Call for mixed blessing-style jewellery and consumables
Andrew Sidwell
please reply in only one place.)
As noted in a previous mail, I'm reordering the object list, and
alongside this adding a few new items and removing a few others. For
example, I am changing the mushroom effects so they are mixed-blessing
and a little odd (as it has been pointed out, the purpose of mushrooms
is pretty much entirely flavour, so they might as well be interesting.)
Anyway, I would like to remove entirely-bad stuff from the object list
and instead have some mixed-blessing items that might plausibly be used.
This especially applies when it comes to rings and amulets.
Mixed-blessing items don't have to be made up of already-existing item
abilities, but could have new ones. I don't need especially many, just
a few. More ideas for consumables (potions/scrolls/staffs/mushrooms)
would also be nice, but not essential.
(FWIW, I've already added[1] a rare scroll of Deep Descent, which came
up some time ago and I always liked the idea of. I have no
mixed-blessing potions other than the lose-one-gain-one potions.)
[1]: In my local copy. I'm not committing to the public repository
until I'm fairly sure I've finished savefile-breaking changes.
--
Andrew Sidwell
http://rephial.org/
Eddie Grove
> (Posted to r.g.r.a, angband-dev and the forum. If you have suggestions,
> please reply in only one place.)
>
> As noted in a previous mail, I'm reordering the object list, and alongside
> this adding a few new items and removing a few others. For example, I am
> changing the mushroom effects so they are mixed-blessing and a little odd (as
> it has been pointed out, the purpose of mushrooms is pretty much entirely
> flavour, so they might as well be interesting.)
>
> Anyway, I would like to remove entirely-bad stuff from the object list and
> instead have some mixed-blessing items that might plausibly be used. This
> especially applies when it comes to rings and amulets.
I tried to think of interesting combinations, but the only one that ever
seemed good the next day was { +int, +wis, -str}. The problem is that other
than str, any stat decrease is either meaningless or too painful to consider
at the point where you would consider a mixed blessing item.
> Mixed-blessing items don't have to be made up of already-existing item
> abilities, but could have new ones. I don't need especially many, just a few.
> More ideas for consumables (potions/scrolls/staffs/mushrooms) would also be
> nice, but not essential.
How about a potion that attempts to blind you, and then gives ESP as long as
the blindness lasts. Perhaps you could extend the effect with other forms of
blindness, such as being breathed on by appropriate hounds.
Perhaps, very late in the game, something like *HEAL that permanently reduces
a stat. Then augmentation [or the appropriate stat potion] would be useful to
undo it. You would need to guarantee the loss could be fixed by a single
augmentation/stat potion or no one would ever consider it, i.e. no dropping
18/100 to 18/91 with the current increase system.
Eddie
David Vestal
> (Posted to r.g.r.a, angband-dev and the forum. If you have suggestions,
> please reply in only one place.)
>
> abilities, but could have new ones. I don't need especially many, just
> a few. More ideas for consumables (potions/scrolls/staffs/mushrooms)
> would also be nice, but not essential.
>
A random consumable idea:
Moderately rare scrolls of Intensification. They have a chance to
change a potion into a stronger version of itself. CLW becomes CSW,
Heal become *Heal*, wands of Cold Balls become wands of Dragon's
Breath, etc. Potions of restore stat become potions of increase stat;
potions of increase stat have a tiny chance of become potions of
augmentation. Failure becomes more likely as the item level becomes
higher. It's annoying to scum for healing or stat-gain potions; this
could make it easier.
Potions/Scrolls of Vital Armor: temporarily raises AC by 30-50 or so
points by sapping your life-force (thus, MHP is also temporarily
reduced by 10-30%).
It's not a consumable, but I've always wanted an early-game amulet
that raises AC by 50 or so, and has no other effects.
Andrew Doull
I've made rings of Teleportation stop randomly teleporting you after a
while, and then allow you to activate for Teleport. So it's worth the
initial pain to get a teleport item early on.
You may want to look at the various item racial flags in Unangband
that prevent you wielding an item with the equivalent slay. e.g.
Dragon armour stops you using SLAY_DRAGON weapons.
Andrew
Timo Pietilä
> (Posted to r.g.r.a, angband-dev and the forum. If you have suggestions,
> please reply in only one place.)
>
> As noted in a previous mail, I'm reordering the object list, and
> alongside this adding a few new items and removing a few others. For
> example, I am changing the mushroom effects so they are mixed-blessing
> and a little odd (as it has been pointed out, the purpose of mushrooms
> is pretty much entirely flavour, so they might as well be interesting.)
Most mushrooms are very good source for "identifying by testing"-method.
Other good is "bad" potions.
Timo Pietilä
Gargoon
> and instead have some mixed-blessing items that might plausibly be used.
> This especially applies when it comes to rings and amulets.
A few suggestions:
Remove scrolls of aggravate monster. Replace them with scrolls of
envy, which aggravate monsters and also generate a "good" or "great"
item (either way, whatever makes it worth using but not too good)
somewhere random on the level.
Potions of slowness could be renamed potions of iron-skin, giving
their usual slowing and a large AC boost. They'd still be pretty bad,
but not totally useless.
I like the idea of potions of blindness also giving temporary ESP.
I'd untie it from the blindness effect so that you stll get temp ESP
if you have rblind, though.
I also like the idea of cursed items like the ring of teleportation
uncursing over time. Connecting that to leveling up or to gaining a
certain amount of experience would prevent people from stair scumming
to get rid of curses. This would also make trying unidentified
weapons and armors much less of a hassle, since they wouldn't require
a trip back to town to remove.
An alternative way to make teleportation rings interesting would be to
give them a very small amount of speed. At lower levels, I'd be very
tempted to wear a +2 speed ring that would teleport me randomly. For
extra evil, tie the frequency of the teleport activation to the pval
of the ring, so the more speed you get, the more often you get kicked
into a pack of acid hounds.
As far as breaking save files, would it be possible to write something
that would let me retain my macros and any other preferences that
don't deal with save-file-breaking-changes? If not, it's not a huge
deal, but it would be nice.
Mike
Hallvard B Furuseth
>On Apr 19, 12:38 am, Andrew Sidwell <takka...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> (Posted to r.g.r.a, angband-dev and the forum. If you have
>> suggestions, please reply in only one place.)
I've only tried a few variants myself, but aren't there plenty of
well-tested ideas to steal from them?
> It's not a consumable, but I've always wanted an early-game amulet
> that raises AC by 50 or so, and has no other effects.
Armor and weapons could be consumable. They could degenerate with use -
how quickly would depend on how many/hard hits they take or give, on the
item's quality, and on your slovenliness (a new stat, why don't we have
negative stats?)
--
Hallvard
zai...@zaimoni.com
wrote:
> David Vestal writes:
> > It's not a consumable, but I've always wanted an early-game amulet
> > that raises AC by 50 or so, and has no other effects.
>
> Armor and weapons could be consumable. They could degenerate with use -
> how quickly would depend on how many/hard hits they take or give, on the
> item's quality, and on your slovenliness (a new stat, why don't we have
> negative stats?)
In this context, slovenliness is simply the absence of wisdom.
David Vestal
> I also like the idea of cursed items like the ring of teleportation
> uncursing over time. Connecting that to leveling up or to gaining a
> certain amount of experience would prevent people from stair scumming
> to get rid of curses. This would also make trying unidentified
> weapons and armors much less of a hassle, since they wouldn't require
> a trip back to town to remove.
>
> An alternative way to make teleportation rings interesting would be to
> give them a very small amount of speed. At lower levels, I'd be very
> tempted to wear a +2 speed ring that would teleport me randomly. For
> extra evil, tie the frequency of the teleport activation to the pval
> of the ring, so the more speed you get, the more often you get kicked
> into a pack of acid hounds.
Having rings of teleportation activate for teleportation would be a
very quick way to make it worthwhile to uncurse and wear them. Seems
intuitive also.
Hallvard B Furuseth
No. Low wisdom affects saving throws and I don't know what else,
but does not affect the equipment itself.
--
Hallvard
zai...@zaimoni.com
wrote:
Habitually taking care of equipment is practical intelligence.
If you're going to have the six D&D statistics anyway: WIS *is*
practical intelligence, so the only reason not to use WIS for this is
that the game mechanics "would be better" with yet another stat.
Timo Pietilä
You need WIN to realize that you need to repair and take care of your
equipment. You need INT to be actually able to do that. WIS is "what to
do", INT is "how to do it".
Timo Pietilä
Hallvard B Furuseth
Oh, OK. I misunderstood. One reason not to is that I'm reluctant about
suggesting such an annoyance-feature as part of an existing stat.
If you want a "theoretical" reason, real persons are not equally wise
about all things.
--
Hallvard
Ray Dillinger
> Anyway, I would like to remove entirely-bad stuff from the object list
> and instead have some mixed-blessing items that might plausibly be used.
> This especially applies when it comes to rings and amulets.
A weapon whose bonus depends on how hungry you are. The closer you are
to starvation, the bigger the bonuses it gets. Maybe it also gives you
a (very small) amount of nutrition whenever you kill something with it.
Make resist-cold and resist-fire mutually exclusive. If you have more
sources of resist-cold, you resist cold -- but not fire. And vice versa.
Possibly do likewise for other "opposed element" resistances. This would
probably require toning down some resistable attacks by say, 30%, for
game balance reasons.
Detect Magic could cause blindness if someone else activates an artifact
in your FOV.
You could have poisons that cancel each other out/act as antidotes for
each other.
Rings of aggravate monster could also have beneficial effects like
strength.
Rings of slow digestion could also make you vulnerable to confusion
(at least, *I* get dizzy and lightheaded when I've been not eating
enough...), reduce your strength or constitution while being worn,
or reduce the rate at which you heal or recover mana.
Potions of speed could have a small chance of reducing your constitution.
Healing potions and speed potions should inflict hunger when used.
This should be severe enough that you can't use 3 of them back-to-back
without stopping to eat.
Boots of speed could have a "break-in" period where you occasionally
misstep or fall down while you get used to them. Maybe the first thousand
turns you wear them? But don't count time on this clock unless there's
an active, hostile monster with at least half the player's HP around,
otherwise you'll get people just sitting there in a locked room for a
thousand turns.
Scrolls of enchant weapon could become a lot more fun but riskier, if
they were a lot more trouble to use. For example, if after reading
them, you had to actually wield the weapon you were enchanting for
at least a thousand hit dice of monsters vanquished (no switching
weapons, no unwielding, no digging, no using wands/anything else
in your hands, etc) before the enchantment took effect. For bonus
coolness, the enchantment could vary depending on what you actually
did with the weapon during that time. If you fought mostly orcs,
you'd be likely to get a sword of orc slaying, for example -
instead of having the same "plus-one" effect from every scroll that
works. Natch, you'd need to make them rarer and increase the odds of
them actually working.
Scrolls of confuse monster (where your hands glow until you touch
something, etc) could backfire and confuse *you* if too much time
passes before you touch something.
You could have a negatively enchanted weapon (say -3) that is such
because it makes all your mistakes in weapon-handling obvious. Use
it for long enough in combat, and you get an intrinsic +1 or +2 with
that type of weapon, because it also forces you to learn from your
mistakes.
A rod of light or frost bolts or something that drains mana every
time it is invoked. Useful to people who don't have the spell, but
for wizards who do, not worth carrying.
Bear
Igenlode Wordsmith
On 19 Apr 2008 Andrew Sidwell wrote:
[snip]
> Anyway, I would like to remove entirely-bad stuff from the object list
> and instead have some mixed-blessing items that might plausibly be used.
