Angband 3.0.3
Dan
There are no quests, I cannot have pets, there appears to be different (newer)
items like amulets of "reflection", extra books, etc... Am I REALLY missing
out on a lot of fun with ZAngband? (or whatever it seems like people here are
playing)
I have a L42 Gnome Mage who is doing really well (best character ever for me -
never had the patience before). Should I just scrap him and start over in a
new version of Angband? I would guess that I am halfway on my way to finishing
the game (which I never thought was possible in the past) ;)
Anyway, it seems as if my game is beginning to get a bit monotonous - I am stuck
hovering around 2250 right now, hoping for some better artifacts with better
resists. Nether balls, mana storms, etc are hurting me too much when I run
into the occasional monster that does not take kindly to my Mage.
Possibly I am not playing right??? Anyway, my dump is Dan - Gnome Mage - L42 on
here if someone wants to give me some tips on how I should be beating these
monsters easier... I usually mana storm/rend soul/chaos strike for the most
part and rift away monsters that can cause the most damage...
Any help would be appreciated - thanks!!!!
Ed Cogburn
> Everything here makes me think Angabnd 3.0.3 is definitely not the most
> fun... There are no quests, I cannot have pets, there appears to be different
> (newer) items like amulets of "reflection", extra books, etc... Am I REALLY
> missing out on a lot of fun with ZAngband? (or whatever it seems like people
> here are playing)
That's because the powers that be believe Vanilla is *supposed* to be "vanilla".
Its a museum piece, you're not actually suposed to have *fun* with it, that
would be unacceptable.....
Matthias Kurzke
> Everything here makes me think Angabnd 3.0.3 is definitely not the most fun...
> There are no quests, I cannot have pets, there appears to be different (newer)
> items like amulets of "reflection", extra books, etc... Am I REALLY missing
> out on a lot of fun with ZAngband? (or whatever it seems like people here are
> playing)
>
New things don't necessarily make the game more fun except for the
one-time fun of discovering them. To me, Angband is more fun than
Zangband (Maybe that's because my personal way of playing the game is
most suited to Angband itself) although Zangband (and ToME) certainly
have more to discover (I still remember the great fun of discovering the
many changes and jokes when I was playing Zangband 2.0 and 2.1 versions).
> I have a L42 Gnome Mage who is doing really well (best character ever for me -
> never had the patience before). Should I just scrap him and start over in a
> new version of Angband? I would guess that I am halfway on my way to finishing
> the game (which I never thought was possible in the past) ;)
>
Why should you give up? If you feel you need a change, you can keep your
character AND start a new one in some variant.
> Anyway, it seems as if my game is beginning to get a bit monotonous - I am stuck
> hovering around 2250 right now, hoping for some better artifacts with better
> resists. Nether balls, mana storms, etc are hurting me too much when I run
> into the occasional monster that does not take kindly to my Mage.
>
> Possibly I am not playing right??? Anyway, my dump is Dan - Gnome Mage - L42 on
> here if someone wants to give me some tips on how I should be beating these
> monsters easier... I usually mana storm/rend soul/chaos strike for the most
> part and rift away monsters that can cause the most damage...
>
Remember you don't have to fight everything. Non-unique monsters that
are too much of a hassle to fight you can just get rid of by banishment
/ mass banishment. Uniques that are too tough you can teleport away or
*destroy* and fight later. Especially the unique angels: banish the
escort and teleport them away (and remember not to teleport yourself
afterwards on that level).
> Any help would be appreciated - thanks!!!!
The more you tell us about your character, the easier it becomes to
help. You could e.g. post a character dump (C f) to let us see if you're
missing anything.
Good luck with your gnome mage (and go and win! don't get too impatient)
Matthias
Dan
enjoyment is finding the UNIQUE/ARTIFACT monsters and items... Anything that
is dissimilar than the same level over and over again. I think part of my
frustration now is in the fact I have this odd desire to kill and find
EVERYTHING on ANY given level. I seriously explore EVERY single space on the
dungeon floor to make sur eI didn't happen to miss that artifact or ego
item...
I keep a character dump updated her as Dan, Gnome Mage, L42 (right now). I will
post my last dump to this thread however...
[Angband 3.0.3 Character Dump]
Name Dan Self RB CB EB Best
Sex Male Age 87 STR! 18/100 -1 -5 +5 18/90
Race Gnome Height 44 INT! 18/100 +2 +3 +6 18/210
Class Mage Weight 93 WIS! 18/100 +0 +0 +2 18/120
Title Sorcerer Status 38 DEX! 18/100 +2 +1 +3 18/160
HP 415/415 Maximize Y CON! 18/100 +1 -2 +3 18/120
SP 321/321 Preserve N CHR! 18/100 -2 +1 +5 18/140
Level 41 Armor [26,+81] Saving Throw Heroic
Cur Exp 2240367 Fight (+13,+5) Stealth Very Good
Max Exp 2240367 Melee (+27,+19) Fighting Heroic
Adv Exp 2325000 Shoot (+26,+22) Shooting Heroic
Blows 4/turn Disarming Superb
Gold 1950556 Shots 1/turn Magic Device Legendary
Perception Excellent
Burden 142.3 lbs Infra 80 ft Searching Good
You are one of several children of a Gnome Prankster. You are a
credit to the family. You have blue eyes, wavy black hair, and an
average complexion.
[Character Equipment]
a) The Spear of Orome (4d6) (+14,+14) (+4)
It increases your intelligence by 4. It increases your infravision and
speed by 4. It slays animals and giants. It is branded with fire. It
provides resistance to fire and light. It is blessed by the gods,
makes you fall like a feather, and lights the dungeon around you. It
grants you the ability to see invisible things. It activates for stone
to mud every 5 turns. It cannot be harmed by the elements.
b) a Light Crossbow of Power (x3) (+13,+22)
c) a Granite Ring of Strength (+3)
It increases your strength by 3. It sustains your strength.
d) a Quartzite Ring of Constitution (+3)
It increases your constitution by 3. It sustains your constitution.
e) a Brass Amulet of Regeneration
It speeds your regeneration.
f) The Star of Elendil
It lights the dungeon around you. It grants you the ability to see
invisible things. It activates for magic mapping every 50+d50 turns.
It cannot be harmed by the elements.
g) The Chain Mail of Arvedui (-2) [14,+15] (+2)
It increases your strength and charisma by 2. It provides resistance
to acid, lightning, fire, cold, shards, and nexus. It cannot be harmed
by the elements.
h) The Cloak of Thingol [1,+16] (+3) {Adunaphel 2200}
It increases your dexterity and charisma by 3. It provides resistance
to acid, fire, and cold. It grants you immunity to paralysis. It
activates for recharge item I every 70 turns. It cannot be harmed by
the elements.
i) The Large Leather Shield of Celegorm [4,+20] {Lg Vault 2100}
It provides resistance to acid, lightning, fire, cold, light, and dark.
It cannot be harmed by the elements.
j) The Iron Helm 'Holhenneth' [5,+10] (+2)
It increases your intelligence and wisdom by 2. It increases your
searching by 2. It provides resistance to blindness and confusion. It
grants you the ability to see invisible things. It activates for
detection every 55+d55 turns. It cannot be harmed by the elements.
k) (nothing)
l) a Pair of Soft Leather Boots of Speed [2,+9] (+4)
It increases your speed by 4.
[Character Inventory]
a) 5 Books of Magic Spells [Magic for Beginners]
b) 6 Books of Magic Spells [Conjurings and Tricks]
c) 6 Books of Magic Spells [Incantations and Illusions] {25% off}
d) 2 Books of Magic Spells [Sorcery and Evocations]
e) a Book of Magic Spells [Resistances of Scarabtarices]
It cannot be harmed by the elements.
f) a Book of Magic Spells [Raal's Tome of Destruction]
It cannot be harmed by the elements.
g) a Book of Magic Spells [Mordenkainen's Escapes]
It cannot be harmed by the elements.
h) a Book of Magic Spells [Tenser's Transformations]
It cannot be harmed by the elements.
i) a Book of Magic Spells [Kelek's Grimoire of Power]
It cannot be harmed by the elements.
j) a Gold Potion of *Healing*
k) 7 Brown Potions of Restore Mana
l) 6 Orange Speckled Potions of Restore Life Levels
m) 30 Bolts of Venom (1d5) (+7,+17)
It is branded with poison.
[Home Inventory]
a) 12 Books of Magic Spells [Magic for Beginners]
b) 14 Books of Magic Spells [Conjurings and Tricks]
c) 13 Books of Magic Spells [Incantations and Illusions] {25% off}
d) a Book of Magic Spells [Sorcery and Evocations]
e) a Book of Magic Spells [Mordenkainen's Escapes]
It cannot be harmed by the elements.
f) a Red Mushroom of Restore Strength
g) a Green Mushroom of Restore Constitution
h) 49 Blue Speckled Potions of Cure Critical Wounds {50% off}
i) a Pink Speckled Potion of Restore Strength
j) a Dark Green Potion of Restore Intelligence
k) 2 White Potions of Restore Charisma
l) Pseudo-Dragon Scale Mail (-2) [30,+10]
It provides resistance to light and dark. It activates for breathe
light/darkness (200) every 300+d300 turns. It cannot be harmed by the
elements.
m) Bronze Dragon Scale Mail (-2) [30,+20]
It provides resistance to confusion. It activates for breathe
confusion (120) every 450+d450 turns. It cannot be harmed by the
elements.
n) The Leather Scale Mail 'Thalkettoth' (-1) [11,+24] (+3)
It increases your dexterity by 3. It increases your speed by 3. It
provides resistance to acid and shards. It cannot be harmed by the
elements.
o) The Cloak of Thorongil [1,+10]
It provides resistance to acid and fear. It grants you immunity to
paralysis and the ability to see invisible things. It cannot be harmed
by the elements.
p) a Golden Crown of Serenity [0,+5]
It provides resistance to fear, confusion, and sound. It cannot be
harmed by acid.
q) The Hard Leather Cap of Thranduil [2,+10] (+2)
It increases your intelligence and wisdom by 2. It provides resistance
to blindness. It grants you the power of telepathy. It cannot be
harmed by the elements.
r) The Metal Cap of Thengel [3,+12] (+3)
It increases your wisdom and charisma by 3. It provides resistance to
confusion. It cannot be harmed by the elements.
s) The Spear 'Aeglos' (3d6) (+15,+25) [+5] (+4)
It increases your wisdom and dexterity by 4. It slays orcs, trolls,
and all evil creatures, and it is especially deadly against undead.
It is branded with frost. It provides resistance to cold and fear. It
is blessed by the gods and slows your metabolism. It grants you
immunity to paralysis. It activates for frost ball (100) every 35 turns
. It cannot be harmed by the elements.
t) The Trident of Wrath (3d8) (+16,+18) (+2)
It increases your strength and dexterity by 2. It cannot be harmed by
the elements. It might have hidden powers.
[Options]
Adult: Allow purchase of stats using points : no (adult_point_based)
Adult: Allow specification of minimal stats : yes (adult_auto_roller)
Adult: Maximize effect of race/class bonuses : yes (adult_maximize)
Adult: Preserve artifacts when leaving level : no (adult_preserve)
Adult: Restrict the use of stairs/recall : no (adult_ironman)
Adult: Restrict the use of stores/home : no (adult_no_stores)
Adult: Restrict creation of artifacts : no (adult_no_artifacts)
Adult: Randomize some of the artifacts (beta): no (adult_rand_artifacts)
Adult: Don't stack objects on the floor : no (adult_no_stacking)
Score: Peek into object creation : no (score_peek)
Score: Peek into monster creation : no (score_hear)
Score: Peek into dungeon creation : no (score_room)
Score: Peek into something else : no (score_xtra)
Score: Know complete monster info : no (score_know)
Score: Allow player to avoid death : no (score_live)
Russ Allbery
> That's because the powers that be believe Vanilla is *supposed* to be
> "vanilla". Its a museum piece, you're not actually suposed to have
> *fun* with it, that would be unacceptable.....
Just because you don't have fun with it doesn't mean you should be
insulting it for everyone else who does. Some of us have been playing
Angband for a very long time and prefer an uncluttered game.
--
Russ Allbery (r...@stanford.edu) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
MattyG
> Ed Cogburn writes:
>
> > That's because the powers that be believe Vanilla is *supposed* to be
> > "vanilla". Its a museum piece, you're not actually suposed to have
> > *fun* with it, that would be unacceptable.....
>
> Just because you don't have fun with it doesn't mean you should be
> insulting it for everyone else who does. Some of us have been playing
> Angband for a very long time and prefer an uncluttered game.
I think he was being sarcastic, and that he actually agrees with you.
Dan
I got the same impression, but it's always tough to see in text rather than in
tone of voice... Technology these days...... ;)
On a positive note, I found The Plate Mail of Isildur a second ago... Replaced
Arvedui with it...
Matthias Kurzke
> Thanks! Lunchtime and time to play again. The thing that gives me the most
> enjoyment is finding the UNIQUE/ARTIFACT monsters and items... Anything that
> is dissimilar than the same level over and over again. I think part of my
> frustration now is in the fact I have this odd desire to kill and find
> EVERYTHING on ANY given level. I seriously explore EVERY single space on the
> dungeon floor to make sur eI didn't happen to miss that artifact or ego
> item...
>
monsters). Killing all monsters is only useful to get yourself killed.
> I keep a character dump updated her as Dan, Gnome Mage, L42 (right now). I will
> post my last dump to this thread however...
>
> [Angband 3.0.3 Character Dump]
>
> Name Dan Self RB CB EB Best
> Sex Male Age 87 STR! 18/100 -1 -5 +5 18/90
> Race Gnome Height 44 INT! 18/100 +2 +3 +6 18/210
> Class Mage Weight 93 WIS! 18/100 +0 +0 +2 18/120
> Title Sorcerer Status 38 DEX! 18/100 +2 +1 +3 18/160
> HP 415/415 Maximize Y CON! 18/100 +1 -2 +3 18/120
> SP 321/321 Preserve N CHR! 18/100 -2 +1 +5 18/140
>
You should try to get more CON. And play preserve ON next time, that is
a lot less annoying. Hope you didn't lose many artifacts yet.
You are at 2250' without permanent poison resistance? That is very,
very, very dangerous. Not having telepathy doesn't make it any better.
You would benefit greatly from finding the armor Caspanion now -- +3 INT
and CON, poison and confusion resistance...
>
> [Character Inventory]
>
> a) 5 Books of Magic Spells [Magic for Beginners]
> b) 6 Books of Magic Spells [Conjurings and Tricks]
> c) 6 Books of Magic Spells [Incantations and Illusions] {25% off}
> d) 2 Books of Magic Spells [Sorcery and Evocations]
> e) a Book of Magic Spells [Resistances of Scarabtarices]
> It cannot be harmed by the elements.
> f) a Book of Magic Spells [Raal's Tome of Destruction]
> It cannot be harmed by the elements.
> g) a Book of Magic Spells [Mordenkainen's Escapes]
> It cannot be harmed by the elements.
> h) a Book of Magic Spells [Tenser's Transformations]
> It cannot be harmed by the elements.
> i) a Book of Magic Spells [Kelek's Grimoire of Power]
> It cannot be harmed by the elements.
> j) a Gold Potion of *Healing*
> k) 7 Brown Potions of Restore Mana
> l) 6 Orange Speckled Potions of Restore Life Levels
> m) 30 Bolts of Venom (1d5) (+7,+17)
> It is branded with poison.
>
You are very lucky to have found all books.
>
> [Home Inventory]
>
> a) 12 Books of Magic Spells [Magic for Beginners]
> b) 14 Books of Magic Spells [Conjurings and Tricks]
> c) 13 Books of Magic Spells [Incantations and Illusions] {25% off}
> d) a Book of Magic Spells [Sorcery and Evocations]
> e) a Book of Magic Spells [Mordenkainen's Escapes]
> It cannot be harmed by the elements.
> f) a Red Mushroom of Restore Strength
> g) a Green Mushroom of Restore Constitution
> h) 49 Blue Speckled Potions of Cure Critical Wounds {50% off}
> i) a Pink Speckled Potion of Restore Strength
> j) a Dark Green Potion of Restore Intelligence
> k) 2 White Potions of Restore Charisma
You don't need any of this. Instead, you should have a stockpile of
Healing and *Healing* potions, mushrooms of restoring, scrolls of
*identify* (and posssibly potions of self knowledge).
> l) Pseudo-Dragon Scale Mail (-2) [30,+10]
> It provides resistance to light and dark. It activates for breathe
> light/darkness (200) every 300+d300 turns. It cannot be harmed by the
> elements.
I guess you won't ever wear this.
> m) Bronze Dragon Scale Mail (-2) [30,+20]
> It provides resistance to confusion. It activates for breathe
> confusion (120) every 450+d450 turns. It cannot be harmed by the
> elements.
This would allow you to wear Thranduil. Try it, telepathy is great.
Thorongil and Thengel can probably be safely sold. The +3 speed of Thalk
should be tempting you to use it, but trying to get Telepathy as above
is probably better. The rest you can keep right now, as there's enough
other junk in your home to be sold first if you are in need of space.
Matthias
Dan
this weekend, assuming I have time in between studying for my MBA tests next
week.
Note: I just found The Plate of Isildur, which I am now wearing and gives 50 AC
and a few other goodies - not sure if what I'd give up by wearing the Dragon
Scale Mail would be worth it...
A lot of my home inventory is left over from when I started to have money and
wanted to make sure I had enough restore an heal potions. I have tried to
stock up on mushrooms of restoring and the like, but cannot find enough to keep
pace.
Thanks again!
Dan
VALIS
No, I'm afraid Ed is being quite serious. There isn't any scarcasm there.
However, when asked to provide lists of changes he would like to see
implimented or disccussed, he'll clam right up. Any sort of disscussion about
any idea he proposes causes him to clam up with 'I told you so! Everyone has a
plan to have Angband not change at all'. he starts talking about his 'perfect'
solution to problems, which of course there's no code for.
The truth is, that angband is very balanced in certain specific ways. It has
some issues, but because it's the primary game, robert is carefull about what
he puts in it to insure that it doesn't make the game unplayable or out of
whack. It should also be kept in mind that wizard spells were completely
redone, Lua added, and many new monsters added to fill in some holes recently.
There is change in Angband, just not drastic change. If that's what you're
looking for there are always the variants.
--
-Campbell
- Join the steamband group by sending an email to
steamband...@Yahoogroups.com !
