[FA] ID and pseudo-ID

[Nick]

This is cross-posted from rgra (where it has so far got minimal attention)

I am in the process of coming up with a general ID and pseudo-ID scheme for
FAangband, and would like some holes shot in it.

• ID
  This is the simple bit. *ID* is gone. ID remains as common as before, and
  fully identifies every item.
  
• Pseudo-ID
  This will be split into two parts - workmanship and magic. To see why, consider
  the
  
• Changes to +/- modifiers
  + to skill, + to damage and + to AC are going to come in two varieties -
  workmanship and magic. These will be coded separately, but appear added
  together to the player. The workmanship values will be of the order of -3 to +7
  (or bigger for artifacts), and will be unchangeable for the item (although I may
  allow improvement as a service at the Weaponsmith/Armourer). The magic values will be potentially bigger in both directions, and increasable by Enchant
  scrolls; typically items with a nett negative magical bonus would be cursed
  (although I will probably alter curses a bit). Maybe only ego items would get a
  magical +. So now we can return to the
  
• Pseudo-ID
  All pseudo-ID will be instant. Workmanship pseudo-ID will be strong for
  warriors (and rogues, assassins, etc), giving five possibilities, labelled
  something like terrible, bad, average, good, excellent. The weak version of
  this will just give good or bad. Magic pseudo-ID will be strong for mages and
  necromancers and weak for warriors, and I'm not sure for the other classes.
  Strong will give cursed, nonmagical or enchanted; weak just magical or
  nonmagical. I'm not sure yet what chance an item will have to get pseudo-ID.

So a Holy Avenger would get magical pseudo-ID of enchanted (strong) or magical
(weak); it's workmanship pseudo-ID would probably be good, but could conceivably
be average (strong) or even bad (strong or weak). So it might get an
inscription of {good, magical} from a warrior.

I might also have scrolls of Item Sensing (or something) which would be fairly
low-level but not stocked in shops, and which would pseudo-ID the player's
entire inventory - this would only make sense if the chance of an item pseudoing
were not 100%.

There'll probably be some form of pseudo-ID for potions, jewellery, etc too.

This is not very well-formed yet, but I'd like it criticised now before I go too
much further down a dead end.

[HallucinationMushroom]

I like the idea of instant pseudo id, especially in the example of warriors picking up weapons. It makes more sense that a warrior would pick up a sword and maybe give a practice swing and know something was interesting about it immediately rather than lugging it and then suddenly 20 feet down the corridor realize something excellent was poking him through the backpack. Sorry, no useful criticism... just typical rah rah HM stuff.

[Atarlost]

Item sensing scrolls would make sense even with instant pseudo if it gave strong/strong pseudo without regard for class, particularly if no class has strong pseudo for both magic and workmanship.

This might favor warriors since there are only three levels of strong magic pseudo as described but five levels of strong workmanship pseudo. It may or may not be worthwhile to distinguish between simple egos that only do one thing (i.e. slay foo, or resist foo) and complex egos (i.e. Holy Avenger, resistance) that are more interesting. I haven't played FA specifically, but in most variants there's a point where simple egos become obsolete unless they're on particularly potent base items.

[Big Al]

I've been playing a lot of Un lately, which has instant pseudo-id. I like it a lot more than the vanilla id system (though it takes a while to figure out what everything does/means.

The only major problem with instant pseudo-id is that pretty much anything that comes up {cursed} is immediately junk - it's almost pointless to have cursed items in that case unless you can find some way to make cursed items interesting enough to consider using even though they're cursed.

[will_asher]

I am in the process of coming up with a general ID and pseudo-ID scheme for FAangband, and would like some holes shot in it.[LIST][*]ID
This is the simple bit. *ID* is gone. ID remains as common as before, and
fully identifies every item.

This idea I don't like. I like how Eddie does it in his patch where artifacts are instantly fully ID'ed as soon as you know that they're artifacts, but egos you still have to use *ID* to find out their hidden abilities. Hidden abilities/resists/sustains on egos shouldn't be that easy to find out especially for classes who aren't primary spellcasters.

I like your other ideas especially the idea of having separate workmanship and magic bonuses. It makes sense. If it's okay with you, I might like to borrow this idea for DaJAngband. Except I think that magical pseudo should give an idea of whether an item is an ego or not.

