"You found a special room" (new trap type)

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Ulfang the Black summons some friends. The berserker tramples over Ulfang the Black. ~~~ Ulfang the Black probably was carrying the "9" items (something of speed no doubt), but now he is trampled out of the level?

I don't remember if Ulfang picks up items. Except for monsters that can pick up items or that can trample items to destroy them, you need not worry about the "9" level feeling item disappearing. Monster drops are not included in level feeling. Much more likely to run across a high-level dungeon book (usually useless to my @ class) that triggers the feeling.

[Grotug]

Every vault I find monsters trample or pick up items and then get trampled etc. Often 9 feelings aren't artifacts.

Anyway, I picked up a staff of earthquakes and thought it might come in handy; plasma hounds gave me heavy stun, so I figured the staff will break up their line of sight; the staff did nothing useful and I died.

[Pete Mack]

You were lucky to activate the staff at all with heavy stun, let alone expecting it to do anything useful. Messing around with plasma hounds is just plain dangerous. The right action at that point was to move out of LOS or read an escape scroll. The better thing to do is: don't let them gang up on you in the first place. Mass stun attacks are just plain deadly.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Every vault I find monsters trample or pick up items and then get trampled etc. Often 9 feelings aren't artifacts.

"Every vault..." I find that to be highly unlikely. Try hitting shift-k and see if you just haven't squelched most of what was in the vault. Elementals and thieves are the most common tramplers and picker-uppers, respectively, but they're not in every vault. And when they are in a vault, I try and target the tramplers first and kill the picker-uppers, if I can.

[Grotug]

They are in every vault I encounter. Okay, maybe not *every* vault, but really, just about every vault. Seems like 9 out 10 vaults there is an E or something else wreaking havoc on the goods. I do check for squelched items.

Now I am grumbling because I quaffed a potion of experience on DL15. Aside from huge amounts of CON and pFear this is more of a curse than a blessing. I have drained stats and my earned experience has been drained so that I only have 924 earned experience. (ie. I have 100,924 EXP and 4,200 less than max; and it took me all 19 DLs to earn that 4,200 exp and there are no restore life potions in the shop.

[Will]

I really don't have the experience of E squashing everything in vaults. Uniques, ghosts, ainu, giants or master rogues pick up the items along the way. It's usually nice because they can't pick-up artifacts. So I can just shift through the big pile for consumables and books, and check what remains in the vault for potential artifacts...

[Grotug]

I really don't have the experience of E squashing everything in vaults. Uniques, ghosts, ainu, giants or master rogues pick up the items along the way. It's usually nice because they can't pick-up artifacts. So I can just shift through the big pile for consumables and books, and check what remains in the vault for potential artifacts...

There are plenty of {Splendid} items that give @ what he is looking for, when artifacts do not. I do not subscribe to the idea that only artifacts are worth looking for. Crown of Serenity is a good example of a very strong non-artifact helm, as is an ordinary helm of Telepathy. Boots of speed are obviously better than Boots of Radagast the useless. Right now a main gauche of extra attacks would be amazing, as compared to Forsagil, an artifact! which I swung for a few rounds and then left on the dungeon floor. An elven cloak would be very nice now, too. Elvenkind armor with rDisenchant (like I picked up last game) would also be good. This Dwarven armor isn't bad either, though, as its my only source of FrAct atm. Should I drop my gloves of agility for the Gauntlets of Paurach that I am for some reason still carrying in my backpack? How about the amulet of trickery, pretty much the best amulet in the entire game for a warrior? Picking up an amulet of trickery right now on DL32 would be *amazing*. Gloves of Thievery are endgame handgear unless one is so fortunate to find their fingers on a set of Fingolfin.

A longbow of extra might or power [+19]

Cloaks of Aman all day long.

Should I go on?
Also, it's very rare that a character solves the most important resistances with only artifacts. This always happens with a combination of good artifacts and good non-artifact items.

Right now I am trying to get into an open vault which a pink Q keeps teleporting me away from. A cyan E is there as well, sure to ruin all my fun. Tons of items in the vault, but by the time I get in there, there will probably be a potion of boldness and an Awl-Pike of-has-anyone-ever-used-an-awl-pike?

EDIT: Yay, I killed the cyan E and I guess remained out of sight of the pink Q. The red firebat burned up the heavy xbow, tho. I currenlty have a magical longbow so lots of room for improvement in the archery dept!

Darn, scorching roar and a longbow burns up.

[Will]

What I meant is that there are very Es and uniques who actually crush the items. Generally speaking monsters just pick them up and drop them nicely in one neat pile once you've killed them. Actually they prevent exactly what you're describing since as long as a Ghost (for example) has picked up an item, it won't burn or explode from frost or be crushed or anything. It can be a challenge finding the one ghost or master rogue who's got all the loot, but once you find them you're good.