- Visit the Steamband web page, and follow the progress of Steam! (and view my
art!) http://angband.oook.cz/steamband/
love-band
> Everything here makes me think Angabnd 3.0.3 is definitely not the most fun...
> There are no quests, I cannot have pets, there appears to be different (newer)
> items like amulets of "reflection", extra books, etc... Am I REALLY missing
> out on a lot of fun with ZAngband? (or whatever it seems like people here are
> playing)
Well... I don't want to start trouble, but wait for the next Zang. release
before trying it, it's a mess in its current state. Maybe go for Heng. or ToME
if you want more bells and whistles. Vanilla doesn't have stuff like pets and
quests and probably shouldn't-- it's elegant in its simplicity. You may even
appreciate it more after playing variants for a while.
>
> I have a L42 Gnome Mage who is doing really well (best character ever for me -
> never had the patience before). Should I just scrap him and start over in a
> new version of Angband? I would guess that I am halfway on my way to finishing
> the game (which I never thought was possible in the past) ;)
>
See it through before you start a new character. No matter what version or
variant you're playing, you're going to have your patience tried. It's part of
the game.
> Anyway, it seems as if my game is beginning to get a bit monotonous - I am stuck
> hovering around 2250 right now, hoping for some better artifacts with better
> resists. Nether balls, mana storms, etc are hurting me too much when I run
> into the occasional monster that does not take kindly to my Mage.
>
Dive! Why not? I don't know if you have the resists you need covered, but at
level 42 you could handle 3000-4000' . The game will get much more exciting,
believe me. And the frequency and quality of powerful artifacts will greatly
improve. And you'll be running for your life all the time. But it's not
boring.
> Possibly I am not playing right??? Anyway, my dump is Dan - Gnome Mage - L42 on
> here if someone wants to give me some tips on how I should be beating these
> monsters easier... I usually mana storm/rend soul/chaos strike for the most
> part and rift away monsters that can cause the most damage...
>
Maybe you should take up archery. Especially if you have Tenser's.
Ed Cogburn
> On 2003-10-03 18:34:42, Dan <dhe...@bfca.com> wrote:
>
>
>>On 2003-10-03 18:26:41, MattyG wrote:
>>
>>
>>>On 2003-10-03 18:06:56, Russ Allbery wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Ed Cogburn writes:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>That's because the powers that be believe Vanilla is *supposed* to be
>>>>>"vanilla". Its a museum piece, you're not actually suposed to have
>>>>>*fun* with it, that would be unacceptable.....
>>>>
>>>>Just because you don't have fun with it doesn't mean you should be
>>>>insulting it for everyone else who does. Some of us have been playing
>>>>Angband for a very long time and prefer an uncluttered game.
>>>
>>>I think he was being sarcastic, and that he actually agrees with you.
>>
>>I got the same impression, but it's always tough to see in text rather than in
>>tone of voice... Technology these days...... ;)
>>
>>On a positive note, I found The Plate Mail of Isildur a second ago... Replaced
>>Arvedui with it...
>
>
> No, I'm afraid Ed is being quite serious. There isn't any scarcasm there.
> However, when asked to provide lists of changes he would like to see
> implimented or disccussed, he'll clam right up. Any sort of disscussion about
> any idea he proposes causes him to clam up with 'I told you so! Everyone has a
> plan to have Angband not change at all'. he starts talking about his 'perfect'
> solution to problems, which of course there's no code for.
A fascinating read.... not anywhere close to reality but a fascinating read
nevertheless.
Jonathan Ellis
"Ed Cogburn" <ecog...@xtn.net> wrote in message
news:blr5ho$f1l00$2...@ID-49761.news.uni-berlin.de...
Well? What *is* your answer? What *DO* you want changed about Angband?
A list of Proposed New Features would be necessary. If you simply
think "things should be changed" without explaining how or in what
way, then I'm afraid the argument doesn't deserve to be taken
seriously.
Jonathan.
konijn_
wrote:
> "Ed Cogburn" wrote in message
> news:blr5ho$f1l00$2...@ID-49761.news.uni-berlin.de...
> > VALIS wrote:
Even thought the question is not asked to me, I have too much free time today
and I decided to answer that for him :
I'd like items with multiple pvals :
Ring of Raal : STR-5,CON-3,INT+5
I'd like items with 'weird luck' from zang
I'd like more statistics ( like multibands '# Effects used' )
I'd like a 'always small levels' option
I'd like spell descriptions
I'd like item descriptions
I'd like a mention of 'where found/bought' on items
I'd like to discuss about autosquelchers
I'd like an alternative display of angband where you dont have the left hand
side screen , but only 1 line at the bottom with HP and SP and maybe current
player effects. I would _really_ like that.
I'd like the graphics to be stored in PNG.
I'd like more hooks to put sound files in the game
I'd like some more Arda monsters in the game, like 'Watcher in the Water' ,
non-unique easterlings, the Istari etc.
I'd like to fix the 'stat level scumming for the 50th time same level where is
my f*ing pot of con ???' feeling some of my chars have in angband.
Disclaimer I : Some of this might be already implemented, it's been a while I
played Vanilla.
Disclaimer II : I'm not saying that that is what rr9 should focus on, it's just
what I would like.
Ed Cogburn
Apparently, you plonked me too early in the argument to hear the other things I
said later.
1) I never had a "list of changes", nor, as Valis insists, did I ever have a
"master plan" that I wanted to ram down everyone's throat. That is purely from
Valis's imagination.
2) I was more concerned with the process of developement for Vanilla. Sure, I
had a few specific examples that I did mention, but its the process that
concerned me. Compare the way Ben and Robert have managed Vanilla to the way
Linus handles Linux and I think you'll see what I mean. I'm not saying its
"their fault" either, because the rest of us have come, somehow, to a conclusion
that this is the way it should be done, so there is no surprise that those we
chose to be maintainers do it roughly the way we expect them too. There is a
"mindset" within this group that Vanilla should be restricted, slower
developing, largely done quietly behind the scenes by the maintainer without
public debate. Just look at Vanilla and the clones, as a community, we've
simply never developed the concept of cooperative development of one (or 2 or
maybe 3) main trees, instead, everyone who wants to see changes is told to make
his/her own variant. So we have the energy flowing *outward* from the center,
instead of being channeled *inward* like Linus does with Linux. There are no
major separate variants of Linux, almost every variation (like NSA's highly
secure variant of the kernel, or the 64 bit variations) has been folded into the
main tree. Many of them *started* as separate variants (NSA's version began as
a completely separate code base), but after maturing and evolving some, they
made their way back to the center. We don't do that, we don't do *anything*
like that, what we're doing is the complete opposite, because all innovation is
being pushed *away* from the main tree. We have innovation dying on the vines
out there because they are in little known variants which become abandoned by
their author once he/she gets tired of maintaining a variant. The good things
that they do never make it back to the center because our mindset doesn't
encourage feedback to the center, and because right now, quite literally, we
don't *have* a center. Variants usually have only one author, when that author
goes, the variant dies. If we had a center, a common code base with a
maintainer, several lieutenants, and a dozen other major and minor contributors,
whatever innovation is made, remains and is maintained by the group. But
nothing will change as long as we accept the current mindset as valid just
because its always been that way.
Oh hell, I don't know why I bother. Have fun slamming me....
Julian Lighton
Ed Cogburn <ecog...@xtn.net> wrote:
>2) I was more concerned with the process of developement for Vanilla. Sure, I
>had a few specific examples that I did mention, but its the process that
>concerned me. Compare the way Ben and Robert have managed Vanilla to the way
>Linus handles Linux and I think you'll see what I mean.
I see that you're comparing apples and oranges.
If you add a feature to an OS, and it does not cause anything else to
stop working right, you have improved the OS. It does something that
it did not do before.
If you add a feature to a game, even if it doesn't cause anything else
to stop working right, it does not necessarily improve the game. You
cannot evaluate the merits of a change without considering how it
affects the entire game.
> I'm not saying its "their fault" either, because the rest of us
>have come, somehow, to a conclusion that this is the way it should be
>done, so there is no surprise that those we chose to be maintainers
>do it roughly the way we expect them too. There is a "mindset"
>within this group that Vanilla should be restricted, slower
>developing, largely done quietly behind the scenes by the maintainer
>without public debate.
This mindset mostly exists within your mind.
I speak for nobody else but myself, but my mindset is that Angband
should be Angband. If it tries to be everything, it's doomed.
> Just look at Vanilla and the clones, as a community, we've
>simply never developed the concept of cooperative development of one (or 2 or
>maybe 3) main trees,
That's because it would suck.
Cooperative development doesn't work on art like it does on tools. One
can no longer express an individual vision. Your main trees would
either become incoherent, trying to be all things to all people by
making everything optional (a problem Angband already has), or many
ideas would fail to find ferile ground, since ideas that require "not
A" won't get very far when "A" already exists. (Even multiple main
trees will run into this problem, as any big idea is unlikely to find
everything to its liking in any of them.)
> instead, everyone who wants to see changes is told to make
>his/her own variant.
Yes. What other options are there? Interesting changes need
fine-tuning. Dump them raw into Angband, and the game will probably
suck until they get the tuning. Dump multiple unrelated changes in,
and the game may suck even if they don't need fine-tuning.
> So we have the energy flowing *outward* from the center,
>instead of being channeled *inward* like Linus does with Linux.
I can think of a number of snide comments to make about this sentence,
but I won't make them.
> There are no major separate variants of Linux, almost every
>variation (like NSA's highly secure variant of the kernel, or the 64
>bit variations) has been folded into the main tree. Many of them
>*started* as separate variants (NSA's version began as a completely
>separate code base),
It had to begin with a Linux code base.
>but after maturing and evolving some, they made
>their way back to the center. We don't do that, we don't do
>*anything* like that,
Because it cannot be done. Angband can't be ToME and Oangband and
Sangband at the same time.
>what we're doing is the complete opposite,
>because all innovation is being pushed *away* from the main tree.
Yep. It gets to fly on its own, then it may either return home to
roost, or make its own nest.
Or it falls to the ground and dies. Such is life.
> We have innovation dying on the vines
>out there because they are in little known variants which become abandoned by
>their author once he/she gets tired of maintaining a variant.
And the interesting ideas often appear elsewhere. If they don't, maybe
they weren't that interesting after all.
> The good things
>that they do never make it back to the center because our mindset doesn't
>encourage feedback to the center, and because right now, quite literally, we
>don't *have* a center.
Angband is the center. It just doesn't eat its children, because then
it would grow fat and bloated.
> Variants usually have only one author, when that author goes, the
>variant dies. If we had a center, a common code base with a
>maintainer, several lieutenants, and a dozen other major and minor
>contributors, whatever innovation is made, remains and is maintained
>by the group.
So, how does one integrate both Oangband's combat system and
Eyangbands weapons into Angband?
> But nothing will change as long as we accept the
>current mindset as valid just because its always been that way.
>
>Oh hell, I don't know why I bother.
Because you don't see that they're windmills. You see a useful hammer
(the Linux development model), and decide that Angband has a deep need
to be a nail.
Ramela
> Ed sed:
>
> > Compare the way Ben and Robert have managed Vanilla to the way
> > Linus handles Linux and I think you'll see what I mean.
>
> Hate to say it, but Ed has a point. Angband development, as an
> open-source project, is comparable to Linux, if you squint a little.
>
I disagree. Linux doesn't need to worry about Game Balance, Angband
does. IMO Angband is a really well balanced game... (That is, I can get
almost any race/class combo to Statgain, but they all die there :-) )
Just adding stuff WILL break the balance, so adding stuff takes time
because maintaining balance is hard and takes time.
>
> > The good things that [variant writers] do never make it back to the
> > center because our mindset doesn't encourage feedback to the center
>
> Ed's right, but I don't know that it makes "us" wrong.
>
I don't think that feedback doesn't get to the centre, from personal
experience I know that rr9 does read r.g.r.a.
>
> How would you add all the features in all the variants to one version?
> Would you have a giant install-time option screen, like Linux? Would you
> be able to pick and choose which options you wanted in your personal
> Ultrasuperband install? I have a vision of a long, gray window with a
> slowly-moving scroll bar at the right, showing a list of checkboxes and
> monster names in 9-point type, stretching off into the mists beyond the
> horizon.
>
> [YOU HAVE SELECTED 229 MONSTERS OF AN AVAILABLE 13401. INSTALLING
> MONSTERS..........PLEASE SELECT STAVES TO BE INSTALLED (173 STAVES
> AVAILABLE). INSTALLATION SCREENS TO GO: 17.]
>
And that is why I trust rr9 with developing Angband, because
I believe he can keep it balanced and keep it simple when he
changes something. And if Angband turns out to be something
less/more than I want, I'll just learn C and make me a variant
of my own. :-)
Ramela
--
--
Anssi Ramela
michael embley
*band world
I am not trying to come over all Hippy Peace and Love however as pointed out the
variant system has the makjor strength that one can find almost everything one
wants.
For example if you want team development, it is there
if you want new ideas, they are there
If you want to play a "pure" balanced game you can find it
If you want to make your own...now one will stop you
I dont think that the process is flawed. I play vanilla because it offers what I
want and as a physician I couldn't code my way out of a paper bag never mind
come up with something of my own!
However it seems to me that TOME which I (PERSONALLY) dont really enjoy offers a
maintainer who is highly active and who works very well with a team. Perhaps Ed
might be happier there. After all TOME has a huge following and is nearly
another game in its own right.
Those of us who quite like the way rr9 has handled things and indeed the whole
model of vanilla development (the cow breeding analogy seemed apt) can stay
where we are most satisfied.
After all...a new player coming to Vanilla must find it stable, portable,
balanced, challenging, fun, interesting. An old hand who can beat the game can
find new pastures.
This is in my opinion a good thing.
I do think that having the debate is fruitful however and would not want to
"slam" ed as I am sure he knows more of the story than I. It's not good to sit
comfortably on assumptions. I just think that there is a place where Ed's
stated wishes are ongoing.
Timo Pietilä
Julian Lighton wrote:
> I speak for nobody else but myself, but my mindset is that Angband
> should be Angband. If it tries to be everything, it's doomed.
Can't agree more. :-)
Timo Pietilä
--
A(2.9.3) DI(>) "Wanderer" DP L:43 DL:2200' A+ R+ Sp+ w:Ulmo/BoChaos
A(2.9.3) Comp "Ufthak" hoRa L:50 DL:4250' A++ R+ S++ w:LBowEM(15,17)(1)
A/S L/W/D H- D+ c-- f PV+ s-(+) TT? d(+) P++ M+
C-- S+ I-(++) So+ B++ ac GHB- SQ RQ++ V+ F:S Rod Stacking
Timo Pietilä
Xiong Changnian wrote:
> Linux is like a toolbox. You can add stuff to it endlessly, even pretty
> useless stuff, without making the toolbox less useful -- and the key
> point is usefulness. When people install Linux, they can just throw out
> anything they don't like. Of course, this means the days of the one-CD
> distro are gone.
Well, I have here a one _floppy disk_ distro ;-) . And I use it for work
about once a month.
Jeff Greene
"Julian Lighton" <jl...@fragment.com> wrote in message
news:vo9gvdf...@corp.supernews.com...
>
> Yes. What other options are there? Interesting changes need
> fine-tuning. Dump them raw into Angband, and the game will probably
> suck until they get the tuning.
That's kind of one of the goals of NPPAngband, to take the ideas and
re-balance them to be balanced enough to go into Angband (assuming Robert
wanted them to go in).
>Dump multiple unrelated changes in,
> and the game may suck even if they don't need fine-tuning.
{snip}
> Because it cannot be done. Angband can't be ToME and Oangband and
> Sangband at the same time.
Agreed, the variants all kind of go into their own directions. Many of the
ideas would mix together like oil and water.
{snip again}
> > The good things
> >that they do never make it back to the center because our mindset doesn't
> >encourage feedback to the center, and because right now, quite literally,
we
> >don't *have* a center.
>
> Angband is the center. It just doesn't eat its children, because then
> it would grow fat and bloated.
No comment here except to say that I love the analogy.
I sort of agree with Ed in one thing, in a way. Vanilla really hasn't
changed that much in about 10 years. It has been cleaned up and perfectly
balanced, but it really hasn't progressed. Areas I wish it did progress
quicker is in areas of user interface. For example, why haven't html screen
dumps been added? Is there anyone out there who would oppose that? Why not
the vastly superior startup/birth interface from EYangband? Or Leon
Marrick's improved help files? Also, I would also love to hear RR's opinion
on autosquelch. (or, after it gets a little more gameplay, perhaps the
modified character dump I created in NPP would be a worthy addition).
I do think that keeping a single maintainer is important, and it should be
somebody of the quality of Ben Harrison or RR, who doesn't come along every
day. But, instead of asking RR to change his viewpoints, or Vanilla, I
simply started creating my variant, which really does alot of the things Ed
is asking for. Specifically, be quicker to take in ideas from Variants, and
create a kind of "progressive vanilla". OTOH, neither me or a committee has
the right to declare that status to my variant. Only the acceptance of the
playing community as a whole could do that (and my variant is not close
enough to completion to even deserve any such title).
After that, I kind of think that there are variants that can be considered
alternate vanilla's, due to their heavy gameplay and admiration of the
Angband playing community. For example, how many variants has Zangband
spawned? It isn't vanilla by any means, but it has had tremendous influence
on countless variants, and is very heavily played. TOME as well should be
considered something more than just another variant. At this point, it is
probably played more than Vanilla. I wonder why Ed doesn't think these are
what he is asking for. (no, truely, I am genuinely curious....that wasn't
meant as a sarcastic remark).
--
-Jeff
replace the ".spam"s with comcast.net to reply
Author of NPPAngband. Check it out at:
http://home.comcast.net/~nppangband/
Julian Lighton
Jeff Greene <nppan...@spam.spam.spam.spam,> wrote:
>I sort of agree with Ed in one thing, in a way. Vanilla really hasn't
>changed that much in about 10 years.
Um, how much have you played frog-knows?
Even ignoring the UI and purely technical changes, the changes to the
game-play are huge.
Bow slot, targeting, field-of-view, object stacking, monster flow,
fractional speed and the baseline game clock, *Identify* and the
inspect command. Probably several others that I'm forgetting. (Not to
mention the stuff that's optional.)
Angband 3 featured heavy changes to objects, monsters, and mage spells.
What the changes aren't are flashy. Somebody who played ten years ago
could pick up the game again with very little effort.
> It has been cleaned up and perfectly
>balanced,
No, it still has some fundamental flaws.
