Look, to be clear, I'm not that worried about it. But what I am saying is that if you are a real serious min/maxer, trying to play the game the best way it can be played, it leads to some major weirdness in this category. That's all.

Item destruction doesn't encourage any kind of smart strategical play. It never has, and it never will. That's my point.

Sure it does. Try doing the ToEF without both a blanket and an RoI, especially with a non-caster. Not having the items protecting your inventory makes the operation far more interesting and strategic because you have to think about what you're willing to sacrifice, how you're going to get your pickaxes/wands up to the top floor, how you're going to beat the ACW with a minimal inventory, etc. Fireproof blankets and especially RoI remove most of the smart play and strategic thinking because the solution is becomes trivial.

JellySlayer the problem with your logic is that you put emphasis on the consequences of dealing with hostile environment - namely the background extreme heat - rather than dealing with the actual threat/boss.
The purpose the tower is not to make your life miserable and make you cringe every now and then as all your cloaks of protection, potions of extra healing and 7lbs burn.
The purpose is to give the player a challenge in obtaining the orb and killing the guardian.
Environment damage is just a byproduct that needlessly reached the status of the main difficulty.

What makes the tower simple with ring of ice and fireproof blankets is not your that items don't get destroyed but that you can simply lure the wyrm outside, slay the few minions that follow and squash it with a pocc and/or demon/dragon slayers.
This is where I'd look for difficulty, challenge and requirement of smart play.
If the wyrm refused to move out of the temple and at the same time triggered something like monster aggravation on all the fire grues that I never see when I leave with the orb, it would have been quite something.
I could probably give you a sample situation where I grinded enough to have stuff in the tower that doesn't melt/burn and yet I still have every advantage for the final battle because of how predictable the wyrm is.
I don't need to be particularly smart or strategic for that, just sufficiently grindy.

This is however the long route because of course we have RoI and blankets.
Doing the tower without them and struggling on every step with burning equipment and melting ammo/potions of healing etc. is sado-masochism and I will resist every encouragement of it somehow being the right way to play this part of the game.

On the other hand, take any other elemental temple - in all of those you pretty much get swarmed by all the monsters within.
Air temple lets you maybe skip the ones behind the main room but otherwise you have to deal with the summons.
But what of item destruction in the air temple? Oh, right, I forgot. Ctrl + D then drop everything.
Enter, hold 4, get the orb, leave, pick your items up and move on.
I understand air temple is but one level instead of 4 and it usually comes later when you're more prepared but it illustrates the principle of "let's deal damage to PC's equipment in a way that can't be prevented".
That's not a very smart, strategic or interesting. It's brute force challenge that the player is forced to overcome with equally brute-force solution - drop everything that can burn or melt.

Given enough time, the tower could be cleared in the same fashion, without blankets or rings.

Blasp, so, following your logic appers that ADOM is the game about grinding?..
Even if this is true - how new features that give PC advantage against environment will help to fix the problem?

You're exactly right. There is, essentially, only one way to handle that situation. It's like the game is admitting that mechanic is so bad it should almost always be bypassed. It's the same as swimming without a waterproof blanket. Pretty much 100% of the time, you are going to either wait until later when you have the blanket, or you already do (except maybe at the very beginning of the game when you don't have any good items and who cares if they rust).

You know what *would* require strategy? Having a fireproof subcompartment in the inventory where you can put a limited number of items. Then you have to choose. If you want to make something fun *it has to involve player choice in a meaningful way*.

The current mechanics just railroad you into the situation that Blas is describing.

EDIT:

Again, good for you Blas, for challenging a core mechanic here.

Or maybe killing the Wyrm is simply the formality, and environment is the main challenge that you need to overcome. There are lots of bosses in ADOM; the ACW is not particularly unique or challenging apart from the environment that it lives in. What makes the tower unique and not just another dungeon is that the environment is unlike any other area in the game, and, indeed the mechanics in the ToEF are unlike almost any other game out there. The tower would still be interesting and challenging if there was no ACW at all and the orb was just lying on the ground.

I agree, the ACW should probably be beefed up, especially in 1.2.0 where you can fairly easily fight it 10 levels higher than what was available in 1.1.1, thanks to the IQD and the changes to the experience curve.

I don't think it's the right way, necessarily. It is one way. Most of my characters who have completed the ToEF have done so with a blanket. A minority have had a RoI, and a smaller minority have had neither. A few didn't even have full fire resistance. I personally feel that the non-blanket, non-RoI characters present the most interesting challenges and require the most strategic play to succeed. You're just comfortable with the mechanic that you can protect your gear with blankets and RoI, but that doesn't mean that mechanic is a good one.

And having all the temples have exactly the same mechanics is a good thing because...?

Yeah, that's because monsters in the air temple are too easy, and also because it's small.

It's not about the same mechanics. It's about elemental temples being geared towards assisting and protecting their respective orb guardians, the thing that fire temple seems to lack, as you can skip about 3/4 of all monsters inside and still get the orb.

Say what? Last time I died in Water and Earth temple was never, because may average PC can curbstomp everything there.

I died in both Air and Fire temples because I had to abandon some of my items, which means that environmental damage is working perfectly fine.

