Making Angband More Difficult
Robert A. Uhl
They do not seem to realize that the game is already pretty hard for
beginners. I have not yet reached level 15, even though I have been
playing for 6 months. I enjoy the game, but if it were any harder, I
would be a goner.
I have noticed two quest files in the release of MacAngband. What are
they? Perhaps a quest feature could be added to Angband. This would
mainly entail a custom map generator (as a code resource on a Mac, don't
know what they are called on other systems), help and monsters. With the
idea of loadable monsters, this could really be made to work.
A quest would be available to any player who has reached level 50. It
would be incredibly difficult (dragons with many times Morgoth's hit
points), could take place in a forest, mountain, dungeon etc. It would
give you somethig to do upon reaching level 50. What say y'all?
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Bob Uhl | Spectre | `In touto nika' + |
| U of D | Baron Robert von Raetzin | http://mercury.cair.du.edu/~ruhl/ |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
David desJardins
> I have noticed two quest files in the release of MacAngband. What are they?
Currently unimplemented.
> A quest would be available to any player who has reached level 50. It
> would be incredibly difficult (dragons with many times Morgoth's hit
> points), could take place in a forest, mountain, dungeon etc. It would
> give you somethig to do upon reaching level 50. What say y'all?
What I say is that this seems completely off the point. It doesn't address
the issue of what makes the game easy or hard.
There are fundamental reasons why Angband is easy. The most basic is (1)
unlimited resources, (2) independent encounters, and (3) easy escapes.
Point (1) is that you can get anything you need if you wait long enough.
Point (2) is that you should never be fighting at anything less than full
strength. Any successful Angband player rests completely after every
monster killed, and uses WOR as necessary to replenish any depleted
inventory items. Point (3) is that anything that can't kill you outright,
can't kill you at all. If you are ever in even remote danger of death, you
can simply use any of dozens of methods of escaping the danger.
This last point is the most critical. In its present form, the only way you
could make the game "harder" (i.e., to make it so that an experienced and
careful player isn't virtually certain to win) is for monsters to kill you
very quickly, before you can escape. This is already true to some extent:
for example, AMHDs and Drolems can breathe for a large amount of damage even
with poison resistance, and often a character who meets up with one,
particularly out of depth, may not be able to survive a single breath. So
there's a small chance of death after you see it and before you escape.
Furthermore, there's a small chance of death if you use an escape mechanism
that has a chance of failure (although some escape mechanisms, such as
scrolls of teleport level, are extremely safe).
But by increasing this factor, all you would do is make the game more
random, because you are making it "harder" by introducing random forms of
death which are inherently unavoidable.
I think a much better direction from the point of view of making the game
harder is to reintroduce some of the factors which made Rogue (the parent of
all of these games) hard in the first place. Particularly, scarcity. Rogue
was above all a resource management game. You had to make _decisions_ about
whether to use that scare monster scroll, knowing that you would probably
never find another. In Moria/Angband, you can always use pretty much
everything you have, knowing you can get more.
Furthermore, re-introducing these factors offers the chance of a game which
could sensibly have "difficulty levels." If you really do make it so that a
significant part of the difficulty of the game is based on the scarcity of
needed resources, then you can have difficulty settings which adjust the
availability of those resources.
The introduction of "artifacts" into Angband is, IMHO, a sort of attempt to
achieve this. But the random manner in which artifacts are handed out
doesn't really achieve the goal of true scarcity.
David desJardins
--
Copyright 1995 David desJardins. Unlimited permission is granted to quote
from this posting for non-commercial use as long as attribution is given.
Des Courtney
) There are fundamental reasons why Angband is easy. The most basic is (1)
[snip]
) inventory items. Point (3) is that anything that can't kill you outright,
) can't kill you at all. If you are ever in even remote danger of death, you
) can simply use any of dozens of methods of escaping the danger.
Actually, a monster can be misjudged even if you are an "experienced"
player. My last priest died by the feet of a Master Mystic. I had
potions of speed and healing but didn't use them. Why? I had killed
several before, and got this one down to (almost dead). He, of
course, turned and ran, summoned spiders, and healed himself to full
power. He then came back and knocked me out with his stunning kicks.
This particular monster didn't "kill me outright," but managed to kill
me nethertheless. While there are "dozens" of ways to escape,
remembering to use them is a big deal. The "highway hypnosis" of the
slow play of recent versions is the *only* reason they are harder.
Period. You may think Angband is easy, but that's only because you're
disappointed there's nothing to do after killing Morgoth. (-;
) I think a much better direction from the point of view of making the game
) harder is to reintroduce some of the factors which made Rogue (the parent of
) all of these games) hard in the first place. Particularly, scarcity. Rogue
) was above all a resource management game. You had to make _decisions_ about
) whether to use that scare monster scroll, knowing that you would probably
) never find another. In Moria/Angband, you can always use pretty much
) everything you have, knowing you can get more.
Ouch! That's why I gave up on Rogue! I played it for about 3-4 years
straight and only got the Amulet once. (I didn't even make it out
alive with it!) Identify scrolls were especially scare making most
of the equipment worthless. You can't reliably use something if you
don't know what it is. I mean, how did you know it was a "Scare
Monster" scroll in the first place? Drop it, and successfully pick
it back up? (-:
I've played Angband for over a year and a half, and I have yet to make
it below 2500 feet. By these depths, you pretty much need to "use
everything you have" to kill many of the creatures, esp. uniques.
I do admit that the removal of the wands of "Wall Building" was
appropriate, and the scarcity of Mushrooms of Restoring was needed.
But adding elemental stats drains *on top* of this was too much.
Going too far will make players play slower, and even more "highway
hypnosis" will set in which will make the game boring and no fun.
I think one way veteran players can "improve" the game is by introducing
a scoring system that rewards fast or efficient play. The current
system of "experience+depth" doesn't work well for those who make it
to Morgoth. One might be able to do it by having players who make it
to a depth be higher on the list, but have those with more experience
or time be lowest among those that made that depth. It might help to use
this newsgroup to keep a "fastest" win list going since winners will want
to compare their scores with the playing community as a whole instead of
with just the locals. (I and my sister are the only ones who play
Angband on my Mac. Even UNIX sites which share a common list won't
give Morgoth slayers much satisfaction unless the site's list covers a
decent geographic area or playing population.)
Whew! I've said enough already; I've got an early morning class tomorrow.
Des Courtney
--
This message was written by the one and only DCO...@opie.bgsu.edu,
or known to his friends as "Des Courtney." This is a test .sig.
If this had been an actual .sig, you would have been bombarded by
dozens of lines of ASCII graphics which would shamelessly waste
bandwidth and your time. (I let the message do that. (-:)
Robert A. Uhl
David desJardins <de...@ccr-p.ida.org> wrote:
>Robert A. Uhl <ru...@phoebe.cair.du.edu> writes:
>> I have noticed two quest files in the release of MacAngband. What are they?
>
>Currently unimplemented.
Oh well.
>> A quest would be available to any player who has reached level 50. It
>> would be incredibly difficult (dragons with many times Morgoth's hit
>> points), could take place in a forest, mountain, dungeon etc. It would
>> give you something to do upon reaching level 50. What say y'all?
>
>What I say is that this seems completely off the point. It doesn't address
>the issue of what makes the game easy or hard.
>
>There are fundamental reasons why Angband is easy. The most basic is (1)
>unlimited resources, (2) independent encounters, and (3) easy escapes.
>Point (1) is that you can get anything you need if you wait long enough.
>Point (2) is that you should never be fighting at anything less than full
>strength. Any successful Angband player rests completely after every
>monster killed, and uses WOR as necessary to replenish any depleted
>inventory items. Point (3) is that anything that can't kill you outright,
>can't kill you at all. If you are ever in even remote danger of death, you
>can simply use any of dozens of methods of escaping the danger.
I partially agree. Yes, you _can_ get anything, but how long are you
prepared to wait? Especially before you learn WoR, life is hard.
You can't always fight at full strength. If you could, I would have
won a long time ago; my low level characters are killed when they are
out of mana and surrounded by nasties. They cannot teleport or phase
door; they have no scrolls thereof, and they are SOL.
Yes, there are many ways to escape, but there seems to always be that
one time when they are all exhausted and the nasties win.
>But by increasing this factor, all you would do is make the game more
>random, because you are making it "harder" by introducing random forms of
>death which are inherently unavoidable.
Agreed. Random death is a Bad Idea(tm). I hope that this 'feature' is
never added; it would truly detract from the game.
>I think a much better direction from the point of view of making the game
>harder is to reintroduce some of the factors which made Rogue (the parent of
>all of these games) hard in the first place. Particularly, scarcity. Rogue
>was above all a resource management game. You had to make _decisions_ about
>whether to use that scare monster scroll, knowing that you would probably
>never find another. In Moria/Angband, you can always use pretty much
>everything you have, knowing you can get more.
Not at low levels. I think that the low levels need to be made easier
and the high levels harder. It is a major pain to advance, but it seems
from the posts which I read that once one is a certain level, everything
is a piece of cake.
>Furthermore, re-introducing these factors offers the chance of a game which
>could sensibly have "difficulty levels." If you really do make it so that a
>significant part of the difficulty of the game is based on the scarcity of
>needed resources, then you can have difficulty settings which adjust the
>availability of those resources.
I think that you are right here.
The quest idea gives one something to do once Morgoth is dead. Not all
evil things are directly under his sway, so a quest is not illogical.
far...@alberich.duch.udel.edu
PC 2.4.Frog-Knows, I think a few observations are in order.
The biggest problem is that most monsters are *stupid*. It is often simple to trap some good
sized beast, like Vecna, in a corridor above you while you recover your mana and hit points,
then move down the room, tunnel the wall, and continue to attack from a distance.
It seems that an improvement in the monster code, allowing them to hunt you in a more
intelligent manner, as well as possibly work cooperatively (as happened to me once in
in UB 5.0 Moria when a priest followed behind and to one side a swordsman, so he
could peg me while the swordsman kept me busy) would increase the challenge of the
game, without introducing an unpleasantly random element to death. After all, rogue-o-matic
did this fairly well.
Finally, it may be time to consider adding certain terrain effects to Angband, as was once
suggested for the VMS Morias. Water hazards, lava, forests, etc would all allow a chance
to innovate and develop new tactics, and help reduce the 'highway-hypnosis' problem
that often occurs towards the end game when there are a few monsters that are deadly, and
a lot of 'whoops, I guess I just hit a Troll' pointed-stick fodder.
Just my caffiene induced opinions.
=fred
Animal A Hill
>In article <3fusu3$1...@tang.ccr-p.ida.org>, David desJardins wrote:
>) There are fundamental reasons why Angband is easy. The most basic is (1)
>[snip]
>) inventory items. Point (3) is that anything that can't kill you outright,
>) can't kill you at all. If you are ever in even remote danger of death, you
>) can simply use any of dozens of methods of escaping the danger.
ok for starters i completely agree with all of that..
making items more scarse would help a lot and perhaps dumping lots of
those really effective spells for those classes that have them.. i
found priests really easy to finish with (2 finishes in my last 6 or
so games (Angband & Drang)) spells like heal from Pur & Healing makes
yu almost invincible and if yu get damaged t'port out.. escape from
death is too easy i spose thats my only real complaint.. mage spells
are similar from what ive heard (though i cant really comment since
my biggest mage is only 33)
once a big char is established though yu are almost unkillable
assuming yu know what you're up against each fight.. if yu meet
something new its interesting but...
disappointed there's nothing to do after killing Morgoth. (-;
i wasnt disapppointed after killen the big guy first time.. these
days well i agree, somethin more would be nice (though im not sure
what at this moment)
>) I think a much better direction from the point of view of making the game
>) harder is to reintroduce some of the factors which made Rogue (the parent of
>) all of these games) hard in the first place. Particularly, scarcity. Rogue
<snip snip>
sounds good to me.. make good items harder to come by and IMHO
artifacts harder to find too or harder to get (ie. tougher uniques)
> Going too far will make players play slower, and even more "highway
> hypnosis" will set in which will make the game boring and no fun.
more agreement.. the game IS hard for newbie players, it took me a
while to get the hang of it properly..
kinda like the idea for a partially speed based scoring too.. might
make people (or at least some) dive too early and meet too many tough
monsters.. of course you would still have the option of playing
safe.. i like the idea... /:)
btw since i decided Ang was easy enuff (though it took me a while to
finish) i tried Drangband.. nice change and pretty hard if yu play a
dragon... dont spose anyone has finished with a dragon warrior??
Ok nuff said for now..
Laiter all...
Animal the lvl33 Mage Gold Dragon..
Aaron Mandelbaum
>btw since i decided Ang was easy enuff (though it took me a while to
>finish) i tried Drangband.. nice change and pretty hard if yu play a
>dragon... dont spose anyone has finished with a dragon warrior??
I'm working on it.... [grin] I know it's *possible* 'cause I did it in
wiz-mode. Feasible, well that's another story.
>Animal the lvl33 Mage Gold Dragon..
--
Aaron Mandelbaum
Aaron Mandelbaum
> You can't always fight at full strength. If you could, I would have
>won a long time ago; my low level characters are killed when they are
>out of mana and surrounded by nasties. They cannot teleport or phase
>door; they have no scrolls thereof, and they are SOL.
Well, why don't they have scrolls and staffs of phase door and teleportation?
Don't leave home without them! You might get killed! ;)
Actually, my characters tend to die when I do stupid stuff, like decide to
look for just a few more treasures after my staff of teleport gets toasted.
Repeat 100 times: if you have no means of teleport, WoR up. [grr]
if you have no way to cure blindness/confusion,
mbf and scrolls don't count. [sigh]
--
Aaron Mandelbaum
Aaron Mandelbaum
>The problem I find is that I get bored at the low levels, and I always want to
>try something harder. Anyone can win Angband by sticking to a strict formula
>of 5 XPlevs/Dungeon Lev. - you will *never* meet anything challenging.
And never get past 500 feet. :)
Level 50 doesn't help much if you're still at base stats, with no
equipment... can you even CAST GoI with 18/50 or whatever intelligence?
>Jules
--
Aaron Mandelbaum
David desJardins
> Actually, a monster can be misjudged even if you are an "experienced"
> player.
Well, no, it can't. At least, I've never managed to do it. There's
some risk in the mid levels, but it's mostly that I'll wander across a
Drolem slightly out of depth, and it will get to breathe before I get to
run away. That's just bad luck, not an error in judgement.
I can certainly believe that different players play with different
levels of caution, and that some players aren't careful enough and do
die. My point is that the game would be more interesting if it depended
on skill rather than on carelessness.
> I mean, how did you know it was a "Scare Monster" scroll in the first
> place? Drop it, and successfully pick it back up? (-:
This is a perfect example of my point. One of many significant tactics
in rogue is *precisely* to identify scare monster scrolls before you
first pick them up, by dragging monsters across them. I've never known
a consistently winning player who didn't do this.
> I've played Angband for over a year and a half, and I have yet to make
> it below 2500 feet. By these depths, you pretty much need to "use
> everything you have" to kill many of the creatures, esp. uniques.
Sure, some creatures are difficult to kill. So one doesn't waste one's
time trying, if one wants to win. Haven't you ever used teleportation?
Teleport away? Etc. etc. etc. I can't think of any reason why anyone
would try to kill Greater Titans (for example) except that one isn't
seriously playing to win, or one is super-powerful (far beyond the point
you say you've gotten to).
But, like I said, one of the things that my plans would make easy to do
is to add difficulty levels to the game; the easiest levels would
probably be substantially easier than the game is now. I don't see any
reason why one couldn't provide a challenge at all levels.
> I think one way veteran players can "improve" the game is by introducing
> a scoring system that rewards fast or efficient play.
Well, this is better than nothing, but it doesn't sound sufficiently
interesting to me. I'd rather play a game that there's more to than
counting keystrokes.
Des Courtney
) I wrote:
) > Actually, a monster can be misjudged even if you are an "experienced"
) > player.
)
) Well, no, it can't. At least, I've never managed to do it. There's
) some risk in the mid levels, but it's mostly that I'll wander across a
) Drolem slightly out of depth, and it will get to breathe before I get to
) run away. That's just bad luck, not an error in judgement.
"Umm.. Was it 4- or 5-headed Hydras that are out of depth here? I just
killed 5 Master Mystics; why did that last one kill *me*? Which is
worse? Red Dragons, White Dragons or Blue Dragons?" (A: What're your
resistances?)
) I can certainly believe that different players play with different
) levels of caution, and that some players aren't careful enough and do
) die. My point is that the game would be more interesting if it depended
) on skill rather than on carelessness.
Being able to not be careless is part of the definition of skill.
) > I mean, how did you know it was a "Scare Monster" scroll in the first
) > place? Drop it, and successfully pick it back up? (-:
)
) This is a perfect example of my point. One of many significant tactics
) in rogue is *precisely* to identify scare monster scrolls before you
) first pick them up, by dragging monsters across them. I've never known
) a consistently winning player who didn't do this.
I never heard of that tactic*, and I've never seen a monster have to step
around an unknown scroll. Maybe my Epix Color Computer version didn't
have this? I've seen some versions have Snakes, and others have
Slimes. Angband itself has QAngband, BAngband, DrAngband, etc. When
I see a winner's post, I sometimes have difficulty figuring out if the
win was "legit".
(*) Of course, this was in the days before finding out about USENET, so
I didn't have a place to look for spoilers.
Besides, doing such a tactic requires burning up the valuable food in
you belly. You pretty much had to count your steps in Rogue because
the food was so scarce.
) > I've played Angband for over a year and a half, and I have yet to make
) > it below 2500 feet. By these depths, you pretty much need to "use
) > everything you have" to kill many of the creatures, esp. uniques.
)
) Sure, some creatures are difficult to kill. So one doesn't waste one's
) time trying, if one wants to win. Haven't you ever used teleportation?
) Teleport away? Etc. etc. etc. I can't think of any reason why anyone
) would try to kill Greater Titans (for example) except that one isn't
) seriously playing to win, or one is super-powerful (far beyond the point
) you say you've gotten to).
Yes, assuming I still have an intact scroll or staff, can see or be
oriented enough to use it or a spell. That priest I had got Stunned,
Heavy Stunned (spells failing, no longer had staff), and Knocked Out
(killed after that). There are numberous ways to escape, true, but
just as many ways for them to backfire or not be applicable.
Yes, I have let some nasties live (esp. Greater Titans), but as I said,
sometimes I don't have a current monster memory handy. (Swapping
from Mac 2.0.3 to 2.5.8 required starting over; going back to 2.6.1
after 2.7.0 did; my last memory got corrupted )-:, etc.)
) But, like I said, one of the things that my plans would make easy to do
) is to add difficulty levels to the game; the easiest levels would
) probably be substantially easier than the game is now. I don't see any
) reason why one couldn't provide a challenge at all levels.
I have nothing against this in theory, but, by creating a range of levels,
you create cowardly players who stick to the easy levels. (When I
was a kid, I refused to play Atari 2600 games unless the game mode I
was playing was designated by a "Teddy Bear".) It is too tempting to
lower the difficulty when you get frustrated with the current level. Do
we want this group spammed by "winners" who didn't take a challenge?
Anyway, those players who do try to climb the difficulty ladder will now
end up with just the excuse to re-play Angband 3, 4, 5 or more times.
Could business productivity worldwide stand the strain? (-: (I'm
already reading articles in our campus newspaper about banning the use
of IRC. Labs are overcrowded, friends are being lost, and assignments
are being turned in late. Are USENET and Angband next? (-: )-:)
) > I think one way veteran players can "improve" the game is by introducing
) > a scoring system that rewards fast or efficient play.
)
) Well, this is better than nothing, but it doesn't sound sufficiently
) interesting to me. I'd rather play a game that there's more to than
) counting keystrokes.
Well then, how about keeping a "monsters killed/monsters created" ratio?
Or doing a score based on how many artifacts were *not* found?
Direct Time (i.e. "keystrokes) doesn't have to be the only thing
measured.
Also, while I do use the Artifact spoilers, there are those out there who
insist on avoiding them for "purity" sake. Access or willing use
of spoilers already provide a sense of "difficulty adjustment."
I thought one of the points of this whole argument was to provide some way
to compare "skill" between victorious players (i.e. "bragging rights").
Games levels would provide this to some degree, but an established
scoring system would make for more individual and precise comparisons.
After all, after Final Jeopardy!, having $10,000 is meaningless if your
opponent has $10,001. (-;
Randy Hutson
Des Courtney <dco...@opie.bgsu.edu> wrote:
>In article <3ghrhn$q...@runner.ccr-p.ida.org>, David desJardins wrote:
>) I can certainly believe that different players play with different
>) levels of caution, and that some players aren't careful enough and do
>) die. My point is that the game would be more interesting if it depended
>) on skill rather than on carelessness.
>Being able to not be careless is part of the definition of skill.
Yes, but being skillful requires more than being careful. You can
currently win Angband just by being careful and following a few "rules"
such as always having a means of escape, not fighting dangerous monsters,
etc. You kill what monsters you can, avoid dangerous monsters, and
repeat this until you have the necessary equipment to kill Morgoth. The
only excuses I can see for dying are 1) you're a low level player who
can't follow the "rules" 2) you're unlucky and stumble into an out of
depth instant-death monster (Drolem, AMHD, etc.).
The only skill aspect I've noticed in the game is inventory management. I
like the game forcing me to make (sometimes painful) choices about what
to wear or carry. This is really the only time the game makes me "think".
I haven't played 2.7.X enough to comment, but I'm concerned that the
new stacking code will make it much easier to decide what to carry
(everything!).
>) > I've played Angband for over a year and a half, and I have yet to make
>) > it below 2500 feet. By these depths, you pretty much need to "use
>) > everything you have" to kill many of the creatures, esp. uniques.
Another "rule" is to not go past 2250-2500 ft. without at least 1 speed
item. You also definitely want a good missile weapon, a reliable means of
escape, a good set of resistances, a method of healing, and maxed stats
(very high anyway). Did you follow all of these "rules".
>) Sure, some creatures are difficult to kill. So one doesn't waste one's
>) time trying, if one wants to win. Haven't you ever used teleportation?
>) Teleport away? Etc. etc. etc.
>Yes, assuming I still have an intact scroll or staff, can see or be
> oriented enough to use it or a spell. That priest I had got Stunned,
> Heavy Stunned (spells failing, no longer had staff), and Knocked Out
> (killed after that). There are numberous ways to escape, true, but
> just as many ways for them to backfire or not be applicable.
Sounds likes you didn't have enough potions of Cure Critical Wounds. A
good supply of these is really mandatory past 1500-2000 ft. And if you
didn't have an intact scroll or staff to escape with, you should have
been careful and left the level. This might be frustrating, but dying
is rather frustrating too.
>Yes, I have let some nasties live (esp. Greater Titans), but as I said,
> sometimes I don't have a current monster memory handy.
Determining which monsters you should and shouldn't fight is a problem
at first. I killed 3 drolems before I discovered their poison breath
(in a very tragic manner). Currently, you can make these discoveries
by just playing the game (and dying everytime you discover a dangerous
monster), you can use spoiler files, friends, the newsgroup, or the
source code, or you can just use backup files and restore everytime you
discover a dangerous monster. The creation of a "learning" level of
some sort would "legitimize" this process.
