Object detection and ID - a proposal

[AnonymousHero]

Edit: re useless items... hmm. Maybe some should have uses. Cursed items to be used in necromancy? Bad potions used as throwing weapons, if you're a warrior or archer with good throwing skill?

Right -- I should have said "remove/redesign" when mentioning bad items. IMO it would be great if bad potions could also get actual real uses rather than just being automatically and immediately squelched[1]. Not that the T2 code is really amenable to much work here at this point, but one can dream...

In general T2/Angband (and that whole line) doesn't have quite as many crazy interactions as the *Hack-derived/inspired games, but I encourage others to try this just to see if there are places where there are missing redesign oppurtunities that are being missed just because we've gotten so used to how things are currently.

[1] Potion of Corruption is kind of interesting here because it can give you powerful effects, but it can also basically ruin your game permanently. (If you find it early enough it's usually worth a shot since you can just suicide the character if it doesn't work out.)

[AnonymousHero]

I feel like these points presuppose a conservative playstyle where you're identifying stuff solely by magical/shop means and not relying on ID-by-use. In Vanilla I identify stacks of early game consumables by reading/drinking them on the spot, so your second point doesn't apply, and the wholly negative items also add a minor element of interesting risk to the experience.

Right, the problems are definitely less pronouned in current vanilla since there's nothing game-ending in V whereas there are game-ending possiblities early on in T2. However, in V, once you learn the trick (spoiler: stand on stairs), identification of consumables also becomes a completely automatic and non-dangerous thing which only costs you a few turns.

[AnonymousHero]

After playing with auto-*ID* a bit more, I think I've come to the conclusion that T2 must have auto-*ID*. (I may consider scaling it back to the rune-based idea people have been talking about if that's feasible.)

It just gives sooo much smoother gameplay where you don't have to pause dungeon exploration every once in a while to go to town to scum for not-always-available *Identity* scrolls. This could perhaps also be achieved by eliminating *Identify* as Vanilla did -- I haven't tried that in T2.

The only problem is what to do about all the identification items/scrolls/spells/etc. And cursed items...

[Derakon]

After playing with auto-*ID* a bit more, I think I've come to the conclusion that T2 must have auto-*ID*. (I may consider scaling it back to the rune-based idea people have been talking about if that's feasible.)

It just gives sooo much smoother gameplay where you don't have to pause dungeon exploration every once in a while to go to town to scum for not-always-available *Identity* scrolls. This could perhaps also be achieved by eliminating *Identify* as Vanilla did -- I haven't tried that in T2.

The only problem is what to do about all the identification items/scrolls/spells/etc. And cursed items...

From what I remember of ToME 2, it has a massive too-much-junk problem. Auto-ID solutions are a partial fix; it really needs a decent squelch system and/or an overhaul of monster drops.

[AnonymousHero]

From what I remember of ToME 2, it has a massive too-much-junk problem. Auto-ID solutions are a partial fix; it really needs a decent squelch system and/or an overhaul of monster drops.

TMJ is indeed a huge issue in T2, but I tend to think that it mostly follows from having a lot of (infinite) dungeons. There are obvious exceptions -- such as about four-six categories of items which are useful only to one specific class each. (Player traps, runes, essences, etc.)

Squelch in T2 actually works reasonably well IMO, but it's annoying that you have to walk over things to squelch them. Granted, it's based on actually destroying items rather than just making them invisible, but I somehow find that more reassuring when the game has quite limited stacks of items per tile (23, IIRC) and you're fighting a lot of dragons in an ASC. Actually, once you're past level 25-30 experienced players will just start squelching all non-artifacts -- which is effectively a sort of auto-*ID* in that it eliminates all uninteresting objects automatically.

EDIT: Oh, and I also discovered recently that there's rather a lot of code to deal with eating and hacking up corpses which (seems) to not actually do anything interesting. (Except provide fodder for Alchemists that may need body parts.) In short it's an incredibly ad-hoc system which I don't actually was really thought through at the "game" level at any point. It's just a big ball of mud.

EDIT#2: Considering how niche many of the classes are and were (during the heyday of T2), I think I might actually remove Alchemists, Runemasters, Geomancers and Bards. They're taking up absurdly much complex code and they're all broken in different ways. Sorry, didn't mean for this to devolve into a theorycrafting-on-how-to-fix-T2-thread. I'll stop now .

[Derakon]

TMJ is indeed a huge issue in T2, but I tend to think that it mostly follows from having a lot of (infinite) dungeons. There are obvious exceptions -- such as about four-six categories of items which are useful only to one specific class each. (Player traps, runes, essences, etc.)

Well, it's more that IIRC late-game monsters in T2 "still" drop like 15 items apiece, while in Vanilla that's down to more like 2-3. But Vanilla makes more of an effort to make certain that those items are potentially relevant than T2; effectively, the same number of useful items should spawn from each encounter, but the player has to do far less manual filtering because there's far fewer useless items.

Not that runes, essences, parchments, corpses, etc. are helping things any, of course.

[AnonymousHero]

Well, it's more that IIRC late-game monsters in T2 "still" drop like 15 items apiece, while in Vanilla that's down to more like 2-3. But Vanilla makes more of an effort to make certain that those items are potentially relevant than T2; effectively, the same number of useful items should spawn from each encounter, but the player has to do far less manual filtering because there's far fewer useless items.

