Rune-based ID

[Carnivean]

Have you considered making slaying weapons glow aka Sil? Certainly authentic to the lore for Gondolin weapons.

Might make for some complicated logic to make it work. If I'm in a room with orcs and trolls and my weapon lights up, then it could be either and I'd have to do some A/B testing to be certain. Other considerations would be LOS or in range, but then do you learn what it means if the weapon lights up but you can't see what for?

I regret that my brain pointed this out, because I like the idea.

[wobbly]

[*]Some of the runes are a bit annoying to learn, notably slays and high resists

Have you considered making slaying weapons glow aka Sil? Certainly authentic to the lore for Gondolin weapons.

[takkaria]

I have been in the "there is no explicit indication of physical runes" camp until recently, when I started to think that maybe that was a bit confusing. So the word "rune" has started to creep into the actual game. And I think that on the whole it is probably best just to keep going down that road, and resolve any uncertainty by being more explicit. For example, maybe the description of flasks of oil should be something like "A bottle of lantern oil engraved with runes", so it is explicitly the rune on the flask that makes it burn.

I'd go the other way and have a bitflag mask for properties which are intrinsic and not magical, so that oil isn't branded with magic runes. Would require storing another set of flags on object kinds but that should be all?

[Carnivean]

Or the unlock could even come with finding certain dungeon spellbooks - it seems logical that a copy of "Resistances of Scarabtarices" could teach a mage to recognise the runes for the resistances, for example.

You learn the spell of See Invisible. You learn the rune for See Invisible.
You learn the spell of Resist Cold. You learn the rune for Resist Cold.
Etc.

You learn the rune for Resist Chaos. You learn the spell of Chaos Strike?

[Thraalbee]

I am testing ironman mage and have had to ditch several melee weaps with unknown slays. No easy test at -4 speed without rings of escaping. BUT I find this quite acceptable! The mage is afterall not skilled in melee so reasonable to be bad at id of melee weaps too.

[Nomad]

• Some of the runes are a bit annoying to learn, notably slays and high resists

To be honest, I feel like a large percentage of the annoyance in identifying slays could be curtailed just by having weapons of Slay Giant and Slay Troll start appearing deeper. Slay Troll drops from levels 1 to 25 and *Slay Troll* 1 to 45, but you won't even meet a troll until level 17. Now that we've got rune-based ID so you only have to do it once, I quite enjoy the "test weapon against different monster types" mini-game, but not when there are slays that have to be carried for fifteen levels before you find the right monster in the mix.

• Identify scrolls were too rare in the dungeon and too common in the Black Market

They're also too cheap - at the moment they're priced like a scroll of Detect Invisible, which means if the Black Market has them at the beginning of a game you can happily buy a stack of five or six with just your starter cash. I'm thinking the cost should be more around the range of Enchant Foo/WoR.

I'm inclined to agree. I think this leaves us three options:

1. You see the name (Dagger of *Slay Troll*), but don't get any knowledge of any properties you don't know the runes for;
2. Like 1, except you learn the runes on buying;
3. Seeing stuff in the shop gives you the runes.

I'm leaning toward 1, but am prepared to listen to argument for the others, or for something I haven't thought of.

The main issue I see with 1 is that it leads to frustrating situations where you buy a single-rune item like a weapon of Slay Orc, know it's a weapon of Slay Orc, and still have to go and poke an orc with it before you learn to recognise what weapons of Slay Orc look like. (Plus I think it would interact badly with jewellery flavours - how does it work to buy an amulet of Resist Acid and henceforth recognise all amulets of Resist Acid yet still not learn the rune for it?) And 3 is way too much knowledge too easily - you'd learn about 20 runes in one go just by looking at the shops at the start of the game.

I think 2 is the most workable, and fits most intuitively with the mechanics as they already exist. It seems to me it should be fairly self-balancing too: money does become no object over time, but it's still relevant for the period of the game where you're doing the majority of rune-identification. The only things you can afford to buy at the beginning are items that will give you a single, fairly boring rune like Searching/Feather Falling/Slow Digestion or one of the base resists. By the time you can afford to buy something like an armour of Elvenkind, you've probably gone deep enough to have picked up most of the base resists already, so only the random higher resist will likely be new to you. And while some ego weapons like Holy Avenger and Defender would give you tons of runes at once, they're correspondingly expensive and not something you're likely to be able to buy before you've met a lot of the runes in-game already.