>) But, like I said, one of the things that my plans would make easy to do
>) is to add difficulty levels to the game; the easiest levels would
>) probably be substantially easier than the game is now. I don't see any
>) reason why one couldn't provide a challenge at all levels.
>I have nothing against this in theory, but, by creating a range of levels,
> you create cowardly players who stick to the easy levels.
Umm, well so? If all someone aspires to do is play easy levels, it's no
concern of mine. It sounds rather boring though. I expect such a person
would soon try playing at a harder level or stop playing.
>Do we want this group spammed by "winners" who didn't take a challenge?
I assume the game would show the difficulty level in the winner's
list. Yes, this could be "edited", but I doubt there would be much
increase in "dishonest" winner posts.
>Anyway, those players who do try to climb the difficulty ladder will now
> end up with just the excuse to re-play Angband 3, 4, 5 or more times.
Hmm, this seems like a positive for the game to me.
>) > I think one way veteran players can "improve" the game is by introducing
>) > a scoring system that rewards fast or efficient play.
>) Well, this is better than nothing, but it doesn't sound sufficiently
>) interesting to me. I'd rather play a game that there's more to than
>) counting keystrokes.
>Well then, how about keeping a "monsters killed/monsters created" ratio?
> Or doing a score based on how many artifacts were *not* found?
I'm afraid this sounds very boring and pointless to me. I don't really
care about how "brave" I've been. The game currently punishes "bravery"
with death and rewards care with survival. It would seem contradictory
for the game to then award points for boldness. A high score would
tend to point out those who were foolhardy and lucky.
>Also, while I do use the Artifact spoilers, there are those out there who
> insist on avoiding them for "purity" sake. Access or willing use
> of spoilers already provide a sense of "difficulty adjustment."
Yes, but it would be nice if the need for spoiler files was removed, and
the whole learning process was legitimized.
>I thought one of the points of this whole argument was to provide some way
> to compare "skill" between victorious players (i.e. "bragging rights").
I hope not. I'm solely interested in having a more fun and interesting
(and less tedious) game. Ostensibly, I like the idea of difficulty levels.
But the problem of course is who will design and implement them?
-----
Randy Hutson - ra...@picard.tamu.edu
David A Bonar
: Des Courtney <dco...@opie.bgsu.edu> writes:
: I can certainly believe that different players play with different
: levels of caution, and that some players aren't careful enough and do
: die. My point is that the game would be more interesting if it depended
: on skill rather than on carelessness.
I'm not sure I can figure out what you want. By playing in the
ultra safe mode (rather slow going down, always using detects, always
moving at full strength, retreating (out of combat or dungeon) at the
slightest real danger) it is practically impossible to lose except by
some chance actions that a player has no control over. Actually I'd
add a warning that you can die in the first few levels even going very
slowly but that is a minor quibble. How are differing levels of difficulty
going to solve this?
If you make the monsters tougher or the items scarce players will
just be forced to go even slower and more cautiously. I see the real
problem as being the easy retreat options and the constant ability to
rest up to full power. As was mentioned earlier, these two facts allow
the character to fight only when he choses to and thus to always fight
at full strength.
From this it seems obvious that resting should be discouraged
or toned down and the retreat options available should be looked at.
First, the resting fix. My suggestion comes as two parts. Decrease
the amount of regenerated hp/mana at deeper levels and add some incentive
to not spend a lot of time sitting around resting.
The first part is easy. Obviously you don't want to make resting
any worse at the initial levels or else mages would be too difficult.
However some sort of slow steady decrease makes sense so that by the time
you are down in the really deep levels resting would take a long time.
Of course, without any other mods. that wouldn't be a big deal
since wandering monsters are a huge threat and there is no reason to care
about time (food is never a problem). Perhaps when a character rests he
should become asleep much like a monster and only have a chance of waking
up when someone enters his view (instead of a certainty). Or perhaps the
level restocking code could be changed a little to insure that the longer
the player rested the more out of depth, awake/mobile monsters popped
up and headed towards him.
The second major problem is the retreating. Again, I have two
possible suggestions;
Give the monster a free attack sequence at any character that
teleports away from hand to hand combat.
More importantly, reduce the ability to WoR. This is probably
the easiest way to make the game harder. Plus it adds interest in my
opinion since the idea of bouncing back to the town all the time instead
of dealing with things out of your own resources just lacks some zip.
A pet idea of mine is to add specific areas in which WoR works and remove
it everywhere else. However, that might be hard to code. More realistic
would be making WoR work normally going down but then give it a huge time
delay when going back up (obviously combined with some code that would
make just sitting around waiting to be pulled up be a bad idea)
: But, like I said, one of the things that my plans would make easy to do
: is to add difficulty levels to the game; the easiest levels would
: probably be substantially easier than the game is now. I don't see any
: reason why one couldn't provide a challenge at all levels.
Except that once you know what you are up against and what you
can do the game becomes inherently winnable no matter what if you play
very slowly/cautiously. Its not really a fault of Angband in my opinion,
its a fault of roguelike games in general where the only way to win (or
feel like you have accomplished something equivalent to winning) is the
just get better and better until you can beat X or survive at a deep
enough level to get Y.
Dave
David desJardins
> The problem I find is that I get bored at the low levels, and I always
> want to try something harder. Anyone can win Angband by sticking to a
> strict formula of 5 XPlevs/Dungeon Lev. - you will *never* meet
> anything challenging.
You'll also never go below level 10, which means you can't win.
> However I always try to go that bit further - and generally die. For
> example, my best character to date was killed by an Ethereal 'D'. I
> don't have the excuse of not knowing how dangerous they are - I
> certainly did. I just thought 'I might just about manage this. I've
> got a pretty froody weapon...' It breathed on me once, and I died.
Well, I'm not able to understand this. I think I go just as much
further as you. But if I run into a monster which I *know* can breathe
and kill me in one round, I don't just walk up to it and take my
chances. Sorry, but that's dumb. If you're going to invest many hours
in a game, it doesn't make any sense to risk your whole game on one roll
of the dice. Run away, or teleport it away, and try something else.
I also play intelligently in that I start with a high constitution, and
I use rings of constitution and items of protection in preference to
other kinds of items, so that I *can't* die in a single blow. By the
time you are fighting Ethereal dragons (2150 ft) your constitution can
be well over 18/100, and you should _not_ die in a single round, even if
you are a gnome mage. It only does a maximum of 346 hp. That doesn't
mean taking the game any slower, it just means using what the game gives
you sensibly. (And against some monsters, like Drolems, this _won't_
work at the level you first run into them, unless you are overly
cautious, and so you have to either run away or die.)
Anyway, back to the central point: I don't see why the game can't have
the property that it's interesting for _both_ you and for me, at
different difficulty settings.
Des Courtney
) : Des Courtney <dco...@opie.bgsu.edu> writes:
)
) : I can certainly believe that different players play with different
) : levels of caution, and that some players aren't careful enough and do
) : die. My point is that the game would be more interesting if it depended
) : on skill rather than on carelessness.
I didn't write this! Don't get me stuck with a copyright suit against
David! I can't afford lawyers! (-:
Des Courtney
) The only skill aspect I've noticed in the game is inventory management. I
) like the game forcing me to make (sometimes painful) choices about what
) to wear or carry. This is really the only time the game makes me "think".
) I haven't played 2.7.X enough to comment, but I'm concerned that the
) new stacking code will make it much easier to decide what to carry
) (everything!).
I can't play 2.7.x on my Mac; it's too slow still. However, I do agree
that this stacking code is more trouble than it's worth.
) Another "rule" is to not go past 2250-2500 ft. without at least 1 speed
) item. You also definitely want a good missile weapon, a reliable means of
) escape, a good set of resistances, a method of healing, and maxed stats
) (very high anyway). Did you follow all of these "rules".
Generally, yes. (Counting Wands of Annilation or Drain Life as Missles)
Problem is, especially with RoS, I could literally take weeks to
acquire some of the rarer items. Having to wait until such an item
turns up is no fun, and the only way to relieve the bordeom is to
chance going down one more floor. As I mentioned, I have nothing
against difficulty levels in theory. Just don't ostricise(sp?) me
if my first "Winner's Post" is not of a SuperHuman difficulty setting.
) Sounds likes you didn't have enough potions of Cure Critical Wounds. A
) good supply of these is really mandatory past 1500-2000 ft. And if you
) didn't have an intact scroll or staff to escape with, you should have
) been careful and left the level. This might be frustrating, but dying
) is rather frustrating too.
Had plenty of Healing Potions. But as I mentioned in a previous post,
I didn't have the skill and procedure down pat enough to remember to
use them. (I also have this leftover behavior from Rogue of hoarding
items.) Also, I was Knocked Out before getting a Low Hitpoint Warning
(set to 30%). Never happened to me before ever. Period.
) Determining which monsters you should and shouldn't fight is a problem
) at first.
Funny, I thought this was part of the game...
) I killed 3 drolems before I discovered their poison breath
) (in a very tragic manner). Currently, you can make these discoveries
) by just playing the game (and dying everytime you discover a dangerous
) monster), you can use spoiler files, friends, the newsgroup, or the
) source code, or you can just use backup files and restore everytime you
) discover a dangerous monster.
But that's high-scale cheating!! (-:
) The creation of a "learning" level of
) some sort would "legitimize" this process.
And make the game easier... This argument has come full circle; I started
on objecting about making the game harder; now I'm objecting to making
the game easier. Trying to change difficulty like this "betrays" those
who are yet to kill the Big M. We want the status of a victory, but
not at the mockery of the previous time "wasted" with harder versions.
) Umm, well so? If all someone aspires to do is play easy levels, it's no
) concern of mine. It sounds rather boring though. I expect such a person
) would soon try playing at a harder level or stop playing.
See below.
) >Anyway, those players who do try to climb the difficulty ladder will now
) > end up with just the excuse to re-play Angband 3, 4, 5 or more times.
)
) Hmm, this seems like a positive for the game to me.
Remember, Angband is a *game*; it shouldn't become a lifestyle, as my
father might say. And anyway, the class/race system already provides
enough replayability.
Now, don't get me wrong, I love games a lot. But, generally, I play a game
through once or twice then move on to the next. I beat Moria *once* and
moved on. What about Omega, Boss, or any of the Angband variants? "Man
cannot live on Angband alone." (-:
) >Also, while I do use the Artifact spoilers, there are those out there who
) > insist on avoiding them for "purity" sake. Access or willing use
) > of spoilers already provide a sense of "difficulty adjustment."
)
) Yes, but it would be nice if the need for spoiler files was removed, and
) the whole learning process was legitimized.
-----------
There's that word again; a good game incorporates the learning process in
as *part* of the game. I do agree that the Artifact spoilers are a
"need," but that's simply because the game's built-in mechanism, the
Potion of Self-Knowledge, is a sledge-hammer solution to killing a fly.
A possible substitute might be scrolls or spells of "Intrinsic Identify"
which work on only one item.
) I hope not. I'm solely interested in having a more fun and interesting
) (and less tedious) game.
Riiiiiiight. (-; Don't you ever use, "I just killed Tiamat," as a pickup
line or as a means to impress your boss? (-; (I Wand Of Wonder if I
still have that "Signs Of Too Much Moria/Angband" list around here?)
Timo Nousiainen
>dco...@opie.bgsu.edu (Des Courtney) writes:
>>) I think a much better direction from the point of view of making the game
>>) harder is to reintroduce some of the factors which made Rogue (the parent of
>>) all of these games) hard in the first place. Particularly, scarcity. Rogue
>sounds good to me.. make good items harder to come by and IMHO
>artifacts harder to find too or harder to get (ie. tougher uniques)
I think artifacts should be much harder to find and much better than
most of them are. There are dozens of artifact armors that one considers
worse than most dragon scale mails. I would like to see artifacts
rewritten so that every artifact (not cursed) would in a way or another
really cool, I mean that if you found such, you would be really jumping
and bouncing around... of course, for game balance, these items should
be much rarer than they are today, mayby an order of magnitude or so...
Also, common items should have random extra abilities to compensate the
loss of "minor" artifacts, abilities like random resistances, AC, stat
bonuses etc. Of course, you would need to self-knowledge yourself to
find them out, at least for resistances.
>kinda like the idea for a partially speed based scoring too.. might
>make people (or at least some) dive too early and meet too many tough
>monsters.. of course you would still have the option of playing
>safe.. i like the idea... /:)
I think Amiga moria did calculate the turns, at least that old version I
tried maybe 5 or so years ago... This could be easily implemented (think
so) and also, its effect on score would be easily established. Af
course, one could try to compete with fastest win also... I agree, it is
good and relatively simple add.
>btw since i decided Ang was easy enuff (though it took me a while to
>finish) i tried Drangband.. nice change and pretty hard if yu play a
>dragon... dont spose anyone has finished with a dragon warrior??
Btw, I don't think angband is too easy, at least if you play without
backups. It is definitely hard enough to avoid all those nasty drolems,
at least, that's what I feel. One mistake, and you may end up dead,
weeks work gone with the wind (or poison breath, to be more precis).
Of course, I argee that most parts of Angband are pretty easy once you
learn them, but that's the way it is...
Maybe it would be possible to get rid of those too weak mobs, like
kobolds at 5000 ft, but I don't know what difference that would make...
maybe packs of drolems? :-)
My two cents for development,
Timo nousiainen
Randy Hutson
:In article <3gj2nc$3...@news.tamu.edu>, Randy Hutson wrote:
:Problem is, especially with RoS, I could literally take weeks to
:acquire some of the rarer items.
Getting a ROS is a one of several discrete steps in character development.
The steps I see are:
1) Roll a good character and try to survive the lower levels.
2) Stay below 1000 ft. until you have Free Action.
3) Max your stats (the ones important to your class, at least). I don't
go too far past 1600 ft. until my stats are maxed.
4) Acquire a speed item. I don't like to go past 2250 ft. (2500 certainly)
without one.
5) Go deeper and kill everything you can until you have the proper
items to kill Morgoth.
6) Kill Morgoth.
7) optional: "Play" with Grond a bit before retiring.
I find that acquiring a speed item is the most tedious of these steps.
I've always had to buy my first speed item. Traditionally, this involves
endless cloning of ancient dragons and then a lot of store restocking
until a ROS shows up. Whee.
Note that I don't particularly like this "Kill Morgoth in 6 Steps" solution,
but it does seem to be the way the game is setup.
:Having to wait until such an item
:turns up is no fun, and the only way to relieve the bordeom is to
:chance going down one more floor.
Yes, steps 3 and 4 are usually boring and tedious. Step 5 becomes boring
after a while. When this happens, it probably means you're ready for
Morgoth.
:Also, I was Knocked Out before getting a Low Hitpoint Warning
:(set to 30%). Never happened to me before ever. Period.
You shouldn't have been knocked out immediately. You don't get knocked
out until the stun counter goes over 100 (moves). A pack of Impact Hounds
could do this quickly though. Hounds are generally best avoided. (As a high
level mage, I always genocide Z's and v's when I first enter a level.)
If you do fight hounds, you should really only fight them one at a time.
:) Determining which monsters you should and shouldn't fight is a problem
:) at first.
:Funny, I thought this was part of the game...
Yes, it is, and it's a problem at first. And it seems that the solution
most people use to this problem is spoiler files or backups. I think
this need for spoiler files or cheating points out a problem with the game.
:) The creation of a "learning" level of
:) some sort would "legitimize" this process.
:And make the game easier...
Yes, a "learning level" would be easier than an advanced level.
: This argument has come full circle; I started
: on objecting about making the game harder; now I'm objecting to making
: the game easier. Trying to change difficulty like this "betrays" those
: who are yet to kill the Big M. We want the status of a victory, but
: not at the mockery of the previous time "wasted" with harder versions.
So you want the game difficultly unchanged and never configurable?
People would still need spoiler files to win in any reasonable period
of time and many people would never win at all simply because they
don't have the time. And people who have won the game would probably
get bored with playing it since they already "know how" to win. OK. I
understand this. I think you're saying that a "learning level" would
cheapen the game - people would win in easy mode, decide that Angband
was easy, and then never bother to play at the more difficult levels.
This may be. No one has said however that the winning at an easy level
would have the same goal as winning on a higher level. For example,
in beginner mode, perhaps an appropriate winning monster will appear
at 1000 ft. contrasted with killing Morgoth at 5000 ft. In a way,
this would be like adding quests to the game. Also, you would be
compelled to play at the next difficulty level if you wanted to
"really" win the game? How does this sound? (For fun, the ultimate
difficulty level could require that a player kill an enraged Iluvatar
who has become tired of Arda and wants to obliterate it. :-)
: And anyway, the class/race system already provides
: enough replayability.
It provides some, but not a lot. Now playing a Dragon ala Drangband
does seem like it would be fun and different.
:Now, don't get me wrong, I love games a lot. But, generally, I play a game
: through once or twice then move on to the next. I beat Moria *once* and
: moved on. What about Omega, Boss, or any of the Angband variants? "Man
: cannot live on Angband alone." (-:
I seem to keep moving back to Angband myself. But it's hardly as much fun
and interesting to me as it once was. I just think it would be nice if the
game could be more interesting.
:) Yes, but it would be nice if the need for spoiler files was removed, and
:) the whole learning process was legitimized.
:There's that word again; a good game incorporates the learning process in
: as *part* of the game.
My point exactly. But I don't think that having to die to learn about a
Drolem's breath is a very good way of "teaching" players. After all, it
does seem like that rumors of what a Drolem is capable of would be spreading
around town. (Doesn't Zangband have a scroll of rumors?)
: I do agree that the Artifact spoilers are a
: "need," but that's simply because the game's built-in mechanism, the
: Potion of Self-Knowledge, is a sledge-hammer solution to killing a fly.
: A possible substitute might be scrolls or spells of "Intrinsic Identify"
: which work on only one item.
Yes, at the very least Self-Knowledge should be more common. I think Topi
did this in Angband-- or Zangband.
Des Courtney
) You shouldn't have been knocked out immediately. You don't get knocked
) out until the stun counter goes over 100 (moves). A pack of Impact Hounds
) could do this quickly though. Hounds are generally best avoided. (As a high
) level mage, I always genocide Z's and v's when I first enter a level.)
) If you do fight hounds, you should really only fight them one at a time.
It was by a Master Mystic. (I was only *slightly* out of depth, really! (-:)
I killed several of these before, which is why I misjudged his abilities.
Likewise, I had already killed a Drolem, despite what I know now as it
being a chancy encounter.
And no, I wasn't knocked out immediately. But I was Heavy Stunned which
made spells unreliable. Having been in such a situation before,
I didn't know enough to reach to a Healing potion. I didn't realize
that it was possible to eventually be knocked out.
) So you want the game difficultly unchanged and never configurable?
Even if I *really* did, the problem is that it's impossible with the
sources being available like they are...
) People would still need spoiler files to win in any reasonable period
) of time and many people would never win at all simply because they
) don't have the time.
I *might* be of the latter category. But I don't want the game made
easier just because of this.
) And people who have won the game would probably
) get bored with playing it since they already "know how" to win. OK. I
) understand this. I think you're saying that a "learning level" would
) cheapen the game - people would win in easy mode, decide that Angband
) was easy, and then never bother to play at the more difficult levels.
Exactly.
) This may be. No one has said however that the winning at an easy level
) would have the same goal as winning on a higher level. For example,
) in beginner mode, perhaps an appropriate winning monster will appear
) at 1000 ft. contrasted with killing Morgoth at 5000 ft. In a way,
) this would be like adding quests to the game. Also, you would be
) compelled to play at the next difficulty level if you wanted to
) "really" win the game? How does this sound? (For fun, the ultimate
) difficulty level could require that a player kill an enraged Iluvatar
) who has become tired of Arda and wants to obliterate it. :-)
That would be interesting, but as I said, if one just gets slightly
irratated(sp?) with one level, he/she would stay with the easier
level, get bored with it, and throw it away, never trying the higher
levels. The only sort of game with "difficulty levels" that this won't
happen to would have to offer a infinitely narrow division of levels to
allow for personalization. One of the reasons I like Angband is that you
can vary the "difficulty" by varying how cautiously(sp?) you play to a
much finer degree than "official" difficulty levels can provide.
) : And anyway, the class/race system already provides
) : enough replayability.
)
) It provides some, but not a lot. Now playing a Dragon ala Drangband
) does seem like it would be fun and different.
Try a Gnome or Hobbit Warrior? Half-Troll Priest? Those would be possible
challenges. It would be an interesting handicap if Dwarves could play
rogues. I do agree that inventing new races that handle equipment
differently would be entertaining. (I'd like to try a Pixie sometime
if there's a Drangband for Mac in the works.)
) :There's that word again; a good game incorporates the learning process in
) : as *part* of the game.
)
) My point exactly. But I don't think that having to die to learn about a
) Drolem's breath is a very good way of "teaching" players. After all, it
) does seem like that rumors of what a Drolem is capable of would be spreading
) around town. (Doesn't Zangband have a scroll of rumors?)
Yes, but the suggestion of adding a rumor system is a different issue from
the creation of difficulty levels.
As I said before, I have nothing *fundamentally* against levels, but I've
wasted an awful amount of time with this game at the current difficulty
level, and would not appreciate it when a newbie breezes through on a
"kiddie" level and brags to me about beating a game in a month that I
could not do in a year.
Randy Hutson
:In article <3glfpu$3...@news.tamu.edu>, Randy Hutson wrote:
:) You shouldn't have been knocked out immediately. You don't get knocked
:) out until the stun counter goes over 100 (moves).
I did some checking and found out that if a monster gets a really good
critical blow, you can get knocked out immediately. This means you'll
be paralyzed (even if you have free action).
[back to the subject]
:) So you want the game difficulty unchanged and never configurable?
:Even if I *really* did, the problem is that it's impossible with the
: sources being available like they are...
But I don't think anyone will bother to do so if it's a generally
unpopular idea.
:) For example,
:) in beginner mode, perhaps an appropriate winning monster will appear
:) at 1000 ft. contrasted with killing Morgoth at 5000 ft. In a way,
:) this would be like adding quests to the game. Also, you would be
:) compelled to play at the next difficulty level if you wanted to
:) "really" win the game.
:That would be interesting, but as I said, if one just gets slightly
: irratated(sp?) with one level, he/she would stay with the easier
: level, get bored with it, and throw it away, never trying the higher
: levels.
Maybe. Maybe not. This would really depend upon the design of the
difficulty levels. This is very hypothetical, but let's say that
to "win" at the first difficulty level you have to kill an AMHD. Even
when you've done this, you haven't really won Angband until you've
killed Morgoth. Consider it a first step towards learning to kill
Morgoth.
Note that this design is really nothing more than a quest system.
To really implement difficulty levels, gameplay in general would need
to be easier on lower difficulty levels, etc. But this isn't really
much different than establishing a quest system and then somehow making
gameplay more difficult as the dungeon level increases. For example,
one problem with the game is that monsters are stupid. They don't know
how to search and find players, and it's pathetically easy to use the
pillar trick on monsters. Monsters could become more intelligent at a
certain difficulty level, or in the absence of difficulty levels, at a
certain dungeon level.
: One of the reasons I like Angband is that you
: can vary the "difficulty" by varying how cautiously(sp?) you play to a
: much finer degree than "official" difficulty levels can provide.
