A complaint about the move to ID-by-use
The Wanderer
nightly builds - and on what I've read recently in skimming the Web
forum. It's faintly possible that some of it is obsoleted in more recent
builds, but from what I've read I don't think that's very likely.
I like the idea of ID-by-use in principle, and I would like having it
available as an option. However, pretty much all discussion of the move
towards ID-by-use seems to involve the removal - or drastic reduction in
availability - of other forms of ID, and I don't like that at all. There
are at least three problems with it:
* ID-by-use is not - or at least, by my understanding, not yet - as
comprehensive as other forms of ID (in that other forms of ID give you
all of an item's properties at once, whereas my understanding is that
ID-by-use - in at least some cases - gives you only the properties
you've already had a chance to notice);
* ID-by-use is not as convenient as other forms of ID (for equipment, in
that you have to swap out one item in order to try to ID another which
would go in the same slot, and then - aside from the unlikely case where
the new item is obviously better - swap back, regardless of whether you
learned anything; for non-equipment, in that you have to find some
appropriate context to try the item);
* ID-by-use is risky (for equipment, both because of curses and because
of the chance of being attacked while trying out unIDed equipment; for
non-equipment, both because of the possible effects of the item and
because the item - or, in the case of wand or staff, a charge - is lost
by the use), where other forms of ID are not.
This last point is the most important of the three. Many - if not most
or even all - of the people involved in these discussions seem to think
of that added source of risk as being a good thing. From my perspective,
it is very much a bad one.
For me, the ready availability of reliable, risk-free ID is an absolute,
non-negotiable requirement.
If ID-by-use can be both risk-free and reliably effective, then it
should be just fine (though there is, inherently, at least a minor risk
involved in e.g. swapping out armor - or any resist-providing item -
while in the dungeon). If it can't, then there must be some other means
of reliable ID which is both risk-free and commonly available.
I do not insist on it being practical to "identify all items before
equip/use". I do, however, insist on it being practical to "identify all
items before discard" if I so choose, as well as the "no risk" factor
mentioned above. (I don't mind if there is a risky approach available,
but there must be a risk-free fallback which can be relied upon if I
want to do so.) Note that, for these purposes, pseudo-ID as "average" or
(if implemented so that I'd agree with the assessment) "bad" counts as
ID, if achieved in time.
Even in current - or, for that matter, earlier - release versions of the
game, almost the only way I've been able to find of fulfilling these
requirements is to play nothing but mages. I'm not necessarily happy
about that, since it leaves out much of the potential variety of the
game, but nothing else seems capable of getting the job done. The
addition of ID-by-use should have the potential to fix that problem, by
adding ways to let other classes be able to fulfill those requirements;
instead, because people seem intent on adding the risk factor instead of
trying to eliminate it - and then compensating for the new ID method by
reducing the availability of other forms of ID - it actually seems as if
it is making the problem worse.
I *have* found one way of achieving "ID all items before discard"
without the Identify spell, but it's tedious and inconvenient - and
while it's more fun than playing without reliable risk-free ID at all,
it's little enough fun that I wouldn't bother playing the game at all if
it were the only practical means of achieving that goal. (It's also 100%
impossible in e.g. an Ironman game.)
--
The Wanderer
Warning: Simply because I argue an issue does not mean I agree with any
side of it.
Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny.
Eddie Grove
> and then compensating for the new ID method by
> reducing the availability of other forms of ID - it actually seems as if
> it is making the problem worse.
I am not aware of any compensation to make other forms of ID less common.
That's not to say it hasn't been done, but I don't know of it.
I am aware of a change to make them more common, by increasing ?id drops
from single items to stacks.
The real problem is the overall reduction in consumables, and that applies to
all consumables from restore potions to identify scrolls. That change is
because people cannot accept squelch as the answer, and insist on mucking with
drops instead.
As to your main point, if you want cheap risk-free ID, there seems little
point in requiring ID in the first place. IMO you should play with the need
for ID mostly removed from the game. There was a recent post on oook about
someone who is planning a patch or variant with that goal.
http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=2572
Eddie
The Wanderer
> The Wanderer <wand...@fastmail.fm> writes:
>
>> and then compensating for the new ID method by reducing the
>> availability of other forms of ID - it actually seems as if it is
>> making the problem worse.
>
> I am not aware of any compensation to make other forms of ID less
> common. That's not to say it hasn't been done, but I don't know of
> it.
It's possible that it hasn't been done yet, but I am positive that I
have repeatedly seen discussion of increasing the rarity of ?ID (and, I
think, removing it from stores or at least making it more expensive),
exactly because ID-by-use - and, possibly, improved pseudo - mean that
otherwise ID is considered too easy. I was fairly sure that past mention
of that had indicated that it had already been done, but it's possible
I'm remembering wrong on that point.
I'll keep my eyes open and make sure to note down the next time or three
that I see it happen, so that I have somewhere to point to if this
subject comes up again...
> I am aware of a change to make them more common, by increasing ?id
> drops from single items to stacks.
Unless they will be common enough to use on essentially every item,
dropped ?ID isn't good enough except in the short term.
> The real problem is the overall reduction in consumables, and that
> applies to all consumables from restore potions to identify scrolls.
> That change is because people cannot accept squelch as the answer,
> and insist on mucking with drops instead.
I don't know if I'd accept squelch as *the* answer, but it's certainly a
very nice improvement. (One problem with squelch is that it doesn't kick
in on equipment before the equipment is IDed or at least pseudo'ed,
which makes it notably less useful compared to not having the bad item
drop in the first place. Another is that there doesn't seem, at least in
3.1.1, to be a way of defining a set of "default" squelch settings that
don't have to be manually recreated with each new character...)
> As to your main point, if you want cheap risk-free ID, there seems
> little point in requiring ID in the first place.
The point, or at least one point, is to still have that layer of
complexity in the game, as a way to help keep it interesting. (Even with
mages who have learned the Identify spell, IDing everything I care to
still has an in-game cost - it requires me to rest far more often than
many people would consider reasonable. I just happen to think of the
IDing as worth that tradeoff.)