>but it really hasn't progressed. Areas I wish it did progress
>quicker is in areas of user interface. For example, why haven't html screen
>dumps been added? Is there anyone out there who would oppose that? Why not
>the vastly superior startup/birth interface from EYangband? Or Leon
>Marrick's improved help files?
Has anybody tried creating patches and submitting them to Robert?
It worked for monster AI, easy foo, randarts, ironman options, and a
number of other things. (Well, s/Robert/Ben/.)
> Also, I would also love to hear RR's opinion
>on autosquelch.
I am not he, but my opinion is that it's the wrong solution to one of
the aforementioned fundamental flaws, and it requires too much
micromanagement.
>After that, I kind of think that there are variants that can be considered
>alternate vanilla's, due to their heavy gameplay and admiration of the
>Angband playing community. For example, how many variants has Zangband
>spawned? It isn't vanilla by any means, but it has had tremendous influence
>on countless variants, and is very heavily played. TOME as well should be
>considered something more than just another variant. At this point, it is
>probably played more than Vanilla.
I doubt it. It generates more questions, but that's not the same
thing. IIRC, last time somebody polled the group, Angband was still
comfortably the leader. (That was quite a while back, but I see no
indication that anything's changed, except that ToME's getting the
traffic that Z used to.)
Jeff Greene
> In article <B9ednTcahec...@comcast.com>,
> Jeff Greene <nppan...@spam.spam.spam.spam,> wrote:
> >I sort of agree with Ed in one thing, in a way. Vanilla really hasn't
> >changed that much in about 10 years.
>
> Um, how much have you played frog-knows?
>
> Even ignoring the UI and purely technical changes, the changes to the
> game-play are huge.
>
> Bow slot, targeting, field-of-view, object stacking, monster flow,
> fractional speed and the baseline game clock, *Identify* and the
> inspect command. Probably several others that I'm forgetting. (Not to
> mention the stuff that's optional.)
>
> Angband 3 featured heavy changes to objects, monsters, and mage spells.
>
> What the changes aren't are flashy. Somebody who played ten years ago
> could pick up the game again with very little effort.
True. Also, I go back and forth on my opinion of how much Angband should
change creatively. I do wish improvements to the interface were jumped on
quicker, though. I was aware of the above changes, I guess I don't consider
them *huge* changes, although that is purely subjective opinion. I would
consider, for example, adding quests a big change.
>
> > It has been cleaned up and perfectly
> >balanced,
>
> No, it still has some fundamental flaws.
Perhaps, but IMHO it takes several times winning the game to be aware of
them. It is hard to ask more of a game than that. (You are the creator of
the JLE patch, correct? I thought those were terrific changes).
>
> >but it really hasn't progressed. Areas I wish it did progress
> >quicker is in areas of user interface. For example, why haven't html
screen
> >dumps been added? Is there anyone out there who would oppose that? Why
not
> >the vastly superior startup/birth interface from EYangband? Or Leon
> >Marrick's improved help files?
>
> Has anybody tried creating patches and submitting them to Robert?
I was planning on doing a patch for purely interface items once I got my
variant to a point where I was ready to take a small break from it. Darkgod
already did a screen dump patch, but it hasn't been added yet.
>
> It worked for monster AI, easy foo, randarts, ironman options, and a
> number of other things. (Well, s/Robert/Ben/.)
>
> > Also, I would also love to hear RR's opinion
> >on autosquelch.
>
> I am not he, but my opinion is that it's the wrong solution to one of
> the aforementioned fundamental flaws, and it requires too much
> micromanagement.
What do you think the right solution is? IMHO, it takes too long after
clearing out a monster next to wade through the stuff, with it all piled 23
items deep. AutoSquelch is wonderful in that regard.
>
> >After that, I kind of think that there are variants that can be
considered
> >alternate vanilla's, due to their heavy gameplay and admiration of the
> >Angband playing community. For example, how many variants has Zangband
> >spawned? It isn't vanilla by any means, but it has had tremendous
influence
> >on countless variants, and is very heavily played. TOME as well should
be
> >considered something more than just another variant. At this point, it
is
> >probably played more than Vanilla.
>
> I doubt it. It generates more questions, but that's not the same
> thing. IIRC, last time somebody polled the group, Angband was still
> comfortably the leader. (That was quite a while back, but I see no
> indication that anything's changed, except that ToME's getting the
> traffic that Z used to.)
I was basing that on the number of character dumps at the angband.oook.cz
ladder. TOME has far more than vanilla. That might not be the most
accurate measure, but that's all I had to go by. As for the amount of
traffic, I definitely wasn't going by that. Somebody else had an excellent
point about Zangband about 4 years back. It was argued that there were far
more posts about Zangband than Vanilla on the newsgroup, ergo it was more
popular and more heavily played. Other people pointed out that there was
more traffic because of bug reports and discussions about new features that
just wouldn't happen with an Angband player, since there is the Angband
Newbie guide that can answer many of the questions, it doesn't add new
features that frequently, and bugs are pretty hard to spot in Vanilla these
days. Probably that's why TOME gets so much traffic now; since Darkgod is
so prolific in introducing new features.
-Jeff
Timo Pietilä
> "Julian Lighton" <jl...@fragment.com> wrote in message
> news:vocm368...@corp.supernews.com...
>
>>In article <B9ednTcahec...@comcast.com>,
>>Jeff Greene <nppan...@spam.spam.spam.spam,> wrote:
>>> It has been cleaned up and perfectly
>>>balanced,
>>
>>No, it still has some fundamental flaws.
>
> Perhaps, but IMHO it takes several times winning the game to be aware of
> them. It is hard to ask more of a game than that.
If those flaws would not exist in next version you'd notice. Even newbie
would notice. LoS/Targetting rules, monster AI with healing monsters,
too many false alarms with preserve off and autoscum on, autoscum itself
etc.
> (You are the creator of
> the JLE patch, correct? I thought those were terrific changes).
No. Jonathan Ellis is creator of JLE, not Julian. I agree that JLE made
really good changes to monsters (I don't like all changes, but some of
them I love), but he also added and tweaked too many items. Some of the
new items are seriously unbalanced (but can be balanced of course) and
some are just unnecessary.
(small speed boosts: good, Haradrim HXbow: bad, new artifacts: unnecessary).
When Robert added JLE to 3.0.3 it felt like Robert himself hadn't any
opinion about it at all, he just added JLE-patch unchanged in it. To me
it was clear that something like Haradrim XBow was unbalancing and I
expected Robert to remove it. Ego-item that is much more powerful than
*all* artifact missile weapons? Come on, that is clearly too powerful.
>>> Also, I would also love to hear RR's opinion
>>>on autosquelch.
>>
>>I am not he, but my opinion is that it's the wrong solution to one of
>>the aforementioned fundamental flaws, and it requires too much
>>micromanagement.
>
> What do you think the right solution is? IMHO, it takes too long after
> clearing out a monster next to wade through the stuff, with it all piled 23
> items deep. AutoSquelch is wonderful in that regard.
IMO you answered yourself to that question. Too much items in drops. Too
much useless items to be exact. Before item stacking it really wasn't
any issue. Also balance between floor items and monster drops changed
quite a lot in favor of monsters.
Timo Pietilä
Jonathan Ellis
"Jeff Greene" <nppan...@spam.spam.spam.spam,> wrote in message
news:shidnfkmdJ0...@comcast.com...
No, that was me - look for someone with a surname beginning with E.
;-) Julian's done heaps of other things for Angband, including being a
longtime maintainer of SAngband, though.
Jonathan.
Jonathan Ellis
"Timo Pietilä" <timo.p...@helsinki.fi> wrote in message
news:bm68ra$9d2$1...@oravannahka.helsinki.fi...
Yup - I expected him to pick-and-choose too. On the other hand, feel
free to suggest changes - either to remove the item or (preferably) to
alter it in some way to reduce what you perceive to be its
overpoweringness. I was basically experimenting with some of the
ego-item design capabilities, and wanted to see if I could create an
item that was distinctively a powerful ego-type for crossbows only.
Perhaps if SHOTS was removed? Then it would still hit hard but only
have one attack per round, as opposed to bows which often have more,
especially in the hands of rangers.
(And one could even restore the option to make it +2 pval instead
of +1 - it used to be possible to get Extra Might with +2, and I don't
seem to recall anyone complaining about Heavy Crossbows of Extra Might
(x4) (+2). Nor indeed Rangers with the Long Bow of Bard - three shots
per round at x5, which is much bigger hits overall than the current
Haradrim Xbow which is *two* shots per round at x5: and *that*
artifact (Bard) is none of my doing. In any case, I still often wield
Belthronding for the resist and never use missiles.
Okay, one could remove or nerf the rare ammo whose main intention
was to slay more than one thing. Anyway, slaying on missile weapons is
handled in a damn silly fashion - isn't it *enough* to multiply the
4d4 of a Seeker Arrow, without multiplying the magical damage bonus as
well from *both* the bow *and* the arrow? The difference between, say,
4d4 (4-16, average 10) and 12d4 (12-48, average 30) is still an
average of 20 points per shot, multiplied by the multiplier which
could be x3, x4, x5...
Hell, even for normal Arrows, those multipliers stack up. Arrow
of Slay Dragon? 1d4, average 2.5... x3 from a normal Longbow, makes
7.5 plus 3x magical damage bonus against non-dragons. Against dragons,
it would be 3d4x3 = 9d4, average...22.5. That's an extra 15 damage per
shot for a 1d4 arrow. Extra Might and/or Shots only serves to amplify
this.
If you had a Long Bow of Extra Might (+1) firing 1d4 arrows with
a Slay or Brand, normal damage would be 4-16 (1d4 for arrow, x4
multiplier) plus 4x the magical damage bonus: and slaying or branded
damage would be 12-48 (average 30) plus 4x the magic damage bonus - in
other words, an average of 20 extra points of damage per hit, *even
without multiplying the damage bonus for the slay.* (Making it 12x the
magic damage bonus is simply over-cheese as well.)
So, note: A "slay" or "brand" on normal arrows would get an extra 15
damage per shot on average, even if the multiplier of the slay did NOT
apply to the magical damage bonus. From a Seeker Arrow (4d4), you get
the difference between 4d4 (average 10) and 12d4 (average 30)
multiplied by 3 from a longbow, for an extra 60 hps of damage per shot
even without multiplying the damage bonus.
THERE IS NO NEED FOR SLAYS OR BRANDS TO MULTIPLY MAGICAL DAMAGE
BONUSES FROM BOWS OR ARROWS. And this extra multiplier, which is not
used on melee weapons, is what makes the most powerful damaging
missile weapons *really* unbalancing. IMHO if you changed this, you've
gotten rid of more than half of what Timo was complaining about, yet
slays and brands still DO count for something (an extra +15 damage per
hit, and that's considering normal 1d4 arrows from a normal x3
Longbow, is not to be sneezed at, and Seeker Arrows would do an extra
+60 damage per hit, against monsters vulnerable to the slay or brand.
Okay, Slay Evil and Animal would be +10 and +40 respectively.)
I mean... The base damage dice says 1d4, so old Angband designers
(pre-Ben) probably thought "Oh, slays don't matter when the base
damage is that low - better make them multiply the magic damage bonus
too for arrows". Not necessary when the thing is multiplied twice -
once for the bow multiplier, and once for the slay. If, instead of
saying "Slay Demon", it said "+15 damage against demons", you'd sit up
and take notice, because "+15" looks like a big number. And when a
Seeker Arrow said "+60 Damage against demons" instead of "Slay Demon",
you would REALLY take notice, even without multiplying the damage
bonus intrinsic to the arrow and the bow for the slay (it is enough to
multiply THAT for the bow multiplier.)
I've been out of the swing of Angband development for a while due
to being too damn busy back at music college, but I'm getting back
into it. And even Angband-source-hacking too ;-) So,
Jonathan.
R Dan Henry
jl...@fragment.com (Julian Lighton) declared:
>Um, how much have you played frog-knows?
>
>Even ignoring the UI and purely technical changes, the changes to the
>game-play are huge.
>
>Bow slot, targeting, field-of-view, object stacking, monster flow,
>fractional speed and the baseline game clock, *Identify* and the
>inspect command. Probably several others that I'm forgetting. (Not to
>mention the stuff that's optional.)
Removal of player ghosts, addition of poison brand, stat maximize,
various additions and changes to what became during this period edit
file contents (monsters, items (inc. artifacts and egos), etc.) and the
change to fractional speed alone is *huge*. For a start it meant
Ringil/Cubragol was no longer no brainer choice, Rings of Speed competed
for second ring slot, generally harder to time extra moves against
monsters.
Today's Angband is definitely not the Angband I started with.
--
R. Dan Henry, Emperor of the Universe
Is an enthusiastic Fire Hound a hot dog with relish?
Julian Lighton
Jeff Greene <nppan...@spam.spam.spam.spam,> wrote:
>
>"Julian Lighton" <jl...@fragment.com> wrote in message
>news:vocm368...@corp.supernews.com...
>> In article <B9ednTcahec...@comcast.com>,
>> Jeff Greene <nppan...@spam.spam.spam.spam,> wrote:
>> >I sort of agree with Ed in one thing, in a way. Vanilla really hasn't
>> >changed that much in about 10 years.
>>
>> Um, how much have you played frog-knows?
>>
>> Even ignoring the UI and purely technical changes, the changes to the
>> game-play are huge.
>>
>> Bow slot, targeting, field-of-view, object stacking, monster flow,
>> fractional speed and the baseline game clock, *Identify* and the
>> inspect command. Probably several others that I'm forgetting. (Not to
>> mention the stuff that's optional.)
>>
>> Angband 3 featured heavy changes to objects, monsters, and mage spells.
>>
>> What the changes aren't are flashy. Somebody who played ten years ago
>> could pick up the game again with very little effort.
>
>True. Also, I go back and forth on my opinion of how much Angband should
>change creatively. I do wish improvements to the interface were jumped on
>quicker, though. I was aware of the above changes, I guess I don't consider
>them *huge* changes, although that is purely subjective opinion. I would
>consider, for example, adding quests a big change.
Object stacking, for instance, had vastly larger effects on the game
than quests would.
>> > It has been cleaned up and perfectly
>> >balanced,
>>
>> No, it still has some fundamental flaws.
>
>Perhaps, but IMHO it takes several times winning the game to be aware of
>them.
Not really. The mid-to-late levels of the dungeoun are virtually
pointless, forcing you to slog thrugh them looking for equipment
upgrades. You see absurd amounts of items that you do not care about.
>It is hard to ask more of a game than that. (You are the creator of
>the JLE patch, correct? I thought those were terrific changes).
Perhaps, but they're not mine.
>> It worked for monster AI, easy foo, randarts, ironman options, and a
>> number of other things. (Well, s/Robert/Ben/.)
>>
>> > Also, I would also love to hear RR's opinion
>> >on autosquelch.
>>
>> I am not he, but my opinion is that it's the wrong solution to one of
>> the aforementioned fundamental flaws, and it requires too much
>> micromanagement.
>
>What do you think the right solution is?
Hard. :)
> IMHO, it takes too long after
>clearing out a monster next to wade through the stuff, with it all piled 23
>items deep. AutoSquelch is wonderful in that regard.
Perhaps, but it's still the wrong solution. Part of the problem is
object stacking. The rest is simply that more than 90% of the items
you see aren't even worth thinking about. Autosquelch helps cover the
real problem, but it's not a solution to it.
Julian Lighton
Jonathan Ellis <jona...@franz-liszt.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> Okay, one could remove or nerf the rare ammo whose main intention
>was to slay more than one thing. Anyway, slaying on missile weapons is
>handled in a damn silly fashion - isn't it *enough* to multiply the
>4d4 of a Seeker Arrow, without multiplying the magical damage bonus as
>well from *both* the bow *and* the arrow? The difference between, say,
>4d4 (4-16, average 10) and 12d4 (12-48, average 30) is still an
>average of 20 points per shot, multiplied by the multiplier which
>could be x3, x4, x5...
>So, note: A "slay" or "brand" on normal arrows would get an extra 15
>damage per shot on average, even if the multiplier of the slay did NOT
>apply to the magical damage bonus. From a Seeker Arrow (4d4), you get
>the difference between 4d4 (average 10) and 12d4 (average 30)
>multiplied by 3 from a longbow, for an extra 60 hps of damage per shot
>even without multiplying the damage bonus.
>
> THERE IS NO NEED FOR SLAYS OR BRANDS TO MULTIPLY MAGICAL DAMAGE
>BONUSES FROM BOWS OR ARROWS.
There is. It makes up for the ammo supply problem, and the reduced
nuber of shots per turn. I don't recall if this was a change from the
Moria to Angband transition, or came during Angband's life-cycle, but
before it happened, people simply didn't use bows; they weren't worth
the effort. Of course, this was before the bow slot, but that doesn't
change much. 60 points of damage a turn is not that big a deal, and
that's about the best you can do.
(It was probably a mid-Angband change. I remember somebody I knew way
back when getting Cubragol from Maggot, and running around beating
monsters to death with it. One would have to assume he tried firing
bolts, and decided it wasn't worth the trouble.)
Toshi1873
liszt.freeserve.co.uk says...
> THERE IS NO NEED FOR SLAYS OR BRANDS TO MULTIPLY MAGICAL DAMAGE
> BONUSES FROM BOWS OR ARROWS.
OTOH... unlike a sword, arrows/ammo can be lost after you fire them, or
destroyed if you get splashed with acid. In my mind, that's a
reasonable balance... perhaps it could be balanced more if branded/slay
arrows were fragile (vanish at twice the normal rate after firing).
Back when I played Moria 5.5.2, bows and arrows weren't worth the
slots/weight for a weak little mage to carry. In Angband 3.03, they do
enough damage that it's worth the effort to always make sure that I'm
carrying enough ammo.
Jonathan Ellis
> Perhaps, but it's still the wrong solution. Part of the problem is
> object stacking. The rest is simply that more than 90% of the items
> you see aren't even worth thinking about. Autosquelch helps cover
the
> real problem, but it's not a solution to it.
But what else would you do?
Reduce the number of items in monster drops? That doesn't change the
*ratios* of desirable to undesirable items, so it just means you scum
for longer. As we did in the pre-stacking days.
Increase the chance that, say, weapons and armour have a much greater
chance of being "good" or "great" as you go deeper into the dungeon?
