So my tendency for stupid build or stupid deaths usually prevent me from gaining much ground, and I'm usually dead before DL10, but i'm doing well and have a question related to item frequency: I've been finding a ridiculous amount of high level gear: DL12 alone yielded 2 Flashy staves of Godewijn, 5 copies of "The King in Yellow", 4 Bolt Eruptors, 2 Crownstar Addendums, a Clockwork bolt thrower, and a Mace of Windu, and the store had 4 shields of Black Geometry. So, is this kind of drop rate normal below DL10, or is the RNG just messing with me? Because I'm really confused and i'm at the point where all these priceless artifacts just get left lying around on the floor.
It's like that for everyone I believe. It's due to a low number of high level items as I've asked a similar question prior and that was the answer I got.
Yes, this is normal. No, it's not the RNG messing with you. Observe these screenshots from DL 12 thru 14: Definitely not just you. As Lotus said, that game basically runs out of better loot to generate, so you end up seeing more of the same (highest-level) items cropping up repeatedly.
Or better yet, instead of making the correct level items stay rare when they shouldn't be, there should be some items that are still out of depth for that level. 'Epic' endgame items if you will. After all, I think that is really what everyone is missing when they get down there. They want less rusty swords (staves of godewijn) and instead the chance at that uber-epic-item-of-awesomeness.
The crownstars are particularly troublesome, given Archaeology. Hadn't thought about it before today, but once you had your character leveled up a few times to where you weren't squishy any more, you could rush down to the lower floors and send crownstars to the museum for an entire character level each. Luckily, they don't become really common until the floor before the last, but you certainly could skip floors 11 to 13 and not miss out on any XP before taking on Dredmor. Not sure if I like what that does to the game mechanics. There were a lot of people who felt it was a must-have skill in 1.0.9, and it's much better now. (While the XP thing from Crownstars is the major part, there's also new scaling on Charlemagne so it's not a wasted level.)
If I remember correctly, Brax now complains if you try to museum shop items, so I don't think that'll work.
By that stage of the game, you should be able to just kill Brax without too much trouble. Plus, they also spawn on the floor a lot, so you can level up several times before you have to hit the stores. Skip floors 11 to 13 entirely in exchange for being very thorough on floor 14? Seems like a good trade to me.
Ah, right. Maybe there should be a more powerful version of Brax, or the spawn rate does need to be diluted somehow, or (I think this is the best solution, really) the formula for xp gain for museum should be changed.
Adding special="1" or level="16" on the crownstar would solve it. So would moving "It Belongs In A Museum" a bit deeper in the tree. Probably swap it and "This Translation Is All Wrong". Then the skill tree would (mostly) only appeal to builds that actually wanted the rogue-y stats and other effects instead of just the low-hanging XP farm. A skill that occurs early in a tree is, in most cases, intended to be helpful on the first few floors, whereas something near the end of the tree is usually meant to remain relevant deeper into the dungeon. Archaeology is one of a handful of skills that deviates from that typical progression. You don't necessarily want the museum power on the first floor, because you might not get any artifacts to use it on, and you're much more concerned about taking skills that protect you or kill monsters at that stage. You want it only after you've got an artifact or two that aren't otherwise useful for your build. Once the museum becomes worthwhile, it's pretty much going to remain extremely useful until very late in the game when you've maxed out all your skills.
Ergh. If they move This Translation is all wrong to replace It belongs in a museum, I will be annoyed. I was already annoyed when they added the Charlemagne skill of near uselessness. I always get a ton of artifacts to hock for XP on the first floor. One or two that you wouldn't be able to use wouldn't happen unless you won the lottery. Heck, one time I got enough XP from artifacts and killing enemies to max out the Archaeology tree on the first floor. Also, If someone is insane enough to go all the way down and sac the Crownstar for 22 thousand experience, let them. Seriously, this is like the reason ingots got super nerfed to only 2 per all levels of the skill. Some people would actually go out of their way to wait until rank 4 to put the ingots down instead of doing it at the time they got it. I'm still irritated that because people basically cheated the system, the more normal people got punished. Nerfing the Crownstar is going to be about as useful as trying to fix a raging flood by using a napkin.