In ADoM (the only other roguelike I've played very much), ID is still
necessary but is handled fairly satisfactorily, by having an
essentially-unlimited inventory (mitigated by burden) and a simple if
not trivial way of getting scrolls which will identify everything you're
carrying. That requires the resource management of obtaining ID, but
doesn't make it difficult to achieve if you spend the effort on it. (The
game also includes a readily-available - but not always-on-hand - means
of determining cursed vs. uncursed status, and a similar but less easily
accessible means of removing curses for non-nequipped items, which makes
ID-by-use much more practical.)
That approach wouldn't work for Angband, for obvious reasons, but it
does indicate that there are ways of getting the job done while still
including that layer of complexity. (Angband even has one already, if a
tedious and inconvenient one; just go back to town and buy sources of ID
whenever your inventory gets too full. There are definitely problems
with that approach, though, as I'm sure you can see probably even better
than I can.)
> IMO you should play with the need for ID mostly removed from the
> game. There was a recent post on oook about someone who is planning
> a patch or variant with that goal.
>
> http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=2572
That does look interesting. It seems very wrong to the part of me that
wants things to fit thematically and/or in terms of rationalization, but
I'm not sure that's not just a matter of my being used to the current
rationalizations; the only objective problem I see with it is the loss
of that level of complexity, and thus to some degree of interest. I
think I could get used to that, and even possibly prefer it, but that
doesn't mean it's automatically a good idea.
Seebs
> I don't know if I'd accept squelch as *the* answer, but it's certainly a
> very nice improvement. (One problem with squelch is that it doesn't kick
> in on equipment before the equipment is IDed or at least pseudo'ed,
> which makes it notably less useful compared to not having the bad item
> drop in the first place. Another is that there doesn't seem, at least in
> 3.1.1, to be a way of defining a set of "default" squelch settings that
> don't have to be manually recreated with each new character...)
I also wish it could distinguish between "any torch whatsoever" and "any
torch which lacks special qualities". An everburning lantern could be a big
deal...
> The point, or at least one point, is to still have that layer of
> complexity in the game, as a way to help keep it interesting. (Even with
> mages who have learned the Identify spell, IDing everything I care to
> still has an in-game cost - it requires me to rest far more often than
> many people would consider reasonable. I just happen to think of the
> IDing as worth that tradeoff.)
I have a ranger who, at level 30, can cast a single identify spell which
has a nominal 50% chance of failure. (And which often fails five times
in a row...) But it's still usually worth it, though she's just now
gotten to the point where it's not rewarding to identify merely-magic
weapons and armor.
-s
--
Copyright 2009, all wrongs reversed. Peter Seebach / usenet...@seebs.net
http://www.seebs.net/log/ <-- lawsuits, religion, and funny pictures
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Game_(Scientology) <-- get educated!
The Wanderer
> On 2009-12-06, The Wanderer <wand...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>
>> I don't know if I'd accept squelch as *the* answer, but it's
>> certainly a very nice improvement. (One problem with squelch is
>> that it doesn't kick in on equipment before the equipment is IDed
>> or at least pseudo'ed, which makes it notably less useful compared
>> to not having the bad item drop in the first place. Another is that
>> there doesn't seem, at least in 3.1.1, to be a way of defining a
>> set of "default" squelch settings that don't have to be manually
>> recreated with each new character...)
>
> I also wish it could distinguish between "any torch whatsoever" and
> "any torch which lacks special qualities". An everburning lantern
> could be a big deal...
Interface-wise, it would seem as if the simple way to fix that would be
to add a "Light Sources" section to the quality-squelch section.
However, if light sources aren't considered equipment in the same way as
the other things in that section, that might not be practical to
implement.
>> The point, or at least one point, is to still have that layer of
>> complexity in the game, as a way to help keep it interesting. (Even with
>> mages who have learned the Identify spell, IDing everything I care to
>> still has an in-game cost - it requires me to rest far more often than
>> many people would consider reasonable. I just happen to think of the
>> IDing as worth that tradeoff.)
>
> I have a ranger who, at level 30, can cast a single identify spell which
> has a nominal 50% chance of failure. (And which often fails five times
> in a row...) But it's still usually worth it, though she's just now
> gotten to the point where it's not rewarding to identify merely-magic
> weapons and armor.
I infer, from your mention of "merely-magic" items, that you're waiting
to cast the spell till after pseudo-ID. I don't wait; unless in the
middle of a fight, I ID the item before even picking it up. Even with
recent improvements, pseudo-ID - at the CLs I usually reach - takes far
too long to be practical.
Seebs
For ranger, identify is a huge pain -- 50% or higher failure (in theory,
from reading the code, it must be 50%, but it succeeds on the first try
pretty rarely, but fails two or three times quite often, experientially...
Probably just confirmation bias), takes more than half of total mana,
etcetera, but pseudo-ID is quite fast.
Eddie Grove
> I infer, from your mention of "merely-magic" items, that you're waiting
> to cast the spell till after pseudo-ID. I don't wait; unless in the
> middle of a fight, I ID the item before even picking it up. Even with
> recent improvements, pseudo-ID - at the CLs I usually reach - takes far
> too long to be practical.
My current char is a mage, down to DL 98, and occasionally I carry an item for
a while. I have not pseudoed anything the entire game. It appears that, for
practical purposes, mages are incapable of recognizing magic.
Eddie
The Wanderer
And I think we can agree that this is a bad thing.
(Interesting - last time this subject came up in conversation between us
on the newsgroup, you pointed to the fact that pseudo-ID improves
greatly at higher levels as an answer to my complaint that it was far
too slow to be useful. Apparently, at least for mages, the improvement
isn't great enough...)
