Player knowledge

[Estie]

You can throw out the runebased system without any "intended" methods for identifying each rune, and see what players come up with. If some runes turn out to be annoyingly hard to find out, new methods and ways can be devised by the designer, but I wouldnt make too many assumptions about how the gameplay is going to pan out. Its a big change.

Edit:

I think making it hard to find out the runes is a good thing, what I wouldnt like to see is a lot of difference between character and player knowledge of runes.
For example, you are fairly sure that rune X does Y, but you would have to go to great length to force the game to admit it. This is when some easy new test should be considered.

[luneya]

If we're going to rune-based id and eliminating (or restricting to mages) magical identify, then there needs to be some alternative way for players to test for the various possibilities other than walking up to monsters carrying a "hit me" sign. Perhaps we should supplement the existing "bad" potions (poison, sleep, confusion, etc.) with potions that do a small amount of elemental damage, one type for each element that has a resistance. Likewise a potion inflicting minor experience drain for testing hold life. And an additional summoning scroll that specifically produces ghosts, which will help with testing for see invis. And probably a potion that inflicts fear, unless we want to use the existing mushroom of terror as the main fear-tester. Then add an additional shop that sells all of these items. This not only allows a reasonably secure supply of rune-testing gear, but provides a means other than quaff-testing for players to identify the harmful potions--which is important, if we're eliminating magical id.

Most of the remaining runes that are not tested by the sorts of potions described above are abilities that will become obvious after simply equipping the item for a short time. A few will require further mechanical tweaks, though. For feather falling, add a mechanic allowing a player to create (and immediately fall into) an unspiked pit by digging in the > direction. For stat sustains, have those be revealed whenever the player drinks a stat potion of the corresponding flavor (and perhaps also when the stat is reduced by one of the +/- stat potions).

[Derakon]

So drudgery of identifying is replaced by the drudgery of having to pick up, and even worse, wield every single thing we encounter just in case it has something not yet identified? Currently at level 11, a mage knows everything about every object in the game with a quick cast of a single spell. Not sure there's sufficient compensation for this loss in the current proposal.

You don't have to pick up every item, as you can see at a glance all the runes on it. If you recognize all of them then the item is automatically fully identified without having to cast a spell at all. By the time you're level 30 or so, I would expect that the vast majority of items would be fully identified automatically, and you'd know that an item that isn't fully identified at least does something novel!

Also please be aware that people play other classes than mages. This change will likely affect different classes in different ways.

[Bogatyr]

So drudgery of identifying is replaced by the drudgery of having to pick up, and even worse, wield every single thing we encounter just in case it has something not yet identified? Currently at level 11, a mage knows everything about every object in the game with a quick cast of a single spell. Not sure there's sufficient compensation for this loss in the current proposal.

[Monkey Face]

Will scrolls like summon monster, summon undead, potions of poison, etc. still exist without identify? Currently, once you find a source of identify, you can avoid finding these the hard way. If we are going to keep these, it would be a reason to allow mages to keep the spell since the negative effects of these items can be more detrimental to mages than to other classes.

[Carnivean]

Maybe mages have knowledge of some basic runes from the start, at level 20 they learn a few more and at level 40 they can identify all runes on sight or something like that.

This is a great idea, but I feel that the numbers might be way off. Surely by clvl 40 you've seen everything already. Try it and see, or compare with games as they are currently player I guess.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Maybe mages have knowledge of some basic runes from the start, at level 20 they learn a few more and at level 40 they can identify all runes on sight or something like that.

That seems good to me, and dovetails nicely with the special leveling effects experienced by warriors (rFear), rangers (extra shots), and priests/paladins (wider area of effect for OOD). Sure, mages get an extra meteor in meteor swarm on leveling up, but it's a far rarer use (I almost never use it at all, especially after finding out there's no fire damage) than OOD. Having rune knowledge based on level up seems a good compromise for axing the mages identification spell.

[quarague]

I like rune based id. Some remarks from other games that use it.
Sil only gives you a chance to understand the effect if you observe it, based on some skill the char has. With the plethora of effects Angband has, this is probably a bad idea for Angband.
Brogue has a mixture of identify by use (potions, staves, etc) and identify by wearing (armor, rings, etc). That is, if you equip an item for long enough, you will figure out what it does, even if you have never seen the effect in action. Some version of that could be nice for Angband as well. Take an example like free action, the player suspects one of his items gives free action, but trying it out on a monster with paralyse is still quite dangerous in case none of the items gives free action.
Having a dungeon only scroll of identify that discover an unknown rune is a good idea. There could also be a new item class which is just a single rune, not attached to an item but with an instruction manual. If you find a 'fire res rune' item you char learns about this rune and can identify it from then on.
Giving mages a spell of identify seems too much to me. Maybe mages have knowledge of some basic runes from the start, at level 20 they learn a few more and at level 40 they can identify all runes on sight or something like that.

[Nick]

That may be. But will slow down the early game considerably as runes need to be tested out in order to be identified. Meanwhile it also has the disadvantage you may be carrying some ego items for quite a while, not knowing exactly what to do with them, only to finally realize much later you have been carrying some you don't really want. For such a limited inventory space as that we end up having starting with the middle game, this can quickly become a deal breaker.