I routinely check for ego cloaks, helms, boots and sometimes gloves or shields. It's not uncommon to finish the game with an ego item in one of those slots. But artifacts are still what I'm mostly after, especially when clearing a vault, since they tend to be largely superior to their ego counterpart.

[Grotug]

Good point about pickups; not sure why I don't have a more positive experience with vaults in general. I guess I've just been unlucky; seems like as often than not the guy that picks up stuff gets trampled. But I did finally get some decent luck: Thalkettoth and a wand of TO and outside the vault on the floor shield of Celegorm; and Hollhenneth from a drop.

[Grotug]

Say, @ identifies potions once he knows what they are; why can't he identify new caps of telepathy once he's ID'd them?

Also, I think a ranged attack priority system would be cool.

For example, I saw a blue v flitting about; I knew he was my priority but I couldn't be bothered with selecting him over the other creature that was near him but slightly closer to me. So I just hit 'H' until they all died, except the vortex breathed lightning and destroyed my ring of digging while my arrows were pelting the non-threatening creature that was closer to me than the vortex. I think it would be really cool if 'H' targeted the most dangerous enemies to @ rather the closest ones. So if you have some white Cs flitting about in the foreground and a red v in the background hitting H would target the red v if it was in LoS, not the closest white wolf.

[Grotug]

Well, I got to Quaker of Earth pretty quickly and TO'd him outta there but I can't find anything decent in this 7-7 vault on DL42, unless Scarabtrices is that good? or Flail of Totila? @ exclaimed "yes!" for the sandles of stealth, but was much less excited about Totila.

Read some more scrolls of enchant armor on my Wormtongue boots, but to no avail (still cursed).

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Well, I got to Quaker of Earth pretty quickly and TO'd him outta there but I can't find anything decent in this 7-7 vault on DL42, unless Scarabtrices is that good? or Flail of Totila? @ exclaimed "yes!" for the sandles of stealth, but was much less excited about Totila.

Read some more scrolls of enchant armor on my Wormtongue boots, but to no avail (still cursed).

DL42, then that level feeling seems appropriate for those treasures. Time to ignore treasure feelings, except maybe 8 or 9, and even then they might be deep level dungeon books. I only pay attention to treasure 6 on DL 1-5 (hoping for a 'thanc dagger) and treasure 4 on DL 1-5 hoping for free action boots/gloves. Then, only an 8 or 9 will stop me on my headlong search/flight for the down stairs.

[Grotug]

Yeah, maybe you are right. I guess I am still trying to figure out the formula for how feelings are generated. One thing I am noticing is danger feeling isn't so much about OoD as it is about how dangerous a monster is.

[Will]

Yeah, maybe you are right. I guess I am still trying to figure out the formula for how feelings are generated.

I guess it's just adding up the depth/rarity of monsters and objects generated with the level. It can lead to some weird side effects, obviously. Sometimes it might just be all about one item that we're ignoring/squelching. Sometimes it might be an item that's useless to our class. Sometimes it's about the sum of vaguely useful items but nothing special stands out... It's very easy for the level feeling to be bumped by books, rods, a rare scroll or potion. Even quite deep a potion of Augmentation is enough to warrant a 5 or 6 by itself.

I'm with Ingwe in that I trust it more at low depth when all the regular items can't really add up to a nice level feeling. A 5 at those levels can often mean an artifact, when a 5 below dlvl 50 is just a regular level.

One thing I am noticing is danger feeling isn't so much about OoD as it is about how dangerous a monster is.

I'm not sure there's a way in the code (or rather the config file) to assess a monster's dangerousness, especially since it depends heavily on the character's class and gear. I rarely take the monster feeling into account unless it's 7+ which usually means a pit or vault somewhere.

[Grotug]

Now see, that is a strong level 8 feeling level: Belthronding and 'Evenstar' in a spiral vault on DL51; and I didn't have to do nearly any work to get it (5-8 feeling). It does help that the X was in one of the arms and not inside the heart of the vault. No other item/monster destroyers were in the vault that I could see. Of course, both items are super useful, but isn't Belthronding basically the best bow in the game? If the answer is no, don't offer what might be better, as I know there are a lot of artifacts in this game I have never seen. I know Cubrigol is very good, but not for its ranged prowess; and there's Umber Xbow for its might. But Belthronding is sooo good for HT warrior: 3 DEX, unmatched ranged damage, and a little extra speed and rDisenchant; what's not to love?

This artifact cutlass, on the other hand, can't say I'm too disappointed I've never seen it before, cause its damage output... wow, watch out cutpurses! Wouldn't be terrible in a world without magic, but Angband is not such a world.