Eddie Grove
> On 12/06/2009 05:13 PM, Eddie Grove wrote:
>
> > The Wanderer <wand...@fastmail.fm> writes:
> >
> >> I infer, from your mention of "merely-magic" items, that you're
> >> waiting to cast the spell till after pseudo-ID. I don't wait;
> >> unless in the middle of a fight, I ID the item before even picking
> >> it up. Even with recent improvements, pseudo-ID - at the CLs I
> >> usually reach - takes far too long to be practical.
> > My current char is a mage, down to DL 98, and occasionally I carry an
> > item for a while. I have not pseudoed anything the entire game. It
> > appears that, for practical purposes, mages are incapable of
> > recognizing magic.
>
> And I think we can agree that this is a bad thing.
IMO mages should get pseudo on pickup at CL 20, pseudo in LOS at CL 30, and ID
on pickup at CL 40. And of course they should get the fastest pseudo of all
classes before CL 20. Except that I don't think pseudo should even exist.
I'll have to have an argument with myself I guess.
> (Interesting - last time this subject came up in conversation between us
> on the newsgroup, you pointed to the fact that pseudo-ID improves
> greatly at higher levels as an answer to my complaint that it was far
> too slow to be useful. Apparently, at least for mages, the improvement
> isn't great enough...)
Yup. With low str, you have to use the ID spell rather than run around slowed
forever, and by the time your str is high enough ID is so cheap there's no
point not using it.
Eddie
The Wanderer
> The Wanderer <wand...@fastmail.fm> writes:
>
>> On 12/06/2009 05:13 PM, Eddie Grove wrote:
>>> My current char is a mage, down to DL 98, and occasionally I
>>> carry an item for a while. I have not pseudoed anything the
>>> entire game. It appears that, for practical purposes, mages are
>>> incapable of recognizing magic.
>>
>> And I think we can agree that this is a bad thing.
>
> IMO mages should get pseudo on pickup at CL 20, pseudo in LOS at CL
> 30, and ID on pickup at CL 40. And of course they should get the
> fastest pseudo of all classes before CL 20.
Most of which wouldn't affect me, since it's vanishingly rare for me to
even get a character to CL20 much less CL30. But that doesn't affect
your point.
> Except that I don't think pseudo should even exist. I'll have to have
> an argument with myself I guess.
(I thought I was the only one who did that. Not that I do it much
anymore...)
I do think pseudo should exist, and I don't think that mages should
necessarily be the best at it. They should be the best at recognizing
*magic*, yes, but they should not necessarily be as good as the more
directly martial classes at recognizing more mundane characteristics -
in which category, for this purpose, I think I would include to-hit,
to-dam, and AC bonuses; only ego enchantments and beyond would be a
mage's purview.
The trouble is that pseudo (and, relatedly, auto-ID) is currently not
divided up that way, and I don't know if I see any obvious way to so
divide it without making things unwieldy.
Matthew Vernon
> Yup. With low str, you have to use the ID spell rather than run
> around slowed forever, and by the time your str is high enough ID is
> so cheap there's no point not using it.
As a mage, I ID everything the minute I pick it up; the bit of the
game before being able to cast ID always irks me a bit.
Matthew
--
Rapun.sel - outermost outpost of the Pick Empire
http://www.pick.ucam.org
The Wanderer
> Eddie Grove <eddie...@hotmail.com> writes:
>
>> Yup. With low str, you have to use the ID spell rather than run
>> around slowed forever, and by the time your str is high enough ID
>> is so cheap there's no point not using it.
>
> As a mage, I ID everything the minute I pick it up; the bit of the
> game before being able to cast ID always irks me a bit.
I do much the same thing (ID even *before* pickup), and it's possibly
even worse, in that I don't usually make it that far in the first place.
I no longer recall for certain, but prior to moving up to recent
versions, I think I'd managed to get to the point where I could make it
to the Identify spell at least one game out of three. Nowadays, it
doesn't seem to happen more than half that often, if even that much.
Matthew Vernon
> I no longer recall for certain, but prior to moving up to recent
> versions, I think I'd managed to get to the point where I could make it
> to the Identify spell at least one game out of three. Nowadays, it
> doesn't seem to happen more than half that often, if even that much.
I dive relatively quickly until getting ID; I've learned to avoid
dragons, but other than that my hit-rate is pretty good, I think. What
kills you?
Magnate
> On 12/06/2009 04:03 PM, Seebs wrote:
>> On 2009-12-06, The Wanderer <wand...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>>
>>> I don't know if I'd accept squelch as *the* answer, but it's
>>> certainly a very nice improvement. (One problem with squelch is
>>> that it doesn't kick in on equipment before the equipment is IDed
>>> or at least pseudo'ed, which makes it notably less useful compared
>>> to not having the bad item drop in the first place.
This isn't going to change unless pseudo goes away completely.
>>> Another is that
>>> there doesn't seem, at least in 3.1.1, to be a way of defining a
>>> set of "default" squelch settings that don't have to be manually
>>> recreated with each new character...)
This one is on my to-do list, under the heading "improved pref file
management and sensible default preferences".
>> I also wish it could distinguish between "any torch whatsoever" and
>> "any torch which lacks special qualities". An everburning lantern
>> could be a big deal...
>
> Interface-wise, it would seem as if the simple way to fix that would be
> to add a "Light Sources" section to the quality-squelch section.
> However, if light sources aren't considered equipment in the same way as
> the other things in that section, that might not be practical to
> implement.
This is a nice idea and if I remember I'll create a ticket for it tonight.
It shouldn't be too hard to add a tval for lights to the quality squelch
menu. There are no {good} lights, but you could squelch bad / average / all
but artifacts. (I'm not sure if there are any bad lights yet, but I'm sure
there will be one day ...)
Wanderer: For me, the ready availability of reliable, risk-free ID is an
absolute,
non-negotiable requirement.
Eddie: As to your main point, if you want cheap risk-free ID, there seems
little
point in requiring ID in the first place. IMO you should play with the need
for ID mostly removed from the game.
