Rune-based ID

[Nick]

There seems to be a bug with the latest nightly - weapons with extra dice lose these eventually and revert to their base forms. I can provide a savefile if needed.

Thanks, savefile would be good - any idea what was happening when the dice reverted would be useful too.

[Estie]

There seems to be a bug with the latest nightly - weapons with extra dice lose these eventually and revert to their base forms. I can provide a savefile if needed.

[Estie]

Thanks for the clarification. Going to play nightly master branch then.

[PowerWyrm]

I tend to find birth_know_runes a bit over the top. It's like having autoID from start. In PWMAngband as well as other variants, you have an autoID flag which can appear on some artifact helms and gloves (or a couple standard arts). But it's quite rare...

[Nick]

I have noticed in this version (which is great, by the way, I love the rune ID) that when the map is revealed via magic mapping or similar, and when doors are detected by spell, the display no longer updates when something bashes open a door or digs through walls -- the walls are still shown and doors look closed until I can actually personally see them.

Is this a deliberate change? It does kind of make sense, though I did find the ability to track tunnelling monsters by watching walls disappear rather handy... :-)

Yes, this is deliberate. There was a player knowledge feature branch which introduced these changes, and which got incorporated into master shortly before the rune-based ID branch came out.

[Nomad]

I am a bit confused. The current version 4.0.5 doesnt seem to have rune-id, but the nightly that is supposed to have it is called version 4.0.3, which would indicate an older version, or would it ?

Are there changes to the game in 4.0.5 that the rune-id version doesnt have yet ?

And assuming I want to play rune-id, which version should I use ?

The feature branches for testing major gameplay changes that are going to go in 4.1 started forking off back when 4.0.3 was still the current release, so the 4.0.3 in the file name of the nightlies downloads essentially stands for "4.0.3 code + a bunch of major gameplay changes that are still being tested so they haven't been given a new version number yet". The changes between 4.0.3 and 4.0.5 were just minor bugfixes, which I assume have either been incorporated into the nightlies as well, or been rendered irrelevant by the big gameplay changes anyway.

So yes, if you want to play rune-ID, you want the version from the nightlies.

I have noticed in this version (which is great, by the way, I love the rune ID) that when the map is revealed via magic mapping or similar, and when doors are detected by spell, the display no longer updates when something bashes open a door or digs through walls -- the walls are still shown and doors look closed until I can actually personally see them.

Is this a deliberate change? It does kind of make sense, though I did find the ability to track tunnelling monsters by watching walls disappear rather handy... :-)

Yes - the rune-ID branch is built on top of some earlier gameplay changes that are also going to go into 4.1, including changes to how player knowledge works (so you now "remember" the positions of doors and items from the last time you saw them instead of magically knowing in real-time when they change) and giving monsters cone-shaped breath weapons.

[Nick]

I am a bit confused. The current version 4.0.5 doesnt seem to have rune-id, but the nightly that is supposed to have it is called version 4.0.3, which would indicate an older version, or would it ?

Are there changes to the game in 4.0.5 that the rune-id version doesnt have yet ?

And assuming I want to play rune-id, which version should I use ?

Sorry, let me clarify.

• 4.0.5 is the current official release, which is savefile compatible with all the 4.0.x releases. This is what is on the front page of rephial, and has little major gameplay difference from 4.0.0.
• The master branch is the current state of the game code. It diverged from 4.0 shortly after 4.0.3, when there were some changes to ignoring which broke savefile compatibility, so it gets numbered 4.0.3-something; this is what is on the nightlies page, and is where new gameplay starts getting incorporated.
• Additionally there are feature branches, which get put out for people to test a particular feature before it is included in the master branch (or abandoned if no-one likes it). Links to builds and source for these I am just putting in a relevant forum thread.

So rune-based ID started in a feature branch, and when it was sufficiently settled and approved it went into master - so now to play with rune-based ID, you can just use the master version from the nightlies page.

Changes to traps, on the other hand, are in a feature branch and not in master, and progress is detailed in this thread. Once we're mostly happy with the changes on that branch, they will come into master.

At some stage master becomes 4.1.0, the official releases get numbered 4.1.x, gameplay changes intended for 4.2 come into master, and so on.

Hope that helps

[Chud]

I have noticed in this version (which is great, by the way, I love the rune ID) that when the map is revealed via magic mapping or similar, and when doors are detected by spell, the display no longer updates when something bashes open a door or digs through walls -- the walls are still shown and doors look closed until I can actually personally see them.

Is this a deliberate change? It does kind of make sense, though I did find the ability to track tunnelling monsters by watching walls disappear rather handy... :-)

[Estie]

I am a bit confused. The current version 4.0.5 doesnt seem to have rune-id, but the nightly that is supposed to have it is called version 4.0.3, which would indicate an older version, or would it ?

Are there changes to the game in 4.0.5 that the rune-id version doesnt have yet ?

And assuming I want to play rune-id, which version should I use ?

[Nick]

Monster-targetting wands/staves have now reverted to the old behaviour of not identifying if the monster is unaffected. Not a big deal, but I think it would fit better with the streamlining of ID to have them ID regardless of whether the monster resists.