I actually died in water temple not that long ago due to the poison resistance lost to pool sipping that I forgot to mitigate.
I don't remember dying in air temple a single time, while I did get squashed in earth temple when I took on too many grues at once while cursed (executor).
No idea what you actually have to do in air temple to die because retreating out of the temple back to your stash is like second nature when things start going south.

I assume the poison was from the SFB, so I don't see how it relates to the environment.

1 wand of fireballs - dead Earth temple guardians.

I got werewolf kings on my ass. They are pretty fast.

It doesn't. The point was that water temple could in theory kill you when you get swarmed by monsters and not paying attention to HP/status effects.
That's true for every moment in the game but in water temple the chance is higher and special care has to be taken, even if it is the easiest of all elemental temples to clear.

Yes, one mana battery corruption and no means of removal, because I already had to remove poison hands and stiff muscles.

Unlucky summon by Yulgy. Could have been any cavernous level with an open threat room.
Remember quickling kings on D:36?
You don't need environmental damage to your inventory to be at a disadvantage when the RNG decides to kill you.

I'm just saying that you have to plan carefully in the Air Temple because you are out of resources.
You have to make a tradeoff - "what items do I need to avoid getting killed by the RNG" vs. "I like this item so I won't put it at risk". That's strategy right there.

In the Fire Temple there is a lot to think about - how to dig in, how to prepare, what to equip. If you have blankets - you are on a timer. If you have a ring - well, lucky you, although its spot could have been taken by something else. As an example, in one of my latest games I went into the Tower without intrinsic fire resistance. I had to choose between a ring of ice and a ring of fire resistance (protect items vs. suffer more damage).

This stuff is one of the major parts about difficulty of the Tower. Adding a shock resistant blanket would make the Air Temple a complete joke (although it's pretty much a joke right now).

It's statements like these that would make me like to see people's typical race/class and playstyle, because I've always had to respect the wyrm. Then again I haven't ever used the PoCC strategy.

Or this one. Holding down a key is just asking for trouble since you never know what could get summoned. Plus the vapor rats tend to hit even with a high dv, ignore armour and corrupt.

In the last few years, I have died more often in the earth temple than in the fire one. With the latest buffs, the earth temple is not so easy for melee chars that don't have enough wand charges. Maybe it's because I've never been into farming herbs or generating tons of booze.

On the other hand, the fire temple has become rather easy now that you can level at Ice Queen's before going.

I don't use the PoCC strategy, but I have found that there are definitely a handful of methods that I can employ that will enable me to drop him pretty consistently. I do tend to play a lot of drakelings, which helps massively, and I do play a lot of Raven borns, which means that I can fight him with the RCT. Drakeling with RCT will beat him easily, even as low as level 16, even doomed. Beyond that, having a wand of poison or SoFS is generally enough to beat him. In 1.2.0, you typically reach him 5-10 levels higher and with much better gear than in 1.1.1 (the latter particularly due the greater vault in the Frost Giant Caves), which gives most PCs a lot more breathing room. But I'm quite comfortable tanking him in melee with Big Punch at level 20 without any particularly special supplies.

You're right, I bet it is more fun that way.

It just shows how broken herbs are.

I'm sorry but it doesn't show shit.
I don't need herbs for the earth temple at all.
Elementals and grues don't ignore PV which makes chars with 40 pv easy to clear the earth temple.
Aotme or even less - rolf's axe + shield are enough to comfortably clear earth temple.

Again someone having weirdly different experiences to me. I had a PV approaching 70 once and the earth denizens would occasionally crit me (wasn't cursed/doomed), they were not to be trifled with.

I definitely play very slow and meticulous and like to do everything, I wonder if the game has some balancing mechanisms behind the scenes that cause the earth temple denizens to level up due to game clock or overall kill count or something.

I wish I knew what the game logic was in regard to leveling and criticals, or if there's some scaling mechanism in place, because I feel it might be a touch unfair, such that my grindy attempts to get an edge over the game are ultimately being neutralised.

I've not tried a very basic playthrough (or any of the easy race/class combos) in years, one where I don't scum anything and just aim to close the gate. Maybe I'll have a similar experience to yours if I try that.
*EDIT 40 pv, oh yeah, I couldn't even melee steel golems in my last playthrough without geting the occasional 80+ damage critical from them. On a different playthrough I was comfortable fighting them with 30. It seems impossible to predict what the safe values exactly are.

Critical hit rates aren't based on your PV, AFAIK. Also remember that a crit may end up doing much more damage than regular hit when you have high PV. Eg. if you're fighting a monster with 70 PV and the monster does 80 damage on a regular hit, then you naturally take 10 damage. If the monster crits, however, you don't take 20 damage, because the number multiplied is the base damage--that is, the monster deals 160 damage, minus your 70 PV means a 90 damage hit. So crits hurt a lot more than regular hits. Even with luck/fate, there's still a non-trivial chance of getting crit.

I almost always find that fighting the steel golems, I'm going to get hit a couple times for 100 damage or so. I usually consider <120 HP to be in the danger zone. Maybe the difference between your two playerthroughs was the maximum HP you had at the time? Or you had a better weapon and were able to clear them out faster?

Steel golems can indeed crit for ~100 points thus I don't go to DFG until I have ~150 HP and 25-30 PV.