> This especially applies when it comes to rings and amulets.
>
> Mixed-blessing items don't have to be made up of already-existing item
> abilities, but could have new ones. I don't need especially many, just
> a few. More ideas for consumables (potions/scrolls/staffs/mushrooms)
> would also be nice, but not essential.
>
Borrowing from other variants -- some kind of item of Terrified Escape,
that makes it impossible to hit anything (including shooting
straight, or it might be too abusable!) but gives you a massive boost to
armour class and speed? The idea being that you're so scared that all
your efforts are given over to getting out of this alive... Would have
to be a consumable or an activation.
Likewise, rings/amulets that carry a speed penalty along with a
significant bonus/resist. I suppose this wouldn't be very different
from, say, heavy weapons or artifact armour as they stand...
An item that gives you acute night vision (See Invisible+Infravision)
but renders your eyes thereby so sensitive that you can't bear bright
light? i.e. HP damage in daylight, temporary (1d6 turns) blindness when
casting light-up-room spells, backwash from Wands/Rods of Light, etc.
An amulet of godly dedication, that repels undead physical attacks and
gives Hold Life, but halves damage against 'good' creatures? Or
conversely, an item of soul-selling that has the same effects (after
all, you've sold your soul to the dark side, you must have got some
benefits out of it) but halves damage against your fellow evil
creatures? But that might be a little *too* difficult to live with...
An amulet/ring of bowmanship that gives a bonus to ranged attacks but a
penalty to close combat? (But doesn't affect rangers -- they're already
as practised at bowmanship as they're going to get...)
Some kind of item (?staff?) of Mass Confusion, that addles the brains of
every monster within sight -- until the effects wear off, of course!
How about another object like a Wand of Wonder, that generally has a
good effect but sometimes has a bad effect, and you never know which
you're going to get next? A Scroll/Staff of Armour Tinkering, for
instance: there's a good chance that a one-off use will endow a random
(selected from among your existing, equipped, unenhanced possessions)
piece of equipment with a random resist, but if you get greedy and try
it too often, then ultimately the tinkering is bound to destroy one of
your existing excellent items instead -- and you don't get to choose
which bit of equipment gets tinkered with, either way. (This would
really make more narrative sense as an encounter with a random
wandering wizard who takes away one of your items during the night and
starts fiddling with it ;-)
--
Igenlode Wordsmith *latest review 19 Apr 2008*
My IMDb film reviews: http://imdb.com/user/ur1448185/comments
ratings: http://uk.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=3145804
The Wanderer
> Andrew Sidwell wrote:
>
>> Anyway, I would like to remove entirely-bad stuff from the object
>> list and instead have some mixed-blessing items that might
>> plausibly be used. This especially applies when it comes to rings
>> and amulets.
> Rings of slow digestion could also make you vulnerable to confusion
> (at least, *I* get dizzy and lightheaded when I've been not eating
> enough...),
Why would they produce a "not been eating enough" effect? What they
effectively do is reduce the rate at which your body consumes its
resources, and so reduce the rate at which you need to replenish those
resources by eating again.
> reduce your strength or constitution while being worn,
Why?
> or reduce the rate at which you heal or recover mana.
This could be plausible (slowed metabolism could easily cut both ways),
but I at least probably wouldn't like it, because it would simply mean
that using slow digestion would never be worthwhile; reducing
inconvenience (having to eat every so often, and thus having to have
food on hand) in exchange for reducing survivability is just plain not a
good trade-off, but the increased inconvenience translates into less
fun.
> Potions of speed could have a small chance of reducing your
> constitution.
Why?
> Healing potions and speed potions should inflict hunger when used.
> This should be severe enough that you can't use 3 of them
> back-to-back without stopping to eat.
Why in the world?
> Boots of speed could have a "break-in" period where you occasionally
> misstep or fall down while you get used to them. Maybe the first
> thousand turns you wear them? But don't count time on this clock
> unless there's an active, hostile monster with at least half the
> player's HP around, otherwise you'll get people just sitting there in
> a locked room for a thousand turns.
How would this be implemented? I presume that a misstep/fall-down would
correspond to simply having the preceding action take more energy than
normal, so that it takes longer to get your next turn...
(I don't much like this one, FWIW, but I don't have much in the way of
arguments against it.)
> Scrolls of enchant weapon could become a lot more fun but riskier, if
> they were a lot more trouble to use. For example, if after reading
> them, you had to actually wield the weapon you were enchanting for
> at least a thousand hit dice of monsters vanquished (no switching
> weapons, no unwielding, no digging, no using wands/anything else in
> your hands, etc) before the enchantment took effect. For bonus
> coolness, the enchantment could vary depending on what you actually
> did with the weapon during that time. If you fought mostly orcs,
> you'd be likely to get a sword of orc slaying, for example - instead
> of having the same "plus-one" effect from every scroll that works.
> Natch, you'd need to make them rarer and increase the odds of them
> actually working.
Way too complicated, impractical for anything resembling the early game,
and how in the heck would this work for enchanting ammunition?
--
The Wanderer
My usual .sig is on vacation while I adjust to my new computer
R. Dan Henry
And very "it's been done", which is why I like the speed idea better.
--
R. Dan Henry
danh...@inreach.com
Holy Avenger should be a Paladin title,
not an ego item.
Billy Bissette
news:b5tr041kh78h075ht...@4ax.com:
At that rate, why not just turn random teleportation into a
potential negative curse effect on items. Such a move could help
in expanding the nature of curses as well.
You wouldn't get a Ring of Teleportation (+2 Speed), you would
get a Ring of Speed (+2) with a random teleportation curse effect.
Or Ring of Constitution, or Damage, or whatever. Like Aggravate
Monster being so popular a negative effect in RandArt systems.
Whether Remove Curse could kill the random teleports depends on
whether you'd want it to be a removable or permanent effect.
Or *Remove Curse*?
Ray Dillinger
> Ray Dillinger wrote:
>
>> Andrew Sidwell wrote:
>> Rings of slow digestion could also make you vulnerable to confusion
>> (at least, *I* get dizzy and lightheaded when I've been not eating
>> enough...), reduce your strength or constitution while being worn,
>
> Why?
Because appetite suppressants lower your metabolism, and these
are effects of lowered metabolism.
>> Potions of speed could have a small chance of reducing your
>> constitution.
>
> Why?
In game terms, to make speed potions less of a "no-brainer." In
justification terms, because the potion of speed is clearly some
type of amphetamine and long-term amphetamine users just don't
stay healthy.
>> Healing potions and speed potions should inflict hunger when used.
>> This should be severe enough that you can't use 3 of them
>> back-to-back without stopping to eat.
> Why in the world?
*sigh.* You keep saying "why" when the game-logic and justification
are both pretty obvious. I think you may mean "but I wouldn't *like*
that" rather than actually meaning "why." If so, you can express your
opinion openly and I think you should. Answering "whys" is a tedious
labor, and an utterly wasted one if that's not really what you mean.
In game terms, because rapid serial use of healing potions and speed
potions in combat is a tactic that is highly abusable, and this nerfs
it somewhat while leaving healing and speed potions still useful. In
justification terms, because both healing and speed are extreme
metabolic feats that require extreme use of bodily resources.
>> Boots of speed could have a "break-in" period where you occasionally
>> misstep or fall down while you get used to them.
> How would this be implemented? I presume that a misstep/fall-down would
> correspond to simply having the preceding action take more energy than
> normal, so that it takes longer to get your next turn...
I was thinking that occasionally (chances starting at 10% and declining
to 1% in increments throughout the breakin period) you'd accidentally
step or attack in a direction other than the direction of the arrow
you pressed, like a "confusion" effect. At that point the game would
mark a "speed boots" proficiency somewhere in the character record
and you'd not have to do it again.
> (I don't much like this one, FWIW, but I don't have much in the way of
> arguments against it.)
>
>> Scrolls of enchant weapon could become a lot more fun but riskier, if
>> they were a lot more trouble to use. For example, if after reading
>> them, you had to actually wield the weapon you were enchanting for
>> at least a thousand hit dice of monsters vanquished (no switching
>> weapons, no unwielding, no digging, no using wands/anything else in
>> your hands, etc) before the enchantment took effect.
> Way too complicated, impractical for anything resembling the early game,
> and how in the heck would this work for enchanting ammunition?
Not particularly complicated at all; it involves a decrementing
counter, an effect that takes place when the counter reaches
zero, and a routine to "abort" the count when given actions take
place. It would as you note make enchanting weapons a less-viable
strategy in the early game, but I think that's a good thing.
I see no reason why not to apply it to ammo -- but in that case
you'd need to be using from that stack, picking your used ammo
up off the floor, and keeping the compatible launcher in-hand.
At the end of the ordeal, the ammo stack gets a bonus.
Bear
zai...@zaimoni.com
> The Wanderer wrote:
> > Ray Dillinger wrote:
>
> >> Andrew Sidwell wrote:
> >> Rings of slow digestion could also make you vulnerable to confusion
> >> (at least, *I* get dizzy and lightheaded when I've been not eating
> >> enough...), reduce your strength or constitution while being worn,
>
> > Why?
>
> Because appetite suppressants lower your metabolism, and these
> are effects of lowered metabolism.
Ahem...if you were going real-life logic here, that would be "reduces
appetite without reducing metabolism". I always thought of Slow
Digestion as "splicing in magical energy to support metabolism". As
such, under this reasoning I'd consider a meaningful confusion
vulnerability effect suitable for Regeneration. [What that means in V
is up for debate, of course.]
New curses inspired by this:
Slow Metabolism, that directly impairs hp regeneration (and possibly
also CON's hp bonus). Leave the CON regeneration bonus alone, as I
don't feel sadistic enough to make it harder to recovery from stunning
and cuts.
Slow Magical Metabolism, which directly impairs mana regeneration, and
possibly also the spell-casting stat bonus to maximum mana.
Note that neither of these confers Slow Digestion. Just because your
body uses food inefficiently doesn't mean you eat less.
The Wanderer
> The Wanderer wrote:
>
>> Ray Dillinger wrote:
>>
>>> Andrew Sidwell wrote:
>
>>> Rings of slow digestion could also make you vulnerable to
>>> confusion (at least, *I* get dizzy and lightheaded when I've been
>>> not eating enough...), reduce your strength or constitution while
>>> being worn,
>>
>> Why?
>
> Because appetite suppressants lower your metabolism, and these are
> effects of lowered metabolism.
I'm not sure how I failed to convey this before, but looking back at my
previous post apparently I did.
In the way I've always interpreted it (automatically and/or intuitively
enough that the fact never came to my attention before), what "Slow
Digestion" does is reduce how much of what you eat your body *needs* to
consume in order to sustain itself. Therefore, since you are still
getting enough to support yourself and what you need to do, none of the
effects you describe (which look to me like nothing more than a form of
concealed starvation) should manifest.
It's not an effect of a lowered metabolism; it's an effect of a more
*efficient* metabolism, able to do more with the same amount (or the
same amount with less) and so able to continue longer without needing
refueling.
>>> Potions of speed could have a small chance of reducing your
>>> constitution.
>>
>> Why?
>
> In game terms, to make speed potions less of a "no-brainer."
Fair enough. I still don't like the idea, but fair enough.
> In justification terms, because the potion of speed is clearly some
> type of amphetamine and long-term amphetamine users just don't stay
> healthy.
Nonsense. There's no reason to think it's an amphetamine; it's magic,
the same way as the speed-increasing spells or items are.
