Artifact and General Item Balance Discussion

[morganp]

This was another one, where the true use was lost on me because I didn't realize the effect scaled with a stat. I hadn't checked Eden's guile with a high-cun character and always just assumed it was a fairly small speed boost you got, prompting me to always replace it with something else fairly early, since the boots show up so early in the game. I guess we should be going back and checking all the old tier 1 and 2 artifact effects once we get to level 40 to see if they have secretly become more useful. Or, as Crim says, experiment with them, since the effects aren't always listed. For instance, does Untouchable's secret power scale? I have no idea. Maybe it will be useful for me between levels 25 and 35 and then lure me into a false sense of security at 36 when it's effect has fallen behind other available armors. Yes, there are ways to see, but I don't want to have to code dive, and I don't want to try every artifact again every few levels. I appreciate that there can be a lot of fun to the mystery, but roguelike games have a way of... discouraging long-term experimentation.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

Untouchable does not scale with a stat, but with the total health you have, compared to damage you're taking. So effectively, the more of a shield you need, the more of a shield you get. There's a formula involving the damage you take to start the shield, and the difference between current and max health, but I don't recall what it is. However, it does not scale directly with any stat. (Though because of the health difference, higher con would help it indirectly.)

This would be an advantage to the 'hidden properties' box. After using it for a bit to make the property show up in the box, one could see the strength of the effect. Allowing one to make that more informed decision. Would preserve the mystery and add flavor and spice to items, without directly spoiling the player, but would then eventually provide the information to allow us to know things like this.

Edit: And sandman, if it's truly a struggle, the only lore that would directly influence gameplay is the lore about artifacts itself (that shows up when you find them.) Though it can often provide entertaining jokes (Like the journal of the 'explorer' who went to the east, or the comedic styling of the poem 'rogues do it from behind'.) which offer a good chuckle when you find them. But it won't totally kill you to not thoroughly dissect every piece of lore.

[Zizzo]

It encourages people to try different equipment.

Full information does so more effectively, by letting the player know what they're getting into.

I WON with that damn tier 3 armor. All because I experimented with it.

Because you found out what it does, not because of how you found out. Finding out by way of the Orb would have led to exactly the same end result; you would simply have been drooling on the floor slightly earlier.

Again, knowing that there's something there to see TELLS you to experiment.

*shudder* I utterly loathe it when the game tries to "force" me to experiment. Remember, the only reason I ever started eating the Heart is because I got accidentally spoiled about it. I literally created an entirely separate throwaway character for the specific and sole purpose of finding out what that shady Cornac guy in Derth was on about.

I don't see how that breaks your ability to make choices.

By denying me information I need to make those choices.

Don't wear 'unknown' equipment into high peak, sure. But put it on when you're wandering through some of the safer areas.

Any area that I would consider "safe" enough to "experiment" with un-ID'd equipment, I've already long since emptied out by the time I find said equipment, precisely because of its safety.

[That actually reminds me of an addon I was working on at one point, that added a new Last Hope shop with a room containing a bunch of inactive golems connected to data terminals. The idea was that you would pound on a golem with various weapons, and the data terminal would record how many times each weapon hit and exactly how much of each type of damage each hit did, so that you could compare weapons quantitatively and decide which weapon to use based on expected damage per hit. That's the kind of area I consider safe enough to experiment in. (I eventually scrapped the addon, as I recall, because the part of the code that actually computes the weapon damage doesn't have access to enough information about the weapon doing the damage to record the data properly.)]

How is 'experimentation' not part of looking at an item?

How is 'experimentation' part of looking at an item? (That's distinct from deciding whether to wear an item, mind you. The question "Would this item's properties be better for my build than the properties of the item I'm currently wearing in that slot?" is one that can legitimately require field testing to answer; the question "What are the properties of this item?", not so much.)

Any set of equipment you change is always a loss and a gain, in one aspect or another,

And with complete information on what those losses and gains actually are, I can make an informed decision about whether the one outweighs the other. Without that information, any decision I make becomes inherently untrustworthy.

