Two suggestions

[Pete Mack]

1. Bring back Azriel. Call him Mandos. That's way better than Radagast.
http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Mandos
2. Bring back full Detection in high-level spells, objects, and all artifacts. I always liked playing as a rogue in the past, but now I am playing 100% that way. Current priest has Holhenneth, but is still crippled for detection.

[Derakon]

Originally Posted by Pete Mack

1. Bring back Azriel. Call him Mandos. That's way better than Radagast.
http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Mandos
2. Bring back full Detection in high-level spells, objects, and all artifacts. I always liked playing as a rogue in the past, but now I am playing 100% that way. Current priest has Holhenneth, but is still crippled for detection.

Holy casters get Detection. Arcane casters have never gotten Detection (as I recall, anyway). Use rods instead.

Mandos does sound like a better option than Radagast though.

[Pete Mack]

I get that. The trouble is the rod of Detection only senses objects. It doesn't fully detect them. As far as I can tell, the *only* ways to get full detection is with the godlike priest spell or the low-level rogue spell.

Originally Posted by Derakon

Holy casters get Detection. Arcane casters have never gotten Detection (as I recall, anyway). Use rods instead.

Mandos does sound like a better option than Radagast though.

[krazyhades]

Originally Posted by Pete Mack

I get that. The trouble is the rod of Detection only senses objects. It doesn't fully detect them. As far as I can tell, the *only* ways to get full detection is with the godlike priest spell or the low-level rogue spell.

Well, there are potions that give good (non-fuzzy) item detection and mapping...those are pretty useful for their lategame utility.

Non-rogue arcane casters used to have the good detection spell too, but it was taken away from them. It's fairly easy to edit what spells a class has access too (within the same realm of arcane or divine that is) and I sometimes play wizards or rangers modded to have good instead of fuzzy item detection because that's a type of gameplay I have a lot of fun with.

[Pete Mack]

Detect Object was always a rogue spell only. The difference is that the Detection spell was nerfed for everyone, and rods of detection and Holhenneth etc got worse too. So !Enlightenment is all that's left until you find the Palantir down near level 100.

Originally Posted by krazyhades

Well, there are potions that give good (non-fuzzy) item detection and mapping...those are pretty useful for their lategame utility.

Non-rogue arcane casters used to have the good detection spell too, but it was taken away from them. It's fairly easy to edit what spells a class has access too (within the same realm of arcane or divine that is) and I sometimes play wizards or rangers modded to have good instead of fuzzy item detection because that's a type of gameplay I have a lot of fun with.

[Timo Pietilä]

Originally Posted by Pete Mack

Detect Object was always a rogue spell only. The difference is that the Detection spell was nerfed for everyone, and rods of detection and Holhenneth etc got worse too. So !Enlightenment is all that's left until you find the Palantir down near level 100.

You don't get Palantir anymore. Arkenstone has clairvoiance activation now, but that too doesn't fully detect items.

[EDIT] tested that using debug-mode and noticed that you don't need to remember artifact names or their index anymore. That's great addition to debug-mode.

[Pete Mack]

Clairvoyance is fine. The trouble is everything else just "senses" (rather than "detects") as a red *, so unless you are playing a rogue, you have to go visit all the boring rooms during stat gain, along with the fun stuff like vaults.

Originally Posted by Timo Pietilä

You don't get Palantir anymore. Arkenstone has clairvoiance activation now, but that too doesn't fully detect items.

[EDIT] tested that using debug-mode and noticed that you don't need to remember artifact names or their index anymore. That's great addition to debug-mode.

[Timo Pietilä]

Originally Posted by Pete Mack

Clairvoyance is fine. The trouble is everything else just "senses" (rather than "detects") as a red *, so unless you are playing a rogue, you have to go visit all the boring rooms during stat gain, along with the fun stuff like vaults.

Clairvoyance spell doesn't detect items either. AFAIK only potions of enlightenment and *enlightenment* do, and maybe rogue spell, but I don't play rogues much so can't say that for sure.

That's the point of fuzzy detection, you need to visit rooms to actually see things. IMO that's improvement. Otherwise clairvoyance activation/spell would be way too powerful. Unknown is interesting. Without that game would be boring.

[Derakon]

Yeah, the nerf to object detection was very much intentional: you can only get it as a rogue or by drinking potions now. It was decided that strong object detection made the game too easy by, in combination with monster detection, letting players know the exact risk/reward of every potential encounter.

This is easy enough to "fix" for your personal version if you don't like it, but I doubt that it's going to get reverted in official versions without compelling reason.

[krazyhades]

Oh well. I recommend you instead play PosChengband, Pete Mack. It's from a lineage that never nerfed item detection, and yet is still a challenge (much more so than vanilla) despite that mark in the player's favor. I'm with you, I don't like how fuzzy detection feels even though I get the arguments supporting it.