Rune-based ID

[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

[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.

[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]

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?

[Nick]

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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Carnivean]

I think it's a more organic solution than automatically learning runes on level-up.

I definitely agree with this. Have them appear between dlvl 10 and dlvl 70, once every 5 levels or so, and that should cover it.

[Pete Mack]

As an alternative, bring back self -knowledge scroll, except you fully identify anything you are currently wearing.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Two issues/questions with regard to artifacts with the rune-based ID system:

1). Since artifact names can be known from a distance without interaction (e.g., @ quaffs !Enlightenment and becomes aware that the Shield of the Haradrim is sitting in a vault), is the artifact lost forever if @ leaves the level? Previously, artifact names weren't known until pick-up, and once the name was known it could no longer be generated. Has this changed?

2). It seems a little unfair to players that the "cursed" rune can only be learned if @ wields a cursed item. Previously, a @ could use identify, say on the Iron Crown of Beruthiel, to learn it was cursed before ever wielding it. Now, if @ has never donned a cursed item, player will never know which items are cursed. Not a problem for veterans who already know what items to avoid, but it's a real "gotcha" for new players.

[StMicah]

How does rune-id work with a rogue?

Previously, a rogue (seemed) to have better pseudo-id and could sense different quality-levels quicker than other classes. (Am I right about this?) Does the rogue have a better/easier time learning the runes?

[StMicah]

And, after one short run through the dungeon, I'm already a big fan of the rune system. I like an uncluttered dungeon and now, when I squelch low-quality items (say once I have a slay weapon) they don't show up.

THANK YOU! The chore of id-ing each item is over.

[Derakon]

How does rune-id work with a rogue?

Previously, a rogue (seemed) to have better pseudo-id and could sense different quality-levels quicker than other classes. (Am I right about this?) Does the rogue have a better/easier time learning the runes?

Old pseudo-ID worked solely on a speed system, with warriors having the fastest pseudo-ID and mages the slowest. Really old pseudo-ID also had warriors and hybrid classes get "detailed" pseudo-ID (magical, excellent, special, cursed, awful, and terrible) while mages and priests could only tell if an item was enchanted and/or cursed (and they couldn't even recognize if an item had no magic at all).

I don't believe that there is any pseudo-ID in the rune-based system, but I haven't had a chance to sit down with it yet.