If you're SO adamant that you MUST magically know everything about an item the moment you look at it,

"Magically"? You say that as though it were a pejorative in a game full of magic. For that matter, "magically know[ing] everything about an item the moment you look at it" is pretty much precisely the Orb of Scrying's entire raison d'?tre; if it can ferret out all the rest of the information about an artifact to such precisely quantified detail, by what logic should it not also be able to ferret out these hidden powers?

In fact, now that I think of it, carrying your argument to its logical conclusion, isn't the Orb of Scrying kind of ruining the fun of the game by giving you all this information in the first place? If it's enjoyable to have to experiment to learn some properties of some items, wouldn't it be that much more enjoyable to have to experiment to learn all properties of all items, or at least vastly more properties of vastly more items? (I've actually seen this argument put forward in all seriousness from time to time in various other roguelike fora --- the premise being that Scrolls of Identify/*Identify* and equivalent effects should be removed from the game, and that if you the player want to find out whether, say, a particular piece of armor has fire resistance, you should have to put it on and go let a monster hit you with a fire attack. And the rationale given is invariably the same as yours: that learning by experimentation this way would be more fun. As you can imagine, the idea generally goes over like the proverbial lead balloon...)

then a box that says 'This item appears to have powers not immediately discernable' tells you "Alright, I want to know what this does, but don't want to risk experimenting, so I'll go source dive it".

*sigh* The point is, I'm trying to avoid that. I don't really want to be spoiled that way --- which is precisely why I need reliable and unambiguous in-game sources of this sort of information. That's supposed to be the Orb's job, if you'll just let it do it.

As often as coral spray shows up, I'm surprised you've never seen it's effect on a shield user before.

I'm not. It just makes my point for me about how ineffective and frustrating this whole "experimentation" business is.

In the case of Coral Spray, I always felt that on block effects should be clear just like, say, on hit effects.

So it triggers off the Block talent, then? That would explain it, I guess; Block never seemed to do anything useful when I tried it, so I eventually stopped bothering. Which, I would argue, simply further corroborates my point: the game, as PureQuestion notes, gives no reason to believe that Blocking with Coral Spray would behave any differently than Blocking with any other shield (and neither would a vague "this item has hidden powers" box), so just "put[ting] this on for a floor or two" would have yielded (and in fact has yielded to date) precisely zero information about its hidden power.

This all reminds me of Spellhunt Remnants, frankly. The first time I found that, I read its description, in particular the description of its activation, said, "Why on earth would I want to do that?", and promptly chucked it into the fortress storage room. Nothing in the game since then has given me cause to reconsider that decision; the only reason I know any different now is that, in yet another case of accidental spoilage, the top post of this very thread talked it up as this nigh on game-breakingly overpowered artifact, and I said, "...huh?" and had to go source diving to figure what grmblfzzz could possibly be talking about.

And that doesn't take into account enemies using it.

Enemies using it? Any time I see "<enemy> uses Block", I step back and hold off on attacking for a couple turns waiting for the Block to expire; isn't that what you're supposed to do?

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

You have valid points, though the only one I can disagree with is that the orb was added to try and reduce the chore that hauling dozens of scrolls of identify around used to be. I rather like having all the 'normal' items, and even most artifacts, fully ID'd and ready for me. But I also like the fact that you can't just immediately recognize the powers of the truly unique items. Even the fully ID'ed spellhunt doesn't tell you that it gets better, you have to try it to find that out.

But such decisions are out of the hands of us, so I can only hope that some fair decision is made. With or without, the game is great, I just lose a facet I like if it goes away completely. But I can at least concede the point about needing to know what an item does. I'm a bit more reckless, and as such, downed weird edible items on first sight... And it helps to know that ToME isn't currently the kind of game that screws you over the moment you do something experimental, the way things like nethack would. (Eat a cockatrice? Why not try it! *dead*) It's one of the facets I do like about ToME as it stands, but losing the mystery some things offer seems to over-simplify the game, and make it more formulaic. But I suppose you can't have both mystery and appropriate information at the same time.

