Finding a solution to ID

[Nick]

Having gameplay change depending on what is (at least as far as I understand it) purely an interface setting seems very inelegant to me.

I guess I'm starting to think of it as not just an interface. I'm thinking of it as a representation of in-game reality - you walk into a room full of treasure and say "Junk, junk, junk, ooh nice looking sword, junk, ...". And what you say "junk" to is represented by your ignoring settings.

Now this works perfectly for potions, scrolls etc where you've seen one, seen them all. But the situation with (most) things you can wear/wield is you have no idea until you ID it, or use it for a bit, or carry it round for a bit, or some combination of those.

So what I'm trying to do is rethink the whole thing, and work out what makes sense. People have certainly made some very good arguments for rune-based ID, here and elsewhere, but I don't want to just assume it's the best thing without examining alternatives.

Rune-based ID also AFAIK doesn't deal with bonuses, but I don't think anything really does that very well.

[Derakon]

Rune-based ID also AFAIK doesn't deal with bonuses, but I don't think anything really does that very well.

I don't have a problem with to-hit, to-dam, and to-AC being runes. They'd be trivially-identifiable runes, but I don't see an issue with automatically recognizing how well-enchanted an item is on first glance.

Note also that one of the changes that v4 made with its affix-based system is divorcing to-hit/dam bonuses from ego enchantments. You could find a (+0,+0) Dagger of Flame or the like. This has a surprisingly large effect on game difficulty; many early-game weapons are useful not for their ego enchantments but simply for the pluses on them.

[takkaria]

Rune-based ID also AFAIK doesn't deal with bonuses, but I don't think anything really does that very well.

I think the proposal I liked the most for this was to know all damage, to hit or AC bonuses that are as high as or lower than the highest value seen so far. I implemented this locally and playtested and it seemed to be a workable solution.

[Nick]

I think the proposal I liked the most for this was to know all damage, to hit or AC bonuses that are as high as or lower than the highest value seen so far. I implemented this locally and playtested and it seemed to be a workable solution.

Neat. I'm looking for plausible and not too tiresome, and this seems to fit the bill - maybe combined with PosCheng's recognition on walkover.

[Arralen]

Neat. I'm looking for plausible and not too tiresome, and this seems to fit the bill - maybe combined with PosCheng's recognition on walkover.

A nice and elegant solution - if at least that rune-thingy wheren't completely non-canon.

I think it's time for all the rougelikes based on Tolkiens works to get away from what is easy and efficient to program (red, blue, ultraviolet mold) and portray the world a little bit more faithfully.
We don't have to squeeze everything into 600KB of memory any longer, and don't have the savegames written to 1.44MB discs, you know ...

And regarding "enchanted items", there seems to be some variability if there are actual "runes" used to do an enchantment, or not, or of what kind they are.
Obviously elves, dwarves, humans, orks and maiar might be using different script, if at all.

Let's look at a promiment example (thanks, Nick, for reminding me ):

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

Is there a rune of ... wait, what says the spoiler file ... permanent curse, one of see invisible, etc.?
Obviously, things work a bit differently:
It's given a denomination, which seems to take over as a "personal" name ("Ash nazg" - "(The) One Ring"), and given purpose during its creation. Being named and given a purpose by a lesser good during its creation gives quite a bit of power, it seems.

But how to handle this when it comes to IDing items?

1) item quality
I wouldn't call +ToHit, +ToDAM etc. "magical", but "item quality". This quality may come from superior craftmanship, or magic, exerted during its creation (so no "enchantment scrolls", thank you; maybe some town service to repair damaged gear?).
It would be obvious when looking/walking over an item.
It might be "secretly" overwritten by magical properties (a curse, e.g.).

2) lesser enchantments
Could be handled by some "hidden rune roll" .. like "makes your burden lighter (+1STR, +1CON) or "lets you see better in the dark (+1 reception, +10f. infravision) might become apparent from use quickly (but not necessarily instant); If the char got to know one of these, there might be a chance depending on race and class to instantly recognise it on other items as well. (For some r/c combinations, maybe right from start?)
But this is from "feeling" the enchantment (and therefore a chance only, maybe reoccuring), not from reading some magimechanical runes on the object.
Having IDed the same effect on multiple items could bestow a bonus to the ID roll on newfound items.
There might be a shop/town service to help with this (Elrond, some dwarven smith,etc.)

3) greater powers
Gollum never got much further with the one ring than "make me invisible". Looks like you need some knowledge about an artifact before you can try to use its powers.
Some lesser enchantments on artifacts might become apparent easily (as in 2.), but for the greater powers, a roll on pickup to recognise the item immediatly, (depending on r/c?). Then one possible roll in town (Elrond again).
After that, only lenghty use would reveal the powers one by one ... maybe some additional roll for one power each level-up, as the char might recognise and master some ability as he gets stronger/more experienced?

Effects on gameplay? Please discuss ...

[Zireael]

I say give +dam and +hit runes depending on value and implement Pos's id on walkover.