I could be foolish and fight without the proper equipment or fight
dangerous monsters, but these forms of self imposed difficulty don't
interest me. I'd like to see more emphasis placed on strategy and thinking
than on "inside" knowledge, spoilers, and tricks. Once you know how,
killing Morgoth is just an eventually which occurs after a period of
time. I suppose I could just quit playing Angband now, but I'd rather not.
:Try a Gnome or Hobbit Warrior? Half-Troll Priest? Those would be possible
: challenges.
I've done the Half-Troll Priest thing. I haven't tried any warrior though.
I expect that it would take longer to win with a warrior. I may try one
sometime.
:Yes, but the suggestion of adding a rumor system is a different issue from
: the creation of difficulty levels.
Yes, but they would both address the same issue. With a rumor system,
you might get warning hints about Drolems. With difficulty levels, you
might encounter a less deadly (but still dangerous) Drolem and then at a
higher level, you would know in advance about their breath. Either way,
the player gets the knowledge from the game not by spoilers (or dying).
:As I said before, I have nothing *fundamentally* against levels, but I've
: wasted an awful amount of time with this game at the current difficulty
: level, and would not appreciate it when a newbie breezes through on a
: "kiddie" level and brags to me about beating a game in a month that I
: could not do in a year.
I'm sure that if anyone actually implements difficulty levels, your
concerns will be kept in mind. As I've said, "winning" at anything but
the hardest level doesn't mean the game will necessarily generate a
winner's list or that winning at a particular level means killing Morgoth.
Surely there will be no problem distinguishing between players who "win"
by killing an AHMD and those who really win by killing Morgoth.
Of course there's no way to please everyone, but it would be nice
if the game were flexible enough to generally accommodate those who
think the game is too hard, just right, or too easy.
Aaron Mandelbaum
>Try a Gnome or Hobbit Warrior? Half-Troll Priest? Those would be possible
> challenges. It would be an interesting handicap if Dwarves could play
> rogues. I do agree that inventing new races that handle equipment
> differently would be entertaining. (I'd like to try a Pixie sometime
> if there's a Drangband for Mac in the works.)
Make your own Pixie in 3 simple steps:
(a) Rename a race 'Pixie'
(b) Change the stats to -10 str, -8 con, +10 dex, don't remember the rest...
This is in player.c. Also set the XP to something high.
(c) in main.c, add change_speed(-1) to the part where it initializes the
player's inventory, making them permanently fast.
Easy!
--
Aaron Mandelbaum
Aaron Mandelbaum
more random death:
(1) Slower increase in HP regen with MHP.
(2) *Much* lower food capacity/value, and heavier and more expensive food
(3) No HP absorbtion from AC
Note that I wouldn't play with these mods, since I tend to die quite a lot
from non-random causes as it is... :)
--
Aaron Mandelbaum
Des Courtney
) >dco...@opie.bgsu.edu (Des Courtney) writes:
)
) >>) I think a much better direction from the point of view of making the game
) >>) harder is to reintroduce some of the factors which made Rogue (the
parent of
) >>) all of these games) hard in the first place. Particularly,
scarcity. Rogue
Once again, I didn't write this! I'm *against* reintroducing scarcity
into Angband!!!
That's twice in this discussion I've been misquoted. I can understand once,
but this is getting bad. Would having a David-esque post copyright help
me here?
Dennis Andrew Blazewicz
Would it not be easiest to do the following:
You win on a) Easy level. Therefore you get (0.5)x(SCORE)
b) Medium level. You get (1.0)x(SCORE)
c) Difficult level. You get (2.0)x(SCORE)
this way the scoretable would accurately reflect the "value" of the
victory.
Astinus
Robert A. Uhl
David A Bonar <dbo...@tiger.lsu.edu> wrote:
> I'm not sure I can figure out what you want. By playing in the
>ultra safe mode (rather slow going down, always using detects, always
>moving at full strength, retreating (out of combat or dungeon) at the
>slightest real danger) it is practically impossible to lose except by
>some chance actions that a player has no control over. Actually I'd
>add a warning that you can die in the first few levels even going very
>slowly but that is a minor quibble. How are differing levels of difficulty
>going to solve this?
>
> If you make the monsters tougher or the items scarce players will
>just be forced to go even slower and more cautiously. I see the real
>problem as being the easy retreat options and the constant ability to
>rest up to full power. As was mentioned earlier, these two facts allow
>the character to fight only when he choses to and thus to always fight
>at full strength.
If monsters are more difficult, players will tend to stay at higher
levels longer. yes. So combine this idea with giving more experience to
players who go down quickly, as opposed to those who sit at 50 ft. for
weeks. There will be a balance between playing it safe and getting lots
of XP. And it should be bonus XP for descending instead of penalizing
slow players.
Once again, though, I believe that y'all miss the point. Some of you
can beat Morgoth in a week, while newbies like me can only reach 15 in >
month. You need to make the game harder/slower for good players, while
possibly speeding it up for newbies.
> From this it seems obvious that resting should be discouraged
>or toned down and the retreat options available should be looked at.
>First, the resting fix. My suggestion comes as two parts. Decrease
>the amount of regenerated hp/mana at deeper levels and add some incentive
>to not spend a lot of time sitting around resting.
I almost agree with you on this point. Resting, though, is an integral
part of the game. It is the only way low-level characters can survive.
And the retreat options are the same. They are both features which
newbies overlook, one day discovering them. Then they go on to increase
levels until they hit the next stopping block. You don't know how long I
thought Light Area was better than Phase Door.
> The first part is easy. Obviously you don't want to make resting
>any worse at the initial levels or else mages would be too difficult.
>However some sort of slow steady decrease makes sense so that by the time
>you are down in the really deep levels resting would take a long time.
i would make the decrease logical, not merely to make the game harder.
I think that as mages travel downwards, it should be harder to regain
Mana (and perhaps HP). This would make mages (priests too?) more
difficult at high level, restoring some of the balance between mages and
fighters. It will perhaps also discourage those who play rangers merely
for the spells (perhaps rangers could have a greater regeneration
penalty than even mages? Or do they already?). I also think that
warriors should be given more ability. I haven't played one since my
_very_ first days, but it is really a shame that they do not have more
potential. OTOH, it is a bit of a decision for a while: do I go with the
easy first levels or the powerful later levels?
> Of course, without any other mods. that wouldn't be a big deal
>since wandering monsters are a huge threat and there is no reason to care
>about time (food is never a problem). Perhaps when a character rests he
>should become asleep much like a monster and only have a chance of waking
>up when someone enters his view (instead of a certainty). Or perhaps the
>level restocking code could be changed a little to insure that the longer
>the player rested the more out of depth, awake/mobile monsters popped
>up and headed towards him.
The first suggestion is not too bad, but the secong is terrible. Not
good at all, IMHO. There should be a chance that the character goes to
sleep (dmarves, hobbits easily, elves and rangers with great
difficulty?) 'You fall asleep', after which you are wakened either by a
monster being noticed or after a randomly determined length of time.
Perhaps the tendency to fall asleep could vary by area or level.
> The second major problem is the retreating. Again, I have two
>possible suggestions;
>
> Give the monster a free attack sequence at any character that
>teleports away from hand to hand combat.
Not very good IMO. Often one will Teleport at the last minute. This
might be bad, but I believe that Teleporting is one of the features
which should be untouched.
> More importantly, reduce the ability to WoR. This is probably
>the easiest way to make the game harder. Plus it adds interest in my
>opinion since the idea of bouncing back to the town all the time instead
>of dealing with things out of your own resources just lacks some zip.
>A pet idea of mine is to add specific areas in which WoR works and remove
>it everywhere else. However, that might be hard to code. More realistic
>would be making WoR work normally going down but then give it a huge time
>delay when going back up (obviously combined with some code that would
>make just sitting around waiting to be pulled up be a bad idea)
But then one would have to travel all the way up through 25+ levels
just to sell stuff or buy oil (before getting a perm light item). Is
this a good thing? WoR is not an escape, really, but an excellent method
of returning without having to go through every level on every trip.
Julian Bean
In article <3gm256$n...@news.tamu.edu> ra...@picard.tamu.edu (Randy Hutson)
writes:
[munch]
>I could be foolish and fight without the proper equipment or fight
>dangerous monsters, but these forms of self imposed difficulty don't
>interest me. I'd like to see more emphasis placed on strategy and thinking
>than on "inside" knowledge, spoilers, and tricks. Once you know how,
>killing Morgoth is just an eventually which occurs after a period of
>time. I suppose I could just quit playing Angband now, but I'd rather not.
Hear, hear!!! Here, Here???
It was the required knowledge of spoilers that put me off Nethack & Omega.
I just decided that I like the idea of 'random' artifacts - I.e. different
every game, so long as...
1) They come is carefully equalised groups.. I.e. you can get good, excellent
or exceptional artifacts, and all randomly generated good artifacts will be of
similar overall quality
2) You get clues when you use their special powers (E.g. you hit the kobold..
your sword bursts into flame.) Maybe only a %age chance
It would add some variety.
Jules
Ekrem Soylemez
In article <3glape$m...@plootu.Helsinki.FI> tpno...@cc.Helsinki.FI (Timo Nousiainen) writes:
> I think artifacts should be much harder to find and much better than
> most of them are. There are dozens of artifact armors that one considers
> worse than most dragon scale mails. I would like to see artifacts
> rewritten so that every artifact (not cursed) would in a way or another
> really cool, I mean that if you found such, you would be really jumping
> and bouncing around... of course, for game balance, these items should
> be much rarer than they are today, mayby an order of magnitude or so...
This idea definitely sits well with my notion of artifacts. They should be
very powerful.
However, one of the things I like about artifacts is that being on a
special level puts some contraints on your play. For example, you cannot
simply retreat off the level if there are too many powerful monsters
(unless you don't want the (potential) artifact). So reducing the number of
artifacts will reduce the number of times you are constrained this way,
making the game easier. I think one way to get around this would be to have
some sort of quest where you had to get an item off each of several
(consecutive?) levels in order to get an artifact. For example, maybe we
could create a palace (or something) on the town level. If you went into
it, you might volunteer to go on a quest for Feanor to collect the three
silmarils, and when you brought them back you would be given the boots of
Feanor. (Sadly, I don't know the Silmarilion well enough to offer any
better suggestions, but you get the picture.) Then, the next three dungeon
levels you entered (within a certain depth range) would each contain a
Silmaril (he gave you a map!), and if you missed one you would never be
able to complete the quest. Of course, we would probably make those levels
contain a few out of depth monsters... :->
I think this would have too advantages. First, it would force the player to
STAY ON THE LEVEL more often. This could considerably increase the
challenge of the game, as it cuts back on retreating options. Second, it
would help reduce that long period where you are a 50th level character
just waiting to get the needed artifacts before you can go kill M. You
would now KNOW how to get them. Sign up for a quest or two.
What do people think?
-Ekrem
Mike McCarty
Randy Hutson <ra...@picard.tamu.edu> wrote:
)Des Courtney (dco...@opie.bgsu.edu) wrote:
):In article <3gj2nc$3...@news.tamu.edu>, Randy Hutson wrote:
[stuff deleted]
):) The creation of a "learning" level of
):) some sort would "legitimize" this process.
)
):And make the game easier...
)
)Yes, a "learning level" would be easier than an advanced level.
)
): This argument has come full circle; I started
): on objecting about making the game harder; now I'm objecting to making
): the game easier. Trying to change difficulty like this "betrays" those
): who are yet to kill the Big M. We want the status of a victory, but
): not at the mockery of the previous time "wasted" with harder versions.
)
)So you want the game difficultly unchanged and never configurable?
)People would still need spoiler files to win in any reasonable period
)of time and many people would never win at all simply because they
)don't have the time. And people who have won the game would probably
)get bored with playing it since they already "know how" to win. OK. I
)understand this. I think you're saying that a "learning level" would
)cheapen the game - people would win in easy mode, decide that Angband
)was easy, and then never bother to play at the more difficult levels.
But I thought that's what Wizard Mode was. A way to "learn" about the
game w/o getting a score. I have two characters going right now. A 48th
level Human Mage which I played with "backups". Another is a level 20+
(forget just where) Dwarf Priest w/o backups. I decided to try a
character w/o backups, and lost quite a few before getting the hang of
it. This one seems to be progressing nicely.
The Mage is about ready for Morgoth. But I think I'll start another
character in Wizard Mode and go fight Morgoth with it a few times first.
Just to get an idea of what is needed.
Mike
----
char *p="char *p=%c%s%c;main(){printf(p,34,p,34);}";main(){printf(p,34,p,34);}
Ben Harrison
>In article <3gj2nc$3...@news.tamu.edu>, Randy Hutson wrote:
>) The only skill aspect I've noticed in the game is inventory management. I
>) like the game forcing me to make (sometimes painful) choices about what
>) to wear or carry. This is really the only time the game makes me "think".
>) I haven't played 2.7.X enough to comment, but I'm concerned that the
>) new stacking code will make it much easier to decide what to carry
>) (everything!).
>I can't play 2.7.x on my Mac; it's too slow still. However, I do agree
> that this stacking code is more trouble than it's worth.
Well then, I guess I better take it out then... :-) Seriously, I will
make it an option, for people who do not want their inventory to
stack. Or is it just that stacking wands and staffs is a problem?
That would be even easier to change. My belief has always been that
if my player can carry 300 lbs, then he should certainly be able to
carry more than 20 daggers.
>Remember, Angband is a *game*; it shouldn't become a lifestyle, as my
> father might say. And anyway, the class/race system already provides
> enough replayability.
>) Yes, but it would be nice if the need for spoiler files was removed, and
>) the whole learning process was legitimized.
-----------
Now there's a scary thought... I get the feeling that there are
people out there concerned that other people are "cheating" at
Angband... It is, after all, a game...
But... for those of you who want some "measure" of success beyond the
obvious ones, I will be saving in the score-list for 2.7.2 some
interesting values -- first, the number of turns played, to give an
idea how "quickly" the game was won, and second, the number of times
the game was saved, to give an idea of how "cautious" the player was
with savefiles, although other symptoms could induce this too...
--- Ben ---
Randy Hutson
[stuff I wrote about a "learning level" deleted]
>But I thought that's what Wizard Mode was. A way to "learn" about the
>game w/o getting a score.
Not really. As the game says, "Wizard mode is for debugging and experimenting."
I suppose you could call learning "experimenting", but you should remember
that not everyone can go into wizard mode. On multiuser systems (UNIX
primarily), only certain people (wizards) can go into wizard mode. I also
suspect that the powers granted to wizards (healing, genocide, wizard light,
etc.) are too tempting to allow for very much learning about the game.
Now as I recall (those details), Nethack has an "exploration mode" which
serves as a "learning level", but I don't remember the exact details of it.
Randy Hutson
RH=Randy Hutson
DC=dco...@opie.bgsu.edu (Des Courtney)
DC>I can't play 2.7.x on my Mac; it's too slow still. However, I do agree
DC>that this stacking code is more trouble than it's worth.
BH>Well then, I guess I better take it out then... :-) Seriously, I will
BH>make it an option, for people who do not want their inventory to
BH>stack. Or is it just that stacking wands and staffs is a problem?
BH>That would be even easier to change. My belief has always been that
BH>if my player can carry 300 lbs, then he should certainly be able to
BH>carry more than 20 daggers.
The stacking restrictions seem to be a typical Moria "hack" (note "Ben-style"
quotes) thrown in for the sake of game balance. They've never made much sense
to me either. But as I've said, I like them because they force me to decide
what I really want - and they don't let players become quite too absurd
(say carrying 10 Rods of Fireballs and 10 Rods of Cold Balls and 10 Rods
of Acid Balls and 10 Rods of Drain Life and so on). Now as for carrying
many weapons, I don't see much of a problem with that.
RH) Yes, but it would be nice if the need for spoiler files was removed, and
RH) the whole learning process was legitimized.
BH) -----------
BH) Now there's a scary thought... I get the feeling that there are
BH) people out there concerned that other people are "cheating" at
BH) Angband...
Well _I'm_ not if that's what anyone thought. I simply think that the
realistic need for spoiler files is silly and a sign of a problem with
the game. I certainly used spoiler files when I first started playing the
game (and still do sometimes), and then after discovering that many were
simply wrong, I progressed on to looking at the source code. What I was
trying to say is that I think it would be much more desirable for the
game to be self-documenting and/or accurate documentation was provided
_with_ the game. Learning by playing and dying sounds straightforward
enough, but I don't think very people many do it that way. Why maintain
the facade that you learn by dying and then after a couple of years you
perhaps win the game, when practically nobody does it that way?
Aaron Mandelbaum
>Now as I recall (those details), Nethack has an "exploration mode" which
>serves as a "learning level", but I don't remember the exact details of it.
How about a learning mode where it saves a backup of your savefile every
time you hit the town level, and restores it if you die.
"You wake up from a horrible nightmare! Thank god it was only a dream..."
The differance between actually using backups would be you'd keep the
monster memory, and any items you id'd would stay id'd -- so that you
could *learn* from your mistake.
>Randy Hutson - ra...@picard.tamu.edu
--
Aaron Mandelbaum
Mika Valiviita
>Des Courtney (dco...@opie.bgsu.edu) wrote:
>:In article <3gj2nc$3...@news.tamu.edu>, Randy Hutson wrote:
>:Problem is, especially with RoS, I could literally take weeks to
>:acquire some of the rarer items.
>Getting a ROS is a one of several discrete steps in character development.
The problem is that it stays the same from game to game, you play the
first 20-40 dungeon levels over and over again, and only rarely you
get beyond 2000'. Either because you die early, or if you are the
careful type, it takes so long to safely reach that depth.
And even after that, you just look up the uniques, collect the same
artifacts, and kill Wyrms to reach maximum exp. level. (Anybody to
confess they get Balli Stonehand very often? And that artifact cloaks
are equal in rarity to Ringil?)
It's just the same all over again, except in those RARE occasions you
actually find Ringil or the One Ring. (Or RoS (+2) at 50')
I think we need more randomness in this game, and I mean radical
changes:
1: Random artifacts. Or at least random flags on ordinary items.
This would also need the *Identify* scrolls.
2: Random monsters! Pick a class, give random abilities, attacks etc.
Uniques in the sense that you won't find another quite like it.
You could never be sure what you're up against, thus creating
more excitement. Random names, f.ex. 9-headed Crystal Zombie,
Young Multihued Kobold... (Might get silly though.)
3: LONG staircases. I think this was done in AmigaMoria3.0 (the very
old one). Have a chance, based on players exp. level, for a longer
than usual staircase. Length determined by dungeon level, at level
50', chance for a 2 level staircase, at 4000' maybe even rnd(9)+1
levels. Thus, by staying at the low levels for the 5/1 rule, going
deeper really meant deeper.
4: More different levels. The destroyed levels had an idea, but they
are just annoying, I usually leave if there wasn't something special.
Currently the dungeon parameters are compile-time defines, that is,
constants. Which makes all levels look alike. By making some of them
variables, we could have levels with more/less rooms, corridors,
and what else is there. (I was thinking of multistorey levels, with
variable elevations, and so on, but that may be just megalomania... :)
5: Better shops. After finding/buying the ring of speed, money becomes
a nonissue, as what you need to buy is cheap when hauling in DSMs.
And where does all the stuff you sell go? Are they in the shopkeepers
closets, where they worship them? Or does someone else 'buy' them,
and maybe bring in his own stuff? Oh, there's the Black Market. And
it usually sells things like Potion of Cure Light Wounds.
There! Comments? Impossible? Unbalancing?
Mika
--
Mika V{liviita,whose opinions are his own,and nobody elses. This includes,
but is not limited to,those that are in this electronically distributed
message. This .sig is irrelevant. Life is futile. Message terminated.
Billy Tanksley
>Above, dco...@opie.bgsu.edu (Des Courtney) writes:
>>In article <3gj2nc$3...@news.tamu.edu>, Randy Hutson wrote:
>>) I haven't played 2.7.X enough to comment, but I'm concerned that the
>>) new stacking code will make it much easier to decide what to carry
>>) (everything!).
>Well then, I guess I better take it out then... :-) Seriously, I will
>make it an option, for people who do not want their inventory to
>stack. Or is it just that stacking wands and staffs is a problem?
>That would be even easier to change. My belief has always been that
>if my player can carry 300 lbs, then he should certainly be able to
>carry more than 20 daggers.
How about if we keep the inventory the same, and add a pack slot? That
way, a char could carry a lot, without interfering with the current
inventory system (much). The pack should not be able to carry certain
items, of course (you decide what those items should be).
Game-time behaviour: the pack is a virtual slot, taking up one of your
letters. It cannot be stolen; however, if a thief selects it to steal,
there would be a chance of having its contents spilled all over the
current dungeon (a small chance). The pack is used by Activating it
(hmm, perhaps it's in equipment, then), at which time it prompts you
whether you want to put something in or take something out. The pack
would be, essentially, a LIFO stack, and the player is asked which item
he or she wants to take out one at a time. Each asking takes some finite
amount of game-time; for simplicity, one turn would be reasonable (if a
bit long). Putting an item in takes only one turn.
You'll notice some similarity to Omega's pack. I don't want Angband to
use Omega's inventory (it took me too long to figure that inventory out),
but perhaps there are some good things we can use. What say the players?
>But... for those of you who want some "measure" of success beyond the
>obvious ones, I will be saving in the score-list for 2.7.2 some
>interesting values -- first, the number of turns played, to give an
>idea how "quickly" the game was won, and second, the number of times
>the game was saved, to give an idea of how "cautious" the player was
>with savefiles, although other symptoms could induce this too...
This sound like fun. Display these in the endgame stats, too, so that we
can all see them in the 'winner' posts.
>--- Ben ---
-Billy
Hey, why not? :)
Billy Tanksley
>ra...@picard.tamu.edu (Randy Hutson) writes:
>>Now as I recall (those details), Nethack has an "exploration mode" which
>>serves as a "learning level", but I don't remember the exact details of it.
>How about a learning mode where it saves a backup of your savefile every
>time you hit the town level, and restores it if you die.
>"You wake up from a horrible nightmare! Thank god it was only a dream..."
That's a funny way of putting it... I've got another idea, too. It is
apperent that HP is not your actual _life_, since that would mean that
anyone with low HP would not be able to hit hard (probably missing an
arm, too). Therefore, HPs must actually signal the equivalent of pain.
If this is so, then how about making an additional (hidden to the player)
roll when HPs reach zero to determine whether the character is "tougher
than they seem" (hobbits, of course, have a bonus here). If the roll
succeeds, the game will save with 0 HPs instead of dying (but giving the
same messages as a death would).
The score list would carry a false death, but some code could be put in
so that whenever you start a char that is marked dead on the score list,
the list is changed to read "rumors of this character's death are greatly
exagerated." I know, cute isn't good, but this will also make savefile
"cheating" plainly evident without actualy penalizing anyone for it, or
even scolding them.
>Aaron Mandelbaum
-Billy
David A Bonar
: In article <3gm256$n...@news.tamu.edu> ra...@picard.tamu.edu (Randy Hutson)
: writes:
: [munch]
: >I could be foolish and fight without the proper equipment or fight
: >dangerous monsters, but these forms of self imposed difficulty don't
: >interest me. I'd like to see more emphasis placed on strategy and thinking
: >than on "inside" knowledge, spoilers, and tricks. Once you know how,
: >killing Morgoth is just an eventually which occurs after a period of
: >time. I suppose I could just quit playing Angband now, but I'd rather not.