>>> Healing potions and speed potions should inflict hunger when
>>> used. This should be severe enough that you can't use 3 of them
>>> back-to-back without stopping to eat.
>
>> Why in the world?
>
> *sigh.* You keep saying "why" when the game-logic and justification
> are both pretty obvious.
I don't think either is particularly obvious in most of the cases you
suggested, and certainly the latter is not here.
> I think you may mean "but I wouldn't *like* that" rather than
> actually meaning "why." If so, you can express your opinion openly
> and I think you should. Answering "whys" is a tedious labor, and an
> utterly wasted one if that's not really what you mean.
No - I am asking for you to explain your reasoning or justification,
because it does not seem at all obvious, intuitive or sensical to me.
This is the reason for every one of the "why" questions I asked.
The fact that I probably wouldn't like it (which I probably wouldn't) is
an entirely separate point, which I have attempted to refrain from
bringing up in most cases because it's not a particularly strong
argument.
You'll note that in the two responses where I did not ask "why", I did
state that I didn't like it, and in one case also said that I didn't
have any particularly strong arguments against it; I am trying to be
even-handed (and/or something resembling "fair") here, rather than
merely basing objections on my own personal tastes. (I probably wouldn't
object to something if I *don't* dislike it, but I do not consider my
own dislike of an idea to automatically be a strong enough reason for it
not to be implemented.)
> In game terms, because rapid serial use of healing potions and speed
> potions in combat is a tactic that is highly abusable, and this
> nerfs it somewhat while leaving healing and speed potions still
> useful.
It also severely changes the balance of the game, and (by reducing or
eliminating the ability to heal effectively and/or to maintain
equality/advantage in speed) would I think be likely to require
significant rebalancing of the late game.
I don't think that extensive use of healing potions, at least,
constitutes abuse; I think it's more-or-less how the game is designed
and intended to work, particularly given the caveats that you have to be
carrying the necessary potions and that using one is consuming a
resource which is not necessarily easy to replace.
> In justification terms, because both healing and speed are extreme
> metabolic feats that require extreme use of bodily resources.
Again, they're magic, not purely a manipulation of metabolism. Yes, you
could interpret them as functioning merely by enhancing the body's
natural functions (though in the case of speed potions, at least, I'd
have a hard time seeing that as being able to produce a large enough
effect); you could, however, equally well argue that all of the effect -
including the resources to power it - comes from the potion itself. I do
not think that that is a less plausible explanation, and indeed I would
probably find it more intuitive in a magical context such as Angband.
>>> Scrolls of enchant weapon could become a lot more fun but
>>> riskier, if they were a lot more trouble to use. For example, if
>>> after reading them, you had to actually wield the weapon you were
>>> enchanting for at least a thousand hit dice of monsters
>>> vanquished (no switching weapons, no unwielding, no digging, no
>>> using wands/anything else in your hands, etc) before the
>>> enchantment took effect.
>
>> Way too complicated, impractical for anything resembling the early
>> game, and how in the heck would this work for enchanting
>> ammunition?
>
> Not particularly complicated at all; it involves a decrementing
> counter, an effect that takes place when the counter reaches zero,
> and a routine to "abort" the count when given actions take place.
I don't immediately remember what about it struck me as too complicated,
but whatever it was this does not address the concern. I'll see if it
comes back to me.
> It would as you note make enchanting weapons a less-viable strategy
> in the early game, but I think that's a good thing.
I'm honestly not sure I do, though I'm also not sure I don't.
I agree that enchanting could use some revamping, but I really don't
feel this is the way to do it. Rather than making enchanting more fun, I
think this would actually make it *less* so, by adding a required degree
of grinding before being able to take advantage of the effect. (I
certainly don't want to use an inferior weapon for an extended period
just because, if I do so, somewhere down the line it will receive a
trivially small +1 to one of its bonuses...)
> I see no reason why not to apply it to ammo -- but in that case you'd
> need to be using from that stack, picking your used ammo up off the
> floor, and keeping the compatible launcher in-hand. At the end of the
> ordeal, the ammo stack gets a bonus.
Given the tendency of ammunition to disappear when fired, with some
regularity, most potentially usable stacks would not be likely to
survive (in potentially-usable size) long enough to receive the bonus.
Particularly not given that killing things with missiles is a dicey
proposition even sometimes when the missiles are enchanted, much less
when they aren't, unless you go back and fight things much weaker than
you are just so as to reach this threshold; in games where it is a
more-or-less required tactic, this is generally referred to as either
"grinding" or "scumming", and is not often considered fun. (The same
problem applies for non-missile weapons, as well, simply to a lesser
extent.)
Otto Martin
>Ray Dillinger wrote:
>>The Wanderer wrote:
>>>Ray Dillinger wrote:
>>>>Rings of slow digestion could also make you vulnerable to
>>>>confusion (at least, *I* get dizzy and lightheaded when I've been
>>>>not eating enough...), reduce your strength or constitution while
>>>>being worn,
>intuitively enough that the fact never came to my attention before),
>what "Slow Digestion" does is reduce how much of what you eat your
>body *needs* to consume in order to sustain itself.
This is my perception as well.
In any case, Slow Digestion doesn't need weakening, it's already
one of the least useful specs. In fact...
(Feather Falling being the other. Change it to levitation (ignore
some trap effects) and add dangerous / unusual terrain, and it
begins to matter.)
>>>>Potions of speed could have a small chance of reducing your
>>>>constitution.
>>>Why?
>>In justification terms, because the potion of speed is clearly some
>>type of amphetamine and long-term amphetamine users just don't stay
>>healthy.
>Nonsense. There's no reason to think it's an amphetamine; it's
>magic, the same way as the speed-increasing spells or items are.
Here, I'll agree with the "it's magic" explanation as well.
>>>>Healing potions and speed potions should inflict hunger when
>>>>used. This should be severe enough that you can't use 3 of
>>>>them back-to-back without stopping to eat.
>>>Why in the world?
>>*sigh.* You keep saying "why" when the game-logic and
>>justification are both pretty obvious.
I'd say tenuous rather than obvious. However, I like the gist of the
idea.
>>In game terms, because rapid serial use of healing potions and speed
>>potions in combat is a tactic that is highly abusable, and this
>>nerfs it somewhat while leaving healing and speed potions still
>>useful.
>It also severely changes the balance of the game, and (by reducing
>or eliminating the ability to heal effectively and/or to maintain
>equality/advantage in speed) would I think be likely to require
>significant rebalancing of the late game.
>
>I don't think that extensive use of healing potions, at least,
>constitutes abuse; I think it's more-or-less how the game is designed
>and intended to work, particularly given the caveats that you have to
>be carrying the necessary potions and that using one is consuming a
>resource which is not necessarily easy to replace.
... and to where we left off earlier. To make Slow Digestion matter
more, I think having healing reduce your "fullness" is a good idea.
However, a few caveats:
To avoid major rebalancing, it shouldn't be nearly as drastic as Ray
wrote, but rather a minor effect that makes players be more aware of
the need for food in the later game as well.
In fact, I think high Con should make you hungry quicker, but also
raise the maximum number for satiation. To me, high Con brings to
mind a hale and hearty hero, one able to eat en entire roast boar
or something similar. (Of course, tough as nails is another option,
but with less potential for game-play options.)
Renegeration should have even more of an effect on hunger than
currently, and maybe a slightly strogner HP gain. Then it could be
seen as a mixed blessing and curse -- heals increadibly quickly,
but can never be satiated for long, always needing to eat more...
A few addenums to healing also making you hungrier: there should be
more effect when you're Full, some when you're normal, only a little
when you're Hungry, and none when Weak or worse. Heroes may have great
appetites, but they shouldn't die of starvation caused by healing.
Also, maybe have a few particular healing effects actually fill you,
wihle the rest make you hungrier. (I'd say Curing, to make it more
different from others, and Life, since it's supposed to be powerful.)
Hmm. Haven't been following too much what is up with Norseband, but
the above might fit pretty well in there... :-)
But in general, I think making hunger more relevant would be a good
thing.
>I agree that enchanting could use some revamping, but I really don't
>feel this is the way to do it.
Agreed here. Current description not terribly exciting, but could
probably be developed into something good.
Otto Martin
--
"I've noticed you really don't trust your own brain."
"I do try to keep a close eye on it."
http://www.ozyandmillie.org/d/20080318.html
Timo Pietilä
> The Wanderer <inverse...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> Ray Dillinger wrote:
>> > The Wanderer wrote:
>>>>Ray Dillinger wrote:
>>>>> Healing potions and speed potions should inflict hunger when
>>>>> used. This should be severe enough that you can't use 3 of
>>>>> them back-to-back without stopping to eat.
>>>> Why in the world?
>>> *sigh.* You keep saying "why" when the game-logic and
>>> justification are both pretty obvious.
>
> I'd say tenuous rather than obvious. However, I like the gist of the
> idea.
In fact in Moria you increase your food consumption with speed. I once
used some savefile hacking to make me go like a rocket compared to
anything else. I died on starvation before at the first move I made.
Speed could make you use more food. I don't think that is approriate for
healing. Opposite could be better. You can't drink too many
healing-potions because your get gorged. Then salt water becomes useful.
Timo Pietilä
FirstLetterOfTheAlphabet
"Ray Dillinger" <be...@sonic.net> wrote in message
news:480d56fb$0$34525$742e...@news.sonic.net...
> Andrew Sidwell wrote:
>
>> Anyway, I would like to remove entirely-bad stuff from the object list
>> and instead have some mixed-blessing items that might plausibly be used.
>> This especially applies when it comes to rings and amulets.
>
> A weapon whose bonus depends on how hungry you are. The closer you are
> to starvation, the bigger the bonuses it gets. Maybe it also gives you
> a (very small) amount of nutrition whenever you kill something with it.
>
> Make resist-cold and resist-fire mutually exclusive. If you have more
> sources of resist-cold, you resist cold -- but not fire. And vice versa.
> Possibly do likewise for other "opposed element" resistances. This would
> probably require toning down some resistable attacks by say, 30%, for
> game balance reasons.
That would be akin to removing resistances entirely. Play style would not
change significantly according to what basic resists a player had, other
than increasing inventory swap drastically, and game balance would have to
be in terms of unresistant players.
> Detect Magic could cause blindness if someone else activates an artifact
> in your FOV.
Must not be talking about V.
> You could have poisons that cancel each other out/act as antidotes for
> each other.
Poison potion goes from 100% useless to 99% at the cost of adding code for
'poison types'.
> Potions of speed could have a small chance of reducing your constitution.
>
> Healing potions and speed potions should inflict hunger when used.
> This should be severe enough that you can't use 3 of them back-to-back
> without stopping to eat.
Would result in more endgame micromanagement, more frustrating deaths, and
no additional fun.
> Boots of speed could have a "break-in" period where you occasionally
> misstep or fall down while you get used to them. Maybe the first thousand
> turns you wear them? But don't count time on this clock unless there's
> an active, hostile monster with at least half the player's HP around,
> otherwise you'll get people just sitting there in a locked room for a
> thousand turns.
Even more NetHackish than NetHack! Very complex to code for something that
would almost certainly be 'scummed' in some way.
> Scrolls of enchant weapon could become a lot more fun but riskier, if
> they were a lot more trouble to use. For example, if after reading
> them, you had to actually wield the weapon you were enchanting for
> at least a thousand hit dice of monsters vanquished (no switching
> weapons, no unwielding, no digging, no using wands/anything else
> in your hands, etc) before the enchantment took effect. For bonus
> coolness, the enchantment could vary depending on what you actually
> did with the weapon during that time. If you fought mostly orcs,
> you'd be likely to get a sword of orc slaying, for example -
> instead of having the same "plus-one" effect from every scroll that
> works. Natch, you'd need to make them rarer and increase the odds of
> them actually working.