>>> The point, or at least one point, is to still have that layer of
>>> complexity in the game, as a way to help keep it interesting. (Even with
>>> mages who have learned the Identify spell, IDing everything I care to
>>> still has an in-game cost - it requires me to rest far more often than
>>> many people would consider reasonable. I just happen to think of the
>>> IDing as worth that tradeoff.
Well, I can't claim that Wanderer's opinion is unique, as there appear to be
two views emerging here:
- ID adds enjoyment to the game if it's risk-free, but detracts from it if
there are risks. (This is a paraphrase of what Wanderer said, but I hope it
captures the view.)
OR
- ID may as well not be in the game at all if it's risk free, as that adds
nothing but tedium, but ID with some risk does add spice and enjoyment to
the game.
I am firmly with Eddie in the latter camp. I infer that Takkaria is too,
otherwise we wouldn't have gone down the road of ID-by-use. Takkaria removed
annoying light-but-sticky curses on wearables, leaving only the rare heavily
cursed items as a risk to those IDing by use (and these can now be removed
by enchantment). He also removed instadeath potions, so that ID-by-use is
mildly risky but never instantly fatal. (That said, you can still be
instakilled by a scroll of Summon Undead, but we're working on making sure
that @ gets the first move.) There is obviously more work to do, but the
direction is set and magical ID will get rarer and more expensive as
ID-by-use gets better. (Not sure what will happen to pseudo - it's not
entirely orthogonal but has a slightly different set of issues.)
If anyone really believes that ID must be risk-free, the simplest thing is
just to maintain a two-line patch to stores.txt and object.txt, which makes
?ID always for sale at a cost of 1gp. I maintain a similar patch to increase
the rarity of all Zs, and it makes my playing experience just fine (and
saves me lots of ranting time about how Zs need to be nerfed).
CC
The Wanderer
> "The Wanderer" <wand...@fastmail.fm> wrote in message
>
>> On 12/06/2009 04:03 PM, Seebs wrote:
>
>>> On 2009-12-06, The Wanderer <wand...@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I don't know if I'd accept squelch as *the* answer, but it's
>>>> certainly a very nice improvement. (One problem with squelch is
>>>> that it doesn't kick in on equipment before the equipment is
>>>> IDed or at least pseudo'ed, which makes it notably less useful
>>>> compared to not having the bad item drop in the first place.
>
> This isn't going to change unless pseudo goes away completely.
I wasn't really expecting it to; this was more a point against what I
saw as Eddie's position that squelch is the answer to TMJ, and that
messing around with drops is therefore not necessary.
>>>> Another is that there doesn't seem, at least in 3.1.1, to be a
>>>> way of defining a set of "default" squelch settings that don't
>>>> have to be manually recreated with each new character...)
>
> This one is on my to-do list, under the heading "improved pref file
> management and sensible default preferences".
Yeah, I thought I'd read somewhere that this was pending.
>>>>>> For me, the ready availability of reliable, risk-free ID is
>>>>>> an absolute, non-negotiable requirement.
>>>>>
>>>>> As to your main point, if you want cheap risk-free ID, there
>>>>> seems little point in requiring ID in the first place. IMO
>>>>> you should play with the need for ID mostly removed from the
>>>>> game.
>>>>
>>>> The point, or at least one point, is to still have that layer
>>>> of complexity in the game, as a way to help keep it
>>>> interesting. (Even with mages who have learned the Identify
>>>> spell, IDing everything I care to still has an in-game cost -
>>>> it requires me to rest far more often than many people would
>>>> consider reasonable. I just happen to think of the IDing as
>>>> worth that tradeoff.
>
> Well, I can't claim that Wanderer's opinion is unique, as there
> appear to be two views emerging here:
>
> - ID adds enjoyment to the game if it's risk-free, but detracts from
> it if there are risks. (This is a paraphrase of what Wanderer said,
> but I hope it captures the view.)
I might say "unavoidable risks", but otherwise, that seems to summarize
my position pretty neatly.
> OR
>
> - ID may as well not be in the game at all if it's risk free, as that
> adds nothing but tedium, but ID with some risk does add spice and
> enjoyment to the game.
>
> I am firmly with Eddie in the latter camp. I infer that Takkaria is
> too, otherwise we wouldn't have gone down the road of ID-by-use.
As I said, I don't disagree with or dislike ID-by-use; in fact, I don't
think it's necessarily incompatible with risk-free ID, to within the
limits of how I define the term. The problem is that it doesn't seem to
be being implemented that way.
<snip>
> There is obviously more work to do, but the direction is set and
> magical ID will get rarer and more expensive as ID-by-use gets
> better.
And that is exactly what I'm objecting to. Unless ID-by-use can
substitute for magical ID in all respects (including being risk-free),
magical ID - or something which *can* so substitute - needs to remain
reliably available.
Hmm. Brainstorming a bit now.
ID can be risky, or risk-free.
ID can be limited, or unlimited.
ID can be inconvenient to access, or conveniently accessible.
Existing ID is risk-free, limited (except by way of the Identify spell,
which is viable only for mid-game-and-later mages), and inconvenient
(again, except for the Identify spell for mages).
ID-by-use - as it seems to be being implemented - is risky, unlimited,
and sometimes convenient but sometimes inconvenient.
I want ID to be risk-free, unlimited and convenient. (Convenience is of
course a spectrum. Exactly how convenient would be enough to satisfy me
varies depending on a number of factors; the reason it's so stringent in
this case is because of how limited Angband's inventory is.)
You seem to say that you want ID to be risky, unlimited and - I think -
convenient.
Have I missed anything (e.g. other possible characteristics of ID). left
anything out, or gotten anything wrong?
Are there other possible forms of ID which would have different
permutations of the possible characteristics?
What are the arguments for or against each side of each of the possible
characteristics?
> If anyone really believes that ID must be risk-free, the simplest
> thing is just to maintain a two-line patch to stores.txt and
> object.txt, which makes ?ID always for sale at a cost of 1gp.
That would be a workaround, but would be inconvenient (having to spend
an inventory slot and add burden just for ID, among possibly other
things) and less than entirely satisfactory. It may be the best of a
number of bad options, however.
