Rune-based ID

[bio_hazard]

I don't know if there's a future plan to add inscriptions like NPP, but rune knowledge seems like it could work as a a terrain feature as an alternative to an item.

[Derakon]

I wonder if 'scrolls of runic knowledge' might be cool too - instead of learning a rune on an item like I guess how ID would work now, it learns the character a random rune.

This was suggested several times as a use for the old Scroll of Identify when we talked about rune-based ID. I think it's a more organic solution than automatically learning runes on level-up. Players will periodically find these scrolls in the dungeon, and can use them to learn a rune on the specific piece of gear they want to learn about. There could be a separate scroll that teaches them a random rune they haven't learned yet (useful for teaching rare or hard-to-test effects like resistance to chaos/disenchantment, feather fall, etc.). Eventually a character will learn every rune either by use or by by scroll, and at that point they can squelch the scrolls. We can adjust the rarity of the scroll so that players will generally have "finished" the identification process by level 30 as it is now.

[takkaria]

I wonder if 'scrolls of runic knowledge' might be cool too - instead of learning a rune on an item like I guess how ID would work now, it learns the character a random rune.

[GenericPseudonym]

Minor suggestion: slaying bonuses on weapons and slaying bonuses on other gear should be two separate runes. It's a bit weird that being able to identify a dagger (+1, +1) means my character can recognize gauntlets of power or rings of damage.

Possibly AC bonuses should be separate too, but those are less important.

[Nick]

Quick fix to the hang bug (I hope) - Windows and OS X. Thanks for all the bug reports, more fixes later.

[spara]

I seem to have a routine start. At first I buy some cheap armor and then kill enough townies to get the base AC and hit dice to show. Then I'll do some serious shopping and down I go.

I humbly suggest that base AC and Hit Dice are shown for items at start. Please.

Slaying is not a rune property?

[nikheizen]

Played the game up until DLvl 23.

Few comments:

• "40 rations of food... You do not know the full extent of this items powers" is a little ludicrous, if you are implementing "preknown runes", then non-mushroom food items should definitely be known by everyone.
• Being able to use the town npcs as your personal test subjects is very amusing, please don't make usable items automatically ID on use(at least in normal dungeon mode, maybe make an exception for ironman?)
• There definitely needs to be an automatic "{?}" inscription for not-fully-known items, having to examine every item which may be unknown is annoying and time-consuming.
• Consider adding a way to identify potions/scrolls other than use/selling. I don't know which is more irritating, selling an early potion of XP or quaffing Lose Memories, but they are both a pain in the ass.
• When using rogue detect objects, you detect items as (+0, +0) (x0) even when they are not. This is both annoying and buggy. Once you find one such item, the "plusses" of others are revealed to you.
• My fully ID'd =Resist Fire and Cold "glowed" when stepping on a discoloured spot. Not sure if this is intentional, but I thought the Your ITEM glows line was to indicate identification.
• When moving into a pile of coins, I get the message "The 257 gold pieces worth of copper was actually a monster." Similar to not knowing the powers of a ration of food, this sounds very silly. I think this might have to do with the player knowledge branch though.

Thanks for your work on the branch, Nick.

EDIT: nevermind that crash bug, was using an older version.
EDIT: Found another crash, updated and continued on the same save, seems like it's the same issue that Ingwe and spara are having. Crash occured when attacking a wolf with 7 XP until level-up, so I assume it's because I had no level-based runes and suddenly the count updated.