Not that runes, essences, parchments, corpses, etc. are helping things any, of course.

I was going to argue, but then I realized that you're probably right. The item/drop generation in T2 is pretty basic code-wise -- as I've realized just today, working on semi-related matters.

EDIT: That's not to say Vanilla doesn't have its faults. Mainly due to lack of anything outside of {stand,rand}arts or egos. But at some point, you just run dry in terms of item interest. As I like to say: I come only with problems. I lack solutions!

[Nivra]

Bumping this

My thoughts as a player just coming back to Angband, and never having won the game.

Firstly, I think the ID and squelching systems have come an immensely long way since the early days when I used to play 2.x.x. I love being able to just pick up items with my warrior and have pseudo-id and autosquelch take care of 95% of items. I still think it's tedious to have to manually squelch the umpteenth mediocre Holy Avenger just because I may one day pick up a +15 damage one for demons, and perhaps some greater way to differentiate weapons with better hit-die vs. low-die would be useful.

That being said, I think the original proposal was a great one. Sure, there's a neat little mini-game in the beginning, but there are enough other awesome things in the early levels. In the later levels, there still is tedium. The rune-based system seems a way to improve the tedium of the later levels while keeping the interesting aspects of the minigame.

Also, I find the current system very odd. When I have a ton of potions on auto-squelch, and I enter a dungeon, hit the rod of detection, see an unidentified item, then move into room, autosquelch will squelch a potion and I'll never see an item in my actual LoS eventhough there was one detected.

Finally, I think to simplify the too-many-random activations rune problem - we could save ID for that. Make them ?ID's, and very rare. Then you only ever need a ?ID for special artifacts, which preserves some of the "special-ness" of artifacts and having them be somewhat unknown and exciting when you get them. Alternatively, you could just require all artifacts to be ID'd regardless, but that becomes a weird exception to the rune system.

[EDIT: I do miss some form of pval based squelch]

[SECOND EDIT: I realized that I conflated squelch and ID in my post a bit. So to focus on ID, I would prefer Nick's original proposal. I think overall, the tedium of ID outweighs the benefits. The fun in this game is much more about killing monsters and building your character. ID'ing items doesn't really add to that. That being said, if people insist on keeping some form of ID, rune-based seems a sensible approach.]

[Nivra]

I admire the creativity, Nomad, but this method creates as many realism issues as it fixes --- after all, why would the magical properties of the scroll be determined by the material it's made of rather than the mysterious words written on it? I've never had trouble suspending my disbelief in being able to read scrolls from far away, especially when I assume that they're written in huge block letters, like FOOBIE BLETCH.

Edit:
You read a yeekskin scroll.
Orfax, Son of Boldor appears upset.

Disagree... If you especially focus on **skin like scrolls it makes a lot of sense. Part of the scrolls magic derives from the properties of the animal it's made of. Likewise, scrolls written in blood:
Scroll of *destruct* is demonskin or dragonskin
Scroll of *banishment* is ainuskin
Scroll of *summon undead* is written in vampire's blood.

Of course, randomization would screw up some of the meanings... but the idea makes sense from a realism point of view.

[luneya]

My understanding of how pseudo-id works now is that beyond the average/good grades for boring items, you get two tiers of id for non-artifacts: "ego" for just a plain-old brand or slay, and "excellent" for items that have a bigger list of properties (Gondolins and the like). Instead of full auto-id or a rune system, why not just further refine the existing pseudo? Make a third category, and put all of the properties that an endgame player might want into it--speed, extra attacks, etc.; I'm sure the developers know pretty much what belongs there and what doesn't. Then a player can safely squelch anything that doesn't reach that standard, removing the tedium without fundamentally changing the game.

[fph]

Make a third category, and put all of the properties that an endgame player might want into it--speed, extra attacks, etc.; I'm sure the developers know pretty much what belongs there and what doesn't. Then a player can safely squelch anything that doesn't reach that standard

Check the ego ignoring options (=,i,E inside the game). It's basically what you ask for, but more configurable.

[MattB]

you get two tiers of id for non-artifacts: "ego" for just a plain-old brand or slay, and "excellent" for items that have a bigger list of properties (Gondolins and the like).

Actually, "ego" items can be either "splendid" (i.e. they have a bonus immediately noticable upon wielding, e.g. +1 STR, Speed, Stealth etc.) or "excellent" (which don't). You find out which by wielding them.

(I think I've got my "egos" and my "excellents" the right way round there).

[MattB]

Scroll of *banishment* is ainuskin

I misread that the first time!

[Bogatyr]

Of everything in this conversation, I can't believe "It's a nerf to mages because they get to be less tedious than warriors as a reward for 20 hours of tedium" was actually an argument.

Also interesting is that no one decided to answer the question "What do you find fun about the ID game?"

Anyhow, I'm glad Nick tried.

Well, believe it :P. I pretty much only play mages, and the big push to level 11 for identify and the "now I've really made it!" feeling have always been an important part of the game that I'd miss if it were gone.

The "mage bargain" is that they get all the awesome utilities/conveniences in return for having crap hit points and poor fighting for most of the game.

I'm in favor of returning "non-fuzzy" (full enlightenment) to the Arkenstone, but not the "detect objects" spell. (There has to be some reason to play a rogue, and detect objects is pretty much it.)