[morganp]

Reminds me of the first time I drank the wyrm bile. "Sure, the heart was pretty cool, give it a try. Hey! I got a cat point! Wait, I lost ten stat points!?!" That would make me think about trying stuff. Didn't know I was just unlucky, and frankly, I still don't know the odds. I always wince when I drink it now (though I always drink it).

[HousePet]

This is a game that actively rewards experimentation.
Lots of games do.
Is it really a problem?

[Zizzo]

Reminds me of the first time I drank the wyrm bile. "Sure, the heart was pretty cool, give it a try. Hey! I got a cat point! Wait, I lost ten stat points!?!" That would make me think about trying stuff. Didn't know I was just unlucky, and frankly, I still don't know the odds.

"Odds"? Note to self: never drink Wyrm Bile.

This is a game that actively rewards experimentation.
Lots of games do.
Is it really a problem?

This is a roguelike. Roguelikes have a longstanding reputation for actively punishing experimentation (cf. T2's Phial of Undeath... heck, cf. morganp's Wyrm Bile notes above). Better to err on the side of caution, I'd argue.

[HousePet]

New characters are cheap, and experimentation is an easy way to learn what does what.

This game is described as a modern roguelike, so why should old conventions apply?

[minmay]

Reminds me of the first time I drank the wyrm bile. "Sure, the heart was pretty cool, give it a try. Hey! I got a cat point! Wait, I lost ten stat points!?!" That would make me think about trying stuff. Didn't know I was just unlucky, and frankly, I still don't know the odds. I always wince when I drink it now (though I always drink it).

Wyrm Bile picks a random number between -3 and 6 for each stat, all with equal probability.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

But even at -3 to all stats, a cat point is always worth it. Tome in it's current incarnation doesn't have any sort of insane instant punishment for doing the wrong thing, unless you a) pop a vault, or b) enter a wildly out of depth dungeon (Elven ruins in the west, poosh/bearscape without being appropriate level)

There are no artifacts that instantly penalize you forever (like undeath.) There are no 'touch this and die' penalties. It's one of the most forgiving roguelikes around under those terms, though I can see how you would fear experimentation with experience from other roguelikes. In fact, the only actually harmful thing I can think of, is if you're in the Infinite Dungeon, and drink the 'Antimagic Wyrm Extract' which is the equivalent of doing the antimagic test in Zigur, giving you the tree and banning you from magic. If you were to do that without warning, you might suffer. Nothing else will. Period. That said, the description says 'it gives you the power of antimagic' or something along those lines. So it's still pretty damn clear.

I dunno. I can see your point of view, but I adapted fairly quickly to the fact that ToME isn't that kind of cruel and punishing any more. (Though T2 might have been, and no doubt will be again when we finally have it ported, at which point I will learn once again to fear experimentation)

Maybe I just have the wrong headset for this...

[PureQuestion]

You should always drink Wyrm Bile.

Spellhunt Remnant's activate... Come on people, give me some credit. Why would you assume it doesn't have a good purpose?

And for the big overarching question:

ToME operates on a sort of assumed trust where it tells you everything. What this means is that when ToME doesn't mention something, players will assume it isn't there. After all, it tells you everything the item does, all its stats, what it does, and so on.

Why would there be anything it wouldn't say?

I'm perfectly content with the element of discovery not being in discovering what something does, but in finding it in the first place.

[Zizzo]

Spellhunt Remnant's activate... Come on people, give me some credit. Why would you assume it doesn't have a good purpose?

Why would I assume it does anything other than exactly (and only) what it says it does?

[Judecca]

Spellhunt Remnant's activate... Come on people, give me some credit. Why would you assume it doesn't have a good purpose?

Why would I assume it does anything other than exactly (and only) what it says it does?

Because this isn't Nethack, and because it's a pretty safe bet that a pair of gloves with bad stats for an artifact, and that have an ability that clearly mentions destroying things of specifically higher tiers than the gloves, can be improved or have something more to them than meets the eye. I don't think that's a very unfair assumption to make, at least.

