ToME WikiKhymChanur: Currently, Precognition is both pretty useful, and pretty rare because its so useful. I was thinking that it could be split up into parts, so that there could be less rare artifacts, or even egos, that would have a portion of the current precognition ability. Alternatively, instead of being split up, there could simply be different levels to precognition, and item could have a low, medium or high level of it. The levels could progress something like this:
- Notification of monster pits and nests.
- No waiting time required on in current dungoen level to get level feeling in next dungeon level.
- Notification of rare items.
- Level feeling is split into a monster feeling and an item feeling.
- Notification of egos.
- Notification of vaults.
- Notification of unique monsters.
- Notification of artifacts.
Orvin: I like this idea a lot. A further suggestion: perhaps, precognition from these "lesser" sources should depend on the player's intelligence. This could be done by making certain "levels," as defined above, only accessible if the player has a certain minimum intelligence, or by associating a chance to receive notifications, increasing with increasing intelligence.
NeilStevens': Sure, split up the flag into many different kinds of precognition, for the sake of the engine. As for ToME, htough, I still like the idea of the single Ring of Precognition being a very rare, very special item as the sole source of precognition.
Right now it's a special thing to get. It'll give the player a thrill to find. I'd like to keep thrills like that, and in fact expand on them.
Orvin: Wouldn't it add to the thrill of finding the Ring of Precognition if players were first tantalized by finding a much lesser source of precognition? Perhaps, a temporary source like a non-rechargeable orb of ego precognition?
NeilStevens: No, because then players won't be wondering "I wonder how that works..." because then they'll know.