>
> Scrolls of confuse monster (where your hands glow until you touch
> something, etc) could backfire and confuse *you* if too much time
> passes before you touch something.
>
> You could have a negatively enchanted weapon (say -3) that is such
> because it makes all your mistakes in weapon-handling obvious. Use
> it for long enough in combat, and you get an intrinsic +1 or +2 with
> that type of weapon, because it also forces you to learn from your
> mistakes.
>
> A rod of light or frost bolts or something that drains mana every
> time it is invoked. Useful to people who don't have the spell, but
> for wizards who do, not worth carrying.
Basically your ideas fall into the category of "kitchen sink" games: a
collection of ideas that someone, at some point, thought was cool. At the
end of the day this stuff probably would not coalesce into a good game.
But, that's what variants are for!
konijn_
> abilities, but could have new ones. I don't need especially many, just
> a few. More ideas for consumables (potions/scrolls/staffs/mushrooms)
> would also be nice, but not essential.
>
* Ring of Rage ( -10 to hit, +10 damage )
* Ring of the Cat ( +7 stealth, -1 CON )
* Potion of Colon Cleaning ( restore CON, STR , put character hungry )
* Potion of Caffeine ( +10 speed for twice as long as regular !speed,
afterwards -10 speed for same time )
* Lich/Leech Wand of... ( always has 0 charges, steals charges from
your other wands when activated )
* Potion of Hideousness ( scare all monsters for x turns, then
aggravate monster for same amount of turns )
Cheers,
T.
dsti...@gmail.com
> Random thoughts, bash at your pleasure
>
> * Ring of Rage ( -10 to hit, +10 damage )
> * Ring of the Cat ( +7 stealth, -1 CON )
> your other wands when activated )
list
includes pretty much the only ones that would add some fun!
Perhaps other ideas along these lines might include:
* Ring of Reckless Attacks (+7 to hit, +7 dam, -30 AC)
* Ring of the Mouse (-5 dam, +5 stealth)
I like the idea of having these things be clear choices under some
cases, and clearly not under others. I'm thinking of the
conversations
from not too long ago where the wise-brains on this group were
actually suggesting that certain chars *not* wield Ringil! Adding
that
kind of strategic/tactical variation is what sounds like fun to me,
not
nethackish psuedo-role-play variations - fun though I know they
are to others.
--
Daniel C. Stillwaggon
<dsti...@gmail.com>
jwk
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2008 07:15:33 -0700 (PDT)
>
> Perhaps other ideas along these lines might include:
> * Ring of Reckless Attacks (+7 to hit, +7 dam, -30 AC)
that is getting quite close to a ring of aggravation...
Jurriaan
--
HORROR FILM WISDOM:
6. If you're searching for something which caused a noise and find out
that it's just the cat, leave the room immediately if you value your life.
Debian (Unstable) GNU/Linux 2.6.25-rc9 2x2010 bogomips load 0.44
the Jack Vance Integral Edition: http://www.integralarchive.org
konijn_
> From: dstil...@gmail.com <dstil...@gmail.com>
> Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2008 07:15:33 -0700 (PDT)
>
> > Perhaps other ideas along these lines might include:
> > * Ring of Reckless Attacks (+7 to hit, +7 dam, -30 AC)
>
> that is getting quite close to a ring of aggravation...
This ring would not wake up other monsters or speed them up though.
T.
Andrew Sidwell
> Perhaps, very late in the game, something like *HEAL that permanently reduces
> a stat. Then augmentation [or the appropriate stat potion] would be useful to
> undo it. You would need to guarantee the loss could be fixed by a single
> augmentation/stat potion or no one would ever consider it, i.e. no dropping
> 18/100 to 18/91 with the current increase system.
I'd like to gauge the response to the idea of making stat potions always
increase 1 point underneath 18 and 10 points past that, and smoothing
out the stat tables a little too. I think this would result in a more
linear and easier-to-grok stat system, as well as allowing effects like
the above.
I may be being overly reductionist again. I have no immediate plans to
implement anything like this, but it'd be nice to know if I'll be
lynched if I do. ;)
--
Andrew Sidwell
http://rephial.org/
Andrew Sidwell
> As far as breaking save files, would it be possible to write something
> that would let me retain my macros and any other preferences that
> don't deal with save-file-breaking-changes? If not, it's not a huge
> deal, but it would be nice.
Luckily, savefiles and pref files (which contain your macros) are
already kept separate, so this won't be a problem.
Andrew Sidwell
makes keeping track of feedback easier.
Summary: Suggestions that are fairly easily codable will be in the next
release, on the basis that if they don't work, they can be backed out
again easily enough. However, if I've indicated I'm implementing or
have implemented something you're not happy with, please quote the
relevant bit of this and give me a good argument. :)
(Don't look at the Subversion repository for these changes straight
away; they'll take a few days for me to test and commit.)
Eddie Grove wrote:
> I tried to think of interesting combinations, but the only one that ever
> seemed good the next day was { +int, +wis, -str}. The problem is that other
> than str, any stat decrease is either meaningless or too painful to consider
> at the point where you would consider a mixed blessing item.
This would require multiple pvals, which I'm not going to implement too
soon. However, noted until then. (multiple pvals filed as issue #571)
> How about a potion that attempts to blind you, and then gives ESP as long as
> the blindness lasts. Perhaps you could extend the effect with other forms of
> blindness, such as being breathed on by appropriate hounds.
Gargoon wrote:
> I like the idea of potions of blindness also giving temporary ESP.
> I'd untie it from the blindness effect so that you stll get temp ESP
> if you have rblind, though.
I'm happy to give this a go, as a replacement for !Blindness.
David Vestal wrote:
> Moderately rare scrolls of Intensification. They have a chance to
> change a potion into a stronger version of itself. CLW becomes CSW,
> Heal become *Heal*, wands of Cold Balls become wands of Dragon's
> Breath, etc. Potions of restore stat become potions of increase stat;
> potions of increase stat have a tiny chance of become potions of
> augmentation. Failure becomes more likely as the item level becomes
> higher. It's annoying to scum for healing or stat-gain potions; this
> could make it easier.
Having a scroll of intensification would mean that instead of just
scumming for healing or stat-gain potions, people would scum for
healing, stat-gain, /or/ intensification.
It sounds like it would be a better idea to just help avoid the
scumming, maybe by sellling high-end healing potions in the shops for
suitably high-level character at a suitably high price.
> Potions/Scrolls of Vital Armor: temporarily raises AC by 30-50 or so
> points by sapping your life-force (thus, MHP is also temporarily
> reduced by 10-30%).
I have something like this in the mushroom of stoneskin. (raises AC,
slows you down)
> It's not a consumable, but I've always wanted an early-game amulet
> that raises AC by 50 or so, and has no other effects.
I'm not sure how balanced that would be.
Andrew Doull wrote:
> I've made rings of Teleportation stop randomly teleporting you after a
> while, and then allow you to activate for Teleport. So it's worth the
> initial pain to get a teleport item early on.
Gargoon wrote:
> I also like the idea of cursed items like the ring of teleportation
> uncursing over time. Connecting that to leveling up or to gaining a
> certain amount of experience would prevent people from stair scumming
> to get rid of curses. This would also make trying unidentified
> weapons and armors much less of a hassle, since they wouldn't require
> a trip back to town to remove.
>
> An alternative way to make teleportation rings interesting would be to
> give them a very small amount of speed. At lower levels, I'd be very
> tempted to wear a +2 speed ring that would teleport me randomly. For
> extra evil, tie the frequency of the teleport activation to the pval
> of the ring, so the more speed you get, the more often you get kicked
> into a pack of acid hounds.
David Vestal wrote:
> Having rings of teleportation activate for teleportation would be a
> very quick way to make it worthwhile to uncurse and wear them. Seems
> intuitive also.
R Dan Henry wrote:
> And very "it's been done", which is why I like the speed idea better.
It's funny, I always keep a ring/amulet of teleportation around with my
characters so that if I think I'm going to get into serious trouble in a
few turns, I can slip it on and hopefully get teleported out if things
get bad. So I'm tempted to say it's already quite mixed-blessing
enough: with a speed boost, this would become almost a no-brainer for
those situations. I'm willing to give it a try, though.
Billy Bissette:
> At that rate, why not just turn random teleportation into a
> potential negative curse effect on items. Such a move could help
> in expanding the nature of curses as well.
>
> You wouldn't get a Ring of Teleportation (+2 Speed), you would
> get a Ring of Speed (+2) with a random teleportation curse effect.
> Or Ring of Constitution, or Damage, or whatever. Like Aggravate
> Monster being so popular a negative effect in RandArt systems.
>
> Whether Remove Curse could kill the random teleports depends on
> whether you'd want it to be a removable or permanent effect.
> Or *Remove Curse*?
I think the downsides of random teleportation would easily outweigh any
positive effects for normal wear. I think any unusual curses like this
one should be unremoveable by Remove Curse, too.
Other curses I planned for were:
- bonus-flipping curse: an item whose positive bonuses become negative
and vice versa, every now and again.
- cannot-drop curse. I'm less convinced this is a good curse idea now
than I used to be. (obviously would have to be able to be removed)
Andrew Doull wrote:
> You may want to look at the various item racial flags in Unangband
> that prevent you wielding an item with the equivalent slay. e.g.
> Dragon armour stops you using SLAY_DRAGON weapons.
That might help make endgame kits a bit more diverse, but I can only
think of DRAGON that would work in V as-is. I'll keep this in mind,
though, if I ever try an EyAngband-like item prefix system.
Timo Pietilä wrote:
> Most mushrooms are very good source for "identifying by testing"-method.
> Other good is "bad" potions.
I hope that the need to do this is reduced a bit now that *ID* is
removed and ID grants full knowledge.
Gargoon wrote:
> A few suggestions:
> Remove scrolls of aggravate monster. Replace them with scrolls of
> envy, which aggravate monsters and also generate a "good" or "great"
> item (either way, whatever makes it worth using but not too good)
> somewhere random on the level.
I'm not so keen on this because I want to tilt gameplay towards diving
more than exploring fully-- and reading one of those would force you to
search the level to find the item.
> Potions of slowness could be renamed potions of iron-skin, giving
> their usual slowing and a large AC boost. They'd still be pretty bad,
> but not totally useless.
I have mushrooms of stoneskin, which slow you down (-5) but give a boost
of 30AC for the duration.
Hallvard B Furuseth wrote:
> I've only tried a few variants myself, but aren't there plenty of
> well-tested ideas to steal from them?
Variants seem not to innovate so much in the mixed-blessing department,
at least the ones close to V. I don't get much time to play variants
(or even V) recreationally, so I think that asking people here for ideas
is a better thing to do than invest the time myself which would be
better spent getting a release out of the door.
> Armor and weapons could be consumable. They could degenerate with use -
> how quickly would depend on how many/hard hits they take or give, on the
> item's quality,
I think this is less of a mixed-blessing idea and more a fundamental
rework of how weapons or armour work. To make it an interesting game
mechanic, you would need some significant percentage of combat gear be
subject to wear and tear, and I think that's out of scope for V.
> and on your slovenliness (a new stat, why don't we have
> negative stats?)
There was a little discussion on this but it seems that the idea didn't
go down very well.
