Rune-based ID

[calris]

The nominal reason potions auto-id on use is that for Kobolds, Dwarves, and Gnomes, some potions can never ID-by-use. (Poison/Cure poison, Blindness, Sleep, respectively)

Can't we just make an exception so the potion does get auto-id'd if the player has an intrinsic race or class skill that prevents it?

EDIT: And the same applies to the See Invisible Rune for High Elves, or or the Free Action rune for Gnomes, or Hold Life for Hobbits. Potions aren't special when it comes to conflicting with a player's intrinsic abilities

[Pete Mack]

The nominal reason potions auto-id on use is that for Kobolds, Dwarves, and Gnomes, some potions can never ID-by-use. (Poison/Cure poison, Blindness, Sleep, respectively)

[calris]

Just beat Morgoth using a Rune ID character (not a legit win as Carcharoth killed me - this was the corrupted save file that I posted in another thread).

A couple of notes:

• Endgame is VASTLY superior using Rune ID. I never realised how annoying the old ID was in late game until now
• Early game can be slightly annoying until you find a few Identify scrolls, but I think this actually improves the game's immersion factor - early game you are running around with no clear idea of the world around you - as you learn more runes, your understanding of the world grows. Before it was really a case of 'You know nothing John Snow' no matter how early or late in the game you were
• Auto-ignore and Rune-ID have some interesting effects - Often I will use detection and see *'s show up where objects are. When I light the areas, some *'s will instantly disappear (I'm thinking they are mostly scrolls, potions, etc.). But weapons and equipment will remain until I walk over them - that's when auto-ignore kicks in and they just disappear. It would be nice if auto-ignore was applied to equipment before going to the trouble of walking all the way over to them.
• As far as I can tell, there is no way of knowing if you know all the runes, so you don't know if you can safely auto-ignore Identify scrolls
• 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?

EDIT: Some more thoughts:

• Allow Identify scrolls to be used on magical items (potions, scrolls, wands, etc.)
• Bring back scrolls of *Identify* which identify ALL Runes on an item (or maybe a maximum of three Runes)
• Indicate how many things you don't know about an item. Maybe have three levels - There is something you don't know about this item for only one unknown Rune, There are several things you don't know about this item for two-four unknown runes, and There are many things that you don't know about this item for items with five or more unknown runes. The reason I say this is that it should be pretty obvious to a player that picks up a Defender early on (my last character picked one up somewhere around 250') that it's pretty special compared to a paltry weapon of flame for example.
• Have the magic shop offer an Identify service which recharges based on player turns (the black market sells scrolls occasionally - look at it as the magic shop grabbing a scroll from the black market while you are down in the dungeon)
• In Display Rune Knowledge, why not list all the Runes, but have a 'known' column to indicate what we do and don't know?

[jagular]

The game takes critical hits into account, so you'll always see average damage that's a bit higher than what you would get just from dice + to-dam bonuses. Still, that's nowhere near enough to account for a missing 7d6.

Ah, that'd explain it!
Another thing I've been wondering about: resting to full health/mana takes a long time (feels like several seconds). That's probably not because of anything in the rune-id branch, but in variants based on old angband versions (like tome 2.x) you can do it instantly. Is there an option or something I missed?

[Derakon]

The 'I'nspect damage calc seems to match the lower dice too, although it seems I don't really understand how damage works..
(2d6 + 30 + 5 [cammithrim] + 13 [18/170 str]) * 1.6 [attacks per round] = 88 dmg/round
The game says 96.9. Maybe I'm missing some factor, but 9d6 would be a lot more I think.

The game takes critical hits into account, so you'll always see average damage that's a bit higher than what you would get just from dice + to-dam bonuses. Still, that's nowhere near enough to account for a missing 7d6.

[jagular]

Yep. Haven't tried wielding Calris, I don't know how curses work in this version.. but the other two stay the same, yes. And they're all fully identified.

The 'I'nspect damage calc seems to match the lower dice too, although it seems I don't really understand how damage works..
(2d6 + 30 + 5 [cammithrim] + 13 [18/170 str]) * 1.6 [attacks per round] = 88 dmg/round
The game says 96.9. Maybe I'm missing some factor, but 9d6 would be a lot more I think.