So by the time you pass, say, 2000', almost all items should be "good"
(they already are), and by the time you get to 5000', most of them are
"great"? But how would this handle the *OTHER* items you might need or
want - e.g. potions, scrolls, wands, rings, amulets, rods? (Leaving
aside the fact that wands, rods and staffs of "Do Damage Of Some Sort
Or Another", in fact, suck...) Do you make fewer weapons and armours
to compensate for their better quality, and do you risk getting
overwhelmed with low-level rods, wands and amulets?
And how do cursed ego-items fit into this, or indeed cursed
artifacts, or items that are supposed to have both benefits and
drawbacks such as Calris?
Do you make artifacts more common so you have to wade through
less junk searching for them?
Do you set "maximum" levels for any item, and say that it CAN'T
be generated deeper than a certain level? Okay, one could well say
"wands of Magic Missile are useless at 4000 feet", but what about the
more in-between cases? What if you really, really *want* a Ring of
Constitution (+5 or 6) or of Increase Spell Stat (+5 or 6), such an
item being native to dungeon level 30? I've not only worn such rings
at 5000', I've won with them. (Ring of Int +6 on my first Human Mage
winner in non-maximize mode, and even then it only took his Int to
18/180.) And cursed when it took ages for one to turn up.
What about stopping low-level artifacts turning up at deep
depths? But what if you *want* the low-level artifact - you'd have to
scum dungeon level 10 for, say, Thranduil...?
I've also, on two occasions, still been wearing a Ring of Poison
Resistance because I needed it.
The same items are not useful at 50' and 4950'. Or even at 1500' and
2500'.
The fact is that, WHATEVER you do to change the so-called "problem"
you perceive of "most items are useless", you're (a) going to offend a
lot of people, and (b) highly likely to make the situation worse.
Because there IS no way to make all items useful at all times. Even at
the same depth, different characters will have much different
requirements - warriors don't want spellbooks at all, wizards want
lots of them and are more interested in a weapon for its resistances
and stat bonuses (or, at least, *should* be), whereas warriors look at
the Nice Big Numbers on a weapon rather than its powers.
The only way you could get rid of this problem is to go right
back to, say, Moria or even Rogue. Reduce the number of item types
*directly leads to* reducing the number of kinds of monster attack, at
the very least (otherwise you end up with something like Nethack's
"Ascension Kit", you have NO choice in what to wear because there is
ONLY one combination that provides what you need): and that *directly
leads to* reducing the number of types of monster because otherwise
there are too many that are just the same. (One might say that is
already the case, but you'd only make it worse.)
Who knows, you may as well start at Moria and start working your
way upwards again. And even in Moria, the majority of everything is
crud. So go back to Rogue...
Alternatively, accept that a lot of junk *WILL* be dropped, and the
difference between 80% junk and 95% junk is actually not worth caring
about (compared to if it were, say, 20% junk and 35% junk: but there
is no way to actually *get* back to a mere 20% of items being junk.)
And either be prepared to destroy a lot of items manually, or make the
game do it automatically for you as you walk over them or pick them up
(as in, you make the game automatically destroy the item without
taking a turn, in a situation where the *player* could have destroyed
the item with the "k" command.) Making the items never be generated in
the first place, or be generated but "hidden", or
destroyed-on-generation, is JUST PLAIN WRONG. IMNSHO.
Jonathan.
Timo Pietilä
Julian Lighton wrote:
> In article <bm6cg2$frk$1...@news7.svr.pol.co.uk>,
> Jonathan Ellis <jona...@franz-liszt.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>> THERE IS NO NEED FOR SLAYS OR BRANDS TO MULTIPLY MAGICAL DAMAGE
>>BONUSES FROM BOWS OR ARROWS.
>
> There is. It makes up for the ammo supply problem, and the reduced
> nuber of shots per turn. I don't recall if this was a change from the
Agreed for old vanilla.
Lets consider extreme case: clvl >40 ranger with Bard and seeker arrows
of fire (4d4) (+10,+16).
(4d4+19+16)*5*3*3 = 2025 points of damage. But that is extreme. All
shots must hit to get that and you lose 3 arrows in prosess. Ranger and
_only_ ranger is _supposed_ to be excellent with bows.
Same extreme case with ordinary char, but lets change Bard to
Belthronding because Bard isn't anything special to enybody else than
Ranger:
(4d4+22+16)*3*2*3 = 864 and again both shots must hit. This time you
lose only two arrows / turn.
You lose a stack of slay foo/branded arrows pretty quickly (+ they are
rare) with multiple shot weapon. Especially bow. Arrows break a lot.
Usually you do not have effective slay foo / brand arrows when you
really need them. Enjoy those few moment when you do have them.
But situation changes in 3.0.3. With brand arrow/bolt spell there is
unlimited supply of those arrows/bolts for ranger and mage.
So with 3.0.3 this is:
Find ordinary set of seeker bolts. Enchant them to +8 and brand them.
(nearly unlimited supply).
Use it with Haradrim HXbow (x4) (+15,+20) (+1)
(4d5+20+8)*5*2*3 = 1200. And that was for ordinary mage (does rogue get
brand arrow-spell?).
For ranger Bard is still better than Haradrim but ranger gets that brand
arrow spell too. So for Ranger there is suddenly unlimited supply of
branded arrows. And probably both fire and cold -branded to make sure
that you have useful brand.
This makes ranger and mage unbalanced with good missile weapons because
they can get unlimited supply of excellent ammo. Others do not have this
advantage. JLE did add some extremely good ammo, though, so even other
classes have better chance to find slay foo / branded arrows/bolts than
with 2.9.3 version of angband.
Anyway, you need a combo of very good bow and very good arrows to get
extreme results. It is much more normal for most of the game to have
something like this:
Long bow of extra shots (x3) (+10,+15) (+1) and arrows of fire
(1d4)(+5,+5) and with those calculation goes like this for non-ranger:
(1d4+15+5)*3*2*3 = 405. This equals roughly mage manastorm and only
about 2.4* priest OoD against evil. And OoD hits always and is ball
spell. Arrows miss target every now and then.
Timo Pietilä
Jonathan Ellis wrote:
> I mean... The base damage dice says 1d4, so old Angband designers
> (pre-Ben) probably thought "Oh, slays don't matter when the base
> damage is that low - better make them multiply the magic damage bonus
> too for arrows". Not necessary when the thing is multiplied twice -
In old versions getting very high number of extra dices for arrows was
not rare. Getting arrow of slay evil (6d4) (+XX,+XX) was not extraordinary.
IMO good missile weapon with good ego arrows should make roughly 0,8
times your melee weapon damage on average / turn. Ranger being exception
and ranger should be able to make _more_ damage with bow than with melee
weapon. Othervise nobody uses a bow (except ranger).
With brand/slay multiplying only arrow base damage it doesn't get even
close to that. So there is a reason why slay/brand multiplies whole thing.
Timo Pietilä
Jonathan Ellis wrote:
> "Julian Lighton" <jl...@fragment.com> wrote in message
> news:voe02hi...@corp.supernews.com...
>
>>Perhaps, but it's still the wrong solution. Part of the problem is
>>object stacking. The rest is simply that more than 90% of the items
>>you see aren't even worth thinking about. Autosquelch helps cover
>
> the
>
>>real problem, but it's not a solution to it.
>
> But what else would you do?
>
> Reduce the number of items in monster drops? That doesn't change the
> *ratios* of desirable to undesirable items, so it just means you scum
> for longer. As we did in the pre-stacking days.
Reduce number of crappy items. Remove useless artifacts for starters.
There is plenty of weapons to choose. Remove rings of weakness & co (you
have cursed rings of <stat>). Introduce "drop useful" -flag.
Change monster drop calculation to be closer to current depth. Currently
monster native in 2500' in 5000' drops item (50+100)/2 = dlvl 75 item
(Tenser's, Purifications, ?o*ID* (exactly 70/1) third native). Change
that for example to (50+2*100)/3 = dlvl 83 item (ChaosDSM, Holy
Infusions, Kelek's Grimoire, Potion of *healing* second native, RoS).
Introduce "medium" vaults with good items.
Combine that all with lesser drops.
Jeff Greene
"Jonathan Ellis" <jona...@franz-liszt.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:bm6at7$8lu$1...@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk...
>
> >
> > Perhaps, but IMHO it takes several times winning the game to be
> aware of
> > them. It is hard to ask more of a game than that. (You are the
> creator of
> > the JLE patch, correct? I thought those were terrific changes).
>
> No, that was me - look for someone with a surname beginning with E.
> ;-) Julian's done heaps of other things for Angband, including being a
> longtime maintainer of SAngband, though.
>
> Jonathan.
>
Oops. I occasionally get you two confused, but in a good way. You both
fall into the category of people who know a heck of a lot about the game,
and I always read your posts, regardless of the subject, because they are
incredibly educational. Timo and R. Dan Henry, Eytan, and RR also fall into
that category, along with a couple others, but their names aren't remotely
similiar to yours. :)
Eddie Grove
> "Julian Lighton" <jl...@fragment.com> wrote in message
> news:voe02hi...@corp.supernews.com...
>
> > Perhaps, but it's still the wrong solution. Part of the problem is
> > object stacking. The rest is simply that more than 90% of the items
> > you see aren't even worth thinking about. Autosquelch helps cover
> the
> > real problem, but it's not a solution to it.
> The fact is that, WHATEVER you do to change the so-called "problem"
> you perceive of "most items are useless", you're (a) going to offend a
> lot of people, and (b) highly likely to make the situation worse.
> Because there IS no way to make all items useful at all times. Even at
> the same depth, different characters will have much different
> requirements - warriors don't want spellbooks at all, wizards want
Part of the problem is the history of stealing from D&D.
One of the design plans of D&D is to split the party into
different types, and then set it up so any item could only
be used by one or two types. This reduces fighting amongst
kids, but is directly responsible for part of the problem.
There is no reason whatsoever for different Int and Wis stats.
Actually, there is really no reason for either except to justify
items that are useful to spell-users but not to fighters.
I would suggest eliminating stats entirely and make things vary
quadratically with level, but that wouldn't be angband anymore.
A less radical approach is to reduce the stats to 3:
Strength [ how much you can carry and wield ]
Agility [ how well you dodge and cast spells ]
Fortitude [ strength of will and maybe toughness ]
I would change hitpoints to depend upon agility rather than
Fortitude, but that's just me. Mana will depend on fortitude.
Conceivably Strength and Fortitude should be combined into 1.
Then every plus is useful to everyone, i.e. less junk.
Also, give fighters mana as well [ call it chi ] that
they can use for temporary increased/different fighting
abilities, so that everyone uses restore/increase-mana things.
Make spellbooks into useful thrown bombs, perhaps requiring
fighter-type stats or skills to throw them accurately. Even if only
against fiery types. But do something to make them useful to
fighters. Perhaps arrows wrapped in spellpaper do extra damage,
there are lots of possibilities.
Look for ways to make every [ useful ] item useful to everyone.
Eddie
Jeff Greene
> Do you set "maximum" levels for any item, and say that it CAN'T
> be generated deeper than a certain level? Okay, one could well say
> "wands of Magic Missile are useless at 4000 feet", but what about the
> more in-between cases? What if you really, really *want* a Ring of
> Constitution (+5 or 6) or of Increase Spell Stat (+5 or 6), such an
> item being native to dungeon level 30? I've not only worn such rings
> at 5000', I've won with them. (Ring of Int +6 on my first Human Mage
> winner in non-maximize mode, and even then it only took his Int to
> 18/180.) And cursed when it took ages for one to turn up.
Speaking for my variant only, I was going to eventually try to take this on
this with a couple factors...
1) do incorporate maximum depths for certain items. Certainly not rings and
amulets of + stat, because they gradually get better through the game.
Certainly things like wands of magic missle & lightning bolts, cure light
wounds potions, and other things that are incrediblly useful at low levels
but eventually become junk.
2) Try to make other items more useful. For example, Rings of protection
are something you wear only at the early phases of the game if you don't
have anything better to wear. But, if their max + was increased, soembody
might give serious througt to wearing a rings of protections + 20-25 around
the latter part of pre-stat gain.
3) Customized drops, so, for example, priests occasionally drop themed
priestly drops, such as spellbooks, hafted weapons. THere was a lengthy
disucssion about this a couple months back. I have much of this coding done
in making other changes.
4) Eliminate redundant items. Example....Do we need both potions and
mushrooms of weakness?
>
> The fact is that, WHATEVER you do to change the so-called "problem"
> you perceive of "most items are useless", you're (a) going to offend a
> lot of people, and (b) highly likely to make the situation worse.
> Because there IS no way to make all items useful at all times.
True. But my thinking is that there are about 450-475 different types of
objects in Angband. Putting my above mentioned restrictions on even 50-75
of these items would have result in much less junk created, and alot of
other stuff being more useful.
>
> Alternatively, accept that a lot of junk *WILL* be dropped, and the
> difference between 80% junk and 95% junk is actually not worth caring
> about (compared to if it were, say, 20% junk and 35% junk: but there
> is no way to actually *get* back to a mere 20% of items being junk.)
> And either be prepared to destroy a lot of items manually, or make the
> game do it automatically for you as you walk over them or pick them up
> (as in, you make the game automatically destroy the item without
> taking a turn, in a situation where the *player* could have destroyed
> the item with the "k" command.) Making the items never be generated in
> the first place, or be generated but "hidden", or
> destroyed-on-generation, is JUST PLAIN WRONG. IMNSHO.
>
The autosquelch version I am using doesn't do that. Everything created is
dropped. But, instead of appearing on the screen it is a purple dot, do it
can just be ignored, and it won't be picked up. It has the option of
allowing those items to be destroyed once you walk over them. It allows for
automatic squelching of pseudo-id'ed items, which can be specified by the
class of item (shield, boots, etc...). It seems to work fairly. The only
thing I can't decide on is whether a player should have to take a turn to
destroy things or not. AT the moment, they don't, but I have seen versions
where they have to take a turn. But, they do have the power to ignore much
of the junk that is created, and customize what that junk is. It is rather
high maintenance, as one of you pointed out, but it beats going through all
the junk one-by-one.
-Jeff
Jonathan Ellis
"Jeff Greene" <nppan...@spam.spam.spam.spam,> wrote in message
> The autosquelch version I am using doesn't do that. Everything
created is
> dropped. But, instead of appearing on the screen it is a purple
dot, do it
> can just be ignored, and it won't be picked up.
I don't like the "purple dot" method of hiding things. The item should
at least have the moral decency to *appear* on the screen, as itself,
until the player actually goes over and interacts with it. Otherwise,
for weapons and armour, you get a free strong pseudo-ID, and for other
items, you can see *without walking over to a vault, just on the "M"
map alone* whether there's anything in it that you might want, if you
have a means of clairvoyance.
Jonathan.
David J. Grabiner
> I mean... The base damage dice says 1d4, so old Angband designers
> (pre-Ben) probably thought "Oh, slays don't matter when the base
> damage is that low - better make them multiply the magic damage bonus
> too for arrows". Not necessary when the thing is multiplied twice -
> once for the bow multiplier, and once for the slay. If, instead of
> saying "Slay Demon", it said "+15 damage against demons", you'd sit up
> and take notice, because "+15" looks like a big number. And when a
> Seeker Arrow said "+60 Damage against demons" instead of "Slay Demon",
> you would REALLY take notice, even without multiplying the damage
> bonus intrinsic to the arrow and the bow for the slay (it is enough to
> multiply THAT for the bow multiplier.)
The multiplication effect dates all the way back to Moria. In Moria 4.8
(pre-1990), a long bow added only +3 to the damage done by arrows, which
made arrows almost useless; branded arrows were still useful because of
the multipliers, but they were quite rare. Moria 5.x changed the
multiplier from +3 to x3; a heavy crossbow with bolts of slay dragon
could do x12 to a dragon, but you would be lucky to find one quiver of
bolts of slay dragon in a game.
In Angband, the multipliers just keep multiplying. A mage with a heavy
crossbow of the Haradrim can elemental brand his bolts and have one
quiver of frost, one of fire, and one of acid, and do x15 damage to most
monsters.
--
David Grabiner, grab...@alumni.princeton.edu, http://remarque.org/~grabiner
Baseball labor negotiations FAQ: http://remarque.org/~grabiner/laborfaq.html
Shop at the Mobius Strip Mall: Always on the same side of the street!
Klein Glassworks, Torus Coffee and Donuts, Projective Airlines, etc.
David J. Grabiner
You don't get a strong pseudo-ID for weapons and armor. A scimitar
(-10,-10) looks just like Haradekket until you identify it; it will only
become a purple dot if you drop it on the floor.
If you use the expanded "look" command which lets you look at items not
in LOS, the only advantage of the purple dots is that junk items are
visibly junk even if they are off-screen. If rings of speed and rings
of slow digestion are the same color, the ring of slow digestion will
appear as a purple dot as soon as you have quaffed a potion of
enlightenment. However, as soon as you arrived on the same screen, you
could find that out without walking inside the vault.
R Dan Henry
<nppan...@spam.spam.spam.spam,> declared:
>Oops. I occasionally get you two confused, but in a good way. You both
>fall into the category of people who know a heck of a lot about the game,
>and I always read your posts, regardless of the subject, because they are
>incredibly educational. Timo and R. Dan Henry, Eytan, and RR also fall into
>that category, along with a couple others, but their names aren't remotely
>similiar to yours. :)
Ha, I've got *you* fooled!
At least, four attempts to compile today which all failed don't leave me
feeling any too knowledgeable. Still, they all failed for different
reasons, so there's hope for me yet, I suppose.
Joseph Oberlander
> The autosquelch version I am using doesn't do that. Everything created is
> dropped. But, instead of appearing on the screen it is a purple dot, do it
> can just be ignored, and it won't be picked up. It has the option of
> allowing those items to be destroyed once you walk over them. It allows for
> automatic squelching of pseudo-id'ed items, which can be specified by the
> class of item (shield, boots, etc...). It seems to work fairly. The only
> thing I can't decide on is whether a player should have to take a turn to
> destroy things or not. AT the moment, they don't, but I have seen versions
> where they have to take a turn. But, they do have the power to ignore much
> of the junk that is created, and customize what that junk is. It is rather
> high maintenance, as one of you pointed out, but it beats going through all
> the junk one-by-one.
How about an option - "destroy known bad items"?
It won't kill cursed stuff, but will get rid of all of the bad staves, scrolls,
potions, mushrooms, sticks, skeletons...
That's 80% right there. The list never changes. A potion of ugliness is
always junk that wastes time to destroy or drop.
No list required in this version, like the auto-squelch.
Andrew Sidwell
> "Julian Lighton" wrote in message
> news:vocm368...@corp.supernews.com...