I still am not exactly sure what you are saying. I agree that
certain things should either be available in the game (such as resistances)
either through a second form of ident. of perhaps through the trial
and error method noted below but what sorts of strategy and thinking
are you thinking of?
So far the only info I've seen that one needs to play Angband that
isn't in the game itself is the artifact and good item info. The way
roguelike games are set up its automatic that once you figure out a few
tricks to each game and determine what does what you can win (baring
the practically random deaths) by just going through the motions.
: Hear, hear!!! Here, Here???
: It was the required knowledge of spoilers that put me off Nethack & Omega.
What spoilers were needed in Omega? I only received one spoiler
(I was told about the Druid before I found the oracle). Sure, I got lucky
in some senses since my first reasonably high level character found
a blessed immunotab and thus I figured out that blessing them was good.
Still, that isn't needed to win/advance.
: I just decided that I like the idea of 'random' artifacts - I.e. different
: every game, so long as...
: 1) They come is carefully equalised groups.. I.e. you can get good, excellent
: or exceptional artifacts, and all randomly generated good artifacts will be of
: similar overall quality
: 2) You get clues when you use their special powers (E.g. you hit the kobold..
: your sword bursts into flame.) Maybe only a %age chance
Interesting, I'm not sure I like it but its worth thinking about.
: >:Try a Gnome or Hobbit Warrior? Half-Troll Priest? Those would be possible
: >: challenges.
: >
: >I've done the Half-Troll Priest thing. I haven't tried any warrior though.
: >I expect that it would take longer to win with a warrior. I may try one
: >sometime.
: >Yes, but they would both address the same issue. With a rumor system,
: >you might get warning hints about Drolems. With difficulty levels, you
: >might encounter a less deadly (but still dangerous) Drolem and then at a
: >higher level, you would know in advance about their breath. Either way,
: >the player gets the knowledge from the game not by spoilers (or dying).
Why is learning by dying so bad? That's actually my biggest
complaint with all roguelike games; no one wants to learn by dying
because then you have to do the tedious part (lower levels that you
have experienced before) again before getting to the excitement of
discovering new things. Thus they tend to be structured so that most
encounters have either little danger or total danger. I find I'm generally
running around without any serious opposition or else I'm scraping up
everything to win. I'd prefer a more even danger allocation where
I had to be on my toes all the time but where I was unlikely to go
all at once (or even a few turns) from really fine to really dead.
Dave
Nathan Tenny
Mika Valiviita <vali...@cc.Helsinki.FI> wrote:
>2: Random monsters! Pick a class, give random abilities, attacks etc.
> Uniques in the sense that you won't find another quite like it.
> You could never be sure what you're up against, thus creating
> more excitement. Random names, f.ex. 9-headed Crystal Zombie,
> Young Multihued Kobold... (Might get silly though.)
Well, *this* is an interesting thought. I agree that a Young Multihued
Kobold is a pretty silly idea, but...
Certain monster races could become templates---varying speeds, varying
numbers (& types?) of attacks, varying life ratings---and, when an instance
of the monster is generated, it could get a set of particular values. (I
mean, doesn't it seem likely that some kobolds are particularly athletic
and can run at double speed? Or that not every sorcerer knows the same
spells?)
Also, if I can die and come back as a ghost, why can't uniques do the
same thing? Anyone feel like taking on Tiamat reincarnated as a sort
of uber-Dracolich? Now *that* could make the game harder.
Boy, we're really on a quest to inflate that binary, aren't we? Another
few versions and it might not fit on my drive. :-)
NT
--
Nathan Tenny @
topologist and loose cannon @ A part of wisdom, the easiest part,
sv...@cs.uoregon.edu @ is called mathematics.
te...@euclid.uoregon.edu @ -Omar Khayyam
Bernd Wiebelt
: Above, dco...@opie.bgsu.edu (Des Courtney) writes:
: >In article <3gj2nc$3...@news.tamu.edu>, Randy Hutson wrote:
: >) The only skill aspect I've noticed in the game is inventory management. I
: >) like the game forcing me to make (sometimes painful) choices about what
: >) to wear or carry. This is really the only time the game makes me "think".
: >) I haven't played 2.7.X enough to comment, but I'm concerned that the
: >) new stacking code will make it much easier to decide what to carry
: >) (everything!).
: >I can't play 2.7.x on my Mac; it's too slow still. However, I do agree
: > that this stacking code is more trouble than it's worth.
: Well then, I guess I better take it out then... :-) Seriously, I will
: make it an option, for people who do not want their inventory to
: stack. Or is it just that stacking wands and staffs is a problem?
: That would be even easier to change. My belief has always been that
: if my player can carry 300 lbs, then he should certainly be able to
: carry more than 20 daggers.
The problem is not carrying daggers. The problem is carrying
things that are either *very* useful, such as rods, or things that
are *very* expensive such as dragon mail.
I don't know how much time you have spent on the stacking code,
but it might be better to take it out alltogether, since it would be
an extreme advantage for those who use it.
: >Remember, Angband is a *game*; it shouldn't become a lifestyle, as my
: > father might say. And anyway, the class/race system already provides
: > enough replayability.
That is true.
: >) Yes, but it would be nice if the need for spoiler files was removed, and
: >) the whole learning process was legitimized.
: -----------
: Now there's a scary thought... I get the feeling that there are
: people out there concerned that other people are "cheating" at
: Angband... It is, after all, a game...
Well part of the fun of Angband (at least for me) is that I
can make a Winner-Post. I know that I cannot control if someone
has really won the game without "cheating" (and there is no
agreement what is cheating and what not). But I like the idea
to have a standard-distribution of angband, which works on
a lot of platforms, uses the same code (and yes, it *must*
use the same random-numbers-generator, btw), and comes with
something like "guidelines for posting a winner".
And it must be taken into account there, that Angband is
played on multiuser as well as on singleuser-platforms.
It is, for example, an advantage for the user on the
multiuser-platform that he get's all the monster-memory from
his ancestors.
: But... for those of you who want some "measure" of success beyond the
: obvious ones, I will be saving in the score-list for 2.7.2 some
: interesting values -- first, the number of turns played, to give an
: idea how "quickly" the game was won, and second, the number of times
: the game was saved, to give an idea of how "cautious" the player was
: with savefiles, although other symptoms could induce this too...
Well, the second one can only be a clue, not a proof.
--
intel inside - | Bernd Wiebelt at Humboldt-University of Berlin
but can it divide? | EMail: wie...@mathematik.hu-berlin.de
Robert A. Uhl
Bernd Wiebelt <wie...@pearson.mathematik.hu-berlin.de> wrote:
>Ben Harrison (be...@linc.cis.upenn.edu) wrote:
>
>: Well then, I guess I better take it out then... :-) Seriously, I will
>: make it an option, for people who do not want their inventory to
>: stack. Or is it just that stacking wands and staffs is a problem?
>: That would be even easier to change. My belief has always been that
>: if my player can carry 300 lbs, then he should certainly be able to
>: carry more than 20 daggers.
>
>The problem is not carrying daggers. The problem is carrying
>things that are either *very* useful, such as rods, or things that
>are *very* expensive such as dragon mail.
>I don't know how much time you have spent on the stacking code,
>but it might be better to take it out alltogether, since it would be
>an extreme advantage for those who use it.
But if I can carry 300 lbs., why shouldn't I be able to carry 250 lbs.
of DSM? Stacking is IMO a hack to make up for the poor inventory system
of Angband, which is just about the only thing that I hate. A character
should be able to carry his limit, not just 20 items. Why can't the
inventory code be changed to be like the shop code, in that a key will
browse through it? Then a character could carry his limit.
I think part of the problem is that characters can carry so much. How
many people do you know ho can carry 100 lbs. without being slowed? not
many, I'd bet. The weights should be changed in order to be more
realistic. One would still have to choose what to carry, but at least it
would be consistent.
>: Now there's a scary thought... I get the feeling that there are
>: people out there concerned that other people are "cheating" at
>: Angband... It is, after all, a game...
>Well part of the fun of Angband (at least for me) is that I
>can make a Winner-Post. I know that I cannot control if someone
>has really won the game without "cheating" (and there is no
>agreement what is cheating and what not). But I like the idea
>to have a standard-distribution of angband, which works on
>a lot of platforms, uses the same code (and yes, it *must*
>use the same random-numbers-generator, btw), and comes with
>something like "guidelines for posting a winner".
>And it must be taken into account there, that Angband is
>played on multiuser as well as on singleuser-platforms.
>It is, for example, an advantage for the user on the
>multiuser-platform that he get's all the monster-memory from
>his ancestors.
Making winner post is probably pretty fun.
It seems to me that insisting on the same rng is probably getting a
little bit silly. Different rngs will generate different combos of
monsters, but I'm sure that they will end up equally difficult in the
final analysis.
My Mac is single-user and I can use my dead characters for their
monster memory. I don't see what you mean, unless the PC versions don't
allow one to do so. It wouldn't surprise me at all.
Martian
== Would it not be easiest to do the following:
==You win on a) Easy level. Therefore you get (0.5)x(SCORE)
== b) Medium level. You get (1.0)x(SCORE)
== c) Difficult level. You get (2.0)x(SCORE)
==this way the scoretable would accurately reflect the "value" of the
==victory.
But who cares about scores in a single user game?
Abigail
Joseph William Dixon
a *lot* harder to kill, and only encounterable *after* the quest(s) are
completed. [perhaps add a puzzle component to the quests - ala' the old
Dungeon Master game (move a specific object from one spot to another;
have several objects, and randomize the one which must be moved. Step on
specific spots in a specific order, or even combination switches).]
It'd be a bitch to program, I'd bet, but it *would* make the later
levels riskier and more fun for the experienced players - for a little
while at least...
--
* I am aa...@cfn.cs.dal.ca & Joseph Dixon, but people call me Gumby. *
* Life's a bitch and then you die / Nothing you can do about it / *
* Anything you steal or buy / You're gonna be leaving here without it *
* "Survival" by Joe Jackson (from "Big World", 1986) *
Joseph William Dixon
: It'd be a bitch to program, I'd bet, but it *would* make the later
: while at least...
Oops... Almost forgot to mention something - every other idea posted
here would penalize newer players, or those of us who're normally
unlucky, making the game virtually unplayable. Implementing the quests
wouldn't do that - it'd only affect those who regularly manage to get deep...
Randy Hutson
David A Bonar <dbo...@tiger.lsu.edu> wrote:
>: In article <3gm256$n...@news.tamu.edu> ra...@picard.tamu.edu (Randy Hutson)
>: writes:
>: >than on "inside" knowledge, spoilers, and tricks. Once you know how,
>: >killing Morgoth is just an eventually which occurs after a period of
>: >time.
>certain things should either be available in the game (such as resistances)
>either through a second form of ident. of perhaps through the trial
>and error method noted below but what sorts of strategy and thinking
>are you thinking of?
The first thing which comes to mind is resource management. Currently,
I KNOW I can get all of the cure critical wounds potions, identify
scrolls, etc. that I want just by resting at 50 ft. I'd either like to
see this silly need to rest for stores to restock be removed (stores have
generous supplies), or for this "trick" to be removed. (If a player wants
10 scrolls of enchant armor, what's the point of forcing a player to rest
thousands of turns at 50 ft. in order to get them? Either sell them to
the player or don't.) Now if you can't count on being able to WOR back
to town and just rest until a staff of teleportation shows in the store,
then you'll definitely be more discriminating in using up charges on one.
This is the sort of "thinking" I was thinking of. ("Do I really want to
use up the last charge on my staff of teleportation to get away from
these Water Hounds? Perhaps I shouldn't have let them surround me.")
> So far the only info I've seen that one needs to play Angband that
>isn't in the game itself is the artifact and good item info. The way
>roguelike games are set up its automatic that once you figure out a few
>tricks to each game and determine what does what you can win (baring
>the practically random deaths) by just going through the motions.
I wouldn't consider this a compliment to the design of such games.
And I don't believe rogue was quite like this. I never won rogue.
(I did get the amulet, but I didn't make it out of the dungeon with it.)
> Why is learning by dying so bad?
Recall the context in which my original comments were made. I was
referring to learning about which particularly nasty monsters should
be avoided. I later expounded:
RH> What I was
RH> trying to say is that I think it would be much more desirable for the
RH> game to be self-documenting and/or accurate documentation was provided
RH> _with_ the game. Learning by playing and dying sounds straightforward
RH> enough, but I don't think very people many do it that way.
I consider it reasonable for new players to die often at low levels while
learning game tactics (the need to teleport away when in danger, the need
for missile weapons, etc.) I don't think it's reasonable for medium level
players to receive an instant death when they first encounter a Drolem (et al).
>That's actually my biggest
>complaint with all roguelike games; no one wants to learn by dying
>because then you have to do the tedious part (lower levels that you
>have experienced before) again before getting to the excitement of
>discovering new things.
No one wants to because it is tedious and time consuming, so practically
no one does. That's my whole point. I am suggesting that "The Game"
face this fact and somehow provide the information that players
are going to get anyway (specifically, info. on monsters and artifacts).
> Thus they tend to be structured so that most
>encounters have either little danger or total danger. I find I'm generally
>running around without any serious opposition or else I'm scraping up
>everything to win. I'd prefer a more even danger allocation where
>I had to be on my toes all the time but where I was unlikely to go
>all at once (or even a few turns) from really fine to really dead.
I also would find such a design to be desirable. The problem is finding
someone to design and test this (the same problem as with difficulty levels).
David A Bonar
: In article <3grhb7$1k...@tiger1.ocs.lsu.edu>,
: David A Bonar <dbo...@tiger.lsu.edu> wrote:
: >: > I'd like to see more emphasis placed on strategy and thinking
: >: >than on "inside" knowledge, spoilers, and tricks. Once you know how,
: >: >killing Morgoth is just an eventually which occurs after a period of
: >: >time.
: > I still am not exactly sure what you are saying.
: The first thing which comes to mind is resource management. Currently,
: I KNOW I can get all of the cure critical wounds potions, identify
: scrolls, etc. that I want just by resting at 50 ft. I'd either like to
: see this silly need to rest for stores to restock be removed (stores have
: generous supplies), or for this "trick" to be removed. (If a player wants
: 10 scrolls of enchant armor, what's the point of forcing a player to rest
: thousands of turns at 50 ft. in order to get them? Either sell them to
: the player or don't.
To me this is similar to haggling. I hate both ideas but I don't
count them as strategy or skill. Since players are going to wait around
until they have as many X's as they want then either the game should
accommodate them or there should be a harder limit that can't be defeated
(perhaps only so many are available with restocking occuring each time
you gain a level?)
Resource/inventory management within the dungeon is the
only skill in Angband right now. Which is why I don't think any of the
suggestions so far are going to materially effect the difficulty of
the game. Adding extra info or learning levels doesn't really add
any new skills to the game. It just reduces the time needed to learn
various aspects of the game. I would love to see all of the artifact
info available within the game (easily available) and some more info
on the relative attacks, defenses and dangers of various creatures
before one meets them. This wouldn't remove any of the skill already
needed to win but would perhaps stop a few semi-useless deaths at
mid levels and generally make the game friendlier.
) Now if you can't count on being able to WOR back
: to town and just rest until a staff of teleportation shows in the store,
: then you'll definitely be more discriminating in using up charges on one.
: This is the sort of "thinking" I was thinking of. ("Do I really want to
: use up the last charge on my staff of teleportation to get away from
: these Water Hounds? Perhaps I shouldn't have let them surround me.")
Ok, it does look like we are on the same wavelength here. As I've
mentioned before (although no one commented on it) I think that WoR
should be restricted in some way. The game feels wrong if you can just
bounce up and down from the town level all the time.
: > So far the only info I've seen that one needs to play Angband that
: >isn't in the game itself is the artifact and good item info. The way
: >roguelike games are set up its automatic that once you figure out a few
: >tricks to each game and determine what does what you can win (baring
: >the practically random deaths) by just going through the motions.
: I wouldn't consider this a compliment to the design of such games.
: And I don't believe rogue was quite like this. I never won rogue.
: (I did get the amulet, but I didn't make it out of the dungeon with it.)
I don't consider it a compliment. I find I play each roguelike
game once through. After that one "winner" character and all his
failed ancestors I've generally explored the system and its lost its
charm for me. Oddly enough, while I enjoy the other roguelike games
I never liked Rogue itself. I think it carried the scarce resource
idea too far.
: RH> What I was
: RH> trying to say is that I think it would be much more desirable for the
: RH> game to be self-documenting and/or accurate documentation was provided
: RH> _with_ the game. Learning by playing and dying sounds straightforward
: RH> enough, but I don't think very people many do it that way.
: I consider it reasonable for new players to die often at low levels while
: learning game tactics (the need to teleport away when in danger, the need
: for missile weapons, etc.) I don't think it's reasonable for medium level
: players to receive an instant death when they first encounter a Drolem (et al).
I don't think its ever reasonable to put a well played character into
an instant death situation. So in a sense I agree with you. But I do think
that the game should maintain some danger to mid or higher level characters.
I think that the problem of finding instant death monsters well out
of depth (ie finding them before there is any reason to suppose you are
ready to meet them) is bigger then the problem of finding out about
a specific monster's nastiness by dying.
: No one wants to because it is tedious and time consuming, so practically
: no one does. That's my whole point. I am suggesting that "The Game"
: face this fact and somehow provide the information that players
: are going to get anyway (specifically, info. on monsters and artifacts).
But would knowing that Drolems breath poison really tell someone
how deadly they are unless he had either experienced it himself or
been told exactly how deadly?
Dave
Randy Hutson
David A Bonar <dbo...@tiger.lsu.edu> wrote:
>Randy Hutson (ra...@picard.tamu.edu) wrote:
>: I'd either like to
>: see this silly need to rest for stores to restock be removed (stores have
>: generous supplies), or for this "trick" to be removed. (If a player wants
>: 10 scrolls of enchant armor, what's the point of forcing a player to rest
>: thousands of turns at 50 ft. in order to get them? Either sell them to
>: the player or don't.
> To me this is similar to haggling. I hate both ideas but I don't
>count them as strategy or skill. Since players are going to wait around
>until they have as many X's as they want then either the game should
>accommodate them or there should be a harder limit that can't be defeated
Good analogy. I forgot about haggling. I simply won't play the game with
haggling so I tend to forget about it.
>(perhaps only so many are available with restocking occuring each time
>you gain a level?)
Hmm, now there's an idea I like. Of course each restocking should be generous.
And there's also the problem of what to do after a character reaches level
50.
> Resource/inventory management within the dungeon is the
>only skill in Angband right now. Which is why I don't think any of the
>suggestions so far are going to materially effect the difficulty of
>the game. Adding extra info or learning levels doesn't really add
>any new skills to the game.
I remember that this whole discussion got started when David desJardins
suggested making the game harder. I believe that he favored limiting
resources in some way. Of course many people felt that the game was
already hard enough (or too hard). So David suggested adding difficulty
levels. Now, limiting resources would make the game harder (agreed?),
so it would be a feature of a high difficulty level. (I suppose that it
wouldn't introduce a strictly new skill into the game though.)
I think that what David really wanted to see was for it to be uncertain
that you could win the game. I like this idea too. The past approaches of
making the game "harder" were things like increase monster X's hitpoints,
make good items more rare, effectively remove cloning, the elemental stat
attacks, etc. These certainly make the game take longer to complete, but
they don't necessarily decrease your chances of winning the game. If you
play safely, you're still going to win eventually (barring a random death).
Now if you don't play safely, I do agree that such changes descrease your
chances of winning.
> Ok, it does look like we are on the same wavelength here. As I've
>mentioned before (although no one commented on it) I think that WoR
>should be restricted in some way. The game feels wrong if you can just
>bounce up and down from the town level all the time.
I expect that most people were holding their breaths hoping that your
suggestion would be ignored. :-) Restricting WOR would limit resources
and make the game more challenging I think. This would be a major change
and need to be well thought out though. For example, warriors would have
a problem starving unless more food was found in the dungeon. It would be
nice to spend more time in the dungeon than resting and shopping. If the
items normally found in shops were made much more common in the dungeon,
this might be feasible. The external object list in Angband 2.7 makes
tinkering around with this idea much easier. Perhaps I'll try out a
limited WOR scheme and see what it's like.
> But would knowing that Drolems breath poison really tell someone
>how deadly they are unless he had either experienced it himself or
>been told exactly how deadly?
OK. Let's say there was a common game object called a Scroll of Rumor.
Low level players (at least) would see a lot of them. One scroll might
read: "They say the first time a Drolem breathes on you will be the last."
This is the sort of information I would like to see the game provide.
Another approach would be to provide "research" information of some
sort. With this, you might be able to find out all about a particular
monster (attacks, defenses, etc.). (No, I don't have an idea of how to
incorporate this into the game sensibly, but I haven't thought about it
much.)
Brian Collett
Hutson) wrote:
> BH=Ben Harrison (be...@linc.cis.upenn.edu)
>
> RH) Yes, but it would be nice if the need for spoiler files was removed, and
> RH) the whole learning process was legitimized.
> BH) -----------
>
>
> Well _I'm_ not if that's what anyone thought. I simply think that the
> realistic need for spoiler files is silly and a sign of a problem with
> the game. I certainly used spoiler files when I first started playing the
> game (and still do sometimes),.....
I am not so sure that spoiler files in themselves are a problem. I mean
who would set off on a quest like this without doing a little studying up
first to learn abouth the things you will meet (raving lunatics, or folks
with no choice such as Beren and Luthien asides). The game already
assumes that there have been many others who have descended into the pits
of Angband (every so often you get to meet one afterall) and so there
should be a way to share their knowledge. I see the spoiler files as the
collected wisdom of all the nutters who have made this trip before me.
This is most especially true of spoilers for such things as staves and
wands since who would buy something as expensive as they are without a
fair idea of what it was you were buying!
Brian-who already spends to much time playing Angband and is not at all
sure that harder is a really good idea!
David L Evens
: In article <3gsp2v$6...@dec2.rz.hu-berlin.de>,
: Bernd Wiebelt <wie...@pearson.mathematik.hu-berlin.de> wrote:
: >Ben Harrison (be...@linc.cis.upenn.edu) wrote:
: >
: >: Well then, I guess I better take it out then... :-) Seriously, I will
: >: make it an option, for people who do not want their inventory to
: >: stack. Or is it just that stacking wands and staffs is a problem?
: >: That would be even easier to change. My belief has always been that
: >: if my player can carry 300 lbs, then he should certainly be able to
: >: carry more than 20 daggers.
: >
: >The problem is not carrying daggers. The problem is carrying
: >things that are either *very* useful, such as rods, or things that
: >are *very* expensive such as dragon mail.
: >I don't know how much time you have spent on the stacking code,
: >but it might be better to take it out alltogether, since it would be
: >an extreme advantage for those who use it.
: But if I can carry 300 lbs., why shouldn't I be able to carry 250 lbs.
: of DSM? Stacking is IMO a hack to make up for the poor inventory system
: of Angband, which is just about the only thing that I hate. A character
: should be able to carry his limit, not just 20 items. Why can't the
: inventory code be changed to be like the shop code, in that a key will
: browse through it? Then a character could carry his limit.