Ray
> I want ID to be risk-free, unlimited and convenient. (Convenience is of
> course a spectrum. Exactly how convenient would be enough to satisfy me
> varies depending on a number of factors; the reason it's so stringent in
> this case is because of how limited Angband's inventory is.)
You've said that you want ID in the game, but I hear you objecting
to all of the ways ID can add interest (read: difficulty, ambiguity,
risk, management of limited supplies, tactical decisions based on
limited information, etc) to the game. The essence of interest in
a game, to me, is that there are interesting decisions to make. The
ID game in Angband poses such questions *by* being in various degrees
and in various tradeoffs risky, limited, and inconvenient. If it
were otherwise, then it would become a "no-brainer." Something you
never have to make a real choice about because there is always
one right answer ceases to add interest to the game.
And if there's always one right answer, why bother to make the user
do all the extra typing to identify everything? Why not just
streamline the interface, abstract away the no-brainer, and make
ID automatic? The instant you see a wand across the room, you know
it's a "wand of fireballs (4 charges)." No Staffs of perception, no
scrolls of ID, nothing like that required.
Would instant, automatic, effortless ID make the game a better game?
Seriously, it seems like half or more of the problems people have are
trying to fix various ID mechanics - just tossing the whole thing and
making ID automatic would put an end to all of that, in the way a nuke
puts an end to a bunny. It would be a fundamentally different game.
Would that different game be as fun, or more fun, on its own merits?
Bear
konijn_
> Would instant, automatic, effortless ID make the game a better game?
> Seriously, it seems like half or more of the problems people have are
> trying to fix various ID mechanics - just tossing the whole thing and
> making ID automatic would put an end to all of that, in the way a nuke
> puts an end to a bunny. It would be a fundamentally different game.
Meh. Not really, definitely not after I have all ego or better
equipment which is usually at clevel 30. I usually tend to try to
destroy anything I find ( talking about armor/weapons/lights/jewelry/
wands/staves ). Anything that survives is an artifact and worth
consideration. Having instant id would just relieve me from pressing
my kill macro ;)
Its probably more of a mercy killing for that bunny.
> Would that different game be as fun, or more fun, on its own merits?
Hellband has birth signs, one of them is the birthsign of Plutus ( god
of Wealth ), it gives instant pseudo id early on, id at level 15, *id*
at level 30.
Playing with a character born under Plutus for me is a different
experience and as least as fun as playing with id. It puts more focus
on combat, less on looting.
T.
>
> Bear
Paul Murray
> I am firmly with Eddie in the latter camp. I infer that Takkaria is too,
> otherwise we wouldn't have gone down the road of ID-by-use.
> that @ gets the first move.) There is obviously more work to do, but the
> direction is set and magical ID will get rarer and more expensive as
> ID-by-use gets better. (Not sure what will happen to pseudo - it's not
> entirely orthogonal but has a slightly different set of issues.)
What happened to variants? What happened to vanilla, for that matter?
What is the point of vanilla if it makes the same sorts of changes
that would previously have been made in variants, and only included
in vanilla after being widely tested and accepted.
Paul Murray
> Would instant, automatic, effortless ID make the game a better game?
> Seriously, it seems like half or more of the problems people have are
> trying to fix various ID mechanics - just tossing the whole thing and
> making ID automatic would put an end to all of that, in the way a nuke
> puts an end to a bunny. It would be a fundamentally different game.
> Would that different game be as fun, or more fun, on its own merits?
Automatic ID would be closer to Vanilla Angband that the current
suggestions of mainly or entirely ID-by-use. We'll be dropping rings
down fountains next.
Derakon
> Would instant, automatic, effortless ID make the game a better game?
> Seriously, it seems like half or more of the problems people have are
> trying to fix various ID mechanics - just tossing the whole thing and
> making ID automatic would put an end to all of that, in the way a nuke
> puts an end to a bunny. It would be a fundamentally different game.
> Would that different game be as fun, or more fun, on its own merits?
>
> Bear
I made a quick one-line patch that auto-*ID*'d every item in the game
except for special artifacts. Playing that way is very quick; you can
instantly examine all the loot being generated and decide what to keep
and what to leave on the floor. I admit I haven't experimented with ID-
by-use (my last experience with Vanilla was 2.9.something, if I recall
correctly), but on the whole I think that this play method is worth
trying, and it should certainly, with some refinements, be added as a
cheat option if nothing else. The big changes I see with this style of
play:
* No more destroying all the loot that gets dropped so you can prune
out the artifacts
* No more carrying around a bunch of possibly-junk items in the early
game because you can't tell what's worth selling (possibly fixed by ID-
by-use)
* No more relying on the stores to ID potions and scrolls for you
* No more having to hoard *ID* scrolls to find out what the high-
resists are on your gear this time around
* Gameplay flow is much smoother
The first and the last points bear elaboration and emphasis. I always
felt that having to destroy loot was immensely silly, and it has major
weaknesses when there are powerful ego-items that you'd consider using
if you only knew they were there. Boots of Speed and Heavy Crossbows
of Extra Shots leap to mind. So sure, you could just destroy
everything *except* the boots and crossbows...but then what about
getting a Shield of Elvenkind with a good high resist? Or Gloves of
Power? Et cetera. So we're left with rewarding tedium: players who are
willing to sit there and identify every item that might be useful are
more likely to find those items than players who just destroy the lot.
And tedium should never, IMO, be rewarded in a game.
As for smoother gameplay flow, without auto-ID, my games tend to
consist of "Kill a group of enemies. Examine loot. Find items that
might be interesting. ID items, resting to recharge mana / rods of
perception as needed. Find next group of enemies. Repeat." With auto-
ID, though, it's "Kill a group of enemies. Examine loot. Find next
group of enemies. Repeat." And this is looking at higher-level
characters with access to unlimited ID. With lower-level ones, I have
to rely on scrolls and staves instead, which are limited-use, which
means I have to pseudo-ID items before IDing them to tell if they're
worth wasting a charge on (otherwise, I run out of ID early and have
to return to the town -- even more flow-breaking!).