> > In article ,
> > Jeff Greene wrote:
> > >I sort of agree with Ed in one thing, in a way. Vanilla really hasn't
> > >changed that much in about 10 years.
> >
> > Um, how much have you played frog-knows?
> >
<snip features>
> >
> > What the changes aren't are flashy. Somebody who played ten years ago
> > could pick up the game again with very little effort.
>
> True. Also, I go back and forth on my opinion of how much Angband should
> change creatively. I do wish improvements to the interface were jumped on
> quicker, though. I was aware of the above changes, I guess I don't consider
> them *huge* changes, although that is purely subjective opinion. I would
> consider, for example, adding quests a big change.
Also, in a previous post, you ask why the EyAngband/Zangband birthscreens
weren't included in V? Well, it's been in CVS for 7 months, there just hasn't
been a release yet.
<snip>
> > >but it really hasn't progressed. Areas I wish it did progress
> > >quicker is in areas of user interface. For example, why haven't html
> screen
> > >dumps been added? Is there anyone out there who would oppose that? Why
> not
> > >the vastly superior startup/birth interface from EYangband? Or Leon
> > >Marrick's improved help files?
> >
> > Has anybody tried creating patches and submitting them to Robert?
Personally, I've submitted plenty of patches to Robert, and most of them were
accepted. I'm the one that implemented the new-style "object recall", for
example.
> I was planning on doing a patch for purely interface items once I got my
> variant to a point where I was ready to take a small break from it. Darkgod
> already did a screen dump patch, but it hasn't been added yet.
If you're interested, you could help me with UIAngband, which is my effort to
make effectively a variant in which only UI is changed. (contact me at andy @
entai dot co dot uk if you are.)
> >
> > It worked for monster AI, easy foo, randarts, ironman options, and a
> > number of other things. (Well, s/Robert/Ben/.)
> >
> > > Also, I would also love to hear RR's opinion
> > >on autosquelch.
> >
> > I am not he, but my opinion is that it's the wrong solution to one of
> > the aforementioned fundamental flaws, and it requires too much
> > micromanagement.
>
> What do you think the right solution is? IMHO, it takes too long after
> clearing out a monster next to wade through the stuff, with it all piled 23
> items deep. AutoSquelch is wonderful in that regard.
The real solution is to make the rubbish and useless items simply never created.
This is harder than it might sound at first, though.
<snip final points about variant-related traffic>
> -Jeff
Regards,
--
Andrew Sidwell
takkaria on IRC
Jeff Greene
>
>
> Jonathan Ellis wrote:
>
> > I mean... The base damage dice says 1d4, so old Angband designers
> > (pre-Ben) probably thought "Oh, slays don't matter when the base
> > damage is that low - better make them multiply the magic damage bonus
> > too for arrows". Not necessary when the thing is multiplied twice -
>
> In old versions getting very high number of extra dices for arrows was
> not rare. Getting arrow of slay evil (6d4) (+XX,+XX) was not
extraordinary.
>
> IMO good missile weapon with good ego arrows should make roughly 0,8
> times your melee weapon damage on average / turn. Ranger being exception
> and ranger should be able to make _more_ damage with bow than with melee
> weapon. Othervise nobody uses a bow (except ranger).
>
> With brand/slay multiplying only arrow base damage it doesn't get even
> close to that. So there is a reason why slay/brand multiplies whole thing.
>
> Timo Pietilä
>
or do you mean 5-6 attacks from a character late in the game?
I think I agree with your .8, that sounds about right, if it means x4 or x5
multipliers, and slay seeker arrows, compared to, say a ranger with a good
weapon with 5 attacks.
However, my opinion on arrows is that the multipliers should be
de-emphasized, and the possibility of critical hits made more likely and
important when determining damage. Currently, the critical_shot function
only factors in the weight of the arrow/shot/bolt, not the power of the
shooting weapon, so it is quite a rare event. My thinking is where the
arrow actually hits is pretty important to how much damage it would do. A
hit in the arm wouldn't cause that much damage, but a shot in the head,
chest, or critical area of a creature is completely different. The shooting
skill should also play a big role (this is where Rangers could do much more
damage than others). I would have to put all the calculations in a
spreadsheet to come out with a good profile, but I think that this where I
am going to go when I do get around to tweaking this.
-Jeff
Robert Ruehlmann
<snip>
> Areas I wish it did progress quicker is in areas of user interface.
> For example, why haven't html screen dumps been added?
HTML screen dumps have been on my list of things to include for some time.
As Darkgod notes in his htmldump patch - this feature contains some hacks.
The generated screendump should display the default ASCII characters, no
matter if graphical tiles or other character remappings are in use. At the
moment this requires duplicating some code and other hacks that just scream
"Redesign Me!".
I've already tried some things but didn't find the perfect implementation
yet. Maybe I should give up for now and just include it with minor
changes, no matter how much knowing that "there must be a better way to
solve this" itches me. After all the current screendump code is far worse
when it comes to handling remapped characters/tiles.
> Is there anyone out there who would oppose that? Why
> not the vastly superior startup/birth interface from EYangband?
This is already an the Angband CVS. I'm just way behind on my release
schedule.
> Or Leon Marrick's improved help files?
Still sitting on my disk waiting for the "final touch". I have to add the
tags for the content sensitive help before I can include them.
> Also, I would also love to hear RR's opinion on autosquelch.
I think the basic idea behind autosquelch is right: automate boring tasks.
"My perfect autosquelch" would probably have these features:
- Items are generated as usual.
- No changes to the way items are displayed on the map (no purple dots).
- It only affects the grid the player is entering or standing on.
Reason for these three features: Keep the effects of autosquelching, and the
changes required to the source code, local.
- Item destruction doesn't take a turn. Reason: No bad gameplay effect
when destruction doesn't take a turn, but squelching becomes a pain when
you have to worry about things like: "Did the player want to run away from
that big bad dragon or should we take the time to squelch that broken bone
first?" Maybe manual destruction shouldn't take a turn either, just for
consistency.
- Must have an easy to use interface for specifying which items or groups of
items to squelch. And at the same time it should be powerful, with
different "squelch profiles" depending on player level, player class, and
so on.
- Not sure if the player should trigger the "squelch all bad items in this
grid" effect by hand. Do people configure the squelching conservativly?
Are there frustrating effects like reading "squelched a potion of cure
poison" while your hitpoints are draining away due to poison?
It's been a while since I looked at the various autosquelch implementations,
so pointing me in the direction of a variant that has these features might
speed things up. :-)
Apart from the autosquelching the roots of the problem should also be
targetted. One step reducing the quantity of monster drops while improving
the quality. Another is a bit more radical: Remove all "useless" items
from the game.
Reason: Items like a "potion of stupidity" are just annoying. The player
isn't going to drink a known bad potion (except by accident - and then it's
even more frustrating). The only gameplay effect of bad items is that
almost nobody is trying out potions without identifying them. And that
doesn't exactly sound like something worth preserving.
Some of the items can be changed into "mixed blessing" items, like potions
that decrease one stat and increase another. [Which variant added these?]
But many are just junk and should be removed. Items like broken bones,
shards of pottery, or a pile of dog poo don't add atmosphere or flavor to
the game. At least not a nice flavor. ;-)
The same goes for cursed weapons and armor. Such items are rooted deep in
the Angband gameplay, but I think they don't *add* anything to the gameplay
experience. Temporary curses from monster spells are okay, but the "an
evil wizard left a cursed weapon on the floor to trick adventurers" thing
just doesn't work imo.
<snip>
--
Robert Ruehlmann ( r...@thangorodrim.net )
"Thangorodrim - The Angband Page" : http://www.thangorodrim.net/
Visit the #angband chat channel at irc.worldirc.org
Jonathan Ellis
"Robert Ruehlmann" <r...@thangorodrim.net> wrote in message
news:bm8m8t$e5g$06$1...@news.t-online.com...
> Apart from the autosquelching the roots of the problem should also
be
> targetted. One step reducing the quantity of monster drops while
improving
> the quality. Another is a bit more radical: Remove all "useless"
items
> from the game.
>
> Reason: Items like a "potion of stupidity" are just annoying. The
player
> isn't going to drink a known bad potion (except by accident - and
then it's
> even more frustrating). The only gameplay effect of bad items is
that
> almost nobody is trying out potions without identifying them. And
that
> doesn't exactly sound like something worth preserving.
Well, it *does* to me. There *should* be a risk in trying out unknown
stuff IMHO. But it shouldn't be *such a big risk*, e.g. risk of dying.
Risk of losing a stat point temporarily, is IMHO okay, it only costs a
few hundred gold to correct - and being one stat point down is *not*
so bad. I generally quaff-identify most early potions, and
read-identify most early scrolls - the only dangerous ones being
Summon and Aggravate.
(Also note: You Do NOT Have To Restore Drained Stats Immediately.
Live With It Until You Lose A Few More Points. Restoring Every Time
You Lose Just One Is Highly Wasteful.)
(Also note: This is why I don't like Potions of Death or
Ruinations, their effects tip the balance against taking the risk in
the way that other "bad" potion effects *don't*. At least with the
really bad scrolls - Curse Weapon, Curse Armour - you can insulate
yourself somewhat by not wearing a really good weapon or armour when
you read the scroll. Losing a non-artifact is not too bad, you'll
always find another of the same kind... eventually.)
> Some of the items can be changed into "mixed blessing" items, like
potions
> that decrease one stat and increase another. [Which variant added
these?]
> But many are just junk and should be removed. Items like broken
bones,
> shards of pottery, or a pile of dog poo don't add atmosphere or
flavor to
> the game. At least not a nice flavor. ;-)
Agreed on the pottery, the broken sticks, the skulls, etc. But the
"skeleton" kind of junk used to be an "s", and was confusable with
"skeleton" monsters, which was a rather nice feature. It didn't FORCE
the player to use the "l"ook command, but just made sure he would get
a not so nice surprise if he didn't. But not a surprise that would
actually kill him in one hit, unlike (say) Death Swords in ZAngband.
> The same goes for cursed weapons and armor. Such items are rooted
deep in
> the Angband gameplay, but I think they don't *add* anything to the
gameplay
> experience. Temporary curses from monster spells are okay, but the
"an
> evil wizard left a cursed weapon on the floor to trick adventurers"
thing
> just doesn't work imo.
Nope, but the "process of enchanting the item was flawed, and the poor
adventurer guy who used to wield it didn't discover this till too
late" argument is just as good an excuse.
My suggestion would be to make cursed items *RARER* - and make their
frequency of appearance depend on, say, the frequency of appearance of
"good" items. Likewise with cursed egos - say, a 1 in 10 or 1 in 20
chance that any "good" item is in fact "cursed", or any "great" item
is in fact "worthless". And make pseudo-ID unable to tell the
difference between the two. (Maybe some classes could be allowed an
exemption from this: casters of Divine magic - priests and paladins -
might be able to detect curses automatically by handling the item.) If
an item doesn't pass the "good" roll, it also never becomes cursed,
but it just provides a warning against auto-equipping "good" items (or
"great" items) without properly checking.
(Of course, this also means that, say, Maggot's drop could be cursed,
albeit with a very low chance, or even that Wormtongue's guaranteed
"great" drop couldn't automatically be equipped without identifying
it. Whether you consider this a drawback or a good thing is up to
you - right now, at the moment, I always equip Maggot and Wormy's
drops because I KNOW they're going to be better than what I have, and
that's out-of-character knowledge.)
Rings of "Weakness", "Stupidity" etc, should of course be removed, NOT
because they are cursed, but because it is also possible to get cursed
rings of Strength, Intelligence, etc, which make the badness-only
versions redundant. And I also believe the probability of cursing
"useful" rings and amulets - like, say, the single-stat rings, Rings
of Damage, Protection, Accuracy, Speed, should be reduced - but not
eliminated IMHO. (Suppose you're wearing a Ring of Intelligence (+1)
and find another one. One should be willing to take the risk of
wearing another unID'ed one on the grounds that *on the balance of
probability* it will be better than the one you're currently wearing.)
This would also suggest that it might be a good idea to smooth over
the break points for, say, hit points with constitution, and mana
points with spell stats - i.e. the change from the amount of mana at
18 and at 18/50 should be made in five small increments, not one big
jump at 18/50. So that the *smaller* rings of Increase One Single Stat
actually have some use - at the moment I wouldn't think of wearing one
smaller than +4 unless it took me over a breakpoint.
Jonathan.
Timo Pietilä
Jeff Greene wrote:
> "Timo Pietilä" <timo.p...@helsinki.fi> wrote in message
> news:bm75gt$par$1...@oravannahka.helsinki.fi...
>>IMO good missile weapon with good ego arrows should make roughly 0,8
>>times your melee weapon damage on average / turn. Ranger being exception
>>and ranger should be able to make _more_ damage with bow than with melee
>>weapon. Othervise nobody uses a bow (except ranger).
> When you say "melee weapon damage", are you counting one attack with weapon,
> or do you mean 5-6 attacks from a character late in the game?
damage / turn. Early bows can make quite a lot more damage, but getting
ego arrows that early is pretty rare.
> However, my opinion on arrows is that the multipliers should be
> de-emphasized, and the possibility of critical hits made more likely and
> important when determining damage. Currently, the critical_shot function
This I agree. If code for arrows is changed to make criticals more
important (and maybe change ordinary arrow dice bigger) slays could
affect only dice.
Timo Pietilä
R Dan Henry wrote:
> On Fri, 10 Oct 2003 18:16:01 -0400, in a fit of madness "Jeff Greene"
> <nppan...@spam.spam.spam.spam,> declared:
>
>
>>Oops. I occasionally get you two confused, but in a good way. You both
>>fall into the category of people who know a heck of a lot about the game,
>>and I always read your posts, regardless of the subject, because they are
>>incredibly educational. Timo and R. Dan Henry, Eytan, and RR also fall into
>>that category, along with a couple others, but their names aren't remotely
>>similiar to yours. :)
>
>
> Ha, I've got *you* fooled!
>
> At least, four attempts to compile today which all failed don't leave me
> feeling any too knowledgeable. Still, they all failed for different
> reasons, so there's hope for me yet, I suppose.
Somehow I share your feelings. I have wanted to continue working on my
patch, but I simply don't have time. Unless I cease entirely to posting
this group.
Robert Ruehlmann
<snip>
> When Robert added JLE to 3.0.3 it felt like Robert himself hadn't any
> opinion about it at all, he just added JLE-patch unchanged in it.
[Note: the JLE patch was added way back in the Angband 2.9.5 alpha release,
not in Angband 3.0.3]
Obviously I had an opinion about the JLE patch. I liked it enough to add
it. :-) What I didn't have was experience with the end-game items and
monsters, and the effects that the changed spell list would have on them.
> To me
> it was clear that something like Haradrim XBow was unbalancing and I
> expected Robert to remove it. Ego-item that is much more powerful than
> *all* artifact missile weapons? Come on, that is clearly too powerful.
Well, to me this wasn't clear. As I said when I took over the job of
Angband maintainer: "I'm not a very good Angband player and have no
illusions about being able to rebalance the game myself." That sentence is
still true. Frankly, as an Angband player I suck. That's why I need the
feedback from experienced players to correct game balance issues.
The huge effect of combining the multipliers from might and shots together
with an unlimited supply of branded bolts is obvious if you know what to
look for. If you don't know what to look for, like me, then you might
never realize that this ego-item in the hands of an mage with the new ammo
branding spell can reach the damage levels of a ranger with Bard.
What would be the best solution to this balance issue? Removing the
ego-item completely? Removing the SHOTS multiplier and increasing MIGHT
instead?
Maybe also remove the ammo branding from the mages spell list and restrict
it to poison branding for rogues? I was unsure about giving this spell to
the mage when I re-distributed the GW spells to the player classes. But
Tenser's feels empty enough already if you are a mage. Any ideas for a
replacement spell?
Eytan Zweig
tasks.
> "My perfect autosquelch" would probably have these features:
[list below]
> It's been a while since I looked at the various autosquelch
implementations,
> so pointing me in the direction of a variant that has these features
might
> speed things up. :-)
>
EyAngband (almost).
> - Items are generated as usual.
Yes.
> - No changes to the way items are displayed on the map (no purple dots).
Yes.
> - It only affects the grid the player is entering or standing on.
Yes.
> Reason for these three features: Keep the effects of autosquelching, and
the
> changes required to the source code, local.
> - Item destruction doesn't take a turn. Reason: No bad gameplay effect
> when destruction doesn't take a turn, but squelching becomes a pain when
> you have to worry about things like: "Did the player want to run away
from
> that big bad dragon or should we take the time to squelch that broken
bone
> first?" Maybe manual destruction shouldn't take a turn either, just for
> consistency.
Neither squelch nor manual destruction takes a turn in Ey, for the reasons
given.
> - Must have an easy to use interface for specifying which items or
groups of
> items to squelch.
Yes.
>- And at the same time it should be powerful, with different "squelch
profiles" depending on player
> level, player class, and so on.
No, unfortunately - squelch is just per character. Though you can dump
your squelch settings to files and create profiles manually.
> - Not sure if the player should trigger the "squelch all bad items in
this
> grid" effect by hand. Do people configure the squelching conservativly?
> Are there frustrating effects like reading "squelched a potion of cure
> poison" while your hitpoints are draining away due to poison?
Ey deviates from the Oangband autosquelch (which it is based on) mainly by
the fact that it has both manual and automatic squelch as options
(Oangband has only the former, or at least that was the case when I copied
the system). Manual squelch is based on inscriptions, so you can override
it in individual cases without having to change the settings.
> Some of the items can be changed into "mixed blessing" items, like
potions
> that decrease one stat and increase another. [Which variant added
these?]
Ey :).
Eytan
Toshi1873
says...
> Maybe also remove the ammo branding from the mages spell list and restrict
> it to poison branding for rogues? I was unsure about giving this spell to
> the mage when I re-distributed the GW spells to the player classes. But
> Tenser's feels empty enough already if you are a mage. Any ideas for a
> replacement spell?
First question is: where is there a list of spells? (I've only found
the first 5 books since starting to play 3.03.)
So... I can't comment on the high game yet (only level 35 at 1750')...
but one of the spells that I miss is the ability to create walls. Moria
had a wand that would create a line of wall - pretty sure there was also
a spell to do so.
Another solution for the multiplier problem is to take the higher of
*either* slay or brand multiplier and just use one of the 2.