If this were an item with much higher stakes to test (like, say, the ring of the dead) then that'd be one thing, though IIRC the lore for that or the artifact description or whatever gives you a pretty good idea of what it does unless you want to assume it's lying for the sake of it to cover up its otherwise bad stats.

While some things could maybe be more upfront about what they do in some fashion or another (possibly Untouchable, but I'm loathe to even say that because, again, it's not like testing it out is hard--but knowing the math on it would be nice), it's kind of hard to argue this in the case of Spellhunt Remnants unless you decide that whoever coded them was feeling intentionally spiteful for some weird reason, which is kind of on the player to resolve for themselves since ToME in its current iteration makes it pretty obvious that it's not really about screwing you over in that fashion. Or Coral Spray, where all you have to do is put it on, block in front of an enemy, and get hit--I mean, the shield isn't going to fly out of your hand and hit you for 3000 damage or spawn Atamathon on you or something.

I'm trying to see things from your angle here but I can't agree with bold assertions like 'hidden' powers being "immitigably unfun" when we're discussing of all possible things the Spellhunt Remnants and Coral Spray.

(Incidentally, I could have sworn the black mesh mentioned as part of its stats what it did on block at some point, but a quick check shows this isn't the case. Am I imagining that, or something?)

[sehnsucht]

May I put my thoughts in the chart?

[morganp]

There used to be more of them, but there still exist some lackluster artifacts. Prox's Halfling's Foot, or those chitinous gloves I'm forgetting the name of. Feathersteel amulet used to be weaker, and mostly useless after a few levels. Genocide! That's a good example of an artifact with a ton of lore to it; you think it's gonna be awesome, but you look at the stats and... ok, some nice stat boosts and... orc ESP? Is that all? I almost always have a way better weapon by the time I find it if I'm running a two-hander. If I had pegged an artifact for having hidden effects, I would have guessed that one, considering how much weight is given to the back-story. Or, Razorblade! The Cursed Waraxe! "It is said the wielder will slowly grow mad. This, however, has never been proven - no known possessor of this item has lived to tell the tale." See, that, to me, would indicate that something curious is going on, over and above the +bleed on it. Or, if you take the Atamathon warning as a sign of a benevolent creator, that warns you of imminent danger, you just never equip the thing. I tested that axe out for so long! There must be something there, I thought! The lore hints that more is yet to be learned! But nothing.

Obviously we've all had different experiences, and up until recently my experience has indicated to me that, 1) most features of items, skills, etc, are listed, 2) of the fairly rare items that have hidden features, all are very heavily implied in the lore, and 3) there are a few artifacts of limited use, or misleading lore, where I expect a feature that isn't there. This thread shows me that these 3 bullet points are not strictly the case; however, my experience with the game itself gave me these impressions. And that directly affects my playstyle, since I've been missing out on some stuff I'd overlooked. Or, not wasted time on stuff that was less useful. But, that brings up a problem with empirical testing; I can test until I get an effect, and make a note of that, but it's hard to know when you've exhausted the possibilities. Not getting an effect isn't always evidence; maybe it has a percentage chance? Say, if Coral Spray has a percent chance to proc on block, and I'm testing a new piece of gear, and I try a) getting hit once, b) blocking once, c) shield bash once, and get nothing, I'll assume it does nothing, and keep my old shield that looks better on the stat sheet. But maybe it just didn't proc because it didn't roll it? And does it have a cooldown? How long do I test for? Does the effect increase with stats or char level? How much damage does the hidden effect do? This information helps me make choices about what gear I want to wear right now, or maybe not now, but in the future when I've boosted my Cun or whatever.

I don't mean to push the point; I appreciate that this game is evolving, and as we have seen, many of the weaker artifacts have been culled or reworked, thanks to the tireless devotion of all involved. Folks have been working to update descriptions too, and that should help many of these. I also appreciate the perspectives that other people have that the game encourages experimentation much more than other roguelikes, and that some mystery is fun. But my personal experience has been that experimentation can be deadly, and that one needs to be able to make an informed decision when comparing equipment.

I would also like to state that I really love it that we all have different perspectives and that every is passionate about making this awesome game even better, and that everyone here is so respectful. Best forum ever.