[fizzix]

So I think v4 was heading in the right direction as far as +hit and +damage were going, but I think Magnate and I differed on the gory details of implementation.

I always thought we should have physical attributes which are obvious to all characters. Something like "sharpness" or "well-balanced" would fit these. The pluses from these would be automatically known. In addition there would be magical enchantments that gave additional pluses. These would have runes like everything else, and once you ID'd them you'd know the bonuses. In v4 you could stack runes to get higher bonuses, and you can probably do that here too.

Last, we don't need as much granularity as we have. We can limit attributes to multiples of +2, +3 and +5 and that would get us most of the values we want.

[Timo Pietilä]

I say give +dam and +hit runes depending on value and implement Pos's id on walkover.

id on walkover for known runes is given, otherwise this system wont work effectively enough. I think id on LoS would work even better.

I suggest a bit more detailed squelch too to complement this. Instead of quality, just list known features and mark them as ignore or not ignore. If item has any runes you don't already know or it has quality not marked as squelch it wont squelch. For bonuses maybe add thresholds (off-weapon damage/to hit bonuses could use different set of runes, so that gauntlets of slaying don't get squelched as weak weapons).

[Nick]

A nice and elegant solution - if at least that rune-thingy wheren't completely non-canon.

Along with slings, acid bolts, paladins, wands, magic scrolls, mages, crossbows, priests, nexus, ...

So what is "canon"?

Well, this is from Bilbo's Song of Eärendil:

his shining shield was scored with runes
to ward all wounds and harm from him;

Ooh look - runes! To protect!

I think it's time for all the rougelikes based on Tolkiens works to get away from what is easy and efficient to program (red, blue, ultraviolet mold) and portray the world a little bit more faithfully.

I think Sil actually does a pretty good job of this, although you can still point to things like the molds.

Angband, the game, is not supposed to be an accurate representation of Tolkien's works. If it were, the player should probably leg it to Ossiriand or the Isle of Balar, and wait in hiding until Eönwë and his buddies turn up. Strangely, this fails to make for a compelling game.

It is a game which is fun to play and which has enough Tolkien-themed content to make it feel most of the time like you're in the Tolkien world, and little enough completely jarring content so that you can mostly suspend disbelief. IMHO it does at least as good a job as Peter Jackson's movies.

[debo]

IMHO it does at least as good a job as Peter Jackson's movies.

imo Peter Jackson should make a poschengband movie.

[Nick]

imo Peter Jackson should make a poschengband movie.

The first two Hobbit movies have been heading in that direction, and I have high hopes for the third

[Bogatyr]

I'd rather not subject myself to unresisted attacks (nexus, nether, chaos, etc.) just to hope to find a rune for a resist I know I'm going to need, that seems a far inferior mechanism to the existing ID. It brings back memories along the lines of the grape jelly trick.

[Timo Pietilä]

I'd rather not subject myself to unresisted attacks (nexus, nether, chaos, etc.) just to hope to find a rune for a resist I know I'm going to need, that seems a far inferior mechanism to the existing ID. It brings back memories along the lines of the grape jelly trick.

We might want to re-introduce "bad" potions and potions of self-knowledge for rune-ID. In old days without *ID* you needed to test things with random ability (unless it was something obvious like ESP) to find out what the resist/ability is. For example drinking potion of sleep without getting paralyzed told you that you have FA, or potion of blindness to find out if you have resistance to blindness. Chaos was hallucination. Most elements unfortunately were not easy to find out: dark, light, nether, sound, shard, nexus and disenchantment were a tricky ones, barring potions of self knowledge I don't think there were any method of detecting those without getting hit by corresponding element. Testing would be rather safe, but annoying (find harmless monster with attack, let it hit you).

To me that was kind of fun sub-game.

[Carnivean]

I'd rather not subject myself to unresisted attacks (nexus, nether, chaos, etc.) just to hope to find a rune for a resist I know I'm going to need, that seems a far inferior mechanism to the existing ID. It brings back memories along the lines of the grape jelly trick.

I think you're assuming that squelch will be too aggressive?

I see it working as if I don't want a fire branded sword and squelch "fire brand", but if I find a slay evil sword with a fire brand, then it won't be squelched.

Any item that has a non-squelched runes would not be squelched, but any item that has only squelched runes would be.

This is not inferior to the current situation, but rather allows room to improve.

[EpicMan]

In Halls of Mist all weapons and armor are always identified (except maybe artifacts needing *ID*, not sure), only flavored objects (consumables and devices) are unidentified. I find that system much more enjoyable than having to identify all the zillions of items on the floor.
Identifying consumables is a fun sub-game because they can all be tried to see what happens. With weapons and armor, having to find a monster to whack or let attack you is both a hassle and very dangerous later on. ID by use for gear works great in pen-and-paper, because there are relatively few items to identify and a group of people working on learning them. In Angband there are so many items generated in a game it's a chore to ID them all.

If you don't need to identify gear, and all other items can be identified by using them, you wouldn't even need ID anymore, or at least could get by without providing scrolls in the town.