I've pushed some changes to this - nightlies page should update soon. See how they work.

[Nomad]

• Magic devices that affect monsters need to be used on a monster to ID

Monster-targetting wands/staves have now reverted to the old behaviour of not identifying if the monster is unaffected. Not a big deal, but I think it would fit better with the streamlining of ID to have them ID regardless of whether the monster resists.

(Also, having spent all my testing of the traps branch frustrated at the lack of rune-based ID, now that I've switched back to this one I'm frustrated at having to manually search for secret doors and monster-created traps being invisible. So I guess you can mark me down as considering those big gameplay improvements.)

[Nick]

OK, I have fixed the following:

• Magic devices that affect monsters need to be used on a monster to ID
• Artifact dice appear correctly
• Standard to-hit penalties on body armor don't count as the to-hit rune
• Autoinscriptions should not leak info - let me know if there are still autoinscription issues
• All activations that are standard for an object kind (notably on things like Rings of Digging and Open Wounds) are automatically known

and pulled this branch into the master branch, so it is available on the nightlies page.

Please continue to let me know about bugs - in particular, I suspect that artifacts may still be creatable multiple times.

[Nomad]

My feeling here is approximately that things that have an effect on monsters should need to be used on a monster (but not that the effect needs to succeed), but everything else be instant. Maybe there are other effects that shouldn't be instant, but I can't think of one off the top of my head.

Yes, that seems fair. The only other effects that require a target are the ones that affect dungeon features - Stone to Mud, Disarming and Trap/Door Destruction - and of those, Stone to Mud is almost certain to hit a wall when you test it anyway, and the trap-related ones are likely to be reworked/removed in the trap branch, so I'm not sure it's worth making them special cases.

[Nick]

Just won a game in the rune-based branch, and though there are things that I think could still be tweaked (and auto-inscriptions are still slightly buggy), even as-is it's vastly superior to the current ID system. Though one thing I did notice playing a winning game is that, as calris mentions, it's a bit frustrating not being certain when you've learned all the runes and can safely ditch your ID scrolls. Maybe the rune knowledge menu could indicate runes still to be learned with question marks or something?

Yes, I think something like that is a good idea.

That said, I do think wands, staves and rods are a different case, and those should revert to needing to be used against a suitable target before they auto-identify. It's fair to reward the player with instant ID for taking the risk of using an unidentified scroll or potion, but zapping a wand at an empty square neither uses up the wand nor puts the player at any risk of negative consequences, so it shouldn't be that easy to get the ID.

My feeling here is approximately that things that have an effect on monsters should need to be used on a monster (but not that the effect needs to succeed), but everything else be instant. Maybe there are other effects that shouldn't be instant, but I can't think of one off the top of my head.

[Nomad]

Just won a game in the rune-based branch, and though there are things that I think could still be tweaked (and auto-inscriptions are still slightly buggy), even as-is it's vastly superior to the current ID system. Though one thing I did notice playing a winning game is that, as calris mentions, it's a bit frustrating not being certain when you've learned all the runes and can safely ditch your ID scrolls. Maybe the rune knowledge menu could indicate runes still to be learned with question marks or something?

IMO it doesn't seem particularly necessary to bring back *Identify* or any other methods of learning more runes - standard Identify scrolls covered my needs quite happily. (In fact, I hoarded them for longer than I needed to, and ID'd a lot of things by use in the early game that I could have just used scrolls for without running out.) I could go either way on the "indicate the number of unknown runes" issue: it might be nice to know an item's relative power level on pickup, but on the other hand, only gradually discovering that an item you assumed was something basic is actually really awesome is kind of neat as well.

And personally I actually like that there's no magical way of identifying consumables any more - I found it freed me up from being so annoyed at accidentally wasting good drops. In the previous system I'd have been cursing myself if I drank a potion of Life instead of waiting to play it safe and use an ID scroll, but in this one I can just shrug it off because, hey, there was no other way to have learned. (That said, I'm aware that many players are far more risk-averse than me and might feel frustratingly cornered into ID-by-selling if they're unwilling to test things by use. Maybe magical ID of consumables should be available solely as a red-book spell for rogues and mages?)

• I'm not a fan of scrolls, potions, wands, etc. identifying regardless of if they have a noticeable effect (cure confusion when you aren't confused for example). Runes need to be ID'd through effect (or Identify), why should magical items be any different?

I think the main aim here is to avoid making players jump through hoops to get the game to put a name on things they've already recognised. With scrolls and potions there are only a relatively tiny number that don't have an immediately noticeable effect, and they're mostly very common early game finds that an experienced player will figure out easily, so it's something of an artificial annoyance to force the player to find some way to test that scroll they already know is Detect Invisible or wait to be injured before they can identify a stack of what are obviously Cure Light Wounds potions. Having them all just be apparent on use removes that pointless hassle.

That said, I do think wands, staves and rods are a different case, and those should revert to needing to be used against a suitable target before they auto-identify. It's fair to reward the player with instant ID for taking the risk of using an unidentified scroll or potion, but zapping a wand at an empty square neither uses up the wand nor puts the player at any risk of negative consequences, so it shouldn't be that easy to get the ID.