Igenlode Wordsmith wrote:
> Borrowing from other variants -- some kind of item of Terrified Escape,
> that makes it impossible to hit anything (including shooting
> straight, or it might be too abusable!) but gives you a massive boost to
> armour class and speed? The idea being that you're so scared that all
> your efforts are given over to getting out of this alive... Would have
> to be a consumable or an activation.
I have this down as a Mushroom of Terror (temporary speed boost and a
special fear which doesn't get cured with healing).
> Likewise, rings/amulets that carry a speed penalty along with a
> significant bonus/resist. I suppose this wouldn't be very different
> from, say, heavy weapons or artifact armour as they stand...
I have this down as an amulet which gives FA but also slows you down. I
haven't got a good name though (currently Slow Motion). Ideas?
> An item that gives you acute night vision (See Invisible+Infravision)
> but renders your eyes thereby so sensitive that you can't bear bright
> light? i.e. HP damage in daylight, temporary (1d6 turns) blindness when
> casting light-up-room spells, backwash from Wands/Rods of Light, etc.
I like the idea, but I don't think it's plausible to implement at the
moment.
> An amulet of godly dedication, that repels undead physical attacks and
> gives Hold Life, but halves damage against 'good' creatures? Or
> conversely, an item of soul-selling that has the same effects (after
> all, you've sold your soul to the dark side, you must have got some
> benefits out of it) but halves damage against your fellow evil
> creatures? But that might be a little *too* difficult to live with...
and
> An amulet/ring of bowmanship that gives a bonus to ranged attacks but a
> penalty to close combat? (But doesn't affect rangers -- they're already
> as practised at bowmanship as they're going to get...)
Both would be too hard to implement, so I veto them. :)
> Some kind of item (?staff?) of Mass Confusion, that addles the brains of
> every monster within sight -- until the effects wear off, of course!
I've added this, but I fear it will just turn into another staff of
slow/sleep.
> How about another object like a Wand of Wonder, that generally has a
> good effect but sometimes has a bad effect, and you never know which
> you're going to get next? A Scroll/Staff of Armour Tinkering, for
> instance: there's a good chance that a one-off use will endow a random
> (selected from among your existing, equipped, unenhanced possessions)
> piece of equipment with a random resist, but if you get greedy and try
> it too often, then ultimately the tinkering is bound to destroy one of
> your existing excellent items instead -- and you don't get to choose
> which bit of equipment gets tinkered with, either way. (This would
> really make more narrative sense as an encounter with a random
> wandering wizard who takes away one of your items during the night and
> starts fiddling with it ;-)
I believe that there's something that can be done to item enchantment
different and better, but I'm not sure this is it.
Ray Dillinger wrote:
> A weapon whose bonus depends on how hungry you are. The closer you are
> to starvation, the bigger the bonuses it gets. Maybe it also gives you
> a (very small) amount of nutrition whenever you kill something with it.
Not in-theme, I think.
> Make resist-cold and resist-fire mutually exclusive. If you have more
> sources of resist-cold, you resist cold -- but not fire. And vice versa.
> Possibly do likewise for other "opposed element" resistances. This would
> probably require toning down some resistable attacks by say, 30%, for
> game balance reasons.
I don't think this has a good cost-benefit ratio.
> Detect Magic could cause blindness if someone else activates an artifact
> in your FOV.
mangband.org got a redesign recently, did you know? :)
> You could have poisons that cancel each other out/act as antidotes for
> each other.
I'm not sure the cost-benefit of this change would be high enough. I
was pondering having mushrooms of stoneskin poison you with a special
poison as long as your AC was high, but I gave up on that idea.
> Rings of aggravate monster could also have beneficial effects like
> strength.
Aggravation has been used as a bad side-effect in randart code, and
people seem to object to it a lot there.
> Rings of slow digestion could also make you vulnerable to confusion
> (at least, *I* get dizzy and lightheaded when I've been not eating
> enough...), reduce your strength or constitution while being worn,
> or reduce the rate at which you heal or recover mana.
As Otto Martin mentions, slow digestion is already one of the least
useful abilities, so weakening it makes it even less so.
> Potions of speed could have a small chance of reducing your constitution.
>
> Healing potions and speed potions should inflict hunger when used.
> This should be severe enough that you can't use 3 of them back-to-back
> without stopping to eat.
I like the gist of the idea, but I'm not convinced they're a good fit
for V. If anyone wanted to resurrect Rangband, though... (or maybe
Trainspottingband.) See below for the ideas this idea spawned, though.
> Boots of speed could have a "break-in" period where you occasionally
> misstep or fall down while you get used to them. Maybe the first thousand
> turns you wear them? But don't count time on this clock unless there's
> an active, hostile monster with at least half the player's HP around,
> otherwise you'll get people just sitting there in a locked room for a
> thousand turns.
>
> [from another post]
> I was thinking that occasionally (chances starting at 10% and declining
> to 1% in increments throughout the breakin period) you'd accidentally
> step or attack in a direction other than the direction of the arrow
> you pressed, like a "confusion" effect. At that point the game would
> mark a "speed boots" proficiency somewhere in the character record
> and you'd not have to do it again.
I think in practice this would have very little effect; you're unlikely
to find your boots of speed on the floor and wear them straight away,
but rather you'd ID them first. In that case (that you have just IDd
them or bought them), you are more than likely in a safe spot anymore,
so you'd just walk around a bit until you wore them in.
> Scrolls of enchant weapon could become a lot more fun but riskier, if
> they were a lot more trouble to use. For example, if after reading
> them, you had to actually wield the weapon you were enchanting for
> at least a thousand hit dice of monsters vanquished (no switching
> weapons, no unwielding, no digging, no using wands/anything else
> in your hands, etc) before the enchantment took effect. For bonus
> coolness, the enchantment could vary depending on what you actually
> did with the weapon during that time. If you fought mostly orcs,
> you'd be likely to get a sword of orc slaying, for example -
> instead of having the same "plus-one" effect from every scroll that
> works. Natch, you'd need to make them rarer and increase the odds of
> them actually working.
I think this affects the character of the game too much.
> Scrolls of confuse monster (where your hands glow until you touch
> something, etc) could backfire and confuse *you* if too much time
> passes before you touch something.
I like that.
> You could have a negatively enchanted weapon (say -3) that is such
> because it makes all your mistakes in weapon-handling obvious. Use
> it for long enough in combat, and you get an intrinsic +1 or +2 with
> that type of weapon, because it also forces you to learn from your
> mistakes.
I don't think this would work in practice.
> A rod of light or frost bolts or something that drains mana every
> time it is invoked. Useful to people who don't have the spell, but
> for wizards who do, not worth carrying.
I'm not sure what that would hold over just a rod of light or frost
bolts or something. Unless those rods were only available in
mana-draining flavours, in which case the TMJ problem for spellcasters
just got worse.
Kenneth Boyd (zaimoni) wrote:
> Slow Metabolism, that directly impairs hp regeneration (and possibly
> also CON's hp bonus). Leave the CON regeneration bonus alone, as I
> don't feel sadistic enough to make it harder to recovery from stunning
> and cuts.
I'll implement it but I'm not sure what items to put it on.
> Slow Magical Metabolism, which directly impairs mana regeneration, and
> possibly also the spell-casting stat bonus to maximum mana.
I could see this being on a ring that increased wis and int.
Otto Martin wrote:
> In any case, Slow Digestion doesn't need weakening, it's already
> one of the least useful specs. In fact...
> (Feather Falling being the other. Change it to levitation (ignore
> some trap effects) and add dangerous / unusual terrain, and it
> begins to matter.)
I'm tempted to make it levitation, so that the player doesn't fall down
trap doors wearing it, as you say. But new terrain is a while off yet,
so I don't think I'll be doing anything with this right now.
> To make Slow Digestion matter more, I think having healing reduce your
> "fullness" is a good idea.
>
> However, a few caveats:
> To avoid major rebalancing, it shouldn't be nearly as drastic as Ray
> wrote, but rather a minor effect that makes players be more aware of
> the need for food in the later game as well.
>
> In fact, I think high Con should make you hungry quicker, but also
> raise the maximum number for satiation. To me, high Con brings to
> mind a hale and hearty hero, one able to eat en entire roast boar
> or something similar. (Of course, tough as nails is another option,
> but with less potential for game-play options.)
This makes sense.
> Renegeration should have even more of an effect on hunger than
> currently, and maybe a slightly strogner HP gain. Then it could be
> seen as a mixed blessing and curse -- heals increadibly quickly,
> but can never be satiated for long, always needing to eat more...
Frankly I think current regeneration carries enough of a penalty w.r.t.
hunger.
> A few addenums to healing also making you hungrier: there should be
> more effect when you're Full, some when you're normal, only a little
> when you're Hungry, and none when Weak or worse. Heroes may have great
> appetites, but they shouldn't die of starvation caused by healing.
> Also, maybe have a few particular healing effects actually fill you,
> wihle the rest make you hungrier. (I'd say Curing, to make it more
> different from others, and Life, since it's supposed to be powerful.)
Timo Pietilä wrote:
> In fact in Moria you increase your food consumption with speed. I
> once used some savefile hacking to make me go like a rocket compared
> to anything else. I died on starvation before at the first move I
> made.
>
> Speed could make you use more food. I don't think that is appropriate for
> healing. Opposite could be better. You can't drink too many
> healing-potions because your get gorged. Then salt water becomes useful.
I like the idea of healing potions having a significant nutritional
value, so I've done that. We'll have to see if it works or not...
konijn wrote:
> Random thoughts, bash at your pleasure
>
> * Ring of Rage ( -10 to hit, +10 damage )
> * Ring of the Cat ( +7 stealth, -1 CON )
Implemented variations on these.
> * Potion of Colon Cleaning ( restore CON, STR , put character hungry )
Tasteful name. :)
> * Potion of Caffeine ( +10 speed for twice as long as regular !speed,
> afterwards -10 speed for same time )
Done, but I'd like a more in-theme name. :)
> * Lich/Leech Wand of... ( always has 0 charges, steals charges from
> your other wands when activated )
This is noted down for some future time, but right now isn't up.
> * Potion of Hideousness ( scare all monsters for x turns, then
> aggravate monster for same amount of turns )
Because current fear items don't get used enough anyway, I don't know
that this would actually get used.
dstillwa wrote:
> Perhaps other ideas along these lines might include:
> * Ring of Reckless Attacks (+7 to hit, +7 dam, -30 AC)
Implemented a variation.
> * Ring of the Mouse (-5 dam, +5 stealth)
I think this is covered by the above Ring of the Cat.
Well, if you read this far, well done to you! :)
Timo Pietilä
> Timo Pietilä wrote:
>> Most mushrooms are very good source for "identifying by testing"-method.
> > Other good is "bad" potions.
>
> I hope that the need to do this is reduced a bit now that *ID* is
> removed and ID grants full knowledge.
Where's the fun in that? I would much more like to see improved method
of finding out what things have without *ID*. In fact I would like to
remove *ID* and encourage testing-method instead. Game just needs to
record the results in tests so that you don't have to:
You eat mushroom of confusion:
You get confused = all items with unknown properties get recorded that
it does not grant resist confusion.
You don't get confused and have multiple sources of unknown properties =
those items get marked as "might grant resist confusion".
If only one then it gets recorded as giving resist confusion.
Those could be visible in (I)dentifying item and from CD resistances
screen, "might be" shown as "?" in rows.
Being somewhat mystified of what you have is part of the game. If you
take that away, then you could as well just get rid of identification
entirely and give player full info of the item as soon as he picks it
up. There would be not much difference between that and ID giving full
information of the item.