Even if I have unlimited cheap ID, though, I still have to manually
cast it on each item in the pile of loot. What's that really adding to
the gameplay? Much more straightforward to just automatically know
what the items are from the start.
So, yes, I'm a big proponent of eliminating ID. My proposed form,
which I haven't even really started working on a patch for yet, was to
have looked like this:
* All bad, average, and good equipment are automatically ID'd,
always. Un-ID'd equipment is therefore an ego-item or artifact.
* Once you ID one ego-item of a given type (e.g. Slay Animal,
Resistance), you automatically ID all other ego-items of that type.
Ditto for wands and staves (so you automatically know how many charges
a wand has once you know what it does).
* Flavored items (potions, scrolls, etc.) work as they currently do.
However, having played with the auto-*ID*-everything patch, I'm not
certain I'd be satisfied with this. You still have to have some access
to ID under this system, after all, and how much does it really add to
not know what type of ego-item you just picked up? The main change is
in the flavor items, which, past a certain depth, I wouldn't use un-
ID'd anyway, if for no other reason than that they're situational and
I wouldn't want to waste e.g. a potion of Healing.
For what it's worth, the one-line change is to add this to make_object
() in obj-make.c, right after calling apply_magic():
/* Identify the object */
object_notice_everything(j_ptr);
The Wanderer
> On Dec 7, 10:04 am, Ray <b...@sonic.net> wrote:
>
>> Would instant, automatic, effortless ID make the game a better
>> game? Seriously, it seems like half or more of the problems people
>> have are trying to fix various ID mechanics - just tossing the
>> whole thing and making ID automatic would put an end to all of
>> that, in the way a nuke puts an end to a bunny. It would be a
>> fundamentally different game. Would that different game be as fun,
>> or more fun, on its own merits?
>
> I made a quick one-line patch that auto-*ID*'d every item in the game
> except for special artifacts. Playing that way is very quick; you
> can instantly examine all the loot being generated and decide what to
> keep and what to leave on the floor.
I've been playing with this patch (in latest-SVN versions), and while
it's not quite the same game I'd gotten used to and I'm not sure I
entirely like the change, it does make things flow much more smoothly;
I've been making it deeper faster, easier and with fewer trips, without
compromising my play style or (directly) my enjoyment of the game.
I have, however, just noticed one problem with this patch as it exists
which may make it a nonstarter for me: artifact loss.
In preserve mode, which IIRC is on for all characters now, artifacts can
be re-generated if they have not yet been IDed. This means that if you
miss one on a given level, it can turn up again, and you are therefore
guaranteed to be able to find all artifacts if you invest enough time in
the effort. With this patch, however, since everything is IDed as soon
as it's generated, I think that guarantee is gone.
I'm about to start testing the attached patch (against latest SVN),
which I think should ID only non-artifact items - though I can't be
certain before testing, since the code isn't documented as clearly as
I'd like... and of course confirming "works" vs. "doesn't" will require
actually finding an artifact, which hasn't happened for me in some time
now. Combine that with the already-added change which makes ?ID provide
*ID*, for when an artifact *does* turn up, and I think it should address
the issue.
The Wanderer
> On 12/09/2009 10:52 PM, Derakon wrote:
>
>> On Dec 7, 10:04 am, Ray <b...@sonic.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Would instant, automatic, effortless ID make the game a better
>>> game? Seriously, it seems like half or more of the problems
>>> people have are trying to fix various ID mechanics - just tossing
>>> the whole thing and making ID automatic would put an end to all
>>> of that, in the way a nuke puts an end to a bunny. It would be a
>>> fundamentally different game. Would that different game be as
>>> fun, or more fun, on its own merits?
>>
>> I made a quick one-line patch that auto-*ID*'d every item in the
>> game except for special artifacts. Playing that way is very quick;
>> you can instantly examine all the loot being generated and decide
>> what to keep and what to leave on the floor.
> In preserve mode, which IIRC is on for all characters now, artifacts
> can be re-generated if they have not yet been IDed. This means that
> if you miss one on a given level, it can turn up again, and you are
> therefore guaranteed to be able to find all artifacts if you invest
> enough time in the effort. With this patch, however, since everything
> is IDed as soon as it's generated, I think that guarantee is gone.
>
> I'm about to start testing the attached patch (against latest SVN),
> which I think should ID only non-artifact items
Just found Paurhach, and the patch seems to have worked as expected.
(Admittedly I was hoping for something more useful from Wormtongue, but
for the sake of the test this is good enough.)
Derakon
Neat! I definitely support getting this added as a cheat option.
Thanks for the added refinement.
Dave_Smith354
I still play 3.0.6 (and I've got a copy of 2.7.9 hanging around). If
you're uncertain about Takkaria's changes you could always revert to
an earlier version. Otherwise "development" becomes simply "bug-
fixing". I know people have worked long and hard on these updates
after wide-ranging and long-lasting discussions on these boards.
You're entitled to your opinion of course, but if you want a version
of the game that doesn't incorporate these changes, the older versions
haven't gone anywhere.
This isn't meant to be a flame, please don't take it as such.
Paul Murray
My point is that this is not how Angband development has worked up to now.
Vanilla was just that, plain vanilla, well tested, well playtested, a
good safe option to point new users towards, where currently known major
bugs had been fixed.
It wasn't the place for brand new untested or non playtested code. That is
what variants were for. Someone wanted to try out skills, so SAngband was
born. New combat functions, OAngband, and so on.
Once an idea had been played and tested, it might be folded back into
vanilla, or might not, depending on whether it was generally accepted.
Now the code is being developed on the fly, which is great way of adapting
to user response, but as a variant, not part of the main code base.
Nick McConnell
> My point is that this is not how Angband development has worked up to now.