Actually, at medium deep levels, you can already end up going over your
300 lb. limit without being able to stack *DSM. Or, at least I have.
: I think part of the problem is that characters can carry so much. How
--
---------------------------+--------------------------------------------------
Ring around the neutron, | "OK, so he's not terribly fearsome.
A pocket full of positrons,| But he certainly took us by surprise!"
A fission, a fusion, |
We all fall down! |
---------------------------+--------------------------------------------------
Joseph William Dixon
since I've not been able to get a character below 500' without backing up
my savefiles (I've never used them to get the uniques to drop good items,
BTW) - seems to be about being able to wait around at 50' to restock the
stores. Here's an idea for future versions:
Alter the Word of Recall scroll, rod and spells so that they return you
either to the town (while in the dungeon) or to the last level visited,
regardless of depth and how you got there. [even at 1000' you've gotta
return to town occasionally to get the various stat restoration potions,
and will probably wait around at 50' to get said restoration potion if
the stores are out... If the WoR would make you loose the 950', I think
most people would hesitate to bum around at 50', regardless of the item
they might want. :] (in my experience, stat restore potions don't become
common as dirt until about 1300'...)
--
# Joseph W. Dixon # I love you coffee; You make me glow. #
# Gumby # You make me smile. I love you so. #
# aa...@cfn.cs.dal.ca # My nerves don't like you, but what do they know? #
# jdi...@io.org # - Garfield [01-Oct-82] #
Christopher Wade Skinner
I haven't posted this idea before, because I suspect it, like quest
implimentation, would be difficult to code, and I am not a coder.
I hope no one will simply post a "go code it yourself" message,
since I'm very curious as to a) how difficult this idea would be to
impliment and b) what people think of it.
My idea:
Every so often a theme level is generated, occupied in part or
whole by some magic of the elements (frost, fire, air, or water).
I have heard that similar things exist in Nethack (I've never
played, as it seems too much for my small mind to grasp). The idea
would work as follows:
The area of the level inhabited by the elemental forces would be a
different color (walls+floor brown, blue, whatever). Here, the
coding would be difficult, due to items "fading" into the
background. Perhaps the floor could stay a normal colour. In
these elemental demesnes, live many elementals, more powerful than
our usual brand of elemental. Perhaps princes or whole rafts of
nobility could be added to the elemental courts, with each
generated level harder as time went on, until the kings or queens were
killed. Nifty artifacts could be added or special items of an
"elemental" type could be added.
Some thoughts on game effects:
Levels of COLD (ICE): Damage every turn unless armour class above
X or Resist Cold. Inhabited by lots of cold hounds, ice
elementals, winter wolves, white dragons, etc. Perhaps a temporary
dex drain if armor class below X. Weapons of Frost much more
common, etc.
Levels of FIRE (FLAME): Damage every turn unless resist Fire or
Heat, etc. Could damage inventory.
Levels of AIR (WIND): Random air events (tornadoes, hurricanes,
gales, gasses) exploding around you--boots of slow descent a very
good idea (or Feather Falling, etc.) Perhaps even random
teleportation (Wyrm Holes--not, just kidding). Very nasty Clound
Demons, or the like.
Levels of WATER: This one requires more work. Perhps varying
depth--some areas you are slowed, other, you must have a special
ring to breathe ("you begin to drown.") Weight and AC have a
a negative effect on movement\combat, free action is a great aid.
Perhaps pools of corrosive, salt-like water, sweet, curative water.
(Is this too Nethacky?). Damage to armour, carried and or worn.
Make players strip off to find goodies--"with your dagger (HA) and
mithril undies, challange the queen of the undines!"--Johnny
Weismuller lives!
So, enough, already. Any input?
cws
negative impact on movement \combat, free action is a great aid.
D
gales), random gasses exploding arond you
killed
Phil Yellott
your items, their history, reported powers, etc. stuff you dont get from
self knowledge. Also could tell you about uniques, same sort of info.
Phil Yellott
phily...@delphi.com
A G Jackson
intelligent. Make them try to find alternate routes to you if they get stuck.
Make them bounce breath weapons/mana balls etc. off walls to stop you pulling the
column trick. Make them use all the neat tricks that the player has access to.
Add fear code as standard.
This strikes me as more interesting and challenging than just giving Morgoth more
hit points and making him go faster and resist more.
Of course, you'd need some more spells/items to cope with this - a spell of
binding, maybe, to stop the terrified Sauron from teleporting away...
Adrian
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Adrian Jackson | a.g.j...@durham.ac.uk | 7 Durham Terr., Framwellgate |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Kryten: We don't eat curries every night, if that's what you mean. In |
| fact, I distinctly remember a time last June: Mr Lister had a |
| pizza. |
+---------------[ http://www.dur.ac.uk/~d3jccx/index.html ]----------------+
Martian
==In article <3h0ppj$1b...@tiger1.ocs.lsu.edu>,
==David A Bonar <dbo...@tiger.lsu.edu> wrote:
==>Randy Hutson (ra...@picard.tamu.edu) wrote:
==>(perhaps only so many are available with restocking occuring each time
==>you gain a level?)
==Hmm, now there's an idea I like. Of course each restocking should be generous.
==And there's also the problem of what to do after a character reaches level
==50.
You could make chance a shop restocks depend on the relation level of
character vs dungeon level character is in. Thus if the counter % 1000
== 0, and a level 50 is resting on 50 feet, the chance a shop restocks
would be very low, while it will succeed with chance 1 if a level 1 is
on 50 feet.
==> Ok, it does look like we are on the same wavelength here. As I've
==>mentioned before (although no one commented on it) I think that WoR
==>should be restricted in some way. The game feels wrong if you can just
==>bounce up and down from the town level all the time.
==I expect that most people were holding their breaths hoping that your
==suggestion would be ignored. :-) Restricting WOR would limit resources
==and make the game more challenging I think. This would be a major change
==and need to be well thought out though. For example, warriors would have
==a problem starving unless more food was found in the dungeon. It would be
==nice to spend more time in the dungeon than resting and shopping. If the
==items normally found in shops were made much more common in the dungeon,
==this might be feasible. The external object list in Angband 2.7 makes
==tinkering around with this idea much easier. Perhaps I'll try out a
==limited WOR scheme and see what it's like.
Limiting WOR sounds interesting, but could easily make the game too hard
for many. A few ideas to compensate for (partial) loss of WOR:
- Have long stairs in the dungeon. In stead of going up 50 feet, you
could go up much more with one staircase. (Perhaps even "all the way" -
small chance for such a staircase of course). Same for going down. Players
should be able to examine the stairs and see how deep it goes, there is
nothing funny about a level 2 going down stairs from 50 feet to 2000 feet,
expecting to go to only 100 feet.
- Have certain kind of monsters make 'special' drops. For instance, let
hobbits drop 2 - 10 rations of food, depending on the level of the hobbit.
(We would need different hobbits of course). Priests could drop potions
of cure X wounds, with a potion of Healing/*Healing*/Life every now and then.
Another class of monster could drop restore potions, etc, etc.
(Blink dogs drop their stack of Phase door scrolls :))
- Have special shops in the dungeon. For instance, one selling food only, for
500 coins a ration. (After all, the higher levels have zillions of coins
anyway). Shops in the dungeon don't seem to fit in the theme however.
(Isn't shops in the dungeon a nethack thing?)
Abigail
Julian Bean
In article <3gr02s$a...@karhu.Helsinki.FI> vali...@cc.Helsinki.FI (Mika
Valiviita) writes:
>In <3glfpu$3...@news.tamu.edu> ra...@picard.tamu.edu (Randy Hutson) writes:
>
>>Des Courtney (dco...@opie.bgsu.edu) wrote:
>>:In article <3gj2nc$3...@news.tamu.edu>, Randy Hutson wrote:
>
>>:Problem is, especially with RoS, I could literally take weeks to
>>:acquire some of the rarer items.
>
>>Getting a ROS is a one of several discrete steps in character development.
>
>The problem is that it stays the same from game to game, you play the
>first 20-40 dungeon levels over and over again, and only rarely you
>get beyond 2000'. Either because you die early, or if you are the
>careful type, it takes so long to safely reach that depth.
>
>And even after that, you just look up the uniques, collect the same
>artifacts, and kill Wyrms to reach maximum exp. level. (Anybody to
>confess they get Balli Stonehand very often? And that artifact cloaks
>are equal in rarity to Ringil?)
>
>It's just the same all over again, except in those RARE occasions you
>actually find Ringil or the One Ring. (Or RoS (+2) at 50')
>
>I think we need more randomness in this game, and I mean radical
>changes:
>
>1: Random artifacts. Or at least random flags on ordinary items.
> This would also need the *Identify* scrolls.
I like it. I particularly like *Identify* scrolls.. or the game will tell
you.. (After a few hundred hits... 'Hmm.. this weapon seems to bite orcs
viciously' a bit like monster recalls)
>2: Random monsters! Pick a class, give random abilities, attacks etc.
> Uniques in the sense that you won't find another quite like it.
> You could never be sure what you're up against, thus creating
> more excitement. Random names, f.ex. 9-headed Crystal Zombie,
> Young Multihued Kobold... (Might get silly though.)
Not sure about this, myself.
>3: LONG staircases. I think this was done in AmigaMoria3.0 (the very
> old one). Have a chance, based on players exp. level, for a longer
> than usual staircase. Length determined by dungeon level, at level
> 50', chance for a 2 level staircase, at 4000' maybe even rnd(9)+1
> levels. Thus, by staying at the low levels for the 5/1 rule, going
> deeper really meant deeper.
Sounds fun
>4: More different levels. The destroyed levels had an idea, but they
> are just annoying, I usually leave if there wasn't something special.
> Currently the dungeon parameters are compile-time defines, that is,
> constants. Which makes all levels look alike. By making some of them
> variables, we could have levels with more/less rooms, corridors,
> and what else is there. (I was thinking of multistorey levels, with
> variable elevations, and so on, but that may be just megalomania... :)
Definitely.
>5: Better shops. After finding/buying the ring of speed, money becomes
> a nonissue, as what you need to buy is cheap when hauling in DSMs.
> And where does all the stuff you sell go? Are they in the shopkeepers
> closets, where they worship them? Or does someone else 'buy' them,
> and maybe bring in his own stuff? Oh, there's the Black Market. And
> it usually sells things like Potion of Cure Light Wounds.
Maybe better shops found in the dungeon. Maybe a second town!! At 2000'? (The
Lost City.. better items, WOR reset to here, more dangerous NPCs.? )
>There! Comments? Impossible? Unbalancing?
>
>Mika
>--
>Mika V{liviita,whose opinions are his own,and nobody elses. This includes,
>but is not limited to,those that are in this electronically distributed
>message. This .sig is irrelevant. Life is futile. Message terminated.
>
Jules
Julian Bean
In article <3gsk9r$5...@comix.cs.uoregon.edu> sv...@cs.uoregon.edu (Nathan
Tenny) writes:
>In article <3gr02s$a...@karhu.Helsinki.FI>,
>Mika Valiviita <vali...@cc.Helsinki.FI> wrote:
>>2: Random monsters! Pick a class, give random abilities, attacks etc.
>> Uniques in the sense that you won't find another quite like it.
>> You could never be sure what you're up against, thus creating
>> more excitement. Random names, f.ex. 9-headed Crystal Zombie,
>> Young Multihued Kobold... (Might get silly though.)
>
>Well, *this* is an interesting thought. I agree that a Young Multihued
>Kobold is a pretty silly idea, but...
>
>Certain monster races could become templates---varying speeds, varying
>numbers (& types?) of attacks, varying life ratings---and, when an instance
>of the monster is generated, it could get a set of particular values. (I
>mean, doesn't it seem likely that some kobolds are particularly athletic
>and can run at double speed? Or that not every sorcerer knows the same
>spells?)
I like those last two possibilities.
>Also, if I can die and come back as a ghost, why can't uniques do the
>same thing? Anyone feel like taking on Tiamat reincarnated as a sort
>of uber-Dracolich? Now *that* could make the game harder.
But only in the same game presumably. Don't want to curse our descendants just
'cos we killed the big D.
>Boy, we're really on a quest to inflate that binary, aren't we? Another
>few versions and it might not fit on my drive. :-)
>
> NT
>
>--
> Nathan Tenny @
> topologist and loose cannon @ A part of wisdom, the easiest part,
> sv...@cs.uoregon.edu @ is called mathematics.
> te...@euclid.uoregon.edu @ -Omar Khayyam
>
Jules
Julian Bean
In article <3gu2lp$s...@cassandra.cair.du.edu> ru...@phoebe.cair.du.edu (Robert
I agree.
Maybe 300lb is too much for a max limit, but as I see it - if you can carry
300lb, you can carry 300lb. Whatever it is.
So reduce the limit (or make it more graduated - as of now, it maxes out at STR
18/01 I think) but allow stacking.
The problem with having stacking as an option is that even people who don't
like the IDEA will probably want it on to compete with those who aren't so
bothered.
Jules
Julian Bean
In article <3h449g$b...@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu> 650...@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu (Christopher
Wade Skinner) writes:
>
>I haven't posted this idea before, because I suspect it, like quest
>implimentation, would be difficult to code, and I am not a coder.
>I hope no one will simply post a "go code it yourself" message,
>since I'm very curious as to a) how difficult this idea would be to
>impliment and b) what people think of it.
>
>My idea:
I like almost all of those general ideas. However I'm not so sure they should
come up occasionally.
I think they should come up once only (each) , perhaps a few levels long (a bit
like the gnomish mines in Hack) perhaps optional (i.e. two staircase on level
1500', one white, one blue...). In fact, bring back the quests, is what I'm
saying.
David desJardins
> Alter the Word of Recall scroll, rod and spells so that they return you
> either to the town (while in the dungeon) or to the last level visited,
> regardless of depth and how you got there. [even at 1000' you've gotta
> return to town occasionally to get the various stat restoration potions,
> and will probably wait around at 50' to get said restoration potion if
> the stores are out... If the WoR would make you loose the 950', I think
> most people would hesitate to bum around at 50', regardless of the item
> they might want. :]
I don't think this would be a bad change, but it doesn't accomplish
much. The most obvious reason being that you can just WOR down to
1000', or whatever depth you are at, to wait for the stores to reset.
Normally when I'm at 1000' I'm jumping up to the surface very frequently
anyway, because after just a few rooms I have a full load of armor or
weapons or rings to sell off. If every time you return to the surface
you stock up on CCW potions and the like, you quickly have more than you
are going to need.
David desJardins
--
Copyright 1995 David desJardins. Unlimited permission is granted to quote
from this posting for non-commercial use as long as attribution is given.
Robert A. Uhl
Julian Bean <jeli...@jmlbhome.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>In article <3gr02s$a...@karhu.Helsinki.FI> vali...@cc.Helsinki.FI (Mika
>Valiviita) writes:
>>In <3glfpu$3...@news.tamu.edu> ra...@picard.tamu.edu (Randy Hutson) writes:
>>
>>
>>I think we need more randomness in this game, and I mean radical
>>changes:
>>
>>1: Random artifacts. Or at least random flags on ordinary items.
>> This would also need the *Identify* scrolls.
>
>I like it. I particularly like *Identify* scrolls.. or the game will tell
>you.. (After a few hundred hits... 'Hmm.. this weapon seems to bite orcs
>viciously' a bit like monster recalls)
I've often wondered why the game doesn't do thid already. Surely one
who has lived all his life in the rough environs of the town would
notice a weapon which slices through certain types rather easy. The
player may not, but the character definitely would.
I think that it is definately time for a Scroll of Rumors and a Scroll
of Knowledge. These should be scattered throughout the lower levels, and
would become less frequent on deeper levels. This would reflect the fact
that the player/character has gained experience and there's not much
that can surprise him. This is not my idea, but has been mentioned
before.
>>2: Random monsters! Pick a class, give random abilities, attacks etc.
>> Uniques in the sense that you won't find another quite like it.
>> You could never be sure what you're up against, thus creating
>> more excitement. Random names, f.ex. 9-headed Crystal Zombie,
>> Young Multihued Kobold... (Might get silly though.)
>
>Not sure about this, myself.
A _bit_ of randomness would be welcome. This whole business about
every kobold being the same as every other, every baby black dragon
(killed my first today!), every whatever, is rather ridiculous. Make
them all slightly different from each other.
I know that this is a perennial question, but why can't Ben (or
whoever) put in code so that when a thief is killed, all possessions are
returned? I know that it would require some nasty restructuring of code,
but since he's already done a lot of that, this should finally be at
least doable.
This could be compensated by making _slightly_ more thieves pop up.
This would cause more theft, giving players more of a reason to not
teleport and WoR to town. Right now, thieves are so rare (because if
they were any more common, the game would be near impossible), that this
incentive is rarely in place. With more thieves, one would would have to
kill them more. Right now, I would rather PD away than fight, unless it
is an easy thief like a novice rogue. But the tough (at low levels)
uniques like Bullroarer and Smeagol offer no incentive to stand and
fight. One never gets back as much as was taken.
>>3: LONG staircases. I think this was done in AmigaMoria3.0 (the very
>> old one). Have a chance, based on players exp. level, for a longer
>> than usual staircase. Length determined by dungeon level, at level
>> 50', chance for a 2 level staircase, at 4000' maybe even rnd(9)+1
>> levels. Thus, by staying at the low levels for the 5/1 rule, going
>> deeper really meant deeper.
>
>Sounds fun
I agree. However, it must be a small chance, especially at the higher
levels. I don't think that many would enjoy being thrown completely out
of their league.
>>4: More different levels. The destroyed levels had an idea, but they
>> are just annoying, I usually leave if there wasn't something special.
>> Currently the dungeon parameters are compile-time defines, that is,
>> constants. Which makes all levels look alike. By making some of them
>> variables, we could have levels with more/less rooms, corridors,
>> and what else is there. (I was thinking of multistorey levels, with
>> variable elevations, and so on, but that may be just megalomania... :)
>
>Definitely.
Once again, an excellent idea. One wonders why these weren't variables
to begin with. Perhaps some were worried aout memory on early machines.
I don't know.
>>5: Better shops. After finding/buying the ring of speed, money becomes
>> a nonissue, as what you need to buy is cheap when hauling in DSMs.
>> And where does all the stuff you sell go? Are they in the shopkeepers
>> closets, where they worship them? Or does someone else 'buy' them,
>> and maybe bring in his own stuff? Oh, there's the Black Market. And
>> it usually sells things like Potion of Cure Light Wounds.
>
>Maybe better shops found in the dungeon. Maybe a second town!! At 2000'? (The
>Lost City.. better items, WOR reset to here, more dangerous NPCs.? )
I love it! It would be a much tougher town, of course (and you would
XP for killing in it). But it might have half-dragons (I know, but they
could be created) strolling throughout. All sorts of nasties would be
lurking in the ruins of a once great city. It would be incredibly cool.
Plus, it would bring money back into play, I think.
>>There! Comments? Impossible? Unbalancing?
You read mine.
--
Randy Hutson
:Joseph William Dixon <aa...@cfn.cs.dal.ca> writes:
:> Alter the Word of Recall scroll, rod and spells so that they return you
:> either to the town (while in the dungeon) or to the last level visited,
:> regardless of depth and how you got there.
:I don't think this would be a bad change, but it doesn't accomplish
:much. The most obvious reason being that you can just WOR down to
:1000', or whatever depth you are at, to wait for the stores to reset.
A more effective solution would be to maintain a store inventory
counter which is not incremented while the player is resting. But
even this won't prevent a player from WORing and then just moving
around in a safe room just to reset the store. This might be considered
infeasible except that with the macro code which I have somewhat
incorporated into Angband 2.7.1, it's easy to write a macro which
does nothing but move back and forth for a rather long number of
turns. These hacked solutions to fundamental flaws in the game are
easily defeated.
BTW, I don't think Angband is too "easy", I just think it's too
straightforward to win once you know how. I wouldn't like to see
it take any longer to complete the game, I'd just prefer that the
outcome be less certain. But, no, I don't have any great ideas
on how to effect this.
David desJardins
> I have nothing against this in theory, but, by creating a range of levels,
> you create cowardly players who stick to the easy levels. (When I
> was a kid, I refused to play Atari 2600 games unless the game mode I
> was playing was designated by a "Teddy Bear".) It is too tempting to
> lower the difficulty when you get frustrated with the current level. Do
> we want this group spammed by "winners" who didn't take a challenge?
Frankly I'm not able to find much sympathy for this argument. What you
are saying is that you don't want me to have a game that I enjoy
playing. I don't regret you the chance to have a game you enjoy. I
just don't understand why I'm not entitled to the same courtesy from
you.
I explained clearly what I'm interested in the posting that started this
thread: a Moria/Angband-like game which assumes perfect knowledge on the
part of the player (i.e., that the player knows everything that's in the
source code) and which is challenging (i.e., when played carefully and
skillfully is difficult to win). That's what I enjoy. If you don't
like it, that's just fine with me. But it hardly seems fair to me for
you to argue that I can't have that game because you don't have the
self-discipline to play a game at an appropriate level.
I think it's just selfishness to say that you don't want someone else to
have something that they want, if it doesn't take anything away from
you.
> Also, while I do use the Artifact spoilers, there are those out there who
> insist on avoiding them for "purity" sake. Access or willing use
> of spoilers already provide a sense of "difficulty adjustment."
No, they don't. They only provide an "experience adjustment," which is
a totally different thing. Deliberately choosing not to know things
about the game which is knowable means that it takes longer to learn to
play the game. But that's not the same as difficulty. At least, it
isn't the same to me.
> I thought one of the points of this whole argument was to provide some way
> to compare "skill" between victorious players (i.e. "bragging rights").
No, it's not at all. Frankly I have no interest in competing with you
or bragging about my results. The whole idea makes no sense to me. I
just want to play a game which I enjoy. And Angband, ultimately, isn't
that game, because I never die and the results are inevitable. Is that
so hard to understand?
David desJardins
> Resource/inventory management within the dungeon is the only skill in
> Angband right now. Which is why I don't think any of the suggestions
> so far are going to materially effect the difficulty of the game.
Well, the suggestions I am making, for better or worse, do directly
address this. A hypothetical example would be to make the availability
of goods in the stores dependent on progress into the dungeon, rather
than on just the amount of time spent sitting around, so that if you
didn't go deeper you wouldn't be able to stock up on an infinite supply
of whatever you want. Actually, I think what I would consider is a
"store" for each level, where upon reaching level N you would be able to
buy items appropriate to that depth. So that no matter how long you
spent on level 10 you wouldn't get a ring of speed in the black market,
but once you go deep enough you are guaranteed to be able to buy one so
long as you have enough cash. To eliminate boring parts of the game
spent sitting around waiting for items which are "mandatory" to go
deeper.
> Ok, it does look like we are on the same wavelength here. As I've
> mentioned before (although no one commented on it) I think that WoR
> should be restricted in some way. The game feels wrong if you can just
> bounce up and down from the town level all the time.
Of course I agree: one might easily go down to the dungeon, see that the
environment looks generally unpromising, and go back up after seeing one
room. There's no reason that you should be able to do this over and
over. Of course Angband does have a mechanism for limiting this:
"special feeling" levels, where you have to explore the whole level for
artifacts. But I think it could do more.