Timo Pietilä
Billy Bissette
>> Armor and weapons could be consumable. They could degenerate with
>> use - how quickly would depend on how many/hard hits they take or
>> give, on the item's quality,
>
> I think this is less of a mixed-blessing idea and more a fundamental
> rework of how weapons or armour work. To make it an interesting game
> mechanic, you would need some significant percentage of combat gear be
> subject to wear and tear, and I think that's out of scope for V.
It also is a very dangerous thing to implement.
I believe Kamband is the variant I played that tried this? (It was
the same variant that made objects have a random material type, which
led to some funny short item descriptions.) Weapons simply wore down
too fast.
Indeed, from my experience in various games that try this idea,
either equipment wears down so fast as to be annoying to dangerous,
or it wears down so slow as to be ignorable.
Angband has two further issues.
The first is the variable amounts of creatures. What may be a good
wear rate for fighting trolls may not be a good rate for fighting dog
packs. What works well for separate small packs of orcs may be too
quick to deal with an orc unique's retinue. Similar issues occur if
you go for other measures of damage, such as messing up a sword
faster on a stone/metal golem than on bats. What you end up facing
in a single level can be so variable.
The second issue is that people would fight against artifacts
wearing. They may even fight against egos, or want reduced rates
on such objects. Which ultimately just encourages people to use
only those objects, rather than encouraging people to more readily
switch to new weapons when their old ones begin to wear down.
Billy Bissette
>> Rings of aggravate monster could also have beneficial effects like
>> strength.
>
> Aggravation has been used as a bad side-effect in randart code, and
> people seem to object to it a lot there.
That statement involves two complaints.
One is that Aggravation is just too risky even with otherwise solid
benefits.
The other is that some versions of randart code produce too many
artifacts with Aggravation. In I think a game of Sangband, I once
ended up approaching a full kit of powerful but aggravating
artifacts. Randart code really could use some other potential
negative effects, and possibly other ways of curbing power levels
(or whatever it is that ends up sticking aggravate onto an artifact.)
zai...@zaimoni.com
> > It's not a consumable, but I've always wanted an early-game amulet
> > that raises AC by 50 or so, and has no other effects.
>
> I'm not sure how balanced that would be.
If you made ?Enchant Armor dungeon-only at the same time, it would
only be as unbalanced as the current situation with ?Enchant Armor in
the pre-statgain game.
Otherwise: I'd have to catch up Yet Another Duel Simulator to have a V
SVN helper, and crunch it to see just how unbalanced it was.
Big Al
> Eddie Grove wrote:
> > I tried to think of interesting combinations, but the only one that ever
> > seemed good the next day was { +int, +wis, -str}. The problem is that other
> > than str, any stat decrease is either meaningless or too painful to consider
> > at the point where you would consider a mixed blessing item.
>
> This would require multiple pvals, which I'm not going to implement too
> soon. However, noted until then. (multiple pvals filed as issue #571)
It wouldn't need multiple pvals - just make some stats increase by the
pval amount and some decrease by the pval. Eg. a "ring of Mind
(+2)" (or whatever you want to call it) would increase int and wis by
2, and decrease str by 2. A "ring of Mind (-3) {cursed}" would
decrease int and wis by three, while increasing str.
> > Armor and weapons could be consumable. They could degenerate with use -
> > how quickly would depend on how many/hard hits they take or give, on the
> > item's quality,
>
> I think this is less of a mixed-blessing idea and more a fundamental
> rework of how weapons or armour work. To make it an interesting game
> mechanic, you would need some significant percentage of combat gear be
> subject to wear and tear, and I think that's out of scope for V.
In general, I think that armour and such that wears out is a bad
idea. We already have acid damage/disenchantment that decreases the
effectiveness of armour/weapons. Maybe if the AC bonus of set of
armour falls below the negative of its base AC, it will get
destroyed? (ie. a Soft Studded Armour would get destroyed when it
reaches [4, -4] - not that this ever really happens much in game.)
~Alex Phillips
Igenlode Wordsmith
<200804220357...@panta-rhei.eu.org>:
>
[snip]
I take it my various brainstorming suggestions weren't even good enough
for mockery, then? :-(
--
Igenlode Visit the Ivory Tower http://ivory.150m.com/Tower/
Buster Keaton fan http://uk.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=17884208
Nick
Header@[127.1]> wrote:
> I take it my various brainstorming suggestions weren't even good enough
> for mockery, then? :-(
On the contrary - yours are covered about half way down this post:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.roguelike.angband/msg/c6991c0b0b9e4caa?
Christophe
> I have this down as an amulet which gives FA but also slows you down. I
> haven't got a good name though (currently Slow Motion). Ideas?
Amulet of Inertia?
dsti...@gmail.com
> Well, if you read this far, well done to you! :)
will_...@yahoo.com
> > ..An amulet/ring of bowmanship that gives a bonus to ranged attacks but a
> > penalty to close combat? (But doesn't affect rangers -- they're already
> > as practised at bowmanship as they're going to get...)
>
An easy way of implementing the bowmanship would be to give the bonus
to to-hit and to-dam and just prevent all melee like fear does.
And maybe if character has extra_shot then it has no effect except
preventing melee (which could still be helpful for teaching yourself
to use your bow instead of melee as a ranger).
There's also a possibility of amulet/ring/potion of super melee (needs
better name) which gives great melee bonuses but prevents any range
shooting or spell casting (but for warriors would do nothing but
prevent shooting).
> > Some kind of item (?staff?) of Mass Confusion, that addles the brains of
> > every monster within sight -- until the effects wear off, of course!
>
> I've added this, but I fear it will just turn into another staff of
> slow/sleep.
I have added a spell of mass chaos to DaJAngband which causes minor
chaos damage and confusion to all monsters in line of sight, and it
additionally has a chance of also stunning, slowing, scaring,
blinking, and/or doing gravity damage to all monsters in line of
sight. I think this might also work well as a staff instead of just
mass confusion.
(the mass chaos spell is in the last book of the chance realm. The
rogue class is currently the only one who uses this realm. (Will
later add tourist, escape artist, and chaos warrior which will use the
chance realm)).
(feather falling)
> I'm tempted to make it levitation, so that the player doesn't fall down
> trap doors wearing it, as you say. But new terrain is a while off yet,
> so I don't think I'll be doing anything with this right now.
Will this prevent you from picking up items from the floor like it
does it Nethack? It does make sense if you're levitating to not be
able to reach things on the floor.
I plan to (later) incorporate an invisible luck stat in DaJAngband,
and with high luck and feather falling you can have a choice of
whether to fall in a trap door or not.
I like some of these ideas and plan to put selected ones in
DaJAngband, namely the mushroom of stone-skin, mushroom of terror,
maybe the bowmanship/super melee idea, the blindness/ESP idea
(probably as a mushroom), and probably a couple others.
Hallvard B Furuseth
>Igenlode Wordsmith wrote:
>> Likewise, rings/amulets that carry a speed penalty along with a
>> significant bonus/resist. I suppose this wouldn't be very different
>> from, say, heavy weapons or artifact armour as they stand...
>
> I have this down as an amulet which gives FA but also slows you down.
> I haven't got a good name though (currently Slow Motion). Ideas?
Sturdy Motion
>konijn wrote:
>> * Potion of Caffeine ( +10 speed for twice as long as regular !speed,
>> afterwards -10 speed for same time )
>
> Done, but I'd like a more in-theme name. :)
Exhausting Speed
Burst of Speed
Sprint Run
--
Hallvard
Timo Pietilä
> Andrew Sidwell wrote:
>
>> Timo Pietilä wrote:
>>> Most mushrooms are very good source for "identifying by testing"-method.
>> > Other good is "bad" potions.
>>
>> I hope that the need to do this is reduced a bit now that *ID* is
>> removed and ID grants full knowledge.
>
> Where's the fun in that? I would much more like to see improved method
> of finding out what things have without *ID*. In fact I would like to
> remove *ID* and encourage testing-method instead. Game just needs to
> record the results in tests so that you don't have to:
>
> You eat mushroom of confusion:
>
> You get confused = all items with unknown properties get recorded that
> it does not grant resist confusion.
>
> You don't get confused and have multiple sources of unknown properties =
> those items get marked as "might grant resist confusion".
>
> If only one then it gets recorded as giving resist confusion.
Or you could go from not knowing to immediately knowing by testing.
Maybe you could "feel" which item did prevent you from getting confused.
That way there is only two stages after testing 1) it does not grant
resistance 2) it does grant resistance.
Timo Pietilä
Billy Bissette
news:4816f0e7$0$27993$426a...@news.free.fr:
Better than Amulet of the Juggernaut... (Slow moving, but you can't
restrain it.)
Though using "Interia" might cause confusion with Inertia attacks.
Igenlode Wordsmith
[snip]
> Other curses I planned for were:
> - bonus-flipping curse: an item whose positive bonuses become negative
> and vice versa, every now and again.
I like the sound of this one -- perhaps the most literal interpretation
of a 'mixed-blessing' item anyone has come up with!
> - cannot-drop curse. I'm less convinced this is a good curse idea now
> than I used to be. (obviously would have to be able to be removed)
Eh? How does that differ from any other curse?
(or has this changed like the ID since the last time I played Vanilla?)
[snip]
> Gargoon wrote:
[snip]
> > Potions of slowness could be renamed potions of iron-skin, giving
> > their usual slowing and a large AC boost. They'd still be pretty bad,
> > but not totally useless.
>
> I have mushrooms of stoneskin, which slow you down (-5) but give a boost
> of 30AC for the duration.
Is 30AC worth having for being half-slowed? I suppose if you found a
dragon mail or something you might wear it even if you were slowed
thereby -- but I'm not sure you'd bother with ordinary armour that
slowed you down that much for a 30-AC-point benefit...
[snip]
> Igenlode Wordsmith wrote:
[snip]
> > Likewise, rings/amulets that carry a speed penalty along with a
> > significant bonus/resist. I suppose this wouldn't be very different
> > from, say, heavy weapons or artifact armour as they stand...
>
> I have this down as an amulet which gives FA but also slows you down. I
> haven't got a good name though (currently Slow Motion). Ideas?
I second the suggestion of Amulet of Inertia ;-) Heavy, but you just
keep going...
[snip]
> > Some kind of item (?staff?) of Mass Confusion, that addles the brains of
> > every monster within sight -- until the effects wear off, of course!
>
> I've added this, but I fear it will just turn into another staff of
> slow/sleep.
In other words, not effective on enough monsters to be usable? :-(
>
> > How about another object like a Wand of Wonder, that generally has a
> > good effect but sometimes has a bad effect, and you never know which
> > you're going to get next? A Scroll/Staff of Armour Tinkering, for
> > instance: there's a good chance that a one-off use will endow a random
> > (selected from among your existing, equipped, unenhanced possessions)
> > piece of equipment with a random resist, but if you get greedy and try
> > it too often, then ultimately the tinkering is bound to destroy one of
> > your existing excellent items instead -- and you don't get to choose
> > which bit of equipment gets tinkered with, either way. (This would
> > really make more narrative sense as an encounter with a random
> > wandering wizard who takes away one of your items during the night and
> > starts fiddling with it ;-)
>
> I believe that there's something that can be done to item enchantment
> different and better, but I'm not sure this is it.
Well, I rather like the approach (in Ey?) where you *can't* enchant
items to-damage, so that if you want a bigger-hitting weapon you jolly
well have to trade up. But it might be considered a bit drastic for
Vanilla!
> Ray Dillinger wrote:
[snip]
> > You could have poisons that cancel each other out/act as antidotes for
> > each other.