[Big Al]

I like how Eddie does it in his patch where artifacts are instantly fully ID'ed as soon as you know that they're artifacts

I'd rather see implemented a "monster memory" for artifacts, and keep *id*. You can keep the fun of finding and *id*ing artifacts for the first time, but without the pain of having to *id* them every life. After you've found all the artifacts with a character, it will be exactly as you describe for future lives. (But I've never really gotten deep enough to have found lots of artifacts, so I don't know anything.)

[Nick]

Thanks for all the feedback.

This idea I don't like. I like how Eddie does it in his patch where artifacts are instantly fully ID'ed as soon as you know that they're artifacts, but egos you still have to use *ID* to find out their hidden abilities. Hidden abilities/resists/sustains on egos shouldn't be that easy to find out especially for classes who aren't primary spellcasters.

Part of the reason for getting rid of *ID* is that I'm moving toward less egos but more variety among them, so that just knowing the ego type will not give as much info. Also FA has some randarts in every game; if you find one early, it's often no longer useful when you get your first *ID*, which is just annoying.

I'd rather see implemented a "monster memory" for artifacts, and keep *id*. You can keep the fun of finding and *id*ing artifacts for the first time, but without the pain of having to *id* them every life.

I've thought about this quite a bit, and on the whole I don't think the extra excitement from having to wait before fully identifying artifacts outweighs the disadvantages.

I like your other ideas especially the idea of having separate workmanship and magic bonuses. It makes sense. If it's okay with you, I might like to borrow this idea for DaJAngband. Except I think that magical pseudo should give an idea of whether an item is an ego or not.

By all means take the idea; borrowing ideas is the essence of maintainership It's possible that magical pseudo-ID will be extended a bit, but really I'm thinking that the whole pseudo-ID business will be mainly an early game thing, largely for the first wilderness trek before finding a dungeon. I will probably make Rods of Perception a bit more common so that ID will become plentiful and easy.

I've been playing a lot of Un lately, which has instant pseudo-id. I like it a lot more than the vanilla id system (though it takes a while to figure out what everything does/means.

Yes, I think instant pseudo gets rid of a lot of problems.

The only major problem with instant pseudo-id is that pretty much anything that comes up {cursed} is immediately junk - it's almost pointless to have cursed items in that case unless you can find some way to make cursed items interesting enough to consider using even though they're cursed.

I will certainly be revamping curses a bit. In particular, the current plan is to have cursed weapons removable without using Remove Curse, but have other negative side effects (like occasionally hurting or poisoning the player, or draining a stat or some experience). Cursed armour will still have the sticky effect, but will be more likely to have some beneficial effects as well, so cursed isn't automatically junk. I am also playing with the idea of having a little Un-style info-from-use - so, for example, a warrior wielding a sword which is {average, magical} who does more than the theoretical maximum damage with a blow might realise that it's positively enchanted; and having aimed enough blows at monsters with a weapon might give information on magical to-skill pluses or minuses.

Item sensing scrolls would make sense even with instant pseudo if it gave strong/strong pseudo without regard for class, particularly if no class has strong pseudo for both magic and workmanship.

Yes, that's a really good point.

This might favor warriors since there are only three levels of strong magic pseudo as described but five levels of strong workmanship pseudo. It may or may not be worthwhile to distinguish between simple egos that only do one thing (i.e. slay foo, or resist foo) and complex egos (i.e. Holy Avenger, resistance) that are more interesting. I haven't played FA specifically, but in most variants there's a point where simple egos become obsolete unless they're on particularly potent base items.

I now think there will probably only be four levels of workmanship (no terrible), and possibly more magic pseudo (although that might mainly be to deal with potions etc. - in particular, I'm thinking {perilous} instead of or as well as {cursed}). Also, as I've said above, long term I hope that all egos will be potentially interesting throughout the game. There's also the possibility that ego types should be recognisable once you've found one; I'm still undecided on that.

I like the idea of instant pseudo id, especially in the example of warriors picking up weapons. It makes more sense that a warrior would pick up a sword and maybe give a practice swing and know something was interesting about it immediately rather than lugging it and then suddenly 20 feet down the corridor realize something excellent was poking him through the backpack.

It's that picture of picking up weapons that made me decide sticky curses for weapons were silly.

Sorry, no useful criticism... just typical rah rah HM stuff.

Ha! Wrong!