Another advantage of 2 is that it provides an ID by selling service for equipment - sell it, learn what it is, and then decide if you want to/can afford to buy it back again to teach yourself the runes.

I'd add my voice also to some class distinctions. Mages have a difficult time in runeid. So many of the runes are learned in melee combat, giving advantage to hack and slash classes, where the fight-at-a-distance classes suffer.

Maybe mages do need an Identify spell after all

Maybe rather than balance up learning of runes, you could make the classes more distinct by giving casters an advantage in consumable ID instead? They could have auto-ID of a category of items, like Hobbits do with mushrooms and Gnomes with wands. How about mages get auto-ID of all scrolls and priests get auto-ID of all potions?

Alternatively, maybe pure casters could 'unlock' knowledge of a specified/random category of runes at set character levels: "Your studies have now taught you to recognise runes of slaying" or whatever. Or the unlock could even come with finding certain dungeon spellbooks - it seems logical that a copy of "Resistances of Scarabtarices" could teach a mage to recognise the runes for the resistances, for example.

[PowerWyrm]

That's the problem with rune based ID... If you add an ID spell/scroll/staff/whatever, you make the whole system almost pointless, since you would learn everything in no time. Same goes with shops, which would act as an ID device when you buy items. With the current system, you learn runes too slowly... and some will require precise circumstances to learn them. Would it be possible to keep the rune system, but add ID that uses the old system (ID an item completely without revealing the corresponding runes)?

[Nick]

I'd add my voice also to some class distinctions. Mages have a difficult time in runeid. So many of the runes are learned in melee combat, giving advantage to hack and slash classes, where the fight-at-a-distance classes suffer.

Maybe mages do need an Identify spell after all

[Ingwe Ingweron]

OK, having just played a character in the latest build from start to (stupid) death in the mid-game, I have a bit of a feel for it. Here are some impressions:

• Some of the runes are a bit annoying to learn, notably slays and high resists
• There certainly isn't message spam about learning stuff - in fact, I think there are too few messages
• Identify scrolls were too rare in the dungeon and too common in the Black Market

So my plan is to make ?Identify occur about like ?TrapDetection, and give messages on IDing a new flavor or ego.

I'd add my voice also to some class distinctions. Mages have a difficult time in runeid. So many of the runes are learned in melee combat, giving advantage to hack and slash classes, where the fight-at-a-distance classes suffer.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

I'm inclined to agree. I think this leaves us three options:

1. You see the name (Dagger of *Slay Troll*), but don't get any knowledge of any properties you don't know the runes for;
2. Like 1, except you learn the runes on buying;
3. Seeing stuff in the shop gives you the runes.

I'm leaning toward 1, but am prepared to listen to argument for the others, or for something I haven't thought of.

I'm more inclined to #2. You see the name and you can pay for learning the runes if you buy. Isn't that similar to the regular system? E.g., in 4.x, you see an amulet of slow digestion in the magic shop, but if you don't buy it you don't learn the flavor.

[Nick]

Here's my problem number one. This new id scheme is called RuneID. Which makes you to assume that it has something to do with runes. Even in-game messages endorse that. However it's more like a propertyID. @ learns properties, not runes. Flask of oil is a good example. @ learns it burns, so it has a fire brand property. From now on @ recognizes the same property from all objects that have it. Some properties can be explained with runes. For example poison resist. There has to be magic in work here and that magic has been inscribed to the object with enchanted runes. And @ learns those runes and can recognize them later.

This has a history. It was first proposed as "rune-based" ID (with the quotes), but with the idea that it was up to the player to decide whether the identity was by seeing an actual rune, or just by recognising the property by some other (magical, instinctive, whatever) means. In the many, many years we have been talking about this, everyone has come up with their own internal rationale for what it all means (or external in the case of people who implemented or played with it in v4).