>
> I'm not sure the cost-benefit of this change would be high enough. I
> was pondering having mushrooms of stoneskin poison you with a special
> poison as long as your AC was high, but I gave up on that idea.
I can't see people bothering to carry them around on the off-chances of
accidentally quaffing one of the other kind... or even getting breathed
on...
A variant (Ey again, I think) implemented alchemy, so that all the
potions in the game could be manufactured by the player out of two other
potions, good or bad -- I was never quite sure how logical the
combinations were, although I was convinced you ought to be able to
deduce them somehow! Every time you drank a potion you had a chance of
learning one or other of its ingredients, which, assuming that the
ingredients thing did work backwards (i.e. Cure Serious Wounds = Water +
Slowness) provided an incentive for drinking 'bad' or useless potions
after the first time you'd encountered them. It also meant that you
tended to learn the recipes for the potions you used the most often, of
course, i.e. the commonest...
I think it was supposed to provide an incentive for carrying ingredients
around on the hopes of finding their 'other halves' and creating
something much more valuable by the combination, but in practice,
although fun, it wasn't really enough to sacrifice equipment slots for.
And again, probably much too way-out for Vanilla.
[snip]
>
> > A rod of light or frost bolts or something that drains mana every
> > time it is invoked. Useful to people who don't have the spell, but
> > for wizards who do, not worth carrying.
>
> I'm not sure what that would hold over just a rod of light or frost
> bolts or something. Unless those rods were only available in
> mana-draining flavours, in which case the TMJ problem for spellcasters
> just got worse.
It would have to be something a lot more potentially powerful than
low-level rods -- and yes, probably a flavour that wasn't available as a
non-mana-draining rod. New high-level powers that only exist in this
form, so that wizards *can't* prefer to cast them as a spell.
Might be too powerful as regards non-spell-casters, though, since they'd
effectively get all the benefit and none of the penalty. Pinching
another variant idea, maybe those rods should take the cost in mana
points as far as possible and in an equivalent number of hit points
otherwise -- so that you can use them even if you have insufficient
mana, provided you're willing to pay the price...
>
> Kenneth Boyd (zaimoni) wrote:
[snip]
> > Slow Magical Metabolism, which directly impairs mana regeneration, and
> > possibly also the spell-casting stat bonus to maximum mana.
>
> I could see this being on a ring that increased wis and int.
So you get a larger mana pool (due to increasing spellcasting stat) but
it doesn't refill so quickly? Sounds an interesting mixed blessing, but
I don't know how the balance would work out in practice -- depends on
your offence spell tactics, perhaps.
[snip]
> Timo Pietilä wrote:
[snip]
> > Speed could make you use more food. I don't think that is appropriate for
> > healing. Opposite could be better. You can't drink too many
> > healing-potions because you get gorged. Then salt water becomes
> > useful.
Given that it also paralyses you, I'm surprised you can afford to use it
if in a dangerous enough position to need Healing -- or else, if you've
achieved a safe enough escape to be able to vomit in safety, I'm
surprised you need to spend a Healing potion and can't just wait to
regenerate or heal more cheaply...
>
> I like the idea of healing potions having a significant nutritional
> value, so I've done that. We'll have to see if it works or not...
>
>
> konijn wrote:
> > Random thoughts, bash at your pleasure
> >
> > * Ring of Rage ( -10 to hit, +10 damage )
> > * Ring of the Cat ( +7 stealth, -1 CON )
>
> Implemented variations on these.
>
> > * Potion of Colon Cleaning ( restore CON, STR , put character hungry )
>
> Tasteful name. :)
Potion of Purging/Cleansing?
>
> > * Potion of Caffeine ( +10 speed for twice as long as regular !speed,
> > afterwards -10 speed for same time )
>
> Done, but I'd like a more in-theme name. :)
Potion of Mania? Potion of Boost/Spasm/Adrenaline/Overdrive?
How about a Potion of Ergot or similar, providing manic speed at the
cost of hallucinations? ;-)
[snip]
> dstillwa wrote:
[snip]
> > * Ring of the Mouse (-5 dam, +5 stealth)
>
> I think this is covered by the above Ring of the Cat.
>
Ring of the Mouse sounds more like +40AC, -10 dam... they can't hit you,
and you can't hurt them :-p
Again, probably only of use to ranged attackers...
--
Igenlode Visit the Ivory Tower http://ivory.150m.com/Tower/
In Europe 100 miles is a long way; in America 100 years is a long time.
George Smith
> On 28 Apr 2008 Andrew Sidwell wrote:
>>>Speed could make you use more food. I don't think that is appropriate for
>>>healing. Opposite could be better. You can't drink too many
>>>healing-potions because you get gorged. Then salt water becomes
>>>useful.
>
> Given that it also paralyses you, I'm surprised you can afford to use it
> if in a dangerous enough position to need Healing -- or else, if you've
> achieved a safe enough escape to be able to vomit in safety, I'm
> surprised you need to spend a Healing potion and can't just wait to
> regenerate or heal more cheaply...
Change salt water not to paralyze you if you are full enough when you
first drink it. Make it e.g. halve satiety and only paralyze you if that
puts you in "weak" or worse.
Igenlode Wordsmith
> Andrew Sidwell <takk...@gmail.com> wrote in news:fv5flg$q6l$1...@aioe.org:
>
> >> Armor and weapons could be consumable. They could degenerate with
> >> use - how quickly would depend on how many/hard hits they take or
> >> give, on the item's quality,
> >
> > I think this is less of a mixed-blessing idea and more a fundamental
> > rework of how weapons or armour work. To make it an interesting game
> > mechanic, you would need some significant percentage of combat gear be
> > subject to wear and tear, and I think that's out of scope for V.
>
> It also is a very dangerous thing to implement.
>
> I believe Kamband is the variant I played that tried this? (It was
> the same variant that made objects have a random material type, which
> led to some funny short item descriptions.) Weapons simply wore down
> too fast.
>
Yes, it was Kamband.
The problem in that case was aggravated by the additional innovation
that weapons could be made out of all sorts of materials; a sword made
of an organic substance would ultimately rot away (quite fast, in the
case of leather weapons!) while a mace made of crystal would be terribly
fragile. Meanwhile even ordinary steel blades wore away after only a few
blows. One was forever mortgaging one's soul to secure a supply of the
vital Scrolls of Repair Weapon, to avoid being left with a useless
stump.
The only weapons that didn't wear down were artefacts, but fortunately
the game was so unbalanced that it was generally possible to obtain an
artefact fairly rapidly :-)
--
Igenlode Visit the Ivory Tower http://ivory.150m.com/Tower/
** Melodrama is the art of knowing how precisely too far to go. **
Igenlode Wordsmith
Oh thanks, so they are. The original never appeared, and I was afraid
that the reposted copy had somehow vanished after the other...
--
Igenlode Visit the Ivory Tower http://ivory.150m.com/Tower/
* It takes self-confidence to be able to accept criticism *
The Enigmatic One
[much clipped]
>Healing potions and speed potions should inflict hunger when used.
>This should be severe enough that you can't use 3 of them back-to-back
>without stopping to eat.
[much more clipped]
Wow.
You might just be describing the least fun *band ever!
-Tim
R. Dan Henry
wrote:
>Eddie Grove wrote:
>> Perhaps, very late in the game, something like *HEAL that permanently reduces
>> a stat. Then augmentation [or the appropriate stat potion] would be useful to
>> undo it. You would need to guarantee the loss could be fixed by a single
>> augmentation/stat potion or no one would ever consider it, i.e. no dropping
>> 18/100 to 18/91 with the current increase system.
>
>I'd like to gauge the response to the idea of making stat potions always
>increase 1 point underneath 18 and 10 points past that, and smoothing
>out the stat tables a little too. I think this would result in a more
>linear and easier-to-grok stat system, as well as allowing effects like
>the above.
I can think of no reason to keep the 18/** style stats. It was a silly
choice to include them to begin with.
--
R. Dan Henry
danh...@inreach.com
Holy Avenger should be a Paladin title,
not an ego item.
Igenlode Wordsmith
> On Apr 28, 4:30 pm, Andrew Sidwell <takka...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > ..An amulet/ring of bowmanship that gives a bonus to ranged attacks but a
> > > penalty to close combat? (But doesn't affect rangers -- they're already
> > > as practised at bowmanship as they're going to get...)
> >
> > would be too hard to implement, so I veto it. :)
> An easy way of implementing the bowmanship would be to give the bonus
> to to-hit and to-dam and just prevent all melee like fear does.
I do rather like this idea, on reflection, so it would be nice if it
could be implemented. But it might perhaps fall foul of the Too Much
Junk mantra, since it would be another highly class-specific item -- a
major disincentive to any character save one who was already a bowman or
perhaps mage. Banning melee long-term wouldn't be very sustainable save
for a class that could already do significant long-range damage. My
intention was to even things up a little, rather than exacerbating
existing class divisions...
Perhaps as an activatable ability, then, for a temporary bonus boost
coupled with no melee? Or even a scroll -- that might make more sense.
(Probably wouldn't be worth carrying around with you in practice,
though.)
What if it gave you a temporary extra shot/round?
In fact -- still brain-doodling -- how about temporary Extra Attacks as
a mixed-blessing effect of some kind? Along with speed, it's perhaps one
of the two most prized abilities, powerful enough to be a serious
temptation even with an accompanying drawback.
It would have to be something that activated for an extra attack or two
over a strictly time-limited period, but had some other deleterious
effect while recharging I suppose. Perhaps just food - all that extra
adrenalin makes you hungry; so you can't just gorge yourself and set out
down into the dungeon without any supplies, assuming that your Slow
Digestion will last you until you come back up...
> And maybe if character has extra_shot then it has no effect except
> preventing melee (which could still be helpful for teaching yourself
> to use your bow instead of melee as a ranger).
I really can't see anyone's going to those lengths to alter his playing
style!
> There's also a possibility of amulet/ring/potion of super melee (needs
> better name) which gives great melee bonuses but prevents any range
> shooting or spell casting (but for warriors would do nothing but
> prevent shooting).
This sounds like a variant on Berserk -- which, really, ought to prevent
any effective shooting or bespelling. A berserking warrior isn't going
to stand there calmly picking targets at a distance; he's going to be
swiping out at the nearest thing he can hit.
(Didn't Norseband plan to implement just this, since it was more
in-theme for the bare-sarks?)
--
Igenlode Visit the Ivory Tower http://ivory.150m.com/Tower/
* The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret *
Eddie Grove
> Andrew Sidwell wrote:
> > Timo Pietilä wrote:
> >> Most mushrooms are very good source for "identifying by testing"-method.
> > > Other good is "bad" potions.
>
> > I hope that the need to do this is reduced a bit now that *ID* is
> > removed and ID grants full knowledge.
>
> Where's the fun in that?
Where's the fun in clearing a vault, picking up 10 elvenkind armors,
and having no possible way to test them to decide which 4 you can
take home or to the next level? If you do not have multiple mushrooms
of
each possible resistance effect, what do you do?
> I would much more like to see improved method
> of finding out what things have without *ID*. In fact I would like to
> remove *ID* and encourage testing-method instead. Game just needs to
> record the results in tests so that you don't have to:
>
> You eat mushroom of confusion:
>
> You get confused = all items with unknown properties get recorded that
> it does not grant resist confusion.
>
> You don't get confused and have multiple sources of unknown properties =
> those items get marked as "might grant resist confusion".
This is too hard. You need to be told precisely which items grant it.
That's just IMO, but as I played that style for a year or two, my
opinion is based on lots of games played.