Unless I missed a link, I'm using the latest windows build from this thread (it just says 4.0.4 in game). I can send you a savegame if you want?

[Nick]

I just found "the Glaive of Pain (2d6)".. is that a bug? It's listed as 9d6 in the artifact.txt.

http://imgur.com/LVRNsq8

edit:
this seems to be affecting all artifacts with changed damage dice
the Beaked Axe of Húrin is 2d6 instead of 3d6, and Calris is 3d4 instead of 5d4

Sounds buggy. Do the dice stay the same if you wield one of the weapons?

[jagular]

I just found "the Glaive of Pain (2d6)".. is that a bug? It's listed as 9d6 in the artifact.txt.

http://imgur.com/LVRNsq8

edit:
this seems to be affecting all artifacts with changed damage dice
the Beaked Axe of Húrin is 2d6 instead of 3d6, and Calris is 3d4 instead of 5d4

[calris]

Couple of things I've just noticed:

• I found a ring with the Digging rune on it, but still had to ID a Shovel of Digging I found shortly afterward (EDIT: Ignore that - the shovel had an Acid brand I hadn't ID'd yet)
• I found a ring of Open Wounds - ID gave me the impared hitpoint rune, but I couldn't find out what it was until I activated it. It wasn't obvious that it had an activation - maybe something on the info screen to say 'it can be activated' would be helpful

[Carnivean]

Does Restore Life Levels counter this?

I've been too paranoid to ever take one.

[Nomad]

• Identify can no longer be used on Scrolls (and I assume anything else which is not equipment) so the only way to ID non equipment items is to either give them to a shop keeper or try them out. I was worried about the Potion of Death, but it appears this has been removed. I'm beginning to wonder if too much 'nasty' stuff (curses, potion of death, etc.) has been removed and a certain level of 'risk' has been removed with them. My feeling is that the new traps feature will reverse this trend and add a little bit of the nervy edge back into the game

In recent versions there's been a big push towards making ID-by-use a viable strategy, so risks have been rebalanced to allow players to test out random unknown items with the assurance that while they could have negative effects, they will never instantly kill you or cripple your game to the point of making it unplayable (unless you're very unlucky or stupid about when you choose to test them). So ultra-nasty 'gotcha' items like the Potion of Death that made it too unsafe to ever gamble are now gone, and curses have been temporarily removed pending a rethink to come up with some way to make them interesting without discouraging players from testing equipment by wielding it.

Does Restore Life Levels counter this?

Yes, it does.

[Pete Mack]

The trouble with !death and !detonations was that they make ID-by-use impossible. They WILL kill you otherwise. Same with Rings of Woe. The only one that was survivable was !ruination, and even that made for absolute misery, since stat gain isn't a lot of fun. So The stat swap potions are a nice compromise.

[calris]

Lose Memories is still there though.

Does Restore Life Levels counter this?

[Carnivean]

I was worried about the Potion of Death, but it appears this has been removed.

Lose Memories is still there though.

[calris]

I've played around with this branch a bit more, and I'm beginning to get the feel for it. So far @ is level 14 at dungeon level 8. A few notes

• I picked up a cloak on DL2 that defied all reason to ID - got frozen, charred, acid burns, confused. Turns out it has shard resistance - Nice
• Wormtongue dropped a Defender - It was really fun having to cast ID over and over again to slowly reveal what it was - It had a nice feel to it game play wise
• Identify can no longer be used on Scrolls (and I assume anything else which is not equipment) so the only way to ID non equipment items is to either give them to a shop keeper or try them out. I was worried about the Potion of Death, but it appears this has been removed. I'm beginning to wonder if too much 'nasty' stuff (curses, potion of death, etc.) has been removed and a certain level of 'risk' has been removed with them. My feeling is that the new traps feature will reverse this trend and add a little bit of the nervy edge back into the game

After coming back from a ten year break, I was a bit worried about all the changes that had happened and are happening. But I think I can safely say that, if anything, the heart of what is Angband is shinning through stronger than ever. It's an all over cleaner experience with most of the annoying and repetitive elements being stripped away.