Level feeling with 3.3.1?

[fruviad]

I'm playing 3.3.1, and I just found the Phial of Galadrial laying on the floor at 1150'.

The level feeling, however, reports "...there are only scraps of junk here."

Surely an artifact should push the level feeling to better than scraps of junk?

[ghengiz]

Originally Posted by fruviad

I'm playing 3.3.1, and I just found the Phial of Galadrial laying on the floor at 1150'.

The level feeling, however, reports "...there are only scraps of junk here."

Surely an artifact should push the level feeling to better than scraps of junk?

generally speaking, yes.
but the phial can be found relatively easily at a much shallower depth (once I found it at 150' ), so it does not push the level feeling very much at 1150'

[Magnate]

Originally Posted by ghengiz

generally speaking, yes.
but the phial can be found relatively easily at a much shallower depth (once I found it at 150' ), so it does not push the level feeling very much at 1150'

In v4 the presence of any artifact causes a minimum level feeling of "you feel there may be something worthwhile here". There doesn't seem to be any controversy about this, so perhaps it will appear in 3.4

[PowerWyrm]

Originally Posted by fruviad

I'm playing 3.3.1, and I just found the Phial of Galadrial laying on the floor at 1150'.

The level feeling, however, reports "...there are only scraps of junk here."

Surely an artifact should push the level feeling to better than scraps of junk?

Level feelings are triggered in respect to item "value", as per "how much would I get from this object if I were selling it to a shop?" Since the Phial now sells for a few coins (thanks to the new pricing system), it is considered as "scrap of junk". Same happens with 99% of wearables now. You'll find out that almost all "superb" level feelings are now triggered by OoD non-wearable items like deep books.

[Magnate]

Originally Posted by PowerWyrm

Level feelings are triggered in respect to item "value", as per "how much would I get from this object if I were selling it to a shop?" Since the Phial now sells for a few coins (thanks to the new pricing system), it is considered as "scrap of junk". Same happens with 99% of wearables now. You'll find out that almost all "superb" level feelings are now triggered by OoD non-wearable items like deep books.

Is it that bad? I've toned down the values of the top-end non-wearables in v4 (things like scrolls of Acquirement were way out of kilter), but I hadn't realised that this was a major issue. Last time I checked, the prices of high-end wearables were in the five-digit range, much like those of high-end books and devices.

[Estie]

Originally Posted by PowerWyrm

Level feelings are triggered in respect to item "value", as per "how much would I get from this object if I were selling it to a shop?" Since the Phial now sells for a few coins (thanks to the new pricing system), it is considered as "scrap of junk". Same happens with 99% of wearables now. You'll find out that almost all "superb" level feelings are now triggered by OoD non-wearable items like deep books.

Really ? That explains alot. I must say I dont like it, as I dont really care how much an item sells for when judging a levels worthiness.

The phial should then be worth more than a !augmentation for example; at least with a warrior, Id pick phial over potion. Also, early game most characters prefer light weapons over heavy ones; while that changes come lategame, its bad that a dagger of frost will go unnoticed while a great hammer of frost will cause a feeling. Whats wrong with simply giving points for low egos (armor of res fire), high egos (of elvenkind) and artifacts ?

[PowerWyrm]

Originally Posted by Magnate

Is it that bad? I've toned down the values of the top-end non-wearables in v4 (things like scrolls of Acquirement were way out of kilter), but I hadn't realised that this was a major issue. Last time I checked, the prices of high-end wearables were in the five-digit range, much like those of high-end books and devices.

The pricing system in current 3.4-dev is badly broken. Especially wearables. There's not enough emphasis on single properties and multiple properties that don't belong to the same category (an item with +1 to all stats will have a price boost, an item with +3 con, fa, res chaos will not...).

[Magnate]

Originally Posted by Estie

Really ? That explains alot. I must say I dont like it, as I dont really care how much an item sells for when judging a levels worthiness.

The phial should then be worth more than a !augmentation for example; at least with a warrior, Id pick phial over potion. Also, early game most characters prefer light weapons over heavy ones; while that changes come lategame, its bad that a dagger of frost will go unnoticed while a great hammer of frost will cause a feeling. Whats wrong with simply giving points for low egos (armor of res fire), high egos (of elvenkind) and artifacts ?

That's much harder to maintain. If you determine power algorithmically, you can create or modify items to your heart's content and it will Just Work. If you need to update the algorithm to reflect something you've changed, it will be updated for all items.

If you determine power by values in edit files, then every time you create or modify something, you have to edit the values of everything that you've modified *and* everything whose relative value is affected by what you've modified.

Of course, if the algorithm is crap then you're no better off, hence the debate.

[Magnate]

Originally Posted by PowerWyrm

The pricing system in current 3.4-dev is badly broken. Especially wearables. There's not enough emphasis on single properties and multiple properties that don't belong to the same category (an item with +1 to all stats will have a price boost, an item with +3 con, fa, res chaos will not...).

But an item with +3 CON, FA and rchaos will still fetch far more than the same item with +1 to all stats, so what's the problem? The boosts for related properties are to reflect the additional utility of covering whole sets of things with a single item (e.g. rbase, all sustains etc.). It's what makes Anarion correctly valued, and what makes armour of Resistance worth more than 4x armour of Resist Cold.

I think "badly broken" is unduly harsh, unless you are piqued about some specific changes since it was first introduced in 3.1.1. The one perennial problem with the algorithm has been pricing +speed properly, and this seems to have been addressed in v4 without too much controversy. (Speed power in v4 is linear at +20 per point, though prices are still quadratic.)

If you'd like to give me some specific examples of prices in the current dev version that you don't like, I'll happily see if I can improve things before 3.4 is released. "Pricing is broken for all wearables" is too generic for me to be able to deal with, I'm afraid.

[Estie]

Hmm I see; the price is already assigned to an item, whereas a classification as "low ego" or "high ego" would have to be added.

In that case, if the price is really used as power value, wouldnt it be better to actually modify it to reflect the power ? Its not like the distribution of sell values is really important for game balance.

Some weird effects would occur; for example, adamantite plate mail should probably get a negative value, but I could live with that.