One thing to think about is that the game generates vast numbers of junk
items whose only purpose in life is to be sold in town. What are you
going to do with those hundreds of swords and maces and flails that you
find while looking for potions of intelligence? Or, for that matter,
all of those potions of strength and intelligence that you find after
you have maxed your stats? It seems to me that the right solution is to
rethink the distribution of items to fit their utility, rather than have
most of them just generate cash and junk up the environment. It seems
like busywork to generate all of these items almost all of which are
useless. Better to generate a smaller number items but have them be
generally worth fighting for.
> Oddly enough, while I enjoy the other roguelike games I never liked
> Rogue itself. I think it carried the scarce resource idea too far.
Well, then maybe some of what I am proposing isn't for you. That's the
whole idea behind having a range of "difficulty" settings (or whatever
you want to call them), so that players can take it as far as they want
to go.
> But would knowing that Drolems breath poison really tell someone
> how deadly they are unless he had either experienced it himself or
> been told exactly how deadly?
Or, perhaps, read the source where it says:
{"Drolem",(MV_ATT_NORM|THRO_DR),(0x6L|BLINDNESS|CONFUSION|SLOW|BREATH_G)
,(DRAGON|CHARM_SLEEP|IM_FROST|IM_FIRE|IM_POISON|IM_LIGHTNING|MAX_HP|NO_INFRA)
,(MISSILE),(NONE8),12000,30,25,130,12,'g',{100,30},{48,48,238,238},44,3,'n'},
and
breath(GF_POISON_GAS, char_row, char_col,
((m_ptr->hp / 3) > 800 ? 800 : (m_ptr->hp / 3)), ddesc, monptr);
Martian
==Well then, I guess I better take it out then... :-) Seriously, I will
==make it an option, for people who do not want their inventory to
==stack. Or is it just that stacking wands and staffs is a problem?
==That would be even easier to change. My belief has always been that
==if my player can carry 300 lbs, then he should certainly be able to
==carry more than 20 daggers.
It's not the daggers, but the wands/rods/staves. If you could stack
them, then 1) people would become a lot more powerful, 2) people would
become even faster 'rich' than they do now. (Rich defined as having
enough money to buy a ROS). I think both points have a tremendous
influence on the delicate game balance, making the game too easy.
Abigail
Christopher Barkley
Well, the only real way to bring money back into play is to start
selling things a high level player would want to buy. At this point,
the only stuff I'm likely to actually buy would be boots of speed, a
ring of speed +2, or an artifact. Right now, a lot of the game is
spent wandering around trying to collect these things. If you added a
shop where they were regularly sold, that aspect disappears. Maybe
that's ok, but I think what would happen would be you'd have the exact
same effect except you'd be wandering around trying to stack up enough
cash. Anybody know, offhand, what Ringil would sell for in the
current Black Market?
I don't know if anyone would go for this idea, but I think it has some
possibilities. First, take out Word of Recall entirely. Then make
every 10th or 15th level be a town. Odds are you'd never actually
return to the surface; just keep heading down. Each successively
deeper town would have slightly better stuff and nastier creatures.
The only real problem I can think of is what to do about your house.
I suppose we could take the cop-out approach of making it available in
every town. "When you check into your room, a messenger is sent to
collect your belongings from storage."
Anybody have any thoughts on this one?
--
Christopher Barkley The DarkMage
bar...@cse.ogi.edu http://www.cse.ogi.edu/~barkley
PGP Public Key Available
David Reeve Sward
Angband More Dif.. by Robert A. U...@phoebe.cai
> whoever) put in code so that when a thief is killed, all possessions are
> returned? I know that it would require some nasty restructuring of code,
> but since he's already done a lot of that, this should finally be at
> least doable.
This would remove ANY threat that thieves have right now. Had a wand
stolen? Just wander through the level until you find a thief and kill
it to get the wand back. *yawn*
> This could be compensated by making _slightly_ more thieves pop up.
> This would cause more theft, giving players more of a reason to not
> teleport and WoR to town. Right now, thieves are so rare (because if
> they were any more common, the game would be near impossible), that this
> incentive is rarely in place. With more thieves, one would would have to
> kill them more. Right now, I would rather PD away than fight, unless it
> is an easy thief like a novice rogue. But the tough (at low levels)
> uniques like Bullroarer and Smeagol offer no incentive to stand and
> fight. One never gets back as much as was taken.
And if Bullroarer kept the stuff he stole from you, why worry? Just
keep hacking away and eventually he will fall. *poof* You have your
missing stuff back.
--
David Sward swa...@cmu.edu
David A Bonar
: David A Bonar <dbo...@tiger.lsu.edu> writes:
: > Resource/inventory management within the dungeon is the only skill in
: > Angband right now. Which is why I don't think any of the suggestions
: > so far are going to materially effect the difficulty of the game.
: Well, the suggestions I am making, for better or worse, do directly
: address this. A hypothetical example would be to make the availability
: of goods in the stores dependent on progress into the dungeon, rather
: than on just the amount of time spent sitting around, so that if you
: didn't go deeper you wouldn't be able to stock up on an infinite supply
: of whatever you want. Actually, I think what I would consider is a
: "store" for each level, where upon reaching level N you would be able to
: buy items appropriate to that depth. So that no matter how long you
: spent on level 10 you wouldn't get a ring of speed in the black market,
: but once you go deep enough you are guaranteed to be able to buy one so
: long as you have enough cash. To eliminate boring parts of the game
: spent sitting around waiting for items which are "mandatory" to go
: deeper.
Ah, this is the type of thing that interests me. Previously
I had only seen vague comments on difficulty levels and making items
scarce (its very possible that I missed some posts though). Just making
items scarce doesn't help at present since waiting to find things is not
a problem. But actually attempting to make items scarce when they are
either way too good or not worth bothering with while making them
at least somewhat available when they become needed make a lot of sense.
The only problem I have with this is that insuring the availability
of certain items (RoS is the main one) tends to limit the game in a differet
manner by removing the excitement. If you know you will be able to buy
one right about the time you want to go below 2000 feet there is no reason
to search for one or to feel pleased when you find one.
: One thing to think about is that the game generates vast numbers of junk
: items whose only purpose in life is to be sold in town. What are you
: going to do with those hundreds of swords and maces and flails that you
: find while looking for potions of intelligence? Or, for that matter,
: all of those potions of strength and intelligence that you find after
: you have maxed your stats? It seems to me that the right solution is to
: rethink the distribution of items to fit their utility, rather than have
: most of them just generate cash and junk up the environment. It seems
: like busywork to generate all of these items almost all of which are
: useless. Better to generate a smaller number items but have them be
: generally worth fighting for.
Hmm, I don't mind having all of the items generated. If nothing
else they are a source of cash for mid level characters. And, if/when
their value as cash becomes too little to bother with, they add to the
feel of the game. Afterall, if you know that they are not going to help
you just ignore them.
: > Oddly enough, while I enjoy the other roguelike games I never liked
: > Rogue itself. I think it carried the scarce resource idea too far.
: Well, then maybe some of what I am proposing isn't for you. That's the
: whole idea behind having a range of "difficulty" settings (or whatever
: you want to call them), so that players can take it as far as they want
: to go.
The odd thing is I think you ideas have merit for the most part.
Its a straight reduction in item frequency that I don't like.
BTW, one interesting point that I just thought of. Given that no
one has thought of a way to add any other skills to Angband other then
inventory management does changing to a fewer-but-generally-better item
enviroment really make things harder? I contend that it just makes
things more random. In Rogue I have had many, many characters who died
relatively quickly due to lack of food or by being forced to dive
deeper just to get food. When items get too rare I find that character's
are at the mercy of the random number generator. If they go through a
small dry spell in finding the 'right' items they are out of luck even
if played well.
Dave
Des Courtney
) Frankly I'm not able to find much sympathy for this argument. What you
) are saying is that you don't want me to have a game that I enjoy
) playing. I don't regret you the chance to have a game you enjoy. I
) just don't understand why I'm not entitled to the same courtesy from
) you.
[snip]
) I think it's just selfishness to say that you don't want someone else to
) have something that they want, if it doesn't take anything away from
) you.
If my arguments were as personal as you made them out to be, I wouldn't
have posted. I'm not the only one who is yet to beat Morgoth, or the
only one to compare scores. (What is the whole point of the high
score list!?!) As I mentioned in another post, I would find it
personally offensive if the game was made easier; it would invalidate
my past 2 years of playing the game and not being able to win. I'm
sure others would not appreciate the rug being pulled out from under
them.
You talk about how Angband is too easy because you can always beat it now.
Can you name *one* strategy game that cannot be eventually beat
consistantly? In the arcades, I personally cannot master a game
like "Mortal Kombat," yet there are people who can consistantly beat
Kintaro and his master, at any difficulty setting. Most Nintendo and
Sega RPGs can be beaten by patience alone. This personally doesn't
make them any less enjoyable to me. (However, see below.) The only
types of games that have a siginifant likelihood of beating players
would be games with multiple players, or games with high proportions
of chance. (I gave up on Rogue because of the latter.)
The reason I prefer Angband over other CRPGs is the sense of wonder and
mystery involved in each level. While artifacts and uniques are
constant, the level layouts, the appearance of good items, and the
identity of unknown items change from game to game. All the glitzy,
graphical games lack this chaotic unpredictability. And, yet, it is
still theoretically possible to win every game. The inevitability of
victory is not a "flaw" in Angband, but a "flaw" in strategy gaming in
general.
If you think playing a game that you have beaten is boring, I have a
simple remedy. Play a different game. You can only beat a horse so
much before it's dead. I personally have no problem getting a different
game after beating one. Even a sequel with a different storyline is an
improvement over sticking with one game. I've done this with games that
*cost* money to play; shouldn't it be more likely for "free" games to have
more turnaround? As I mentioned, I beat Moria *once* and moved on to its
"sequel," Angband. After all, "there are many fish in the sea."
If Angband was meant for play for decades at a time, we wouldn't have
a periodic change of maintainers. Chuck lost Net access, and Ben picked
up the baton. When Ben finishes his "Angband-O-Matic" project for his
degree, it's likely he'll pass maintainence of the game to someone with
more time than him. It's a *game*. Even if games are to be taken
seriously (which they are (-;), it must be remembered that, like life,
games are transient experiences.
If you wish to make a game you enjoy, be my guest. Just don't call it
Angband; that name's been taken.
Des Courtney
--
This message was written by the one and only DCO...@opie.bgsu.edu,
or known to his friends as "Des Courtney." This is a test .sig.
If this had been an actual .sig, you would have been bombarded by
dozens of lines of ASCII graphics which would shamelessly waste
bandwidth and your time. (I let the message do that. (-:)
Nathan Tenny
Martian <abi...@mars.ic.iaf.nl> wrote:
>It's not the daggers, but the wands/rods/staves. If you could stack
>them, then 1) people would become a lot more powerful, 2) people would
>become even faster 'rich' than they do now. (Rich defined as having
I don't see that. There's a problem with trying to make yourself powerful
by stacking a bunch of rods; they have to swap into other inventory slots
while they're recharging. (The more I think about this, the more I think
it makes some sense---if the character took a charging Rod of Sludge Bolts
and stuffed it back into the bunch of similar rods in its pack, the next
time it went to cast a sludge bolt, it would be at risk of grabbing the
uncharged rod---y'know what I mean? So it makes some sense that one
should have to keep charging rods separate.) Anyway, does anyone really
find so many magnificent rods as to make much of a difference? The only
serious rods I've found in large quantities are fire bolts and frost
bolts, and by the time a bunch of them started showing up, I had enough
mana to cast my own damn bolts (for a lot more damage). (More of an issue
for warriors, I guess.)
The second point seems more substantial to me, although the game isn't *so*
money-driven that it strikes me as a big deal. Next to the price of a ring
of speed, the money you get from a handful of extra Rods of Spam Balls isn't
all that much.
NT
--
Nathan Tenny @ I do not believe that the same God
topologist and loose cannon @ who endowed us with reason and intellect
sv...@cs.uoregon.edu @ also intended us to forgo their use.
te...@euclid.uoregon.edu @ -Galileo
Joseph William Dixon
character creation] to set monster density - IE overall how many
creatures will be created at a time. Maybe use a rating system - a
density of 2 would be what we're all used to, a density of 1 would be
perhaps 1/2 the usual numbers of creatures, while a 3 would be doubled
the normal amount...
Along the same lines: Creature Hit Points: 1 - x1/2, 2 - x1, 3 - x2
Perhaps also one for the amount of treasure dropped... 1 = one class
lower [eg, Wormtongue would *not* be a guaranteed Artifact dropper!], 2 =
normal, 3 = one class higher [IE from "good" items to "excellent" items,
as described in the monster memory]
Remember, these should *only* be configurable during character
creation. Then they, and other easy/normal/hard options, could be
averaged out to a difficulty level indicator that would be printed with
the character sheet.
--
## Joseph W. Dixon ### Gumby ### aa...@cfn.cs.dal.ca ### jdi...@io.org ##
#I love you coffee; you make me glow. You make me smile, I love you so.#
#My nerves don't like you, but what do they know? - Garfield [01-Oct-82]#
Billy Tanksley
>David A Bonar <dbo...@tiger.lsu.edu> writes:
>of whatever you want. Actually, I think what I would consider is a
>"store" for each level, where upon reaching level N you would be able to
>buy items appropriate to that depth. So that no matter how long you
>spent on level 10 you wouldn't get a ring of speed in the black market,
>but once you go deep enough you are guaranteed to be able to buy one so
>long as you have enough cash. To eliminate boring parts of the game
>spent sitting around waiting for items which are "mandatory" to go
>deeper.
Well, I consider the "mandatory" part to be fairly bad, but...
How about a compromise, only allowing the stores to be updated with items
appropriate to the level that you are on when they restock. (The black
market would go a bit deeper, perhaps the general store a bit shallower,
but same idea). This should be right easy to code.
Another solution, which requires a bit more coding, would be to have the
store only generate items of the minimum of either the level you're on
when generated (as above) or the level of the item you last sold them.
-Billy
I think this fits in with what you're proposing.
Billy Tanksley
>>1: Random artifacts. Or at least random flags on ordinary items.
>> This would also need the *Identify* scrolls.
>I like it. I particularly like *Identify* scrolls.. or the game will tell
>you.. (After a few hundred hits... 'Hmm.. this weapon seems to bite orcs
>viciously' a bit like monster recalls)
I like the basic idea, bit it seems to me that using the name *Identify*
is a little bit off-- I don't think that the two functions are parallel.
How about having the game tell you and putting it in your current weapon
memory? It would be nice to make it a _LOT_ easier to distinguish
between the various capabilities (including curses) without fully
identifying. After doing that, we could also make ID scrolls VERY rare,
since they would be needed only for _Artifacts_ to allow activation (i.e.
"I suspect that this ring is a Ring of Power, but I don't DARE activate
it 'till I know _which_ one [and I'm not willing to try it on yet,
either].").
>>2: Random monsters! Pick a class, give random abilities, attacks etc.
>> Uniques in the sense that you won't find another quite like it.
>> You could never be sure what you're up against, thus creating
>> more excitement. Random names, f.ex. 9-headed Crystal Zombie,
>> Young Multihued Kobold... (Might get silly though.)
>Not sure about this, myself.
I sort of like it. Ben, how about adding to your Monster specification file
to allow this; define some basic variations that can be made, and let
them be specified so that only certain variations can occur to certain
monsters, and only in certain ways?
M:130:"Kobold"
...
V:MULTI_HEADED & MULTI_ADDITIONAL_SPELLS | VARI_COLORED & VARI_SPELL
V:FAST & MOVE_CONFUSED
V:NAMES "Kobyld" | "Little person" | "Shriveled ~ husk of magic" & COLORING
Would this be a good way?
>>3: LONG staircases. I think this was done in AmigaMoria3.0 (the very
>> old one). Have a chance, based on players exp. level, for a longer
>> than usual staircase. Length determined by dungeon level, at level
>> 50', chance for a 2 level staircase, at 4000' maybe even rnd(9)+1
>> levels. Thus, by staying at the low levels for the 5/1 rule, going
>> deeper really meant deeper.
>Sounds fun
Whew. Sounds dangerous, too. I would want a way to avoid that.
>>4: More different levels. The destroyed levels had an idea, but they
>> are just annoying, I usually leave if there wasn't something special.
>> Currently the dungeon parameters are compile-time defines, that is,
>> constants. Which makes all levels look alike. By making some of them
>> variables, we could have levels with more/less rooms, corridors,
>> and what else is there. (I was thinking of multistorey levels, with
>> variable elevations, and so on, but that may be just megalomania... :)
>Definitely.
I agree also. It'd be sort of interesting to have a level that consists
of only one passage going diagonally through the center, with stairs on
either end.
I do definitely like the idea in PC Angband 1.41 of sometimes hollowing
out the quartz and magma veins.
>Jules
-Billy
Randy Hutson
:In article <3h6s27$n...@runner.ccr-p.ida.org>, David desJardins wrote:
:) I think it's just selfishness to say that you don't want someone else to
:) have something that they want, if it doesn't take anything away from
:) you.
:If my arguments were as personal as you made them out to be, I wouldn't
: have posted. I'm not the only one who is yet to beat Morgoth, or the
: only one to compare scores. (What is the whole point of the high
: score list!?!) As I mentioned in another post, I would find it
: personally offensive if the game was made easier; it would invalidate
: my past 2 years of playing the game and not being able to win.
How would a change in a later version of the game making the game
easier, harder, or simply different "invalidate" the time you have spent
on another version? It's not like you would be forced to play the new
version. Why not just play Angband 2.6.1 until you win? You could still
compare your score with others playing an old version of the game if
that sort of thing is important to you. You haven't presented any valid
reason why game _development_ should just stop until you do win.
: I'm
: sure others would not appreciate the rug being pulled out from under
: them.
They should certainly speak up then. You're the only player I recall
objecting to practically any change in gameplay, and the reason for
your objection is certainly unique.
:The reason I prefer Angband over other CRPGs is the sense of wonder and
: mystery
Sounds like you're referring to the pre-Ben source code of Angband. :-)
: While artifacts and uniques are
: constant, the level layouts, the appearance of good items, and the
: identity of unknown items change from game to game.
It seems to be a popular opinion in this newsgroup that the level layouts
in Angband are very boring. Another idea which I have yet to see any
negative feedback on is to make some or all of the artifacts have random
attributes. Do you oppose having levels of varying size or qualities?
What about artifacts without fixed attributes?
: The inevitability of
: victory is not a "flaw" in Angband, but a "flaw" in strategy gaming in
: general.
It is nice to know that you can win. My complaint about Angband has been
how simple and straightforward (and tediously time consuming) it is to win.
:
:If you think playing a game that you have beaten is boring, I have a
: simple remedy. Play a different game.
No. If you don't want to play a different game from the one you've been
playing for two years, then don't. I'd like to see Angband become an
evolving game which adapts to the wishes of the current generation of
players not a stagnant relic of past gameplaying trends.
:If Angband was meant for play for decades at a time, we wouldn't have
: a periodic change of maintainers. Chuck lost Net access, and Ben picked
: up the baton. When Ben finishes his "Angband-O-Matic" project for his
: degree, it's likely he'll pass maintainence of the game to someone with
: up the baton.
Most of the "maintenance" in the past involved bug fixes and silly hacks
to make the game "harder" (more obnoxious). Ben is not "maintaining"
Angband. Ben is rewriting and restructuring the game. His work will
"make it a lot easier to add new stuff in the future" (see article
<BENH.95J...@linc.cis.upenn.edu>).
: games are transient experiences.
Angband 2.5.X and 2.6.X were indeed transient experiences for me. Angband
2.7.X is an ongoing experience, and I look forward to Angband 3.0.
:If you wish to make a game you enjoy, be my guest. Just don't call it
: Angband; that name's been taken.
Once again, I must decline to honor your edict. I would only respect
Christopher Tolkien's judgment about what should or should not be
called Angband. I personally started playing Angband after reading the
Silmarillion. While it was fun at first to recognize the artifacts and
uniques, I soon realized that the game was really a hacked version of
Moria with artifacts and uniques. That's fine, because from what I've
read about the history of Angband, that's all it was intended to be - a
version of Moria with neat items and monsters to be played by a group
of people at Warwick. Now Angband was and is fun, but I think it has
fallen short of its potential. I really expect more from an ostensibly
Tolkienish game than bashing Farmer Maggot and chasing Gothmog around
a pillar.
I really think that you should accept that if a significant number of
people wish for the game to be changed, it will be changed. Most of the
complaints about the game I've read are that the game is already too hard
with specific complaints about random deaths, "theft" (destruction), and
the difficulty in getting a character started. I personally symphathize
with these complaints and hope that future versions of the game address
these issues. But many other complaints come from winning players who
complain about the boredom of being a high level character searching for
those mandatory boots of speed and one of the few good artifacts. I do
not think that simple hacks such as removing "theft" from the game or
doubling Morgoth's hitpoints will prove satisfactory in dealing with
the problems with the game. I think that the game can be redesigned to
mostly satisfy both groups of players. Your apparent opposal to such
a redesign on the principle "That's just the way Angband is, was, and
should always be." is not particularly dissuading.
Robert A. Uhl
David Reeve Sward <swa...@CMU.EDU> wrote:
>Excerpts from netnews.rec.games.roguelike.angband: 7-Feb-95 Re: Making
>Angband More Dif.. by Robert A. U...@phoebe.cai
>> I know that this is a perennial question, but why can't Ben (or
>> whoever) put in code so that when a thief is killed, all possessions are
>> returned? I know that it would require some nasty restructuring of code,
>> but since he's already done a lot of that, this should finally be at
>> least doable.
>
>This would remove ANY threat that thieves have right now. Had a wand
>stolen? Just wander through the level until you find a thief and kill
>it to get the wand back. *yawn*
Not _a_ thief, but _the_ thief. Important distinction. Besides, what's
to stop that thief from 'wandering {up, down}stairs' (that is, being
purged). If he does that, you no longer can get at him, correct?
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Bob Uhl | Spectre | `En touto nika' + |
Randy Hutson
I wrote:
>Most of the "maintenance" in the past involved bug fixes and silly hacks
>to make the game "harder" (more obnoxious).
Now that's unaccurate and and unfair to Charles Teague and Charles Swiger
because I know quite well how much new code dedicated to other purposes there
is in the game with their initials by it. So I retract the statement and
apologize to them. I tend to get a bit excited thinking about the potential
of the Angband 2.7 code and ignore the improvements made since 2.0. (No,
I've never even played 2.0, but I have looked through the code just because
I was curious about what had changed.)
But please, consider that the Angband 2.7 code has been restructured so
that it can be more easily modified and so that one version of the game
can run on many different platforms. This gives the potential to have
one version of the game which is better and more popular than the diverse
number of platform specific variants which currently exist. Let's not
haggle over the difficulty of the game (in current or future forms)
just yet. What I'm curious about is whether players would be interested
in a fundamental change in gameplay or would you prefer that the game
remain essentially unchanged. Some fundamental changes I would like to
see are:
Word of Recall is a very powerful spell, and it should be rare.
Angband was a dungeon (of sorts), and most of the time spent playing
Angband should be spent in the dungeon. This obviously would require
that changes be made to the game to allow players to be self sufficient
and not have to rely upon stores for essential items (or relying upon
"home" to store items). (And no, I don't recall reading about Morgoth
opening up shops in Angband, so I don't think there should be shops
in the dungeon.)