> Vanilla was just that, plain vanilla, well tested, well playtested, a
> good safe option to point new users towards, where currently known major
> bugs had been fixed.
Earlier on in it's development (particularly before the variant
explosion), I understand Angband did change quite rapidly.
A counter point to your opinion is that Angband had stagnated and needed
some work.
Takkaria discusses some of the issues here:
http://takkaria.org/angband-develop-or-maintain.html
You certainly have a valid opinion, and discussion is good :)
Nick.
Timo Pietilä
> On 7/01/10 11:51 PM, Paul Murray wrote:
>
>> My point is that this is not how Angband development has worked up to
>> now.
>> Vanilla was just that, plain vanilla, well tested, well playtested, a
>> good safe option to point new users towards, where currently known major
>> bugs had been fixed.
>
> Earlier on in it's development (particularly before the variant
> explosion), I understand Angband did change quite rapidly.
Not this rapidly. There was a lot of new versions, but changes were
generally quite small. Ben did some rearrangements for townsfolk and
changed monster symbols and stuff like that, but generally changes were
small. One of the biggest were removal of invulnerability for mages,
which lead to "mage spells are wimpy" -complaints.
Also Chaos resistance went thru series of changes and elvenkind shields
disappeared at some point (and aman cloaks were introduced).
Compared to what now is happening those all were small changes except
JLE changes and mage spell list rework in late Robert era.
> A counter point to your opinion is that Angband had stagnated and needed
> some work.
I would emphasize that "some" at your text. Now there are changes coming
in nearly all aspects of the game:
1) game mechanisms (shooters)
2) game mechanisms (ID by testing)
3) items (artifact rework, brand giving non-weapon equipments)
4) monsters (non-dice-based randomness of HP, maybe more)
5) game mechanisms (monster drops, floor items)
6) game mechanisms (curses)
7) game mechanisms (aggravation)
etc.
There is not much community testing going on, only tiny group of early
adopters that play potentially unstable nightly releases.
I don't say that those changes are bad, I just say that these changes
are fast, and can potentially be very bad in long run because they don't
get tested long enough, and testing in general is made by tiny group of
early adopters which basically contains mostly people that are making
those changes, and as such gives very biased feedback to maintainer.
"stagnation" is not bad when status quo is OK. There is not point making
changes just for making changes.
Timo Pietil�
Nick
> I don't say that those changes are bad, I just say that these changes
> are fast, and can potentially be very bad in long run because they don't
> get tested long enough, and testing in general is made by tiny group of
> early adopters which basically contains mostly people that are making
> those changes, and as such gives very biased feedback to maintainer.
This is a good point, and I'm inclined to agree, at least partially.
> "stagnation" is not bad when status quo is OK. There is not point making
> changes just for making changes.
...but equally making no change just for the sake of making no change
is bad.
In any case, I don't think either of these is happening; I do think
there may
be a bit too much "Here's a wacky idea - let's implement it", though.
I'm sitting on the fence, as usual...
Nick.
Ray
It looks like the game is getting simplified in some ways
and accelerated in others. The problem is that with rare
exceptions, difficulty + spoilers = tedium. When Mr. Sidwell
sets out to eliminate tedium, in the knowledge that complete
spoilers will exist, it is very hard to do it without
eliminating difficulty. Any kind of difficulty that some
application of patience will correct (for example, cursed
items and ID) becomes tedium to a spoiled player and
therefore worthwhile to eliminate.
Addressing that problem, I think, requires changing something
so fundamental in Angband that the result would be a completely
different game. Making these difficulties into actual difficulty
rather than just tedium requires eliminating the applicability
of patience as a sovereign remedy for solving them. And that
means removing the ability to generate dungeons at the same
level more than once. Yep. Persistent dungeons. No new stuff
when you come back to the same level.
See, that? That's sufficiently radical that I think it would
need a variant to explore and balance. You have players making
caches instead of losing stuff when they leave the level, but
you don't have an infinite supply of stuff to pick from. And
a lack of ?ID for example, becomes difficulty again rather
than just tedium to be removed.
Also, I think the perception that 99% of stuff is "junk" comes
mainly from players accustomed to picking only one item out of
every 100 they see in an infinite supply of stuff. When the
supply is no longer infinite, you have to use what you find
so, magically, it ceases to be junk.
Finally, I think V needs to adopt some kind of methodology that
allows patches (of at least some types of things) collected
from many sources to succeed in any combination. There needs
to be a set of interfaces that people can write code to, such
that they can make a minimal and trivial (scriptable) change
to the V codebase (such as adding one line to the make file
at a spot where such lines can come in any order) that causes
unchanged parts of V elsewhere to make the appropriate calls
to the added code when they need to do so. And that "minimal
change" should never cause any other code written to the same
interface to be unable to make *its* minimal change.
That's a hard(ish) problem, but do-able. It's a lot like what
Ben Harrison did for monster definitions, but applied to code
rather than data.
That would lead to another variant explosion, I think.
Bear
Magnate
news:4b46bf05$0$1615$742e...@news.sonic.net...
>
> Finally, I think V needs to adopt some kind of methodology that
> allows patches (of at least some types of things) collected
> from many sources to succeed in any combination. There needs
> to be a set of interfaces that people can write code to, such
> that they can make a minimal and trivial (scriptable) change
> to the V codebase (such as adding one line to the make file
> at a spot where such lines can come in any order) that causes
> unchanged parts of V elsewhere to make the appropriate calls
> to the added code when they need to do so. And that "minimal
> change" should never cause any other code written to the same
> interface to be unable to make *its* minimal change.
>
> That's a hard(ish) problem, but do-able. It's a lot like what
> Ben Harrison did for monster definitions, but applied to code
> rather than data.
>
> That would lead to another variant explosion, I think.
I think this is what Takk has in mind with a planned move to hg (a DVCS).
So my question for Timo / Nick / Paul is this: if the current changes are
being made and tested by too small a group of people, and therefore a group
unable to give unbiased feedback to Takkaria - what is the solution? Do we:
1. Get more people involved in testing changes? IMO there is quite a big
crowd on Oook testing nightly builds, so not sure how you could go about
this.
