Rune-based ID

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Bug with regard to cursed items.

@ had fully identified all the runes of the Boots of Wormtongue in his pack. @ then used two ?*Enchant Armor* and successfully broke the curse. Thereafter, the boots reverted to ?? "You do not know the full extent of this item's powers" and the "cursed" identifier remains. However, there are no new runes to learn and @ can remove the boots at will.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Sounds like a bug no? Items should still be squelched on sight, not on walkover...

That isn't true for weapons or armor. Until @ walks-over, you should not know if the weapon or armor is average, good, ego, or artifact.

[TJS]

What is the thinking of automatically identifying consumables on use?

The fact that you had to see their use in action was the only part of the old id system that actually worked and was fun before in my opinion.

[PowerWyrm]

Just a few more thoughts on messages:

• It's a tad disconcerting to have items silently squelch on walkover so you don't know they've vanished until you try to pick them up and nothing happens. Would it be feasible to display the item name with squelch tag included (i.e. "You see a Dagger (1d4) {squelch}") before it disappears, just so it's clearer what's happened?

Sounds like a bug no? Items should still be squelched on sight, not on walkover...

[Ingwe Ingweron]

One small nit on the new ?Identify. In the description, add the word "will" after "it". Currently it reads, "When read, it Identify a single...."

[Ingwe Ingweron]

All confirmed and fixed in development.

Does this mean a new build is available in the nightlies?

[Nomad]

Having finally got a decent game going, I'm really liking the way the new ID system streamlines things. (And there's nothing quite so satisfying as wielding a {??} weapon at 900' and getting the message "You learn the rune of ESP".)

Just a few more thoughts on messages:

• It's a tad disconcerting to have items silently squelch on walkover so you don't know they've vanished until you try to pick them up and nothing happens. Would it be feasible to display the item name with squelch tag included (i.e. "You see a Dagger (1d4) {squelch}") before it disappears, just so it's clearer what's happened?

• I'm really liking the new ID-on-first-use of rods/staves/wands, but I think as a consequence they now need either an ID message like you get with the runes ("You identify a wand of Confuse Monster") or messages to handle the case of using them when there's nothing to act on ("There are no monsters here to confuse", "Your wounds are already healed", etc.). Currently if you test them in a situation where they have no effect, they just silently ID themselves with no feedback to indicate it's happened.

[PowerWyrm]

IDing a staff by "failing" to use it seems very weird...

[Nick]

I have a pull request pending that adds a Scroll of Runes that identifies a single unknown rune of any type (i.e. you read it, and learn a rune you didn't know before).

I'm actually not sure we want this.

Currently we have learning by use, and learning by scroll for unknown runes on objects the player has. This new scroll would allow the player to learn runes on objects they don't have - does this have any practical advantage over the first scroll? You only need to know a rune if you have an object with it.

[Nick]

For some reason, new characters created in the latest build now start the game with no money.

Still getting the {??} tag on Slime Molds even though they don't have any secret powers I'm aware of. Even eating one doesn't make it go away.

Items with activations don't ID correctly if the activation is the last thing you learn. (e.g. If you find a Ring of Flames and you already know the runes for armour bonus and resist fire, activating the ring will not update the name, so it just remains "a [flavour] ring" even though you now know all its properties.)

All confirmed and fixed in development. And agreed on naming, message and tiles.

[sandtrap]

On competition character 186 using build angband-4.0.3-198-gbba6817

Wielded leather gloves. Then squelched Gloves while they were equiped. Received the message the gloves were average.

Message used to be squelch Excellent but not Splendid without saying anything about the gloves themselves.

That was a game i started on a previous version. on a new game I was asked if I wanted to squelch artifacts. That sound like the correct behavior.

So I was unable to reproduce on a fresh game.

[Nomad]

• They should probably be renamed "Identify Rune" or something like that, or else players of older versions are going to be annoyed/confused that the scroll says you've got nothing to ID when you're carrying unidentified consumables.

Any other opinions on this? Currently we have Scroll of Identify which identifies a single unknown rune on a selected item, and I have a pull request pending that adds a Scroll of Runes that identifies a single unknown rune of any type (i.e. you read it, and learn a rune you didn't know before). Renaming these is of course trivial, and adding flavor text is pretty easy too.

Well, it doesn't necessarily have to be "Identify Rune", I just think it should be something other than plain "Identify" to distinguish that the effect has changed. But maybe "Scroll of Identify Rune" and "Scroll of Runic Knowledge" would work as a pair?

[Derakon]

• They should probably be renamed "Identify Rune" or something like that, or else players of older versions are going to be annoyed/confused that the scroll says you've got nothing to ID when you're carrying unidentified consumables.

Any other opinions on this? Currently we have Scroll of Identify which identifies a single unknown rune on a selected item, and I have a pull request pending that adds a Scroll of Runes that identifies a single unknown rune of any type (i.e. you read it, and learn a rune you didn't know before). Renaming these is of course trivial, and adding flavor text is pretty easy too.

[Nomad]

Items with activations don't ID correctly if the activation is the last thing you learn. (e.g. If you find a Ring of Flames and you already know the runes for armour bonus and resist fire, activating the ring will not update the name, so it just remains "a [flavour] ring" even though you now know all its properties.)

[Nomad]

Still getting the {??} tag on Slime Molds even though they don't have any secret powers I'm aware of. Even eating one doesn't make it go away.

Some thoughts on the new identify scrolls, more for future implementation than really necessary to deal with during testing:

• They should probably be renamed "Identify Rune" or something like that, or else players of older versions are going to be annoyed/confused that the scroll says you've got nothing to ID when you're carrying unidentified consumables.
  
• Might be good to have some sort of "This item is still not fully identified" message when you use the scroll on an item that has more than one unknown rune, just to clarify that there's still more to be learned without relying on the player checking the equipment list and noticing it still has question marks. (Or conversely, maybe there should be a "Your [x] is now fully identified!" message that triggers once you learn all the runes on an item you're wearing/wielding?)
  
• Probably not worth fixing until the ID-by-consumable system is finalised, but the tile mappings will need to be updated at some point, as the new scroll doesn't have a tile at the moment.