Eytan Zweig
If done right, "mixed blessing" items can serve this role - the potions in
Ey that decrease a stat and increase another can be a deterrant to
drinking potions un-ID'd - if you are a mage, you probably don't want to
drink the one that raises your strength at the expense of your
intelligence. You don't need items that are never useful in order to fill
this function (like potions of reduce stat).
> Agreed on the pottery, the broken sticks, the skulls, etc. But the
> "skeleton" kind of junk used to be an "s", and was confusable with
> "skeleton" monsters, which was a rather nice feature. It didn't FORCE
> the player to use the "l"ook command, but just made sure he would get
> a not so nice surprise if he didn't. But not a surprise that would
> actually kill him in one hit, unlike (say) Death Swords in ZAngband.
Angband has quite a range of mimics - I think it's better to add mimics
that match existing items than to add items that match monsters. One can
have a death sword that isn't as overpowered as the Z one, for instance.
Eytan
Robert Ruehlmann
> "Robert Ruehlmann" <r...@thangorodrim.net> wrote in message
> news:bm8m8t$e5g$06$1...@news.t-online.com...
>
>> Apart from the autosquelching the roots of the problem should also
>> be targetted. One step reducing the quantity of monster drops while
>> improving the quality. Another is a bit more radical: Remove all
>> "useless" items from the game.
>>
>> Reason: Items like a "potion of stupidity" are just annoying. The
>> player isn't going to drink a known bad potion (except by accident - and
>> then it's even more frustrating). The only gameplay effect of bad items
>> is that almost nobody is trying out potions without identifying them.
>> And that doesn't exactly sound like something worth preserving.
>
> Well, it *does* to me. There *should* be a risk in trying out unknown
> stuff IMHO.
A risk - yes, possibly. But not at the cost of having items that are
completely useless. You can provide risks without having junk items.
> But it shouldn't be *such a big risk*, e.g. risk of dying.
> Risk of losing a stat point temporarily, is IMHO okay, it only costs a
> few hundred gold to correct - and being one stat point down is *not*
> so bad. I generally quaff-identify most early potions, and
> read-identify most early scrolls - the only dangerous ones being
> Summon and Aggravate.
"Scrolls of summon monster" fall into the "mixed blessing" category imo.
And I could probably find an use for "scrolls of aggravate monsters" if it
didn't speed monsters up. But many other items like stat-lose potions are
just junk.
<snip>
>> The same goes for cursed weapons and armor. Such items are rooted
>> deep in the Angband gameplay, but I think they don't *add* anything to
>> the gameplay experience. Temporary curses from monster spells are okay,
>> but the "an evil wizard left a cursed weapon on the floor to trick
>> adventurers" thing just doesn't work imo.
>
> Nope, but the "process of enchanting the item was flawed, and the poor
> adventurer guy who used to wield it didn't discover this till too
> late" argument is just as good an excuse.
>
> My suggestion would be to make cursed items *RARER* - and make their
> frequency of appearance depend on, say, the frequency of appearance of
> "good" items.
They would still be useless junk - just rarer. A positively enchanted item
with some curse or negative side-effect would be another issue. A
high-damage sword that only works on living creatures, a good and light
armor that has a chance to be destroyed by fire, speed boots that make you
hungry, an +int amulet that attracts "SMART" monsters, a helmet that
decreases your infravision but protects against blindness, ...
There is no need for useless junk items with the "sticky curse" imo.
<snip>
> This would also suggest that it might be a good idea to smooth over
> the break points for, say, hit points with constitution, and mana
> points with spell stats - i.e. the change from the amount of mana at
> 18 and at 18/50 should be made in five small increments, not one big
> jump at 18/50. So that the *smaller* rings of Increase One Single Stat
> actually have some use - at the moment I wouldn't think of wearing one
> smaller than +4 unless it took me over a breakpoint.
Yes, the current table of extra half mana-/hitpoints per level should be
smoothed out to a x/10 or x/100 points per level scale. I'll try to
include that before the 3.0.4 release.
Kieron Dunbar
> If you use the expanded "look" command which lets you look at items not
> in LOS, the only advantage of the purple dots is that junk items are
> visibly junk even if they are off-screen. If rings of speed and rings
In 3.0.3, you can adjust the appearance of flavoured items. This means that you
can make rings of slow digestion appear as a purple dot without any squelch
code by typing something like "L:5:0x0A:0x2E\n. The only benefit squelching
would give for doing this is a more convenient UI.
--
kwaheri, Kieron (reverse username to reply)
Hallvard B Furuseth
>Jonathan Ellis wrote:
>> "Robert Ruehlmann" <r...@thangorodrim.net> wrote in message
>> news:bm8m8t$e5g$06$1...@news.t-online.com...
>>
>>>
>>
>> There *should* be a risk in trying out unknown stuff IMHO.
>
> A risk - yes, possibly. But not at the cost of having items that are
> completely useless. You can provide risks without having junk items.
If people want to keep junk items (I don't), item generation could
auto-squelch _identified_ junk items.
--
Hallvard
Ramela
> In article , r...@thangorodrim.net
> says...
> but one of the spells that I miss is the ability to create walls. Moria
> had a wand that would create a line of wall - pretty sure there was also
> a spell to do so.
>
This is because Wand of Wall building is overpowered. IIRC it caused
100 damage that is un-resistable and it puts the monster behind a wall
so you can rest up in peace. Its like Teleport Other except that you know
exactly were the wounded moster is and you can continue the fight at your
leisure
In Moria I Also killed multiple Ancient Multihued Dragons with just the
Haste spell, the Recharge spell and a couple of wands of wall building.
Like so:
first build walls around the D so that it is next to you
like this:
#. #
#D###
###@.
#####
Then haste, stone to mud to free the D,
so it will move next to you:
#. #
#. ###
##D@.
#####
Then build a wall on it causing 100 (IIRC)
points of damage and forcing the D back to
waiting behind the wall:
###
#D###
###@.
#####
Repeat and recharge as neccesary. like Pillardancing,
but riskier, since you can fail using the wands.
--
--
Anssi Ramela
Eddie Grove
> "Scrolls of summon monster" fall into the "mixed blessing" category imo.
> And I could probably find an use for "scrolls of aggravate monsters" if it
> didn't speed monsters up. But many other items like stat-lose potions are
> just junk.
Note to whomever:
Aggravate should cause hounds etc to leave their rooms and attack
the player where s/he is, even when the intelligent monster stuff
is on. Then aggravation has at least one use.
Eddie
Manwe
> >BONUSES FROM BOWS OR ARROWS.
>
> There is. It makes up for the ammo supply problem, and the reduced
> nuber of shots per turn. I don't recall if this was a change from the
> Moria to Angband transition, or came during Angband's life-cycle, but
> before it happened, people simply didn't use bows; they weren't worth
> the effort. Of course, this was before the bow slot, but that doesn't
> change much. 60 points of damage a turn is not that big a deal, and
> that's about the best you can do.
I agree with Julian, especially regarding the ammo supply problem.
The only time I can recall using arrows against big heavies was when I played a
ranger who was facing a summoned dracolich at 1900'. As the gutsy, knife-edged
(or would that be nether-breath-edged?) player I am, I decided to take the
undead abomination out ( I think I was lev 32 or something.). Lo and behold, my
longbow of extra might (x4), 16 seeker arrows of slay dragon, and massive
amounts of phase-dooring prevailed. Yes, the bow and arrows made for a powerful
combination: 1 star of hitpoints taken off for every shot. But...the arrows
were a phenomenal find; trust me, seeker arrows of slay *foo aren't as common
as one would like, but if they were anymore common, they would definitely be
unbalancing in the hands of a bow-proficient character. As I leveled to around
clvl 40 though, I found that bow and arrows became obsolete in the wake of my 5
blows/round with Eonwe, Haste Self, Berserk, Heroism, and Stone Skin. Form an
anti-summoning corridor and stack up enough escape equipment, and you can deal
with the likes of any unique.
I digress, but to sum up, arrows IMHO are fine as they are. I like them even
better in Oang with the varying damages. However, I haven't played enough 3.0.3
to make any judgments regarding JLE's new ego weapons. They sure sound cool on
paper, though =)
As a final, more general note, I'd just like to get out my (radical) opinion
that finding an ego-item should be a rather special event for a character.
Artifacts, even more so. Remember this is just my humble opinion, but I can't
count the number of times I've had a level 50 character identify something like
a Holy Avenger Great Axe and promptly destroy it, because my home was bursting
at the seams with artifacts, and I had enough money to buy out every single
store in town at least 3 times over. Personally, I think Mr Biskup's ADOM has
the artifact thing down pretty well ATM: some are powerful, and some are *uber*
powerful, but all are pretty teeth-pulling hard to find. And even the less
powerful ones are worth something almost throughout the whole game.
Back to exams for me, but it was fun discussing non-medschool stuff for a brief
period of my hectic life =)
Cheers,
Victor
> (It was probably a mid-Angband change. I remember somebody I knew way
> back when getting Cubragol from Maggot, and running around beating
> monsters to death with it. One would have to assume he tried firing
> bolts, and decided it wasn't worth the trouble.)
>
>
>
--
Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like a banana.
Hugo Kornelis
<snip>
>Maybe also remove the ammo branding from the mages spell list and restrict
>it to poison branding for rogues? I was unsure about giving this spell to
>the mage when I re-distributed the GW spells to the player classes. But
>Tenser's feels empty enough already if you are a mage. Any ideas for a
>replacement spell?
You could change it to brand weapons instead of ammo. I don't think
that this would be too powerful for those classes that rather don't
melee., yet it would be very useful on the occasions where they can't
avoid to melee.
Poison branding for thieves sounds cool, but I'll leave it to the more
experienced players to comment on possible game-balace effects.
Another spell that could fit in well in Kelek's theme and that would
also be both useful yet not over-powerful for mages would be a
temporary increase of 5+d5 points to STR and CON, lasting for 50+d50
turns.
Last idea for now: Bright Light - enchants a wielded object to emit
bright light for 25+d25 turns. This will light the dungeon around you,
but it will also hurt all light-sensitive creatures in the area of
effect for 2d8 points each round (as if you are continuously reading
Scrolls of Light). The area of effect should probably have a radius of
2 or 3 squares.
Best, Hugo
Hugo Kornelis
>First question is: where is there a list of spells? (I've only found
>the first 5 books since starting to play 3.03.)
There's a spoiler file at ftp://clockwork.dementia.org/angband/Spoiler
It's called magic.spo. Unfortunately, it'q quite out of date.
There's also a newer version. I found it after someone posted a link
to it in this group, but I've forgotten the location. Maybe someone
else can provide you with a link. If not, I'd be happy to e-mail you a
copy of the newer magic.spo.
>Another solution for the multiplier problem is to take the higher of
>*either* slay or brand multiplier and just use one of the 2.
This is already how damage calculation works in V3.0.3.
Best, Hugo
Julian Lighton
Jonathan Ellis <jona...@franz-liszt.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>
>"Julian Lighton" <jl...@fragment.com> wrote in message
>news:voe02hi...@corp.supernews.com...
>
>> object stacking. The rest is simply that more than 90% of the items
>> you see aren't even worth thinking about. Autosquelch helps cover
>> the real problem, but it's not a solution to it.
>
>
>Reduce the number of items in monster drops? That doesn't change the
>*ratios* of desirable to undesirable items, so it just means you scum
>for longer. As we did in the pre-stacking days.
[...]
>The fact is that, WHATEVER you do to change the so-called "problem"
>you perceive of "most items are useless", you're (a) going to offend a
>lot of people, and (b) highly likely to make the situation worse.
>Because there IS no way to make all items useful at all times.
I never said that all items should be useful. That's obviously
impossible; also undesirable.
As I said, this is hard. It would require ripping out the object
generation system and rebuilding it from the ground up, after
reexamining the fundamental assumptions. The system would have to be
noticably more sophisticated.
And yes, it might piss some people off, but so what? If it's a real
improvement, it'll be worth it.
> The only way you could get rid of this problem is to go right
>back to, say, Moria or even Rogue. Reduce the number of item types
>*directly leads to* reducing the number of kinds of monster attack, at
>the very least (otherwise you end up with something like Nethack's
>"Ascension Kit", you have NO choice in what to wear because there is
>ONLY one combination that provides what you need): and that *directly
>leads to* reducing the number of types of monster because otherwise
>there are too many that are just the same.
This is not the case. It could be done, though it would almost
certainly require reworking of the monsters, and likely the combat
system, to manage a smoother scaling of power.
>Alternatively, accept that a lot of junk *WILL* be dropped, and the
>difference between 80% junk and 95% junk is actually not worth caring
>about (compared to if it were, say, 20% junk and 35% junk: but there
>is no way to actually *get* back to a mere 20% of items being junk.)
>And either be prepared to destroy a lot of items manually, or make the
>game do it automatically for you as you walk over them or pick them up
>(as in, you make the game automatically destroy the item without
>taking a turn, in a situation where the *player* could have destroyed
>the item with the "k" command.) Making the items never be generated in
>the first place, or be generated but "hidden", or
>destroyed-on-generation, is JUST PLAIN WRONG. IMNSHO.
I don't see why. Autosquelch is best considered as auto-ignore; you
have decided that you do not care about this type of item, so why show
it to you? You're not going to pick it up, you don't need to walk over
to it to know what it is, it has no effect on other drops, there is no
reason for the game to show it to you, so it might as well not drop
it.
Julian Lighton
Jonathan Ellis <jona...@franz-liszt.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>
>"Jeff Greene" <nppan...@spam.spam.spam.spam,> wrote in message
>news:UJedndo0VJB...@comcast.com...
>
>> The autosquelch version I am using doesn't do that. Everything
>created is
>> dropped. But, instead of appearing on the screen it is a purple
>dot, do it
>> can just be ignored, and it won't be picked up.
>
>I don't like the "purple dot" method of hiding things. The item should
>at least have the moral decency to *appear* on the screen, as itself,
>until the player actually goes over and interacts with it. Otherwise,
>for weapons and armour, you get a free strong pseudo-ID,
One would assume that an auto-squelch implementation would not squelch
by quality unless the quality was known.
>and for other
>items, you can see *without walking over to a vault, just on the "M"
>map alone* whether there's anything in it that you might want, if you
>have a means of clairvoyance.
You can already do this, with no autosquelch at all.
Otto Martin
>I play vanilla because it offers what I want and as a physician I
>couldn't code my way out of a paper bag
That doesn't seem to stop our favourite borg maintainer... :-)
Otto Martin - wondering whether to write an AI term paper on the borg...
--
"I could use a feelings reset on a regular basis."
"Don't you think that's kind of sad?"
http://www.megatokyo.com/index.php?strip_id=471
Julian Lighton
Robert Ruehlmann <r...@thangorodrim.net> wrote:
>Timo Pietilä wrote:
>> To me
>> it was clear that something like Haradrim XBow was unbalancing and I
>> expected Robert to remove it. Ego-item that is much more powerful than
>> *all* artifact missile weapons? Come on, that is clearly too powerful.
>
>Well, to me this wasn't clear. As I said when I took over the job of
>Angband maintainer: "I'm not a very good Angband player and have no
>illusions about being able to rebalance the game myself." That sentence is
>still true. Frankly, as an Angband player I suck.
This is true of most maintainers. :) Probably because their obsessions
lead them to tinker with the code rather than play the game.
>What would be the best solution to this balance issue? Removing the
>ego-item completely? Removing the SHOTS multiplier and increasing MIGHT
>instead?
That sounds best, but isn't it then just an extra might xbow?
>Maybe also remove the ammo branding from the mages spell list and restrict
>it to poison branding for rogues?
Probably a good idea. One of the points of the reworking was to make
mages not spend all their time fighting with weapons. Ammo branding
works counter to this.
>I was unsure about giving this spell to
>the mage when I re-distributed the GW spells to the player classes. But
>Tenser's feels empty enough already if you are a mage. Any ideas for a
>replacement spell?
Frankly, I don't like the spell list for Tenser's at all. It used to
be the book that let mages fight like warriors. Now, it's got a couple
of those spells, and the rest are about enchanting items. I can't
think of any good self-transformation spells to replace those,
(branding is unbalanced, and the other two are not useful.) but I'd
move shield back in for starters. Then we'd need to add new
spells. Perhaps some kind of mass-polymorph effect? Some spell that
tries to apply various negative modifiers (confusion and slow at the
least) to all monsters in line of sight?
(Of course, the last wouldn't be worth it unless those effects are
better than they used to be.)
And while I'm on the subject, I'd fix Rift somehow, and revise
Rune. (Protection against melee was the whole point - anti-summoning
is the problem. They broke often enough that they weren't
unbalancing.)
Igenlode Wordsmith
> Temporary curses from monster spells are okay, but the "an
> evil wizard left a cursed weapon on the floor to trick adventurers" thing
> just doesn't work imo.
>
I tend to assume that the reason a cursed weapon was stranded in
mid-dungeon was that the previous owner had died of wielding it :-)
--
<Igenl...@nym.alias.net>
Next to the RNG, the keyboard buffer probably kills more Angband
characters than people realize.
Toshi1873
hu...@isNOSditPAM.com says...
> >Another solution for the multiplier problem is to take the higher of
> >*either* slay or brand multiplier and just use one of the 2.
>
> This is already how damage calculation works in V3.0.3.
>
Ok (I see how he calculated now... thought there was something where
branded+slay got combined), so I have the following bow:
b) The Long Bow of Bard (x3) (+17,+19) (+2)
It increases your dexterity by 2. It increases your speed and shooting
power by 2. It grants you immunity to paralysis. It cannot be harmed
by the elements.
My arrows are unbranded 1d4 (+6,+6)
(1d4+19+6) * (3+2) = 145 max, 137.5 avg
Branding would triple that... Giving me 412.5 avg, 435 max... seeker
arrows (4d4, max 16, avg 10) gives me 525 avg, 615 max... but for a High
Elf Mage, I only get one bow attack per round and I miss a lot at level
37.
My best DD spell atm is Acid Bolt (16d8) - 128 max dmg, at level 50 (if
I read x-spell.c correctly...) that increases to 19d8 or 152 dmg. Mana
Storm does I think 400 at level 50, Rift does 40+50d7 (390 max) at level
50.
As a mage... if the branding of the arrow doesn't multiply at all, I
won't bother carrying bow/ammo past level 45ish. In fact, post char-
level 45, I doubt that I'll carry unbranded ammo because anything less
won't do enough damage to stuff at the lower levels. (Don't forget...
I'll still miss a lot as a mage.)