I have been in the "there is no explicit indication of physical runes" camp until recently, when I started to think that maybe that was a bit confusing. So the word "rune" has started to creep into the actual game. And I think that on the whole it is probably best just to keep going down that road, and resolve any uncertainty by being more explicit. For example, maybe the description of flasks of oil should be something like "A bottle of lantern oil engraved with runes", so it is explicitly the rune on the flask that makes it burn.

My problem number two are the shops. Potions are sold with name tags on them even if the player has not seen the potion before. Same goes with wands, staves etc. And that feels natural. The shopkeeper knows what she is selling, knows how to price it and tells the customer what she is selling. It's a different thing with "runes". The shopkeeper does not know of is not willing to tell what the object does. And that does not make sense. She is able to put a price tag to the product after all. Also not telling the properties does not really make sense. A magic shop selling unknown magic rings and amulets is just silly. The shopkeeper is some scholar after all. If the shopkeepers are to be bastards, then everything that the player does not recognize should be sold unIDd. For the sake of consistency.

I'm inclined to agree. I think this leaves us three options:

1. You see the name (Dagger of *Slay Troll*), but don't get any knowledge of any properties you don't know the runes for;
2. Like 1, except you learn the runes on buying;
3. Seeing stuff in the shop gives you the runes.

I'm leaning toward 1, but am prepared to listen to argument for the others, or for something I haven't thought of.

[Nick]

OK, having just played a character in the latest build from start to (stupid) death in the mid-game, I have a bit of a feel for it. Here are some impressions:

• Some of the runes are a bit annoying to learn, notably slays and high resists
• There certainly isn't message spam about learning stuff - in fact, I think there are too few messages
• Identify scrolls were too rare in the dungeon and too common in the Black Market

So my plan is to make ?Identify occur about like ?TrapDetection, and give messages on IDing a new flavor or ego.

[spara]

I know it's just a game, but it's a game I have lived with over 20 years. From that perspective this change does not feel as a mechanic change only, the in-game world is getting more in-consistent.

There can be wondorous things and magical things and the shopkeepers can be ripping you off, but otherwise consistency should be expected.

Here's my problem number one. This new id scheme is called RuneID. Which makes you to assume that it has something to do with runes. Even in-game messages endorse that. However it's more like a propertyID. @ learns properties, not runes. Flask of oil is a good example. @ learns it burns, so it has a fire brand property. From now on @ recognizes the same property from all objects that have it. Some properties can be explained with runes. For example poison resist. There has to be magic in work here and that magic has been inscribed to the object with enchanted runes. And @ learns those runes and can recognize them later.

My problem number two are the shops. Potions are sold with name tags on them even if the player has not seen the potion before. Same goes with wands, staves etc. And that feels natural. The shopkeeper knows what she is selling, knows how to price it and tells the customer what she is selling. It's a different thing with "runes". The shopkeeper does not know of is not willing to tell what the object does. And that does not make sense. She is able to put a price tag to the product after all. Also not telling the properties does not really make sense. A magic shop selling unknown magic rings and amulets is just silly. The shopkeeper is some scholar after all. If the shopkeepers are to be bastards, then everything that the player does not recognize should be sold unIDd. For the sake of consistency.

If I'm really the only one finding these points disturbing, then that's fine. I'll live with it and get back to play testing. It's only a game after all .

[AnonymousHero]

One more thing that's driving my in-game reasoning crazy. That's shops selling equipment they don't know about. But they do know how to price it. And frankly, in my game world the shop keepers are experts in their niche, so they do know their stuff.

I just imagine that the shopkeepers are always trying to talk up their merchandise and/or rip you off, so you can't really trust anything they say until you know the relevant runes. (As for the pricing, well, they have to price things "correctly" so that if the customer knows about the runes on an item they won't report the shopkeeper to the town's merchant's guild -- the latter which does care about the reputation of merchants.)

EDIT: If that's too convoluted then... it's a game. Things don't always have to make sense as long as they're fun/interesting. (If you start digging into it, there's a lot that makes no sense in Angband.)

[ScaryMonster]

What if the shopkeeper has his own 'body of knowledge' and reliably id's those things that s/he recognizes? The scope of this 'body of knowledge' is either static or accrues. Perhaps making the Black Market more knowledgeable and thus a potential tool.