More "interesting" dungeon levels.
Artifacts be generally better. (They should perhaps be more rare too.)
More intelligent monsters: no "pillar trick", safe resting, etc.
Less powerful speed and less dependence on it.
More of a Tolkien theme. I would like to see non-Tolkien creatures removed
from the game, but it would take a good deal of effort, creativity,
and research to replace the lost monsters. (There's already enough
Orcs and Trolls!)
Quests of some sort.
Container code. Objects should stack on the dungeon floor.
Monsters can carry objects. This would allow the current broken
implementation of theft and monster pickup to be fixed. (Please don't
bring up the tired argument that this would make thieves no danger.
This does not have to be true.)
Very reduced or no need for spoiler files!!!
An overall more fun, fair, and challenging game for everyone.
I think there are people willing to work on designing and implementing
some or all of these ideas or other ideas (I am), but this would be a
pointless endeavor if the players disapprove. So what I would like to
know in summary is whether or not the players would prefer that the game
remain essentially the same or for more radical changes in gameplay to
be introduced.
Note: I am just asking, but there is a chance such changes could occur
if there is a lot of interest in these ideas.
Aaron Mandelbaum
>I don't know if anyone would go for this idea, but I think it has some
>possibilities. First, take out Word of Recall entirely. Then make
>every 10th or 15th level be a town. Odds are you'd never actually
>return to the surface; just keep heading down. Each successively
>deeper town would have slightly better stuff and nastier creatures.
>The only real problem I can think of is what to do about your house.
>I suppose we could take the cop-out approach of making it available in
>every town. "When you check into your room, a messenger is sent to
>collect your belongings from storage."
Call it a 'Magic Vault'. Have the owner charge you for storing stuff every
time you go in. That might help bring money back into it, too. :)
Or maybe have a place where you can pay 1,000,000 gold for 1-10 extra HP?
I *would* like it to be possible to keep going without returning to town.
Which means having somewhere to sell all your stuff, buy scrolls+supplies,
and so on.
--
Aaron Mandelbaum
Aaron Mandelbaum
> Another class of monster could drop restore potions, etc, etc.
> (Blink dogs drop their stack of Phase door scrolls :))
Very, very nethacky. :)
--
Aaron Mandelbaum
Doug Ingram
> More "interesting" dungeon levels.
> Artifacts be generally better. (They should perhaps be more rare too.)
> More intelligent monsters: no "pillar trick", safe resting, etc.
> Less powerful speed and less dependence on it.
> Quests of some sort.
All good ideas that probably won't be universally agreed upon.
Hence my earlier request for a greatly expanded "game difficulty"
parameter list to include such things.
> Very reduced or no need for spoiler files!!!
I disagree with this. Having enormous spoiler files implies a
great deal of information buried in the game for you to discover. I have
no problem keeping a printout of the artifact list at hand while I'm
playing Angband, and I'm sure many other people like to use Self Knowledge,
etc., in order to do the same thing. Whatever floats your boat. By
parameterizing all of this, we maintain the universal nature of Angband.
>I think there are people willing to work on designing and implementing
>some or all of these ideas or other ideas (I am), but this would be a
>pointless endeavor if the players disapprove. So what I would like to
>know in summary is whether or not the players would prefer that the game
>remain essentially the same or for more radical changes in gameplay to
>be introduced.
Yes, I've already stated a few ideas of my own, including a range
of artifact rarity/power with the option of a "standard" setting equivalent
to the way things are now.
Other posters have come out against the argument of optional
easier difficulties, basically saying they want the difficulty of Angband
to remain where it is, which is about right. But I don't see how increased
parameterization limits this in any way or somehow "invalidates" anyone's
playing experience (if you're one of those who sees Angband as a
competition). I would argue, however, that the desires of such players
would be met by allowing the option of relative scoring based upon pre-set
difficulty parameters (locked at initial setting throughout the game).
I mean, already we've had consensus form among varying groups
as to how they'll play (waiting for feelings, monster cloning, etc.) to
the point that virtually every winner must qualify his or her winning
post to state the parameters under which the game was played (no save
files being the most popular). I don't see how increasing the possibilities
via parameters will change this very much. Angband is ALREADY a game
that is played in a variety of ways.
>Note: I am just asking, but there is a chance such changes could occur
>if there is a lot of interest in these ideas.
You've got my vote, regardless of how you proceed. Even on the
off-chance that the future changes in sum turn out to be something I
dislike, I can always play the old version.
Doug Ingram -- ing...@u.washington.edu // "Carpe Datum"
http://www.astro.washington.edu/ingram/
Doug Ingram
>Or maybe have a place where you can pay 1,000,000 gold for 1-10 extra HP?
Hey, NOW you're talking! That's something I could see in the
black market for about 1 Megabuck, also appearing in the dungeon with
the rarity of, say, a speed item. Potion of Max Hit Points. FINALLY
something relatively safe in terms of game balance that you can blow
all that gold on!
Randy Hutson
>Anyway, does anyone really
>find so many magnificent rods as to make much of a difference?
Oh yes, rods of {cold,fire,lightning,acid} balls become rather
common deep in the dungeon (3000-3500 ft.). Now whether it's "bad"
to let players stack a large number of them, I don't know. This
would be nice for warriors and rogues especially, but then, they're
supposed to do most of their fighting hand-to-hand.
I personally don't find these rods very useful without stacking. I don't
see the point of wasting an inventory slot on an item which only does
50-70 points of damage and then needs 25-30 turns to recharge. The
damage done is not significant to high level monsters. I'd much rather
use arrows or bolts instead. The only nice thing about rods is that they
can't be destroyed (unless they're "stolen" of course.)
Randy Hutson
>How about a compromise, only allowing the stores to be updated with items
>appropriate to the level that you are on when they restock.
Yes, but, for example, a potion of Cure Critical Wounds is a level 5
object. You really need this things after 1500 ft. or so. Being stunned
or badly cut can get you killed quickly. The scheme above would make
them rare just when you need them the most!
Nathan Tenny
(Sorry about the changed subject line; I got tired of seeing one subject
for the whole group.)
In article <3h8tpe$7...@news.tamu.edu>,
Randy Hutson <ra...@picard.tamu.edu> wrote:
>remain essentially unchanged. Some fundamental changes I would like to
>see are:
[stuff deleted]
> More "interesting" dungeon levels.
Agreed---I really liked the "elemental level" idea that was posted here, in
which levels or regions of levels would be (for instance) composed entirely
of water (so that, without some form of magical protection, you take damage
each turn from breathing water, move slowly, etc.), populated with industrial-
strength water elementals, and perhaps highlighted by Waldern guarding an
exciting artifact in the middle. I don't think this would be prohibitively
hard to code---it's basically a vault with a little bit of extra structure.
> More intelligent monsters: no "pillar trick", safe resting, etc.
This is, IMHO, definitely the most important change. If Angband is too
routine at present, it's because of the ease with which you can get away
from monsters. Clearly, intelligent monsters should explore longer paths
to get to you; monsters with missile weapons should prefer to use them,
especially if they start getting clobbered; and so on...I don't see how
to get around the pillar trick, though.
[...]
> More of a Tolkien theme. I would like to see non-Tolkien creatures removed
> from the game, but it would take a good deal of effort, creativity,
One could argue that there's no such thing as a non-Tolkien monster; JRRT
did a very nice job of hinting at lots of creatures that weren't described.
But the point is well taken; one could, for instance, dispense with the
AD&D-specific monsters (but do we really want to ditch the beholder???),
and maybe mine Tolkien's original mythological sources for replacements.
[and many more]
Aside from little details (I *really* want Lloyd's Beacon added to Morden-
kainen's Escapes), I would add only this: More variance in the difficulty
of a single level. An ordinary level needs more out-of-depth monsters to
keep it interesting; I've got a character who is hanging around at about
2700', frustrated by the fact that every level is either (1) hopelessly
boring or (2) crowded with way-out-of-depth monsters and graveyards, and
unmanageably difficult. The hopelessly boring levels are the source, IMHO,
of what someone described as the "oops, I guess I hit a troll" problem.
Aaron Mandelbaum
>Oh yes, rods of {cold,fire,lightning,acid} balls become rather
>common deep in the dungeon (3000-3500 ft.). Now whether it's "bad"
>to let players stack a large number of them, I don't know. This
>would be nice for warriors and rogues especially, but then, they're
>supposed to do most of their fighting hand-to-hand.
I think it would be good if rods could stack, and the timeout was reduced
according to the number in the stack, but they all discharged at once. The
idea would be that the counter was for whether any rod in the stack was
charged. That would avoid the unstacking problem, and make rods more
useful. I don'tthink it would be too unbalancing, since the weight would
start to be a factor if you started stacking abusive numbers of them...
(maybe make them a little heavier to enhance this).
Also, if you deliberately unstacked them, there'd have to be a little
routine to adjust the timeouts to compensate (maybe just automatically set
any newly unstacked rod to the maximum timeout for that type?)
>Randy Hutson - ra...@picard.tamu.edu
--
Aaron Mandelbaum
Des Courtney
) How would a change in a later version of the game making the game
) easier, harder, or simply different "invalidate" the time you have spent
) on another version?
Because in the time I "wasted" with the current level of difficulty,
I could have beaten many easier quests and gotten more of a sense
of achievement than I have with the current setup. In short, the prior
players will feel cheated.
) It's not like you would be forced to play the new
) version. Why not just play Angband 2.6.1 until you win?
Because 2.6.1 had some critical bugs involving darkness and wide area
light. Upgrading to 2.6.2 introduced the nefarious "elemental stat
drains" that didn't work well with anybody. I'm now using 2.7.1v3 after
considerable tweaking to get to run quickly on my Mac. Now I have to
relearn how to fight ghosts in hallways... By upgrading to cope with
bugs, and to acquire game tweaks I *do* approve of, I run the risk of
being swept up with difficulty changes that occur.
) You could still
) compare your score with others playing an old version of the game if
) that sort of thing is important to you. You haven't presented any valid
) reason why game _development_ should just stop until you do win.
No, no, no, no. I'm not against the development or "evolution" of the
game, just this one particular "improvement." (Difficulty levels)
Some things which made the game harder, like monster fear, I approve of
and agree were needed.
) :The reason I prefer Angband over other CRPGs is the sense of wonder and
) : mystery
)
) Sounds like you're referring to the pre-Ben source code of Angband. :-)
Point Taken. (-;
) It seems to be a popular opinion in this newsgroup that the level layouts
) in Angband are very boring. Another idea which I have yet to see any
) negative feedback on is to make some or all of the artifacts have random
) attributes. Do you oppose having levels of varying size or qualities?
) What about artifacts without fixed attributes?
I have no problem with such modifications so long as they don't
*adversely* affect the game's difficulty.
) It is nice to know that you can win. My complaint about Angband has been
) how simple and straightforward (and tediously time consuming) it is to win.
From my experience, many "hit-point-and-stat" CRPGs are like this. I'm more
interested in the storyline or, in Angband's case, the randomness of
encounters.
) No. If you don't want to play a different game from the one you've been
) playing for two years, then don't. I'd like to see Angband become an
) evolving game which adapts to the wishes of the current generation of
) players not a stagnant relic of past gameplaying trends.
As I already pointed out, I'm not against evolution of Angband; I'm
against the eugenic manipulation of Angband. Seit Heil! (-;
[maintenance line snipped, already read "future" post]
) : games are transient experiences.
)
) Angband 2.5.X and 2.6.X were indeed transient experiences for me. Angband
) 2.7.X is an ongoing experience, and I look forward to Angband 3.0.
If the various version numbers are really sequels and not versions, why
not introduce a sub-titling system? One has to be careful here; we
don't want to end up with "Super Angband Turbo: Championship Edition."
(-:
) :If you wish to make a game you enjoy, be my guest. Just don't call it
) : Angband; that name's been taken.
)
) Once again, I must decline to honor your edict. I would only respect
) Christopher Tolkien's judgment about what should or should not be
) called Angband. I personally started playing Angband after reading the
) Silmarillion. [snip]
Now your arguments make a little more sense. I came to Angband via the
Rogue/Moria route. In comparison, Angband is light years ahead of
such "primitive" games. But, from your perspective, Angband is a
failed attempt to make a Tolkeneque game. I've only read "There And
Back Again" and the first third of "The Fellowship Of The Ring" and
*I* know this. But I appreciate Angband as a superior Rogue game, not
an inferior Tolken game.
[invitable change discussion snipped]
Once again, I'm not against the idea of difficulty levels *in theory*, but
to implement such a system would require a serious change in Angband's
design all at once, not a more gradual evolution. For an example of
this kind of change backfiring, when Chuck introduced Elemental Stat
Drains, he did this at the same time as reducing the frequency of
Mushrooms Of Restoring. One or the other may have worked, but both
together were unplayable. Sweeping changes don't allow for individual
elements to be properly play tested for suitablilty.
If you really feel you have to make "levels", try what someone else
suggested; a "tutoral" quest that allows the character to be imported
into Angband after a victory, and an "immortal's" quest for those who
beat Morgoth. But as you mentioned in your follow-up post, it's very
tempting to implement a whole gaggle of new tweeks now that Ben cleaned
up the code like he did. But, please, let the current version stablize
a little before changing the world as we know it, and introduce changes
at a slower rate. Okay? (-;
Cheers,
Doug Ingram
>One could argue that there's no such thing as a non-Tolkien monster; JRRT
>did a very nice job of hinting at lots of creatures that weren't described.
>But the point is well taken; one could, for instance, dispense with the
>AD&D-specific monsters (but do we really want to ditch the beholder???),
>and maybe mine Tolkien's original mythological sources for replacements.
One thought is to make a larger variety of Spiders or to
make them much more powerful. After all, it seems that some of the
strongest monsters in the Tolkien world are the descendants of
Ungoliant. Strengthening spiders could make those master mystics
a heck of a lot scarier. In fact, I'd argue that Ungoliant is far
too weak in Angband and should be a monster ranked just below Sauron
in terms of strength. After all, Morgoth was only able to fend her
off with the help of his Balrogs.
Also, the Angels could easily be replaced with Feanor's
descendants. Essentially good, powerful immortals, but they actually
have a decent reason to kill you (or at least, it would be easier
to come up with a reason for them to kill you than for, say, Gabriel).
Julian Bean
In article <3h6s27$n...@runner.ccr-p.ida.org> de...@ccr-p.ida.org (David
desJardins) writes:
>Des Courtney <dco...@opie.bgsu.edu> writes:
>> I have nothing against this in theory, but, by creating a range of levels,
>> you create cowardly players who stick to the easy levels. (When I
>> was a kid, I refused to play Atari 2600 games unless the game mode I
>> was playing was designated by a "Teddy Bear".) It is too tempting to
>> lower the difficulty when you get frustrated with the current level. Do
>> we want this group spammed by "winners" who didn't take a challenge?
>
>Frankly I'm not able to find much sympathy for this argument. What you
>are saying is that you don't want me to have a game that I enjoy
>playing. I don't regret you the chance to have a game you enjoy. I
>just don't understand why I'm not entitled to the same courtesy from
>you.
>
Don't take it so personally - that was rhetoric, not logic. Lets not start a
flame war;)
>I explained clearly what I'm interested in the posting that started this
>thread: a Moria/Angband-like game which assumes perfect knowledge on the
>part of the player (i.e., that the player knows everything that's in the
>source code) and which is challenging (i.e., when played carefully and
>skillfully is difficult to win). That's what I enjoy. If you don't
>like it, that's just fine with me. But it hardly seems fair to me for
>you to argue that I can't have that game because you don't have the
>self-discipline to play a game at an appropriate level.
>
>I think it's just selfishness to say that you don't want someone else to
>have something that they want, if it doesn't take anything away from
>you.
>
The point is, it does. I feel, and so, presumably, does the poster, that one
of the enjoyable things about Angband is sharing it with both friends, and
fellow internetters. And to enjoy sharing, it helps to have comparable games -
rather than 'You beat Tiamat on your third game -- wow! Oh.. you had the
difficulty set on level -5'
>> Also, while I do use the Artifact spoilers, there are those out there who
>> insist on avoiding them for "purity" sake. Access or willing use
>> of spoilers already provide a sense of "difficulty adjustment."
>
>No, they don't. They only provide an "experience adjustment," which is
>a totally different thing. Deliberately choosing not to know things
>about the game which is knowable means that it takes longer to learn to
>play the game. But that's not the same as difficulty. At least, it
>isn't the same to me.
>
It is also difficult to win without knowing (e.g.) which artifacts resist
Nexus, or especially Nether, as that is very dangerous to ascertain by trial
and error.
>> I thought one of the points of this whole argument was to provide some way
>> to compare "skill" between victorious players (i.e. "bragging rights").
>
>No, it's not at all. Frankly I have no interest in competing with you
>or bragging about my results. The whole idea makes no sense to me. I
>just want to play a game which I enjoy. And Angband, ultimately, isn't
>that game, because I never die and the results are inevitable. Is that
>so hard to understand?
>
No its not hard to understand, but I think it does sum up the differences
between my opinion (and presumably that of the poster you are replying to ) and
yours.
Which of course you have a right to. In the end, no one is trying to tell you
how you may and may not enjoy yourself.
> David desJardins
>--
>Copyright 1995 David desJardins. Unlimited permission is granted to quote
>from this posting for non-commercial use as long as attribution is given.
>
Jules
Julian Bean
In article <EjBr3fC00...@andrew.cmu.edu> David Reeve Sward
<swa...@CMU.EDU> writes:
>Excerpts from netnews.rec.games.roguelike.angband: 7-Feb-95 Re: Making
>Angband More Dif.. by Robert A. U...@phoebe.cai
>> I know that this is a perennial question, but why can't Ben (or
>> whoever) put in code so that when a thief is killed, all possessions are
>> returned? I know that it would require some nasty restructuring of code,
>> but since he's already done a lot of that, this should finally be at
>> least doable.
>
>This would remove ANY threat that thieves have right now. Had a wand
>stolen? Just wander through the level until you find a thief and kill
>it to get the wand back. *yawn*
>
You've missed his point - what if, while you're looking for the thief, you meet
a swarm of lice/spiders/Greater Titans/Unique Dragons which you want to
teleport away from, and WOR up immediately. So theives are still a threat, as
you won't always be able to get you stuff back, but at least they become a more
logical threat.
[munch]
>--
>David Sward swa...@cmu.edu
>
Jules
Robert A. Uhl
>that it can be more easily modified and so that one version of the game
>can run on many different platforms. This gives the potential to have
>one version of the game which is better and more popular than the diverse
>number of platform specific variants which currently exist. Let's not
>haggle over the difficulty of the game (in current or future forms)
>just yet. What I'm curious about is whether players would be interested
>in a fundamental change in gameplay or would you prefer that the game
>remain essentially unchanged. Some fundamental changes I would like to
>see are:
>
> Word of Recall is a very powerful spell, and it should be rare.
> Angband was a dungeon (of sorts), and most of the time spent playing
> Angband should be spent in the dungeon. This obviously would require
> that changes be made to the game to allow players to be self sufficient
> and not have to rely upon stores for essential items (or relying upon
> "home" to store items). (And no, I don't recall reading about Morgoth
> opening up shops in Angband, so I don't think there should be shops
> in the dungeon.)
If one could make the player less dependent<sp?> upon the shops, then
I would be all for this. How many times did Frodo & al. go visit a
store? How many times did they jump up from Moria and replenish? Is this
a Tolkien-based game (as I hope), or is it a game with a (very) few
Tolkien characters?
> More "interesting" dungeon levels.
Agreed on this. The dungeons are not exactly the most interesting in
the world. I believe that there should be record rooms (with a mad
scribe?) containing spellbooks and scrolls and labs (with a [novice]
mage) containing potions, archery ranges with bows and arrows. Why
shouldn't a great fortress like Angband contain all these things?
> More intelligent monsters: no "pillar trick", safe resting, etc.
Yes!! Monsters should behave like players do; with some intelligence,
some long-range forecasting. Safe resting, OTOH, is necessary. Now, if a
monster should happen upon you, who's to say that it won't get a few
hits in before you wake up? Just a question.
> Less powerful speed and less dependence on it.
Less dependence on speed, yes. I don't know, however, about it being
less powerful. Who's to say that a character may not get even more
powerful than Morgoth, that is, faster, stronger &c? I for one think
that he should end up being only reasonably tough (this is after a
_long_ time spent building up XP. of course).
> More of a Tolkien theme. I would like to see non-Tolkien creatures removed
> from the game, but it would take a good deal of effort, creativity,
> and research to replace the lost monsters. (There's already enough
> Orcs and Trolls!)
Well, Orcs are a large part of the Tolkien rogue's gallery. Perhaps
the game should begin on the town level, with lots of XP-giving dogs,
cats &c., and proceed to the point where the character's first orcs
appear above-ground. He then goes down to the first dungeon level,
killing lots of goblins (Snaga, low orcs). Eventually, he is able to
destroy the Uruk-hai that lead these bands. He works his way down,
finding records, books (akin to the proposed Scrolls of Knowledge and
Scrolls of Rumors), and eventually end up fighting a dragon. He goes on
fighting dragons and Uruk-Hai, until the black day that he encounters a
Balrog. He kills that (hopefully), and goes on fighting orcs, Balrogs,
Morgoth-worshipping elves, dragons &c. until he finally comes upon
Morgoth. Of course, the Ringwraiths and Sauron would be in there
somewhere.
> Quests of some sort.
Definately.
> Container code. Objects should stack on the dungeon floor.
Once again, a most wonderful idea.
> Monsters can carry objects. This would allow the current broken
> implementation of theft and monster pickup to be fixed. (Please don't
> bring up the tired argument that this would make thieves no danger.
> This does not have to be true.)
Right again. Also, there should be a thief class (not a rogue), that
is able to actually steal from monsters. Hobbits would be excellent at
it. They would be able to sneak, and would get points for stealing past
a monster instead of just killing it.
> Very reduced or no need for spoiler files!!!
This would be great.
James Dunson
Doug Ingram <ing...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
> I would argue, however, that the desires of such players
>would be met by allowing the option of relative scoring based upon pre-set
>difficulty parameters (locked at initial setting throughout the game).
perhaps. Gunship 2000 comes to mind; there is a screen full of
game/simulation options, and a "difficulty bar graph", with 20-30
possible values. The difficulty is not directly adjustable; the
graph is a representation of the overall, weighted, difficulty, based
on the settings of the various options. Usually, setting all of the
options to their hardest level will max out the graph, and setting
them all to their easiest mode will minimise the graph.
For new players, there are usually some "canned" settings; these
set all the various options to reasonable defaults for "easy", "typical",
"realistic", "Black Plague Possess Thee", or whatever, then allow further
fine-tuning.
The various scores generated are adjusted by the difficulty graph.
For example, one option could be the "haggling" control:
- no haggling
- simplified haggling: shops do not "forget" [fixed] prices, even if they
sell out, shops do not automatically haggle expensive items, etc.
- full, "normal", haggling
- difficult haggling: prices are never [fixed], negative racial modifiers
are doubled, shopkeepers get upset far more easily, etc.
Another setting could be "shop sales":
- easy: %chance for an item to be on sale is doubled, occasional chance
for "Clearance Sales", where all items in a shop are marked down
to some degree.
