Identification: thrilling or tedious?

[Final Master]

I actually think the id by use of current angband would fit very well in T4. I would ofcourse leave T4's current identification abilities in, but ID by use just makes so much sense.

*bonk* (embers of fire fall from the iron mace) Hey! I have a flaming iron mace! Hahaha!!! *goes off to bonk more mobs*

[darkgod]

How does it work exactly ?

[Final Master]

When using equipment such as an axe that has a flag, if an action that triggers that flag to activate happens, then you learn of that flag.

For instance a flaming dwarven steel battle axe when used in melee combat would 'reveal' itself to have the flaming flag. Sense damage such as fire is shown in the log in T4 weather it is id'd or not, this is rather obvious to the observant player, but placing the ego flag on the item after wards would be nice.

In the case of armor, if you have a linen shirt of acid resistance and something does fire damage, you learn nothing of your linen shirt. However, if you step on a trap of acid slash and you happen to resist the damage, you learn that your linen shirt has the flag of acid resistance.

As for consumable items, reading an unknown long scroll of phase door should let the player know that 1) When they teleport the short distance it is of phase door (already implemented) and 2)That the scroll did not vanish it is a long scroll.

The same is true with potions. Drinking down a vial of unknown substance increasing your speed will obviously make it a potion of speed (already implemented), however if there is still a reasonable amount left after wards then it is clearly a giant potion of speed.

This will obviously work only on passive reactive flags. So no identifying bows of dexterity unless they have a second flag, but then it would reveal only the second flag.

So that leaves out semi/auto id'ing rings, amulets, some weapons and armor, possibly diggers/gloves/cloaks.

[Gwai]

And that make identifying items for use easier than identifying them for money -- a good thing, presumably.

[Susramanian]

ID by use is good, but all it gets you is a free, laborious ID. Including it would give players another option, yet would reduce the tedium of identification not at all. It is not a feasible substitute for the ID spell or scrolls except in the very early game. Imagine trying to ID-by-use two dozen pieces of equipment you find on a single level of an orc Pride.

[teachu2die]

ID-by-use is mainly an early-to-mid-game mechanism.
i would advocate its inclusion almost more for 'realism' and for cohesiveness than for streamlining the ID system (although it would benefit many classes early on).
the players themselves can determine many magical properties quite easily through casual observation (this hat gives me +3 dex, this dagger does acid damage, etc) - it only stands to reason that the character would know to take note of these things as well.

[Mithril]

I vote tedious. I lump the whole identification mechanic in with the hunger mechanic and light source fuel mechanic, which were both thankfully left out of T4.

Identify is pretty much just a bunch of gold and keystrokes standing between you and seeing what you've picked up.

Agree completely. Battling monsters is fun. Getting new items is fun. The whole tedious, repeating identification chore lowers the fun of Tome considerably. Especially for those classes lacking a good identification ability. Even with an identify spell it is a boring chore.

How about an option to have all items automatically identified? Those that enjoy doing the same chore again and again and again can still have their way with such an option.

Lacking such an easy option, is there any simple way to change the lua code so that items are automatically identified?

[darkgod]

I think I'll go with auto ID all "obvious" items, so that the few unided ones will get the "ohh shiny" effect

[Grey]

It seems kinda silly that scrolls can jump from iding a single item to iding them all once you hit a certain Ma score. Perhaps there should be some scaling? At a certain Ma perhaps the scrolls should id all of that particular item type, or the item you choose plus 3 others.

Also it'd be nice if common weapons and armour could be ided just by wielding them or using them in battle. Or at least seeing the same one in a shop, like with scrolls and potions. The former happens in many roguelikes already, and technically can be done as is by analysing your stats when swapping equipment items. Essentially it would just be cutting out this horribly laborious task.

Or another suggestion - talent levels in weapons and armour give you automatic identification of items of that type. Higher metal and ego items would need higher talent values to auto-id.

[teachu2die]

Or another suggestion - talent levels in weapons and armour give you automatic identification of items of that type. Higher metal and ego items would need higher talent values to auto-id.

id-by-use has been discussed briefly, i like it and think it could be a nice inclusion (and indeed, it is more 'realistic')
i kinda like your talents granting auto-id idea...like 7 or 8 points in swordmastery auto-id's all swords on pickup...it makes sense that such high levels of skill would allow you to quickly determine the properties of a weapon.
perhaps certain races or classes should be able to auto-id certain items, too (maybe firebeard dwarves auto-ID weapons and armor, petty dwarves auto-id wands and rods, a merchant class that could auto-id everything, etc)

[Grey]

Would make sense for alchemists to auto-id potions too.

[Mithril]

id-by-use has been discussed briefly, i like it and think it could be a nice inclusion (and indeed, it is more 'realistic')

Id-by-use makes the problem even worse by requiring even more steps and effort in order to do the identification chore. Games should be fun and not "realistic".

[Mithril]

I think I'll go with auto ID all "obvious" items, so that the few unided ones will get the "ohh shiny" effect

That sounds nice. But that does mean that later in the game all items would be unidentified anyway? How about a general ability to auto-id that increases with level? So that the unidentified items are always rather rare, even in the endgame, and so that the unidentified ones found are always going to be exciting?

[Final Master]

If there is going to be a non magical talent that ID's over time I vote that it be either willpower or cunning based. With maybe a bonus to id items of a certain type based on class? Like alchemists with all consumables and staffs, mages with staffs, and also based on any points dumped into a certain weapon talent category (such as knife mastery or staff mastery).

[teachu2die]

id-by-use has been discussed briefly, i like it and think it could be a nice inclusion (and indeed, it is more 'realistic')

Id-by-use makes the problem even worse by requiring even more steps and effort in order to do the identification chore. Games should be fun and not "realistic".

ID by use doesn't require more steps - it simply opens up another option. you're not expected to go through and whack away at white worms with every different weapon in your pack to see what it does. it would just allow you to know more intrinsically about the equipment you are already using. reading un-ID'd scrolls and potions functions this way - it does no harm to the game to have weapons and armor work this way as well. as it stands, id-by-use is already in the game, actually - you can wield items and take note of most of the stat benefits and magical properties quite easily, a tedious process in and of itself. making id-by-use an explicit game mechanism does nothing but reduce tedium. if you are against id-by-use, than all of these properties should be 'hidden' from the player until the items are id'd by magical means.