2. Introduce some sort of cooling-off period between discussing a change and
implementing it? By and large most changes are implemented after discussion
on Oook reaches some sort of consensus, but it wouldn't hurt to formalise
this.
3. Introduce some sort of automatic revert mechanism so that changes have to
be explicitly confirmed by Takkaria and/or some sort of community poll?
As you can probably tell from the above, I'm struggling to understand the
problem we're trying to solve. The whole point about nightly / dev versions
is that they're testing grounds for new ideas. So to complain about the
implementation of new ideas in them is kind of silly, especially given the
practice of discussing changes on Oook first and seeking support. Perhaps
the real issue is that not enough of these wacky new ideas are reverted by
Takkaria as insufficiently tested - is that the problem? It's not as if dev
versions are becoming official releases at a rate too fast to comprehend -
this happens about twice a year, so that should be plenty of time for new
changes to be tested. (We do have a sort of unwritten policy of not
introducing any significant changes as we near a release date.)
CC
Paul Murray
> So my question for Timo / Nick / Paul is this: if the current changes are
> being made and tested by too small a group of people, and therefore a group
> unable to give unbiased feedback to Takkaria - what is the solution? Do we:
>
> 1. Get more people involved in testing changes? IMO there is quite a big
> crowd on Oook testing nightly builds, so not sure how you could go about
> this.
>
> 2. Introduce some sort of cooling-off period between discussing a change and
> implementing it? By and large most changes are implemented after discussion
> on Oook reaches some sort of consensus, but it wouldn't hurt to formalise
> this.
I part of the problem is the jilted lover that is r.g.r.angband.
Lots may be happening on Oook, I don't know.
Things *used* to happen on r.g.r.angband.
The ergonomics of web site forums are just so horrible compared to a good
usenet reader (not Google Groups), that I have no interest in going there.
> 3. Introduce some sort of automatic revert mechanism so that changes have to
> be explicitly confirmed by Takkaria and/or some sort of community poll?
>
> As you can probably tell from the above, I'm struggling to understand the
> problem we're trying to solve. The whole point about nightly / dev versions
> is that they're testing grounds for new ideas. So to complain about the
> implementation of new ideas in them is kind of silly, especially given the
A question: What is the current stable supported build that has no major
know and unfixed bugs?
> practice of discussing changes on Oook first and seeking support. Perhaps
> the real issue is that not enough of these wacky new ideas are reverted by
> Takkaria as insufficiently tested - is that the problem? It's not as if dev
> versions are becoming official releases at a rate too fast to comprehend -
The difference is that previous something would be tested in a variant and
only incorporated into vanilla if there was widespread acceptance. Now things
are added directly and then considered for removal if they seem obviously
broken. Defensive vs aggressive change management, I guess.
I have no objection to any of the development being done, I just don't think
it should be called vanilla, because it isn't.
Andi Sidwell
> On 2010-01-18, Magnate<n...@receiving.here> wrote:
>> So my question for Timo / Nick / Paul is this: if the current changes are
>> being made and tested by too small a group of people, and therefore a group
>> unable to give unbiased feedback to Takkaria - what is the solution? Do we:
>>
>> 1. Get more people involved in testing changes? IMO there is quite a big
>> crowd on Oook testing nightly builds, so not sure how you could go about
>> this.
>>
>> 2. Introduce some sort of cooling-off period between discussing a change and
>> implementing it? By and large most changes are implemented after discussion
>> on Oook reaches some sort of consensus, but it wouldn't hurt to formalise
>> this.
>
> I part of the problem is the jilted lover that is r.g.r.angband.
> Lots may be happening on Oook, I don't know.
> Things *used* to happen on r.g.r.angband.
> The ergonomics of web site forums are just so horrible compared to a good
> usenet reader (not Google Groups), that I have no interest in going there.
That's not going to change, sadly. The dynamics of people on the web
have changed a lot since r.g.r.a had its peak in traffic and the
community is now mostly based on web forums.
>> 3. Introduce some sort of automatic revert mechanism so that changes have to
>> be explicitly confirmed by Takkaria and/or some sort of community poll?
>>
>> As you can probably tell from the above, I'm struggling to understand the
>> problem we're trying to solve. The whole point about nightly / dev versions
>> is that they're testing grounds for new ideas. So to complain about the
>> implementation of new ideas in them is kind of silly, especially given the
>
> A question: What is the current stable supported build that has no major
> know and unfixed bugs?
There isn't one and that's never been the model Angband used anyway.
3.1.1.1626 is pretty decent though not perfect, and 3.0.9b is reasonable
too.
>> practice of discussing changes on Oook first and seeking support. Perhaps
>> the real issue is that not enough of these wacky new ideas are reverted by
>> Takkaria as insufficiently tested - is that the problem? It's not as if dev
>> versions are becoming official releases at a rate too fast to comprehend -
>
> The difference is that previous something would be tested in a variant and
> only incorporated into vanilla if there was widespread acceptance. Now things
> are added directly and then considered for removal if they seem obviously
> broken. Defensive vs aggressive change management, I guess.
>
> I have no objection to any of the development being done, I just don't think
> it should be called vanilla, because it isn't.
Feel free to not call it Angband if you like, but most people call it
Angband and I'm not changing the name. And I take your point about
changes always having been tested in variants beforehand, except that
they haven't. Nor am I (though I can't speak for others) interested in
being involved in the development of a game where that is the case.
Andi
Matthew Vernon
> > A question: What is the current stable supported build that has no major
> > know and unfixed bugs?
>
> There isn't one and that's never been the model Angband used
> anyway. 3.1.1.1626 is pretty decent though not perfect, and 3.0.9b is
> reasonable too.
I have some sympathy for the question. Given changing versions can
muck up save-files, having a stable released version would be nice
(not least so we can make sure it gets into the next release of Debian
;-)
Cheers,
