesting.

To kick it off, here's one idea I just thought up. The current ignoring (squelch) system works well, but has no effect on equippable gear which you still have to ID or test. What if we did this:

1. Every equippable item has a chance to be automatically ignored if, under the player's current settings, it would be ignored after ID;
2. this chance is player level dependent, increasing by 2% per character level, so it's 100% at level 50;
3. in addition, we introduce ignoring of specific ego types (this will happen anyway).

Alternative suggestions and comments encouraged.

[MarvinPA]

Having gameplay change depending on what is (at least as far as I understand it) purely an interface setting seems very inelegant to me. Does having low-quality equippable items just (have a chance to) auto-ID on sight, with the threshold for "low-quality" increasing with XL, achieve a similar effect in a better way?

[debo]

Poschengband has a sort-of-interesting system.

- Pseudo-id is very fast even in the early game
- You are pretty much guaranteed to find The Stone of Lore by midgame, which when wielded autoids everything you step on (it has to be on the floor)
- It has the autodestroyer which basically functions like squelch.

The place where it misses the boat imo is that *identify* still exists, but that's a whole other story

Just this small change (a single artefact that autoids all the things) is a huge help, imo.

[Carnivean]

I don't know much about how id-by-runes was implemented, but I think having runes with specific powers (or whatever you'd want to call them) would allow for named ego-types to be done away with. They could be generated in any combination, stacking as the power level of the item increases (similar to how randarts work I think). You could then pick which runes you'd like not to be squelched, and if one of them is on the item, then it isn't squelched.

Auto-squelch by number of runes might also be an option.

[Siemelink]

I've just played Angband 4.0 with runes and squelch.

Once I collected only artifacts, clearing the debris after a defeating a demon pit was as easy as collecting the money from a hydra pit.

The one thing I did not figure out is how I can find and keep an ultimate Holy Avenger once I set squelch to non-artifact.

Willem.

[fizzix]

Honestly, I think rune-based ID + eliminating magical ID altogether solves most of the problems. Mass identify should be seen as a stop-gap measure, and not the ideal path forward (IMO). ID of consumables is interesting, especially for newer players who don't have the item list memorized.

There are some other changes I would propose:

All consumables get identified after a use. None of this no-effect crap making it impossible to ID a restore mana potion if you're a warrior, or a curing rod ever. When you use a consumable you find out what it is.

To ID runes, you need to see the effect.

Unknown runes shouldn't be given names, just listed as an unknown rune. Once you find out what it does you can give it the name. This is solely to avoid meta-game stupidity.

All weapons get bonuses ID'd on pickup after some level (30?).

Everything gets autoinscriptions applied on item creation not on item pickup. This is necessary to ensure that high level non-artifacts aren't auto-squelched.

Allow squelch and unsquelch by rune. So each known rune gets the option of always squelch, no condition, squelch only if other squelchable rune, and never squelch. This is in addition to squelch by type. So, for example, if you set "slay evil" to never squelch, anything with slay evil does not get squelched. If you set "slay evil" to "squelch only if other squelchable rune" and you set aggravate to "squelch" then slay evil weapons which aggravate get squelched, other slay evil weapons do not. If you set daggers to squelch, slay evil daggers get squelched, but slay evil long swords to not. Does this make any sense?

Another option to remove junk is to allow monsters to destroy weaker weapons. Right now we just have monsters who destroy everything and other ones who pick up stuff. We should have ones that actively destroy weak items. For this we need some sort of power scaling, but we can probably pull that off.

I don't think ID is broken. It's damn hard to get right, and I'm no sure any roguelike I've played that uses flavors, or unknown weapon abilities, doesn't have ID annoyance.

[Derakon]

As a stopgap measure until rune-based ID gets implemented (since I do think that rune-based ID is the way to go), you could give every character instant ID-on-pickup at level 40. Figure that by that point they know what they're doing and have enough experience to recognize what stuff does and have heard enough lore to learn all the artifacts.

[clouded]

Anything that might be on pickup should be when you walk over, this is the masterstroke of poscheng. How many times do you have to drop an item to pick another one up to pseudo it? For me this is extremely often and this is the main thing that becomes a real pain.

The rods of mass ID were nice in the comp, though I did often find myself having to use them multiple times a few spaces apart because they are limited to light radius. The interface is still a little eh because you still need to examine the items around you (squelched things don't disappear until you move, but you can't look at them). I like just walking over things, no extra key presses and you get a message for everything you step on.

[debo]

Walking around and autodestroying things is particularly flavorful as a golem, also.

[mrrstark]

Is there a quick description of Rune-Based ID? I'm not familiar with 4.0

[Timo Pietilä]

Is there a quick description of Rune-Based ID? I'm not familiar with 4.0

As I understand rune-based ID is that every feature item has has a "rune" associated to it so that once you notice some quality by ID-by-use you then automatically notice it in other items without needing to do any kind of ID.

So in early game you need to id-by-use and later just looking at the item is enough.

How game actually does/will do that, I don't know.

[Derakon]

In rune-based ID, each feature on an item, like resist fire or telepathy or +speed, is a separate rune. Once you figure out that the item provides a given bonus, you recognize that rune on all future items. Once you've learned all the runes, you functionally automatically identify every item you see (except for learning the names of artifacts).

[mrrstark]

How do you figure out what a rune is?
Do you still have identify spell/scroll/etc?

[Derakon]

ID-by-use would presumably still be an option. Whether or not more direct means of Identify would still exist is an open question. My inclination is to remove all ID except for ID-by-use and see how well that works; if it turns out we still need some form of magical ID then we could always add it back in later. In such a case presumably each use of magical ID would reveal the meaning of a single rune.

[Zyphyr]

Is there a quick description of Rune-Based ID? I'm not familiar with 4.0

Essentially, each property (resist fire, esp, slay evil, etc) has a 'rune' associated with it. When you learn the property on an item, you learn the meaning of the rune. Find a new item with that rune and you already know that property on it.

Eventually you come to learn most if not all of the runes so everything you find up will be fully identified (with the exception of +hit/+damage/+armor, though some proposals have added runes for those as well).