I guess the other possibility is that the branding multiplier should
only apply to the base (with bonus) damage:
(4d4+19+8)*3 + (4d4+19+8)*5 = 129+215 = 344max (as opposed to 645max)
Still, it's a pretty hefty cut (although as a mage, I'd probably still
carry a bow+ammo since an arrow could reliably do more damage then my
Acid Bolt spell (152max @ CL50). It still means that branding is worth
it... but branded arrows only do 50-60% more damage as a result if you
have a good bow.
(No, I don't have a conclusion really...)
David J. Grabiner
> On Sat, 11 Oct 2003 16:15:27 +0000, Robert Ruehlmann wrote:
>
> <snip>
> >Maybe also remove the ammo branding from the mages spell list and restrict
> >it to poison branding for rogues? I was unsure about giving this spell to
> >the mage when I re-distributed the GW spells to the player classes. But
> >Tenser's feels empty enough already if you are a mage. Any ideas for a
> >replacement spell?
>
> You could change it to brand weapons instead of ammo. I don't think
> that this would be too powerful for those classes that rather don't
> melee., yet it would be very useful on the occasions where they can't
> avoid to melee.
By the time you find the spellbook and can use the spell, do you ever
have a melee weapon that needs branding? You will almost surely be
wielding an artifact or ego-item that is more powerful than anything you
can create by branding.
--
David Grabiner, grab...@alumni.princeton.edu, http://remarque.org/~grabiner
Baseball labor negotiations FAQ: http://remarque.org/~grabiner/laborfaq.html
Shop at the Mobius Strip Mall: Always on the same side of the street!
Klein Glassworks, Torus Coffee and Donuts, Projective Airlines, etc.
Timo Pietilä
Robert Ruehlmann wrote:
> Timo Pietilä wrote:
> <snip>
>
>>When Robert added JLE to 3.0.3 it felt like Robert himself hadn't any
>>opinion about it at all, he just added JLE-patch unchanged in it.
>
> Obviously I had an opinion about the JLE patch. I liked it enough to add
> it. :-) What I didn't have was experience with the end-game items and
> monsters, and the effects that the changed spell list would have on them.
JLE made a really good job with monsters. And small speed bonuses in
artifacts made some of the weak ones quite useful. So generally it was a
good choise. But it must be tweaked go make it balanced.
> What would be the best solution to this balance issue? Removing the
> ego-item completely? Removing the SHOTS multiplier and increasing MIGHT
> instead?
Make it light xbow. Lessen to_dam bonus (it gets same bonus to_dam as
bows of power). That should be enough. It would still be very very good,
but not unbalancing anymore.
Changing x5 to x4 changes 5*2 > 4*2 = 10 > 8 effective bow multiplier.
And if damage bonus changes from 20+ to 10+ it cuts total damage bonus
to about 2/3 from original. Combined it would not anymore be unbalancing.
> Maybe also remove the ammo branding from the mages spell list and restrict
> it to poison branding for rogues?
That sounds good.
> I was unsure about giving this spell to
> the mage when I re-distributed the GW spells to the player classes. But
> Tenser's feels empty enough already if you are a mage. Any ideas for a
> replacement spell?
Not yet. I will think about this and make a list of possible corrections
that are not too big. Only a few items actually must be changed. As for
JLE-patch I might know it second best best after Jonathan. I have
studied it quite a lot (was planning to make JLE-based TV-patch). Of
course this is just AFAIK.
Jonathan Ellis
Yes, but if you gave it some other stat or resist as well... and also,
it's not destructible by acid. And if the pval was +2, that would
distinguish it from normal Extra Might, since one of the things I did
was cut the pval to 1 maximum on *that* (but make it more common than
the new things I added, one powerful ego-type for bows and one
powerful ego-type for crossbows.) I don't believe this should be too
bad - it used to be entirely possible to get a Heavy Crossbow of Extra
Might (x4)(+2).
> >Maybe also remove the ammo branding from the mages spell list and
restrict
> >it to poison branding for rogues?
>
> Probably a good idea. One of the points of the reworking was to make
> mages not spend all their time fighting with weapons. Ammo branding
> works counter to this.> And while I'm on the subject, I'd fix Rift
somehow, and revise
> Rune. (Protection against melee was the whole point - anti-summoning
> is the problem. They broke often enough that they weren't
> unbalancing.)
Revise Rune of Protection - bring back the protection against melee,
but allow monsters to stand on "unoccupied" Runes just as they can
stand on "unoccupied" stairs. And be summoned on to them.
Hell, why not extend the Rune's anti-melee protections to the monster
standing on it? "You fail to break the Rune of Protection! The *foo*
hits you! -more-"
Jonathan.
Timo Pietilä
Jonathan Ellis wrote:
[remove shots from Haradrim]
> Yes, but if you gave it some other stat or resist as well... and also,
> it's not destructible by acid. And if the pval was +2, that would
> distinguish it from normal Extra Might, since one of the things I did
There is _two_ things that makes Haradrim xbow so unbalancing. One is
too high multipliers and another is too high to_dam bonus. Haradrim xbow
is treated like bow of power for damage bonus.
Lower both and it is no longer unbalancing.
So my suggestion is to make it a _light_ crossbow and lower to_dam
bonus. That is enough to make it balanced (it stays a very, very good
xbow still)
Compare
(4d5 + 10 + 20) * 5 * 2 = 420 original HxBow Haradrim
to
(4d5 + 10 + 10) * 4 * 2 = 256 changed LxBow Haradrim. Still good, but
not unbalancing.
Difference is quite big
Lets add HXBow haradrim without Shots and +2 to_dam for comparision:
(4d5 + 10 + 20) * 6 = 252
michael embley
> michael embley wrote:
> >I play vanilla because it offers what I want and as a physician I
> >couldn't code my way out of a paper bag
>
> That doesn't seem to stop our favourite borg maintainer... :-)
>
>
Yeah yeah yeah...he most likely works somewhere easy like ENT :)
(sorry this is a medical in Joke...ENT ear, nose, throat....or Easy Not very
Talented...Though in fact this is not true at all, the joke persists)
> Otto Martin - wondering whether to write an AI term paper on the borg...
Michael Embley...Having no idea how to write an AI term paper on anything but
hard at work in oncology :)
Ed Cogburn
>
> A risk - yes, possibly. But not at the cost of having items that are
> completely useless. You can provide risks without having junk items.
[snip]
> "Scrolls of summon monster" fall into the "mixed blessing" category imo. And
> I could probably find an use for "scrolls of aggravate monsters" if it
> didn't speed monsters up. But many other items like stat-lose potions are
> just junk.
Here, here. Johnathon is wrong about this, I think, because only young, early
characters have the problem of not knowing what something is, and those
characters, because they are still weak, simply can't afford the risk of even
most hypothetical "mixed-blessing" effects, never mind the 100% negative effects
from bad items. Later on, when the character is stronger and could afford the
risk, it isn't necessary because that character by now can afford to ID
everything before trying. So the only time the risk is necessary is very early
on when the consequences are so great that the risks simply can't be taken. So
just about everyone IDs things before using, or sells unIDed potions etc. to a
store first to find out what they are. After that the bad stuff is just a major
PITA, that serves no useful purpose.
Ed Cogburn
> On 11 Oct 2003 Robert Ruehlmann wrote:
>
>
>> Temporary curses from monster spells are okay, but the "an evil wizard left
>> a cursed weapon on the floor to trick adventurers" thing just doesn't work
>> imo.
>>
>
> I tend to assume that the reason a cursed weapon was stranded in mid-dungeon
> was that the previous owner had died of wielding it :-)
The description RR gave is in the docs somwhere as the reason for cursed items,
but even with what you say I still wonder because 1) most folks don't have a
chance to "curse" at their items before dying, and 2) where does the "power"
come from for a curse if its not from a mischievous wizard? Keep in mind that a
character about to die is likely so weak physically and spiritually (in a mana
sense) that they have little energy left to transfer to their items as a curse.
Jonathan Ellis
"Ed Cogburn" <ecog...@xtn.net> wrote in message
news:bmbtqi$kcaes$1...@ID-49761.news.uni-berlin.de...
My point is that they should *remain* in the game *precisely so as to
BE a problem* that early characters have to face. Otherwise the early
game is just too damn easy if you can quaff, read, zap or wield
anything without regard for possible bad consequences.
Of course, once you're past the early game, *then* is when cursed
items become a pain in the arse. Which is why a working autosquelch in
the way Robert described it, is a better option IMHO than removing
"cursed" or "bad-only" items altogether.
And the risks CAN be taken - ESPECIALLY in the early game. After all,
what do you lose, even if you die? A few minutes. Or a few hundred
gold, from a stat point drop. The time when you can't afford to take
the risk of an item going bad is when you're risking an instadeath
*with a late-game character who's taken ages to develop*. But of
course such characters have access to Identify.
Jonathan.
R Dan Henry
<eyt...@oook.cz> declared:
>"Jonathan Ellis" <jona...@franz-liszt.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:bm8p7p$b8o$1...@newsg3.svr.pol.co.uk...
>> Agreed on the pottery, the broken sticks, the skulls, etc. But the
>> "skeleton" kind of junk used to be an "s", and was confusable with
>> "skeleton" monsters, which was a rather nice feature. It didn't FORCE
>> the player to use the "l"ook command, but just made sure he would get
>> a not so nice surprise if he didn't. But not a surprise that would
>> actually kill him in one hit, unlike (say) Death Swords in ZAngband.
>
>Angband has quite a range of mimics - I think it's better to add mimics
>that match existing items than to add items that match monsters. One can
>have a death sword that isn't as overpowered as the Z one, for instance.
Skeletons are, however, the one mimic type that isn't contrived.
--
R. Dan Henry, Emperor of the Universe
Is an enthusiastic Fire Hound a hot dog with relish?
R Dan Henry
Sidwell <neve...@hotmail.com> declared:
>The real solution is to make the rubbish and useless items simply never created.
> This is harder than it might sound at first, though.
For arms and armor not so doable, but for potions, scrolls, rings, etc.
that are bad and just ignored after the first is IDed, you could have an
EXPIRES flag, preventing generation more than, say, ten levels below
native depth. So you get the added color of skeletons and such in the
early, largely empty dungeon, but they never clutter up your troll pit
loot or vault plunder.
R Dan Henry
Wordsmith <Use-Author-Address-Header@[127.1]> declared:
>On 11 Oct 2003 Robert Ruehlmann wrote:
>
>> Temporary curses from monster spells are okay, but the "an
>> evil wizard left a cursed weapon on the floor to trick adventurers" thing
>> just doesn't work imo.
>I tend to assume that the reason a cursed weapon was stranded in
>mid-dungeon was that the previous owner had died of wielding it :-)
I always figured the previous owner had been using an enchanted weapon
when the warranty period expired. The Alchemists Guild discovered
planned obsolescence in the early Second Age.
R Dan Henry
<jona...@franz-liszt.freeserve.co.uk> declared:
>Well, it *does* to me. There *should* be a risk in trying out unknown
>stuff IMHO. But it shouldn't be *such a big risk*, e.g. risk of dying.
Well, not the risk of instadeath. If it kills you as a side effect
(drinking Potion of Sleep at the wrong time), that's not a problem. It's
things like the Potion of Death that ruin testing by trying. Trying
things out needs to be risky enough to be interesting, but not so much
that its just crazy to identify things that way. Wands work pretty well
in that regard, although they have other problems.
R Dan Henry
<nppan...@spam.spam.spam.spam,> declared:
>4) Eliminate redundant items. Example....Do we need both potions and
>mushrooms of weakness?
Does Angband, which only allow you to cast one flavor of magic need
*two* sets of spellbooks? Just let the names and the spells contained
vary depending on which magic type you use.
Sadly, this will mean no more "my mage always finds the priest books"
posts, but many variants can't use this approach, so we'll still have
the Chaos Warrior who keeps finding Life books, etc.
Hugo Kornelis
>By the time you find the spellbook and can use the spell, do you ever
>have a melee weapon that needs branding? You will almost surely be
>wielding an artifact or ego-item that is more powerful than anything you
>can create by branding.
You're right. That would make the spell useless.
michael embley
a little plea..Dont forget the newbies.
For people coming new to the game all these things add some flavour and mystery
and that is quite a big part of the game. Not knowning what things do is
interesting. Having multiple items that do the same thing is more
"realistic"...after all we dont all drive Fords. I would hate to see all that
lost in a quest (pardon the pun!) to clinically collect as much as one can and
get down and remove a capital P as fast as one can.
ALthough I agree that junk later on becomes and irritation perhaps it might be
wise to have the junk removal ideas mooted here as an option (if this was the
idea all along and I have missed it then...humble appologies)
Timo Pietilä
> I guess the other possibility is that the branding multiplier should
> only apply to the base (with bonus) damage:
>
> (4d4+19+8)*3 + (4d4+19+8)*5 = 129+215 = 344max (as opposed to 645max)
That sounds _very_ good solution for "what might be overpowered" ammo
slay multiplier.
Of course we could just cut down slay multiplier for ammo. 1.5 for slay
evil and animal and 2 for normal slays and brands. Kill
dragon/demon/undead could stay at 3
(BTW there is no kill-slays in ammo. Maybe we could add some)
Steve Kroon
>>
>
>
> 1) do incorporate maximum depths for certain items. Certainly not rings and
> amulets of + stat, because they gradually get better through the game.
> Certainly things like wands of magic missle & lightning bolts, cure light
> wounds potions, and other things that are incrediblly useful at low levels
> but eventually become junk.
I've noticed a number of people saying that wands etc, become
useless/junk at deeper levels, and that they hence shouldn't be
generated. Has the topic of varying the damage done by such items
according to the level of the char wielding the wand been considered?
If this were to be used, one could have a lower and upper limit on the
damage of each wand, with the damage increasing according to some
formula between these limits from level 1 to 50. In this way, the item
is not overpowering at low levels, or useless at high levels.
> 2) Try to make other items more useful. For example, Rings of protection
> are something you wear only at the early phases of the game if you don't
> have anything better to wear. But, if their max + was increased, soembody
> might give serious througt to wearing a rings of protections + 20-25 around
> the latter part of pre-stat gain.
Also, the elemental AC rings seem to have just as much AC as rings of
protection. I suggest allowing rings which grant AC only having higher
bonusses than other rings. (Side note: also how about rings of +to str
and con for warriors, +to dex and int for rangers etc.)
> 4) Eliminate redundant items. Example....Do we need both potions and
> mushrooms of weakness?
What is peoples opinion of the flavour junk (shards of pottery, skulls,
etc.)? I gather some ppl would like to keep it, but that for example
could be a good candidate for autosquelching (i.e. flavour junk is
pretty much a base case for agreeing on the concepts of autosquelch
implementation, as I see it). However, I also feel that once "cursed"
items like mushrooms of weakness have been found and identified, they
should not be generated again. (Of course, cursed items that can do
reasonable damage when thrown may be an exception...).
In the end, the desired behaviour is dependent on the player, and that
most likely means another player option, although for some reason, many
ppl here seem to think there are too many of those ;)
Cheers
--
Steve Kroon (kr...@sun.ac.za)
Department of Statistics
Stellenbosch University
South Africa
(021) 808-3241/(084) 458-8062
Sona si latine loqueris.
Steve Kroon
> Jeff Greene wrote:
> <snip>
>
>
>>Also, I would also love to hear RR's opinion on autosquelch.
>
>
> I think the basic idea behind autosquelch is right: automate boring tasks.
> "My perfect autosquelch" would probably have these features:
[..squelch..]
> - Must have an easy to use interface for specifying which items or groups of
> items to squelch. And at the same time it should be powerful, with
> different "squelch profiles" depending on player level, player class, and
> so on.
Just a thought on UI that occured to me. We have this screen for
recalling known objects. Why not allow the player to select from this
list which objects he wants squelched? (e.g. some players may want that
haste monster wand at low levels).
> Are there frustrating effects like reading "squelched a potion of cure
> poison" while your hitpoints are draining away due to poison?
In this case, the player only has himself to blame for deciding he
doesn't want cure poison potions. On a related note, things which
should get squelched should probably not appear in the shops (I'm not
sure if this is the case with usual autosquelch).
Finally, if players are to select items from this list, they cannot
squelch items they haven't identified yet.
Eddie Grove
> autosquelch implementation, as I see it). However, I also feel that
> once "cursed" items like mushrooms of weakness have been found and
> identified, they should not be generated again. (Of course, cursed
Well, one thing to consider, given the ridiculous idea of *ID*,
is that sometimes you want to use cursed items to see if your
weapon/armor provides resistance/sustenance.
Eddie
Timo Pietilä
> Well, one thing to consider, given the ridiculous idea of *ID*,
> is that sometimes you want to use cursed items to see if your
> weapon/armor provides resistance/sustenance.
That is right. There really is not many things that cannot be used for
something. Staff of haste monster, staff of darkness and potion of death
are maybe only things that has no use whatsoever (in vanilla !oDeath
doesn't cause damage when trown, darkness has no usable feature and
haste everything around you is not useful).
michael embley
items doesnt remove a lot of flavour. Especially for new players....
Matthias Kurzke
>
>
> Jonathan Ellis wrote:
>
>> "Julian Lighton" <jl...@fragment.com> wrote in message
>> news:voe02hi...@corp.supernews.com...
>>
>>> object stacking. The rest is simply that more than 90% of the items
>>> you see aren't even worth thinking about. Autosquelch helps cover
>>
>>
>> the
>>
>>> real problem, but it's not a solution to it.
>>
>>
>> But what else would you do?
>>
>> Reduce the number of items in monster drops? That doesn't change the
>> *ratios* of desirable to undesirable items, so it just means you scum
>> for longer. As we did in the pre-stacking days.
>
>
> Reduce number of crappy items. Remove useless artifacts for starters.
> There is plenty of weapons to choose. Remove rings of weakness & co (you
> have cursed rings of <stat>). Introduce "drop useful" -flag.
>
I don't think removing complete "junk" items (skeletons, rings of
weakness) will help much. In my experience, the majority of annoying
junk consists of 'good' and 'great' weapons like Daggers of Slay Orc. I
would usually love to be able to trade 20 ego weapons for one potion of
*Healing* (which is rare because the game doesn't think that it's 'good').
> Change monster drop calculation to be closer to current depth. Currently
> monster native in 2500' in 5000' drops item (50+100)/2 = dlvl 75 item
> (Tenser's, Purifications, ?o*ID* (exactly 70/1) third native). Change
> that for example to (50+2*100)/3 = dlvl 83 item (ChaosDSM, Holy
> Infusions, Kelek's Grimoire, Potion of *healing* second native, RoS).