And you will eventually run into situations like "Should I drop this unidentified ego chain mail and pick that unidentified ego studded leather?". Asking the players to make decisions without any sort of background information is akin to ask a meteorologist to predict the weather without letting him look at the data.

I can see this as a potential problem, but I suspect not really a very big one. I think it really needs to be tested out to see. This is the reason it is being done in a feature branch, so that testing and tweaking can be done.

I'm also not above abandoning an approach completely if it doesn't work.

[Derakon]

I like the rune based idea, but am also all for mages keeping an identify spell. Mages are already under significant handicaps and removing their ID spell would remove one of their few advantages. Maybe I'd be okay with the spell only identifying a single rune, provided it's not random, e.g., fails if it picks an already identified rune.

If they have an unlimited source of identify, what benefit is there in making it occasionally fail? They can just re-cast it.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

I'm not convinced that mages should get access to an identify spell, but conversely I could be convinced to have the occasional Scroll of Identify that identifies a single rune. Otherwise sounds good to me.

I like the rune based idea, but am also all for mages keeping an identify spell. Mages are already under significant handicaps and removing their ID spell would remove one of their few advantages. Maybe I'd be okay with the spell only identifying a single rune, provided it's not random, e.g., fails if it picks an already identified rune.

[Derakon]

But will slow down the early game considerably as runes need to be tested out in order to be identified. Meanwhile it also has the disadvantage you may be carrying some ego items for quite a while, not knowing exactly what to do with them, only to finally realize much later you have been carrying some you don't really want. For such a limited inventory space as that we end up having starting with the middle game, this can quickly become a deal breaker.

It's entirely possible that this will happen. In fact I daresay that the first pass at rune-based ID will have numerous flaws, simply because it'd be such a huge change to how the game works. But I'd rather try to play with rune-based ID and attempt to fix its flaws than discount it without even trying.

[krugar]

If you know all of the runes on an artifact, then you automatically know everything the artifact does. So e.g. if you've already successfully identified a Ring of Resist Fire and Arrows of Flame, then you'll fully-ID Narthanc as soon as you pick it up. So you should only need to carry around items if they have properties that you haven't yet figured out.

I'm not convinced that mages should get access to an identify spell, but conversely I could be convinced to have the occasional Scroll of Identify that identifies a single rune. Otherwise sounds good to me.

That may be. But will slow down the early game considerably as runes need to be tested out in order to be identified. Meanwhile it also has the disadvantage you may be carrying some ego items for quite a while, not knowing exactly what to do with them, only to finally realize much later you have been carrying some you don't really want. For such a limited inventory space as that we end up having starting with the middle game, this can quickly become a deal breaker.

And you will eventually run into situations like "Should I drop this unidentified ego chain mail and pick that unidentified ego studded leather?". Asking the players to make decisions without any sort of background information is akin to ask a meteorologist to predict the weather without letting him look at the data.

All classes will suffer from inventory management issues to a certain degree. I think particularly in the early to middle game, it will become brutal. And I can only feel sorry for warriors and their need for a vast array of detection objects, or mages/priests for the space they wished to have but can't because of their spellbooks.


EDIT: In the spirit of a game that wishes to promote experimental detection and actually give some meaning to stuff like potions of blindness or staves of haste monster, I'd perhaps suggest instead that magic identify has a failure rate based on object power, with more powerful objects being more difficult to identify by magic means. Or that magic identify reveals one rune at a time. Or a combination of both.

[Derakon]

This may be a bit problematic to all but the more experienced players. Inventory management is already a tough nut to crack, without having to carry all sorts of ego and artifacts until we can finally fully identify them and decide which ones we wish to keep. And if playing with randarts... well, can we have a bag of holding please?

If you know all of the runes on an artifact, then you automatically know everything the artifact does. So e.g. if you've already successfully identified a Ring of Resist Fire and Arrows of Flame, then you'll fully-ID Narthanc as soon as you pick it up. So you should only need to carry around items if they have properties that you haven't yet figured out.

I'm not convinced that mages should get access to an identify spell, but conversely I could be convinced to have the occasional Scroll of Identify that identifies a single rune. Otherwise sounds good to me.

[krugar]

Now, rune-based ID.

Hmm... didn't like the idea at all.

A character picks up a weapon, and recognises it as a Broad Sword (2d5)(+4,+6) [+3] with RAcid and RFire. Wielding it, they recognise it gives +2 to Stealth, so they learn the stealth rune. Inspecting it describes all this, adding "This item has unknown properties". After they get the RElec and RCold runes, they name it (Defender).

(I think you meant +3 stealth)

Artifacts are legendary objects that everyone has heard of, and that probably have their names stuck on with dymo tape. You wouldn't want to believe legends too closely though, so actual properties are identified in the usual way.

I'm not sure what any of this significantly adds to the game, other than being a departure from what we have now.

This may be a bit problematic to all but the more experienced players. Inventory management is already a tough nut to crack, without having to carry all sorts of ego and artifacts until we can finally fully identify them and decide which ones we wish to keep. And if playing with randarts... well, can we have a bag of holding please?