[spara]

Hard freeze for me too (Linux + SDL). On level up. I had one partly identified item in my pack back and one in my hand. At the moment of freeze, the Trident of *Slay* Dragon was revealed in a sub window, but the monster was not yet removed from the main window.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Crash, well, actually hangs requiring a forced quit. This is in OSX. Simply take a swipe at the mage next to @ and game hangs. I believe that most likely it is freezing while counting runes upon level up as the enemy mage dies. Fire.zip

[Rydel]

Buying a sword of Slay Troll and not getting the rune seems silly, buying a Holy Avenger and getting all the runes seems to be putting too much emphasis on shops. That's the reason for the way I did shop items; I'm happy to listen to alternatives, but they need to address those points and be logical

A possible idea for this might be to have each item have a flag of whether it's name is known. When this flag is on, the item displays its name.
*Learning all of an items properties would turn on the flag
*Artifacts have the flag turned on as soon as they'd no longer be preserved
*Store bought items would have the flag on, even if you don't know their properties. The shopkeeper may have told you this sword is a Holy Avenger, but that doesn't mean you character knows what a Holy Avenger does.

[TJS]

Well this looks very interesting, my initial thoughts without playing (I'm away so may not get a chance for a little while):

Rune based ID - great idea
Remove id - excellent
Random character levelling up knowledge - really don't like this at all and it seems to negate the whole system, it should be done through learning or not at all in my opinion. If the id game is not fun and adds nothing to the game then it should be either changed until it is or removed entirely.

un-identified shop stuff - you should be able to purchase it as usual, but you pay a premium for each rune you haven't already identified. They are selling you both knowledge and an item in this case.

Also to make the whole process of identification more interesting (and in some cases possible) you should be able to use items on yourself. So a wand of stinking cloud can id resist poison (in the same way that drinking a potion of poison does). A wand of slow monster can test for free action. A wand of fire/cold/lightning can id those resists too. rNexus could protect against something like a wand of polymorph (although I'd personally remove the whole polymorph concept). This should work on all items in your backpack as well as things that are wielded.

I think feather falling should work on all traps to make it easy to identify and also useful (also I'd like to see detect traps go as it just makes the whole thing pointless - whoops getting off track again).

For remove curse/curse equipment it should prompt you to choose an item to use it on, so you could use it on a random weapon you don't want. The whole curse system is pretty lame anyway really.

[spara]

With rune-based ID, if you keep the old shop system, you will identify most (if not all) of the runes very quickly by simply buying from shops.

Is this really a problem? Can't see how it would be a bad thing.

[PowerWyrm]

We're looking for a next comp. Too soon to make a rune-based ID one?

Please do make one. This will be a great opportunity to test the new system.

[PowerWyrm]

The main gameplay changes are:

• No more magical ID
• No more pseudo-ID
• Once a property has been noticed on any object, it will always be noticed on every object
• Artifact names are noticed immediately, ego and jewellery names when all the regular properties are known
• Shop items only show the extent of the player's knowledge, so indistinguishable (to the player) objects may have different prices
• Derakon's change of the nexus stat-scramble to a timed effect is included

Cool, you just turned Angband into Final Fantasy II

IMO, all changes here are great, except for shops. And that's the big problem... With normal ID, all items in shops are identified, but knowledge is only limited to that item (except flavors). With rune-based ID, if you keep the old shop system, you will identify most (if not all) of the runes very quickly by simply buying from shops. If you limit shop items to player knowledge, then you force players to choose between never buying from shops or buying useless crap for just ID purposes. I don't see what could be done easily here, reintroduce fully known items in shops, leave as it is, or maybe implement shops like the General Store, with only easily known items inside (consumables, average items). Maybe reintroduce fully known items in the BM only...

[Nick]

OK, new builds for Windows and OS X up that do this:

• Calculate

  (total number of runes in the game) x (character level) / 30

  and that's the standard number of runes for a character of that level to have learned
• If the character is below the standard number:
  • They learn runes of objects on wield until they run out of such runes or reach the standard number
  • On level up, they learn runes of carried objects until they run out of such runes or reach the standard number

I haven't done anything about flavoured non-wearables yet, but it would be straightforward to implement something similar. Also you still need to inspect to see if something is fully known or not, no way of seeing what runes you have, etc.

Possibly nexus would be better as an effect cured on level up than as timed?

Pls play and comment.