>
Also, the so called 'good' items (dungeon spellbooks, deep amulets,
speed rings) should cease to be more common (by appearing as forced good
drops / forced good items in vaults) once they are in depth. The
mid-level spellbooks are far too common.
Matthias
Matthias Kurzke
> Robert Ruehlmann <r...@thangorodrim.net> writes:
>
>
>>"Scrolls of summon monster" fall into the "mixed blessing" category imo.
>>And I could probably find an use for "scrolls of aggravate monsters" if it
>>didn't speed monsters up. But many other items like stat-lose potions are
>>just junk.
>
>
more SHRIEKer monsters, too, but they should only wake their fellow
creatures, not magically haste them).
> Note to whomever:
>
> Aggravate should cause hounds etc to leave their rooms and attack
> the player where s/he is, even when the intelligent monster stuff
> is on. Then aggravation has at least one use.
>
>
That is a good idea (but I have no idea how to implement it).
Matthias
Matthias Kurzke
>
>
>>- And at the same time it should be powerful, with different "squelch
>
> profiles" depending on player
>
>>level, player class, and so on.
>
That gives you something huge like the ToME automatizer. This is overkill.
>
> No, unfortunately - squelch is just per character. Though you can dump
> your squelch settings to files and create profiles manually.
>
In NPP, I recently discovered it is per savefile, which is very
annoying. I played a mage first, and my next character, a priest, only
figured out at 1000' that he never found any spellbooks because they
were all purple dots. Ever since, I stopped using squelch in NPP.
>
>>- Not sure if the player should trigger the "squelch all bad items in
>
> this
>
>>grid" effect by hand. Do people configure the squelching conservativly?
>>Are there frustrating effects like reading "squelched a potion of cure
>>poison" while your hitpoints are draining away due to poison?
>
>
> Ey deviates from the Oangband autosquelch (which it is based on) mainly by
> the fact that it has both manual and automatic squelch as options
> (Oangband has only the former, or at least that was the case when I copied
> the system). Manual squelch is based on inscriptions, so you can override
> it in individual cases without having to change the settings.
>
>
Manual squelching is much nicer IMO, because you see what you squelch
and are always able to correct your squelch settings when necessary. (I
still use the OAngband autosquelcher sometimes; it saves some keypresses
but has no bad side effects). Not seeing what I squelch means I have to
put thought into my squelch settings, but I rather spend time playing
the game than working out perfect squelch settings.
Matthias
Matthias Kurzke
>
> Just a thought on UI that occured to me. We have this screen for
> recalling known objects. Why not allow the player to select from this
> list which objects he wants squelched? (e.g. some players may want that
> haste monster wand at low levels).
>
I think wands of haste monster are mostly for those who think the game
is too easy.
Matthias
Eytan Zweig
"michael embley" <michael...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:bmddor$vg8$1...@news.vol.cz...
> With all the discussion re "useless" items or redundant ones I would
like to add
> a little plea..Dont forget the newbies.
>
> For people coming new to the game all these things add some flavour and
mystery
> and that is quite a big part of the game. Not knowning what things do is
> interesting.
Why will that change if everything does something? You're right, if we
just take the "junk" and remove it without adding stuff instead there will
be less stuff, and therefore less variety. The point is, take the "junk"
and replace it with items with limited usage - so, on the one hand you
still have a lot of variety and flavor, but on the other hand, you never
have something that, after playing the game for more than a week, you
automatically 'k'ill without thought.
> Having multiple items that do the same thing is more
> "realistic"...after all we dont all drive Fords.
True, but the discussion isn't about removing redundant items (though
maybe someone mentioned that, I didn't read every post in this thread with
the detail I should have). It's about removing the items that are never
used, except perhaps by mistake.
I would hate to see all that
> lost in a quest (pardon the pun!) to clinically collect as much as one
can and
> get down and remove a capital P as fast as one can.
I would hate for the flavor and early-game discovery to be lost either.
It's just that you don't *need* junk items for either. And I'd hazzard to
say that it's possible to do these things better without junk items - that
at the moment, a newbie quickly learns - "if something does something bad
the first time I see it, I can ignore it from now on". Which becomes "oh
look, I have a long list of items to ignore" after a week or so of
playing. If every item in the game had some potential use, then the lesson
would be "when you find a new item, even if it seems to be bad, it might
be of value somewhere". Which becomes "hmmm, I haven't figured out these
items yet". Which is the more interesting attitude?
> ALthough I agree that junk later on becomes and irritation perhaps it
might be
> wise to have the junk removal ideas mooted here as an option (if this
was the
> idea all along and I have missed it then...humble appologies)
Do you mean as in autosquelch? That helps, but it requires micromanagement
and has its own problems. Or do you mean just a "generate_junk" option?
That would be terrible - that would mean that newbies and experienced
players actually play different games, which shoudln't be the case - and
it'll also be a testiment of failure - an admission that we can't solve
the problems, and must instead fossilize the current situation.
Eytan
Eytan Zweig
mainly by
> > the fact that it has both manual and automatic squelch as options
> > (Oangband has only the former, or at least that was the case when I
copied
> > the system). Manual squelch is based on inscriptions, so you can
override
> > it in individual cases without having to change the settings.
> Manual squelching is much nicer IMO, because you see what you squelch
> and are always able to correct your squelch settings when necessary. (I
> still use the OAngband autosquelcher sometimes; it saves some keypresses
> but has no bad side effects). Not seeing what I squelch means I have to
> put thought into my squelch settings, but I rather spend time playing
> the game than working out perfect squelch settings.
>
That's what I think; when playing, I never turn on automatic squelching.
But it seems that almost all other Ey players that use squelch turn it on
anyway (it's off by default). And I see no reason not to offer both.
Also, it's more fun to actually know what your player is finding - sure,
you want a quick way to get rid of it so it won't fill up your inventory,
but that's not the same thing as never even see it get in there.
Eytan
> Matthias
>
Jeff Greene
"Matthias Kurzke" <maw...@gmx.de> wrote in message
news:bme6fj$df4$1...@news.uni-leipzig.de...
> Eytan Zweig wrote:
>
> > No, unfortunately - squelch is just per character. Though you can dump
> > your squelch settings to files and create profiles manually.
> >
>
> In NPP, I recently discovered it is per savefile, which is very
> annoying. I played a mage first, and my next character, a priest, only
> figured out at 1000' that he never found any spellbooks because they
> were all purple dots. Ever since, I stopped using squelch in NPP.
>
Matthais,
What do you recommend? Should I clear the settings for every new game? I
think that makes sense. The spellbooks have the easy_know flag, so they are
always identified. If an item isn't identified (like mushrooms, scrolls,
etc...), it won't autosquelch until it is IDed.
Keep in mind that was from the first NPP release, which was basically me
learning to code by installing patches. I wasn't trying to set it up that
way.
--
-Jeff
replace the ".spam"s with comcast.net to reply
Author of NPPAngband. Check it out at:
http://home.comcast.net/~nppangband/
Eytan Zweig
"Jeff Greene" <nppan...@spam.spam.spam.spam,> wrote in message
news:qLecnVQYR6E...@comcast.com...
>
> "Matthias Kurzke" <maw...@gmx.de> wrote in message
> news:bme6fj$df4$1...@news.uni-leipzig.de...
> > Eytan Zweig wrote:
> >
>
> > > No, unfortunately - squelch is just per character. Though you can
dump
> > > your squelch settings to files and create profiles manually.
> > >
> >
> > In NPP, I recently discovered it is per savefile, which is very
> > annoying. I played a mage first, and my next character, a priest, only
> > figured out at 1000' that he never found any spellbooks because they
> > were all purple dots. Ever since, I stopped using squelch in NPP.
> >
> Matthais,
>
> What do you recommend? Should I clear the settings for every new game?
I
> think that makes sense. The spellbooks have the easy_know flag, so they
are
> always identified. If an item isn't identified (like mushrooms,
scrolls,
> etc...), it won't autosquelch until it is IDed.
>
> Keep in mind that was from the first NPP release, which was basically me
> learning to code by installing patches. I wasn't trying to set it up
that
> way.
>
I had this problem in Ey. I solved it, sort of, by adding a birth option
to retain squelch settings, which defaults to off. That way, if you only
use squelching to get rid of items you would never want (cursed items,
potions of poison, etc.) you can turn it on and keep your settings - but
if you use it to get rid in the late game of early-game items, you won't
accidently lose them in your next game.
Eytan
Matthias Kurzke
> "Matthias Kurzke" <maw...@gmx.de> wrote in message
> news:bme6fj$df4$1...@news.uni-leipzig.de...
>
>>Eytan Zweig wrote:
>>
>
>
>>>No, unfortunately - squelch is just per character. Though you can dump
>>>your squelch settings to files and create profiles manually.
>>>
>>
>>In NPP, I recently discovered it is per savefile, which is very
>>annoying. I played a mage first, and my next character, a priest, only
>>figured out at 1000' that he never found any spellbooks because they
>>were all purple dots. Ever since, I stopped using squelch in NPP.
>>
>
> Matthais,
>
> What do you recommend? Should I clear the settings for every new game? I
> think that makes sense. The spellbooks have the easy_know flag, so they are
> always identified. If an item isn't identified (like mushrooms, scrolls,
> etc...), it won't autosquelch until it is IDed.
>
> Keep in mind that was from the first NPP release, which was basically me
> learning to code by installing patches. I wasn't trying to set it up that
> way.
>
>
I didn't want to sound like accusing you of evil intent ;-) I think if
you allow the saving of squelch setting to a .prf file, then you can
delete squelch settings on new character generation. Or you could have a
"retain squelch settings" birth option like some variants, defaulting to
OFF. Probably you should have both, or pure OAngband squelching.
Matthias
Toshi1873
> Timo Pietilä wrote:
> > Jonathan Ellis wrote:
> >> "Julian Lighton" <jl...@fragment.com> wrote in message
> >> news:voe02hi...@corp.supernews.com...
> >>
> >>> Perhaps, but it's still the wrong solution. Part of the problem is
> >>> object stacking. The rest is simply that more than 90% of the items
> >>> you see aren't even worth thinking about. Autosquelch helps cover
> >> the real problem, but it's not a solution to it.
> > Reduce number of crappy items. Remove useless artifacts for starters.
> > There is plenty of weapons to choose. Remove rings of weakness & co (you
> > have cursed rings of <stat>). Introduce "drop useful" -flag.
>
> I don't think removing complete "junk" items (skeletons, rings of
> weakness) will help much. In my experience, the majority of annoying
> junk consists of 'good' and 'great' weapons like Daggers of Slay Orc. I
> would usually love to be able to trade 20 ego weapons for one potion of
> *Healing* (which is rare because the game doesn't think that it's 'good').
>
> > Change monster drop calculation to be closer to current depth. Currently
> > monster native in 2500' in 5000' drops item (50+100)/2 = dlvl 75 item
> > (Tenser's, Purifications, ?o*ID* (exactly 70/1) third native). Change
> > that for example to (50+2*100)/3 = dlvl 83 item (ChaosDSM, Holy
> > Infusions, Kelek's Grimoire, Potion of *healing* second native, RoS).
> >
> Also, the so called 'good' items (dungeon spellbooks, deep amulets,
> speed rings) should cease to be more common (by appearing as forced good
> drops / forced good items in vaults) once they are in depth. The
> mid-level spellbooks are far too common.
>
> Matthias
I like the idea that someone mentioned where you can pick through the
list of known objects and choose whether or not to squelch them. The UI
aspect would be the majority of the work. Biggest need would be to
categorize the listing so that the user can page through it by item
type. (I actually don't care for the "known item" listing atm because
it's just a straight text dump that doesn't relay useful information.
Making it so that I can squelch known items would make that screen
useful.)
I don't want to see flavor items go away at any depth... (shards of
pottery should enable a bit of mold to grow though...). A pile of bones
should sometimes be a skeleton that will get up and take a nip at you.
One of the lessons from Moria / Rogue / etc. is that you always *look*
because sometimes things aren't what they appear to be. Mimics serve
this purpose to a small extent, but I miss skeletons that looked like
piles of bones.
Which brings me to bad items, and ID by trying... ?oDeath is something
that's past the line of reasonable. Like another poster said, the
effect of trying something without ID'ing it can be anything... so long
as it's temporary and reversable. There should be a penalty for making
stupid mistakes - and it should even be possible to kill yourself if you
do something really stupid (but not until mid-late game). Lowering
stats, draining mana, draining a percentage of health (not a fixed HP
amount), causing amnesia or blindness are all reasonable penalties for
not ID'ing first. However, as you get deeper into the dungeon, trying
un-ID'd things should become increasingly risky... loss of multiple
stats/points, potions that take away 2/3 of your hit points or mana,
cursed items that require the stronger version of remove curse. Death
through misadventure should still be a teaching experience.
The list of artifacts should probably be tuned... artifacts should
definitely be randomized (I see there is a flag in 3.03 to beta this) so
that while a bow of Bard is always pretty good, maybe it isn't always
outstanding. Instead, maybe another bow will be better in a given game.
My big beef with artifacts atm is that there are oodles and oodles of
weapons, but only a handful of choices for the other ammo slots. (My
mage is scumming 2000' to get a Shield of Thorin for the immunity to
acid attribute... scumming that I wouldn't do if things were a bit more
random or my choices were better.)
Jeff Greene
{snip}I think if
> you allow the saving of squelch setting to a .prf file, then you can
> delete squelch settings on new character generation.
It does have this already. But there is no real efficient way to clear the
squelch options. By the end of a game there are many thing I would have on
autosquelch that a beginning character wouldn't, so it is probably
preferable to give the player an option to clear it at birth rather than
have a player go through each item.
> Or you could have a "retain squelch settings" birth option like some >
variants, defaulting to OFF. Probably you should have both, or pure
> OAngband squelching.
I think I will go with the birth option idea. Yet another thing to take
from EYAngband.....:)
I will also make it an option to have the squelch-preferred items on the
dungeon floor appear as a dot. I don't like that "purple dot" thing, but
there are times when it is preferable while looking at huge piles of stuff.
Thanks (and to Eytan too, in your other post reply to mine).
-Jeff
Jonathan Ellis
"Toshi1873" <toshi...@nowhere.com> wrote in message I like the idea
that someone mentioned
I don't want to see flavor items go away at any depth... (shards of
pottery should enable a bit of mold to grow though...). A pile of
bones
should sometimes be a skeleton that will get up and take a nip at you.
One of the lessons from Moria / Rogue / etc. is that you always *look*
because sometimes things aren't what they appear to be. Mimics serve
this purpose to a small extent, but I miss skeletons that looked like
piles of bones.
> Which brings me to bad items, and ID by trying... ?oDeath is
something
> that's past the line of reasonable.
So, if the Potion of Death did *1000* points of damage instead of
5000?
A mage who quaffed it unID'ed, would die. But mages have the ID spell.
Even Priests have the spell of Perception in Godly Insights.
A warrior or semi-warrior (ranger, rogue, priest) who quaffed it
unID'ed, *might* survive... if he was at full health and had 18/200
Con and 50th level. So the item is no longer a certain instadeath -
unless it turns up early and you try to quaff-identify it. (Lesson:
Don't quaff-identify potions unless you're hard enough to cope with
the consequences.)
> The list of artifacts should probably be tuned... artifacts should
> definitely be randomized (I see there is a flag in 3.03 to beta
this) so
> that while a bow of Bard is always pretty good, maybe it isn't
always
> outstanding. Instead, maybe another bow will be better in a given
game.
As you say, random artifacts are an OPTION. I prefer the fixed list.
Part of why I added some others to it - and some new resists and
powers around those of the old set, that I believed were weak - was in
order to provide ALTERNATIVE options, so that there was more than one
or two configurations of equipment that could be considered "usable"
and "winnable" with. I don't believe any of the new stuff I added was
overpowered, but some - things like the Palantir (which I made up
myself), the Shield of Gil-galad (which in fact I "borrowed" from
OAngband, albeit changed because the base item was not in vanilla) and
the Crown of Numenor (likewise) are more than usable alternatives.
They don't overpower, they *compete* with the existing set of Really
Great Things.
Others were intended not for the endgame, but for the middle game -
or, in some cases, for the early game: just like the existing
artifacts Paur-(-hach, -nimmen, -aegen and -nen). If you find them at
around about, say, 500', they're useful, just like (De-, Nar-, and
Nim-)-thanc. And if you *don't* find them then, you shouldn't have to
go right back to 500' to find them by accident.
> My big beef with artifacts atm is that there are oodles and oodles
of
> weapons, but only a handful of choices for the other ammo slots.
(My
> mage is scumming 2000' to get a Shield of Thorin for the immunity to
> acid attribute...
If you find scumming for Thorin boring: Well, Don't Do That, Then.
Immunities are SUPPOSED TO BE RARE. Live without immunity to acid: all
you need is *resistance* to acid. Artifacts cannot be damaged by acid,
so wear a full set of artifacts. If your inventory - or your
non-artifact worn/wielded equipment - is damaged, *accept it and move
on*. Just as you can, and should, be able and willing to live without
immunity to fire, despite carrying spellbooks. NOBODY needs Thorin.
Jonathan.
Jonathan Ellis
"Jeff Greene" <nppan...@spam.spam.spam.spam,> wrote in message
news:qLecnVQYR6E...@comcast.com...
>
> news:bme6fj$df4$1...@news.uni-leipzig.de...
> > Eytan Zweig wrote:
> >
>
> > > No, unfortunately - squelch is just per character. Though you
can dump
> > > your squelch settings to files and create profiles manually.
> > >
> >
> > In NPP, I recently discovered it is per savefile, which is very
> > annoying. I played a mage first, and my next character, a priest,
only
> > figured out at 1000' that he never found any spellbooks because
they
> > were all purple dots. Ever since, I stopped using squelch in NPP.
> >
> Matthais,
>
> What do you recommend? Should I clear the settings for every new
game?
You should make it so that the player sets the game to squelch items
*only as and when he becomes aware of their existence*, and all
squelch info should be cleared the moment an old savefile becomes used
for a new character. None of this "profile" nonsense: and also none of
this "auto-squelch potions of lose stat" before any individual
character knows what they are. The *player* may know which items are
bad, but each *character* must find this out individually - in their
own way of choice: either by taking the risk of using the item, or by
identifying it, or by selling it to a shop.
You shouldn't be able to squelch a bad item before you know, for *that
individual character*, that that item is bad.
Jonathan.