- normal: normal (perhaps a *very* small chance for a Clearance Sale)
- hard: %chance for an item to be on sale is halved, no chance for
[to clear] or for Clearance Sales.
Another possible setting: "Good Item" drops, with the easy level
increasing the likelyhood of, say, "Boots of Stealth (+3)" and the
hard level increasing the likelyhood of "Boots [+1]", the normal
level keeping the "standard" distribution.
And so on. I would guess about 40 settings (2 screen pages),
most with either 3 or 4 possible values (easy/normal/hard or
off/easy/normal/hard); this would lean towards a 100-point difficulty
scale reasonably well.
A possible use might be the following: difficulties of 1-25 are
"practice mode", and do not generate entries in the score table or
WINNER pages (although the score you would have gotten at "standard"
difficulty would be printed on-screen for player edification).
Difficulties of 26-74 are "easier"; the score is multiplied by
(((difficulty - 25) * 2) / 100).
A difficulty of 75 is "standard", and recieves normal scoring.
A difficulty of 76-100 is "hard", and is multiplied by
((((difficulty - 75) * 2) / 100) + 1)
I would strongly suggest that the actual raw score is printed in the text
of the score table entry, for reference and comparison.
Another possibility is to add some factors based on class/race/etc.
This might better be represented by a second scale, which generates
a modifier which multiplies in with the option modifier and the score.
This has the interesting effect of allowing some more rational balancing
of weird new races; some of these *should* be just simply more powerful
and/or useful, and the only current balance factor is the "more exp
to go up levels", which may not be appropriate or useful in some cases.
I realise that some may think this sort of thing is "too much", but
I believe that this sort of "object-oriented-difficulty" is the way to
go for the future.
** James **
--
James R Dunson
jdu...@vtopus.cs.vt.edu
Doug Ingram
>If the various version numbers are really sequels and not versions, why
> not introduce a sub-titling system? One has to be careful here; we
> don't want to end up with "Super Angband Turbo: Championship Edition."
Say, there's an idea! Finally, a game that has a place for
the Death Jelly (picture a speed 4 moving death mold)! And what
about packs of things besides hounds? Wyrm packs? Lich packs?
Titan packs? Why do novice rogues work in groups but not Master
Thieves? And let's have some more pits!
Why have a giant pit at 4900' that isn't stocked with a
bunch of Greater Titans in the middle? I must've killed 1000 hapless
Hill Giants in my time with Dispel Evil.
Mystic pits?
Druj pits?
Drolem pits?
Jabberwock pits?
We could increase number of monsters generated per level by
some factor (10? Mu-ha-ha!).
I know, it all sounds insane. Nevertheless, with a parameterized
difficulty setting, those of us who WANT to play such a game could! And
I personally would find it fun...
>Once again, I'm not against the idea of difficulty levels *in theory*, but
> to implement such a system would require a serious change in Angband's
> design all at once, not a more gradual evolution. For an example of
> this kind of change backfiring, when Chuck introduced Elemental Stat
> Drains, he did this at the same time as reducing the frequency of
> Mushrooms Of Restoring. One or the other may have worked, but both
> together were unplayable. Sweeping changes don't allow for individual
> elements to be properly play tested for suitablilty.
I disagree. But making it all parameterized and allowing
the option for setting the parameters to be the equivalent of, say,
v2.6.1 or v2.7.1v3, this problem is resolved.
Robert A. Uhl
Randy Hutson <ra...@picard.tamu.edu> wrote:
>dco...@opie.bgsu.edu (Des Courtney) wrote:
>:In article <3h6s27$n...@runner.ccr-p.ida.org>, David desJardins wrote:
>:) I think it's just selfishness to say that you don't want someone else to
>:) have something that they want, if it doesn't take anything away from
>:) you.
>
>:If my arguments were as personal as you made them out to be, I wouldn't
>: have posted. I'm not the only one who is yet to beat Morgoth, or the
>: only one to compare scores. (What is the whole point of the high
>: score list!?!) As I mentioned in another post, I would find it
>: personally offensive if the game was made easier; it would invalidate
>: my past 2 years of playing the game and not being able to win.
>
>How would a change in a later version of the game making the game
>easier, harder, or simply different "invalidate" the time you have spent
>on another version? It's not like you would be forced to play the new
>version. Why not just play Angband 2.6.1 until you win? You could still
>compare your score with others playing an old version of the game if
>that sort of thing is important to you. You haven't presented any valid
>reason why game _development_ should just stop until you do win.
A change which makes the game globally easier or harder invalidates
the time spent playing before the change. Development should not change,
but basic, integral parts of Angband should only be changed with a _lot_
of prior thought. The game could be destroyed with a couple of
well-meaning changes. If you want a dramatically different game, then
base one on Angband and call it something Minas Morgul or Minas Tirith
(I am planning on writing the latter, if I ever get a round tuit).
>:The reason I prefer Angband over other CRPGs is the sense of wonder and
>: mystery
>
>Sounds like you're referring to the pre-Ben source code of Angband. :-)
While I have the greatest respect for Ben, I would have preferred
<SP?> it had he made Angband 2.7.x a direct copy of the previous
Angband, but with the new code structure. As it is, he has introduced
what I believe to be some bad changes to the game. I particularly mean
the idiot messages. When I'm in wizard mode (I use it to learn about the
game), I don't have to be told for the thousandth time that I will be
asked some questions pertaining to whatever it is that I am creating. I
could not find an option to turn the idiot messages off.
I also do not the new option system; I feel that it ought to have been
more Angbandy; that is, browsed, not hierarchic. That is just MHO, of
course.
>: While artifacts and uniques are
>: constant, the level layouts, the appearance of good items, and the
>: identity of unknown items change from game to game.
>
>It seems to be a popular opinion in this newsgroup that the level layouts
>in Angband are very boring. Another idea which I have yet to see any
>negative feedback on is to make some or all of the artifacts have random
>attributes. Do you oppose having levels of varying size or qualities?
>What about artifacts without fixed attributes?
Level of varying size: fine. Random monster attrs: excellent. Random
artifacts: okay, _as long as they are not called artifacts_. Artifacts
are special weapons, each with a special purpose. Call the random
weapons Weapons of Westernesse or something. As long as that is done, I
have no problem with them.
>:If you think playing a game that you have beaten is boring, I have a
>: simple remedy. Play a different game.
>
>No. If you don't want to play a different game from the one you've been
>playing for two years, then don't. I'd like to see Angband become an
>evolving game which adapts to the wishes of the current generation of
>players not a stagnant relic of past gameplaying trends.
I would like to see Angband be improved upon, but not changed
fundamentally. If you really want a radically different game, create
one, based on Angband, as I have said above.
>:If you wish to make a game you enjoy, be my guest. Just don't call it
>: Angband; that name's been taken.
>
>Once again, I must decline to honor your edict. I would only respect
>Christopher Tolkien's judgment about what should or should not be
>called Angband. I personally started playing Angband after reading the
>Silmarillion. While it was fun at first to recognize the artifacts and
>uniques, I soon realized that the game was really a hacked version of
>Moria with artifacts and uniques. That's fine, because from what I've
>read about the history of Angband, that's all it was intended to be - a
>version of Moria with neat items and monsters to be played by a group
>of people at Warwick. Now Angband was and is fun, but I think it has
>fallen short of its potential. I really expect more from an ostensibly
>Tolkienish game than bashing Farmer Maggot and chasing Gothmog around
>a pillar.
I'll agree with you there. The game should have a much stronger
Tolkien feel than it does. The good guys in Tolkien should be good; the
bad guys should be as they were, tough or easy. The pillar trick could
be eliminated with better monster chasing code. There should be
different levels of bad guy code, allowing the nasties like Gothmog to
figure out the pillar trick and come after you. I have noticed that some
monsters will try to come at you through a wall, allowing you to rest
and finish them off. This should be fixed for all monsters.
I would also like the removal of Gabriel from the angels. I dislike
killing him as much as I would dislike killing my family. It makes me
wonder about the focus of the original creators if they though it funny
to put such a thing in.
>mostly satisfy both groups of players. Your apparent opposal to such
>a redesign on the principle "That's just the way Angband is, was, and
>should always be." is not particularly dissuading.
Well, there are certain things that are inherently Angbandy, like WoR,
the house &c. Others are subsidiary, such as dungeon layout and
particular types of weapons. The former should not be changed, but the
latter are open to interpretation.
One thing that hasnot been discussed during my stay here: platform
specifity. I have the feeling that the better features are going to get
_much_ more platform specific. For instance, I could write a framework
for a MAcintosh Angband to call code resources to control certain
monsters, say a Scintillating Shelled Kobold. I would han=ve no idea how
to implement this on an IBM or Unix system. Yet this capability would be
much aprreciated, methinks. Or take the issue of graphics. I feel that I
am not alone in stating that the ASCII interface is beginning to outlive
its usefulness. I do not at all feel it to be an integral part of
Angband, so I would appreciate a graphical Macintosh version. However,
such things are inherently platform specific. Massive #ifdef's can not
be the solution, however.
Speaking of ASCII, how come MacAngband will not let me use an option
character aspart of my name? i wanted to have an umlaut once, and
recently wanted an e-accent, but it beeps at me. Surely it would be a
simple thing to add? Or are the high-ASCII characters used by curses? I
really don't know, as I have not used it.
Aaron Mandelbaum
> Also, the Angels could easily be replaced with Feanor's
>descendants. Essentially good, powerful immortals, but they actually
>have a decent reason to kill you (or at least, it would be easier
>to come up with a reason for them to kill you than for, say, Gabriel).
And HOW many people in town have you killed?
>Doug Ingram -- ing...@u.washington.edu // "Carpe Datum"
--
Aaron Mandelbaum
Aaron Mandelbaum
>You've missed his point - what if, while you're looking for the thief, you
>meet a swarm of lice/spiders/Greater Titans/Unique Dragons which you want to
>teleport away from, and WOR up immediately. So theives are still a threat,
>as you won't always be able to get you stuff back, but at least they become
>a more logical threat.
I say, just have the theives always teleport after successfully stealing.
Then say they hid it. With your suggestion, theives become only the barest
suggestion of a threat, since you will virtually always get your stuff back.
>Jules
--
Aaron Mandelbaum
Mika Valiviita
>In article <1...@jmlbhome.demon.co.uk>,
>Julian Bean <jeli...@jmlbhome.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>In article <3gr02s$a...@karhu.Helsinki.FI> vali...@cc.Helsinki.FI (Mika
>>Valiviita) writes:
>>>
> I know that this is a perennial question, but why can't Ben (or
>whoever) put in code so that when a thief is killed, all possessions are
>returned? I know that it would require some nasty restructuring of code,
>but since he's already done a lot of that, this should finally be at
>least doable.
This has been discussed to death several times already. The result
being that getting everything back would make thiefs practically
harmless. I don't lose much to them anyway, and if I do, it's not
the end of the world.
>>>3: Long staircases.
> I agree. However, it must be a small chance, especially at the higher
>levels. I don't think that many would enjoy being thrown completely out
>of their league.
Of course, exact probabilities need to be playtested. This would
speed up play somewhat.
>>Maybe better shops found in the dungeon. Maybe a second town!! At 2000'? (The
>>Lost City.. better items, WOR reset to here, more dangerous NPCs.? )
> I love it! It would be a much tougher town, of course (and you would
>XP for killing in it). But it might have half-dragons (I know, but they
>could be created) strolling throughout. All sorts of nasties would be
>lurking in the ruins of a once great city. It would be incredibly cool.
>Plus, it would bring money back into play, I think.
Yes!
Mika
--
Mika V{liviita,whose opinions are his own,and nobody elses. This includes,
but is not limited to,those that are in this electronically distributed
message. This .sig is irrelevant. Life is futile. Message terminated.
David Reeve Sward
Angband More Dif.. by Robert A. U...@phoebe.cai
> >stolen? Just wander through the level until you find a thief and kill
> >it to get the wand back. *yawn*
>
> Not _a_ thief, but _the_ thief. Important distinction. Besides, what's
> to stop that thief from 'wandering {up, down}stairs' (that is, being
> purged). If he does that, you no longer can get at him, correct?
If thieves were allowed to use the stairs, then they certainly become a
risk. I don't believe they do this currently, though. Sounds like a
good idea to add, IMNSHO.
--
David Sward swa...@cmu.edu
Billy Tanksley
Oh! I thought that the rarity was only _below_ level, not above. Oh
well, back to the drawing board. Or is it possible to modify so that any
item _below_ the current level could be generated?
>Randy Hutson - ra...@picard.tamu.edu
-Billy
Billy Tanksley
>> Another class of monster could drop restore potions, etc, etc.
>> (Blink dogs drop their stack of Phase door scrolls :))
>Very, very nethacky. :)
Ok, how about completely removing all 'level feeling' calculation and
instead, every time you generate a good item, place one special creature
(that can never be otherwise generated or summoned) somewhere in the
level. No more 'You have a good feeling' messages (well, perhaps keep
them for pits and other things that change a level physically).
Some suggestions for these creatures:
1 HP
move invisibly (not actually invisible)
fast
cannot hit for much of anything
can phase door
...in other words, not a threat, just an indicator. Perhaps deeper
levels could have more dangerous indicators.
Name? We could call them 'Indicator bugs', or 'Treasure crickets'; we
could even go all the way and call them 'There's treasure on this level!
beetles'.
I sorta like the crickets, myself. It's somewhat descriptive without
being implausable.
Earlier I had suggested 'Time flies' (as in '_Time flies_ when you're
having fun', but that is WAY too nethacky.
>Aaron Mandelbaum
-Billy
Billy Tanksley
><SP?> it had he made Angband 2.7.x a direct copy of the previous
>Angband, but with the new code structure. As it is, he has introduced
>what I believe to be some bad changes to the game. I particularly mean
>the idiot messages. When I'm in wizard mode (I use it to learn about the
>game), I don't have to be told for the thousandth time that I will be
>asked some questions pertaining to whatever it is that I am creating. I
>could not find an option to turn the idiot messages off.
I'm glad you mentioned it. I like the idiot messages for about the first
one or two times, then I spacebar past them. It sure wouldn't hurt (and
probably wouldn't even be hard) to make them an option.
> I also do not the new option system; I feel that it ought to have been
>more Angbandy; that is, browsed, not hierarchic. That is just MHO, of
>course.
Impossible. Have you tried counting those options? WAY too many to be
browsed. Plus, hierarchic is easier to handle in a number of other ways.
> Level of varying size: fine. Random monster attrs: excellent. Random
>artifacts: okay, _as long as they are not called artifacts_. Artifacts
>are special weapons, each with a special purpose. Call the random
>weapons Weapons of Westernesse or something. As long as that is done, I
>have no problem with them.
That's an interesting perspective. Could you expand on it a little? Why
not make any artifact have a slight chance of difference from the norm?
> I would like to see Angband be improved upon, but not changed
>fundamentally. If you really want a radically different game, create
>one, based on Angband, as I have said above.
What do you consider to be the fundamental Angband? Let's brainstorm on
this, since it seems to be high on everyone's list of concerns (including
mine). I'll post a message with just a request in it, let's all fill it
out with what we consider to be the basics. More to follow.
>be eliminated with better monster chasing code. There should be
>different levels of bad guy code, allowing the nasties like Gothmog to
>figure out the pillar trick and come after you. I have noticed that some
>monsters will try to come at you through a wall, allowing you to rest
>and finish them off. This should be fixed for all monsters.
How about this: anytime a monster is repeatedly hit without being able to
make any hits back, the monster will become afraid. That way you won't
be able to keep them around the pillar.
> One thing that hasnot been discussed during my stay here: platform
>specifity. I have the feeling that the better features are going to get
>_much_ more platform specific. For instance, I could write a framework
>for a MAcintosh Angband to call code resources to control certain
>monsters, say a Scintillating Shelled Kobold. I would han=ve no idea how
>to implement this on an IBM or Unix system. Yet this capability would be
>much aprreciated, methinks. Or take the issue of graphics. I feel that I
>am not alone in stating that the ASCII interface is beginning to outlive
>its usefulness. I do not at all feel it to be an integral part of
>Angband, so I would appreciate a graphical Macintosh version. However,
>such things are inherently platform specific. Massive #ifdef's can not
>be the solution, however.
You only need the graphics code inside one file, the main-xxx.c (where
xxx is the system you're working with).
Tell me what this Scintillating etc is, and I'll try to guess how to make
it independant of the platform-- try, that is.
> Speaking of ASCII, how come MacAngband will not let me use an option
>character aspart of my name? i wanted to have an umlaut once, and
>recently wanted an e-accent, but it beeps at me. Surely it would be a
>simple thing to add? Or are the high-ASCII characters used by curses? I
>really don't know, as I have not used it.
I think that this problem will be fixed in the next release; Ben was
having the game strip 'strange' characters in various places (which meant
that I couldn't use the IBM extended set, either).
Was this the same problem, Ben?
-Billy
Billy Tanksley
_you_ think is the basis of Angband? I suspect that it would be best to
keep your replies to e-mail to prevent dissention.
When I post the results and the complete summary, we can start arguing.
-Billy
I will only reply with an acnowledgement.
Randy Hutson
>dco...@opie.bgsu.edu (Des Courtney) wrote:
>In article <3h8h9r$f...@news.tamu.edu>, Randy Hutson wrote:
> By upgrading to cope with
> bugs, and to acquire game tweaks I *do* approve of, I run the risk of
> being swept up with difficulty changes that occur.
Now I understand this. I don't remember seeing this argument being presented
before though. I forgot about the blindness bug in 2.6.1.
>No, no, no, no. I'm not against the development or "evolution" of the
> game, just this one particular "improvement." (Difficulty levels)
> Some things which made the game harder, like monster fear, I approve of
> and agree were needed.
Well now, I've never advocated adding difficulty levels to Angband in case it
appears I have. I did argue that the idea had some merit and would address
some problems I saw with the game. The conclusion I've reached after all of
this discussion is that a non-scoring "exploration mode" (similar to wizard
mode) would be a good idea though.
>) :The reason I prefer Angband over other CRPGs is the sense of wonder and
>) : mystery
>) Sounds like you're referring to the pre-Ben source code of Angband. :-)
>Point Taken. (-;
Hee hee. I fun with that one.
>As I already pointed out, I'm not against evolution of Angband; I'm
> against the eugenic manipulation of Angband. Seit Heil! (-;
"Eugenic manipulation" isn't quite what I'm interested in either. I have
no interest in patching together a "mutant Angband". I'm interested in
discussion of what people see as current problems with the game and ideas
on how these problems may be addressed. I see two futures for Angband:
1) A creative "spinoff" of Angband will occur which will leave Angband to
die a calm, slow death, just as happened to Moria when Angband was
released. All of the Xangband variations have already caused this to
happen to a degree. I actually suspect that nearly as many people
play Zangband as do play the Angband 2.X versions. I think Angband
has a lot to learn from the changes Topi incorporated into Zangband
(with the exception of removing the Tolkien theme of course).
2) Angband can change as necessary to meet the wishes of all levels of
players. New players can be gained and old players can be kept. I
think replayability is very important. I do not accept that players
must simply play another game once they've won Angband several times
and become bored with it. Periodic changes to the game can be made
to accommodate bored high level players without making the game even
more difficult for low and medium level players.
I see these emotional and sentimental arguments against change leading to
future #1. Now I obviously prefer future #2. The recent code rewrite of
Angband and multi-platform support make future #2 much more viable.
>Now your arguments make a little more sense. I came to Angband via the
> Rogue/Moria route. In comparison, Angband is light years ahead of
> such "primitive" games. But, from your perspective, Angband is a
> failed attempt to make a Tolkeneque game. I've only read "There And
> Back Again" and the first third of "The Fellowship Of The Ring" and
> *I* know this. But I appreciate Angband as a superior Rogue game, not
> an inferior Tolken game.
I do not view Angband as a failed Tolkienesque game. I think development
of the game has stagnated. From what I have read, this happened for the
simple reason that the creators of the game graduated! My understanding
is that one of the goals of Angband was to address the lack of a Tolkien
theme in Moria. Angband does have an interesting collection of Tolkien
characters and artifacts, but quite honestly, their incorporation into
the game doesn't make much sense. (How to "fix" this isn't clear to me
though.)
>If you really feel you have to make "levels", try what someone else
> suggested; a "tutoral" quest that allows the character to be imported
> into Angband after a victory, and an "immortal's" quest for those who
> beat Morgoth.
Hmm, now I think I'm the one who made that suggestion!
>But as you mentioned in your follow-up post, it's very
> tempting to implement a whole gaggle of new tweeks now that Ben cleaned
> up the code like he did. But, please, let the current version stablize
> a little before changing the world as we know it, and introduce changes
> at a slower rate. Okay? (-;
Well I'm not really interested in tweeks. I've already criticized the
"Let's double Morgoth's hitpoints and make the game harder!" approach.
I'm really just interested in discussion and ideas at the moment. I
definitely agree that 2.7.X should be allowed to "settle down" for a
while before any major changes are made. And don't worry, one doesn't
just sit down and write dungeon and monster container code one weekend.
And I also don't think you have to worry that anything "bad" or unpopular
will get put into the game because I think Ben is wise enough not to
allow that.
Des Courtney
) How about this: anytime a monster is repeatedly hit without being able to
) make any hits back, the monster will become afraid. That way you won't
) be able to keep them around the pillar.
What follows would be an example of a difficulty change I would approve of,
provided it is introduced by itself, and given time to weigh its impact
on the game as a whole:
One of the things about "slower" monsters that I thought was odd is the
fact that some of them have multiple attacks. It is strange to be
fighting a colosus that can attack four times, yet because it goes slowly,
its attacks can be completely avoided by the attack-step-attack
trick. Personally, it would make more sense if he got two of his attacks
everytime I tried to hit him.
One way that this, and the pillar trick, could be avoided is to give an
attacked monster a percentage of attacks based on the speed difference.
If a monster is one level slower than the player, let him respond to an
attack with half of his own available attacks. Whether the attacks are
randomly chosen or rotated through is up to the coder. A monster that
is two levels slower would get a third of its attacks. This is consistant
to 100% attack power for equal speeds, and 200% attacks for a one-level
speed advantage. If attacks are rotated through, it might even be
possible to use a common "counter-attack" function for an attacked enemy
that would be called after a player attack. If the monster cycles through
a set of attacks, that monster would have the option to use those attacks
for the next few turns, or to use a special ablilty like spell casting or
elemental breath. (Imagine, try using the pillar trick on Tiamat now;
every other attack or so, she is given the opportunity to breath on you
immediately after getting attacked and before you can hide behind the
pillar.)
I believe an Angband variant implements "fractional speed" which, due to
its design, inherently does the above. However, the above could
probably be implemented with a function call at the end of the player's
attack routine, and a flag/counter that is stored with each monster to
determine what its next attack would be and if it already got an
"early" attack chance with the new function call. Monsters with only
one attack would not be affected by this.
Does this make any sense?
Ben Harrison
Nobody seems to have a problem with dragons burning your inventory, or
ghosts eating your food, only with thieves stealing things. WHy not
simply make the similarity explicit and say "The thief touches you.
Your vorpal blade disappears!" or "The uchin touches you. You feel poor!"
--- Ben ---