> If only one then it gets recorded as giving resist confusion.
>
> Those could be visible in (I)dentifying item and from CD resistances
> screen, "might be" shown as "?" in rows.
>
> Being somewhat mystified of what you have is part of the game. If you
> take that away, then you could as well just get rid of identification
> entirely and give player full info of the item as soon as he picks it
> up. There would be not much difference between that and ID giving full
> information of the item.
>
> Timo Pietilä
I have written [and played :)] patched versions both of S and of NPP
where
I removed id *entirely*. It is not feasible to test each and every
artifact via mushrooms
of confusion etc. I decided that the best way to make it work is that
once you learn a property in a slot, you instantly recognize that
property
on another item going into the same slot. So if you learn that your
hat
grants SI, IMO you should *instantly* recognize SI on any other hat
you pick up.
I think of this as "rune" based, with the idea that all properties are
granted
by runes and you spend the game learning them. The question remains
whether
once you have learned a hat of SI whether you should instantly
recognize SI
in a weapon. I never made up my mind on that one. One way is too
much learning,
and the other way is too little, but I never found a way to get a
perfect balance.
Perhaps grouping into weapons/bows vs jewelry vs armor would work, but
I
never tried that and the code is lost now.
Eddie
Igenlode Wordsmith
> On Mon, 28 Apr 2008 19:43:22 +0100, Andrew Sidwell <takk...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
[snip]
> >I'd like to gauge the response to the idea of making stat potions always
> >increase 1 point underneath 18 and 10 points past that, and smoothing
> >out the stat tables a little too. I think this would result in a more
> >linear and easier-to-grok stat system, as well as allowing effects like
> >the above.
>
> I can think of no reason to keep the 18/** style stats. It was a silly
> choice to include them to begin with.
>
Why not follow, say, the Cthangband system, where the stats simply
continue up from 19?
--
Igenlode Visit the Ivory Tower http://ivory.150m.com/Tower/
its: belonging to it - it's: "it is" (contraction )
Timo Pietilä
> On Apr 28, 6:04 pm, Timo Pietilä <timo.piet...@helsinki.fi> wrote:
>> Andrew Sidwell wrote:
>>> Timo Pietilä wrote:
>>>> Most mushrooms are very good source for "identifying by
>>>> testing"-method. Other good is "bad" potions.
>>> I hope that the need to do this is reduced a bit now that *ID* is
>>> removed and ID grants full knowledge.
>> Where's the fun in that?
>
> Where's the fun in clearing a vault, picking up 10 elvenkind armors,
> and having no possible way to test them to decide which 4 you can
> take home or to the next level?
Fun is that you must leave something behind. >:-) Inventory management.
In current angband you would need to make that same decision.
> If you do not have multiple mushrooms of each possible resistance
> effect, what do you do?
Hmmm... later in game this would prove quite challenging you would need
to carry around items in order to get them *ID*:d. need to think about that.
Of course there are several methods to test, mushrooms, potions and
monster effects.
>> I would much more like to see improved method of finding out what
>> things have without *ID*. In fact I would like to remove *ID* and
>> encourage testing-method instead. Game just needs to record the
>> results in tests so that you don't have to:
>>
>> You eat mushroom of confusion:
>>
>> You get confused = all items with unknown properties get recorded
>> that it does not grant resist confusion.
>>
>> You don't get confused and have multiple sources of unknown
>> properties = those items get marked as "might grant resist
>> confusion".
>
> This is too hard. You need to be told precisely which items grant
> it. That's just IMO, but as I played that style for a year or two, my
> opinion is based on lots of games played.
I agree. I posted a slight change in that.
>> If only one then it gets recorded as giving resist confusion.
>>
>> Those could be visible in (I)dentifying item and from CD
>> resistances screen, "might be" shown as "?" in rows.
>>
>> Being somewhat mystified of what you have is part of the game. If
>> you take that away, then you could as well just get rid of
>> identification entirely and give player full info of the item as
>> soon as he picks it up. There would be not much difference between
>> that and ID giving full information of the item.
>>
>> Timo Pietilä
>
> I have written [and played :)] patched versions both of S and of NPP
> where I removed id *entirely*. It is not feasible to test each and
> every artifact via mushrooms of confusion etc. I decided that the
> best way to make it work is that once you learn a property in a slot,
> you instantly recognize that property on another item going into the
> same slot. So if you learn that your hat grants SI, IMO you should
> *instantly* recognize SI on any other hat you pick up.
You have slightly different approach than what I have. I marked to my
own to-do list that testing tells if item doesn't have or does have with
testing _and_ via pseudo-ID. So warriors would have no problem getting
all properties of the item quite fast. Mages would need to test more
which is counterintuitive. Maybe I also need to make a spell that speeds
up that process.
Also I think I create artifact memory for artifacts like monster memory,
so that at least when you play with standard set of artifacts you
immediately recognize known artifact properties if you know something
from it before. That way only items that have random features and
unknown artifacts need that identifying via testing.
Timo Pietilä
dsti...@gmail.com
> testing _and_ via pseudo-ID. So warriors would have no problem getting
> all properties of the item quite fast. Mages would need to test more
> which is counterintuitive. Maybe I also need to make a spell that speeds
> up that process.
Removing that spell entirely is a fairly significant decrease in the
power
of early/mid level mages.
Timo Pietilä
You obviously didn't read entire thread. We are talking about *ID*, not ID.
Timo Pietilä
Ray Dillinger
> Wow.
>
> You might just be describing the least fun *band ever!
There is a big difference between "easy" and "fun."
I would choose to make it less easy. And also shorter.
I'd prefer (have more fun in) a game where you had to
concentrate on being smart rather than a game where you
had to concentrate on being patient.
Bear
R. Dan Henry
<Use-Author-Supplied-Address-Header@[127.1]> wrote:
>An amulet/ring of bowmanship that gives a bonus to ranged attacks but a
>penalty to close combat? (But doesn't affect rangers -- they're already
>as practised at bowmanship as they're going to get...)
This could be done in a simple way with a plus to hit and a minus to
damage. It would improve accuracy in melee as well as with missiles, but
loss of damage would more than compensate for the accuracy in melee.
R. Dan Henry
wrote:
>Aggravation has been used as a bad side-effect in randart code, and
>people seem to object to it a lot there.
Because it was overused, not because it is a bad idea as such. And once
you have Aggravation, more Aggravating items aren't a penalty, so it
doesn't balance at all if you get one uber-item that justifies the
Aggravation.
>Kenneth Boyd (zaimoni) wrote:
>> Slow Metabolism, that directly impairs hp regeneration (and possibly
>> also CON's hp bonus). Leave the CON regeneration bonus alone, as I
>> don't feel sadistic enough to make it harder to recovery from stunning
>> and cuts.
>
>I'll implement it but I'm not sure what items to put it on.
Armor of the Turtle: Free Action, high AC bonus, Slow Metabolism, Resist
Shards
>konijn wrote:
>> Random thoughts, bash at your pleasure
>>
>> * Ring of Rage ( -10 to hit, +10 damage )
>> * Ring of the Cat ( +7 stealth, -1 CON )
>
>Implemented variations on these.
As written, Ring of the Cat requires multiple pvals, so I assume that's
why it has been varied.
>> * Potion of Caffeine ( +10 speed for twice as long as regular !speed,
>> afterwards -10 speed for same time )
>
>Done, but I'd like a more in-theme name. :)
Could be related to the drink the orcs use during the chase across
Rohan. A quick check doesn't show anything closer to a name for it than
"orc-liquor", but I think that would work.
>> * Potion of Hideousness ( scare all monsters for x turns, then
>> aggravate monster for same amount of turns )
>
>Because current fear items don't get used enough anyway, I don't know
>that this would actually get used.
I doubt I'd ever use it.
>dstillwa wrote:
>> * Ring of the Mouse (-5 dam, +5 stealth)
>
>I think this is covered by the above Ring of the Cat.
Except for being implementable as written without code changes.
Christopher Evenstar
>
> I can think of no reason to keep the 18/** style stats. It was a silly
> choice to include them to begin with.
>
> --
> R. Dan Henry
> Holy Avenger should be a Paladin title,
> not an ego item.
Margeret Weis, Tracy Hickman, and Jeff Grubb came to the table and
decided to lift fire giant skulls for money. All three had 18
strengths so the contest came down to fickle twenty siders. Gary
Gygax decided the contests proved the order of their strength, rolled
three percentiles, and assigned them accordingly. To prevent further
need for skull lifting contests, the rule was instituted.
I guess they never had a sprinting contest, so no percentile for 18
Dex.
Ok, I made all that up, but I'll bet it went something like that. I,
too, can't think of a good reason for it in *band, or in any computer
game for that matter. Nostalgia, I guess. Or if it's already deeply
embedded in the code.
Christopher
Andrew Sidwell
> On 28 Apr 2008 Andrew Sidwell wrote:
[snip]
>> than I used to be. (obviously would have to be able to be removed)
>
> Eh? How does that differ from any other curse?
>
> (or has this changed like the ID since the last time I played Vanilla?)
I meant cannot-drop-- rather than cannot-take-off, which is the only
current curse.
>> I have mushrooms of stoneskin, which slow you down (-5) but give a boost
>> of 30AC for the duration.
>
> Is 30AC worth having for being half-slowed? I suppose if you found a
> dragon mail or something you might wear it even if you were slowed
> thereby -- but I'm not sure you'd bother with ordinary armour that
> slowed you down that much for a 30-AC-point benefit...
Not sure, but I hope to get feedback on that after people have played
with it for a bit.
>>> Some kind of item (?staff?) of Mass Confusion, that addles the brains of
>>> every monster within sight -- until the effects wear off, of course!
>> I've added this, but I fear it will just turn into another staff of
>> slow/sleep.
>
> In other words, not effective on enough monsters to be usable? :-(
Well, until I get up to making sleep/confuse/scare more effective
generally, yes.
[snip]
>> I believe that there's something that can be done to item enchantment
>> different and better, but I'm not sure this is it.
>
> Well, I rather like the approach (in Ey?) where you *can't* enchant
> items to-damage, so that if you want a bigger-hitting weapon you jolly
> well have to trade up. But it might be considered a bit drastic for
> Vanilla!
Yeah, I love Ey too. :)
>> Ray Dillinger wrote:
>>> You could have poisons that cancel each other out/act as antidotes for
>>> each other.
>> I'm not sure the cost-benefit of this change would be high enough. I
>> was pondering having mushrooms of stoneskin poison you with a special
>> poison as long as your AC was high, but I gave up on that idea.
>
> I can't see people bothering to carry them around on the off-chances of
> accidentally quaffing one of the other kind... or even getting breathed
> on...
>
> A variant (Ey again, I think) implemented alchemy, so that all the
> potions in the game could be manufactured by the player out of two other
> potions, good or bad -- I was never quite sure how logical the
> combinations were, although I was convinced you ought to be able to
> deduce them somehow! Every time you drank a potion you had a chance of
> learning one or other of its ingredients, which, assuming that the
> ingredients thing did work backwards (i.e. Cure Serious Wounds = Water +
> Slowness) provided an incentive for drinking 'bad' or useless potions
> after the first time you'd encountered them. It also meant that you
> tended to learn the recipes for the potions you used the most often, of
> course, i.e. the commonest...
[snip]
I never actually used the alchemy system when I played Ey-- it was too
much effort and wasn't reliable enough for me. (Seems much like your
experience, too.)
>>> A rod of light or frost bolts or something that drains mana every
>>> time it is invoked. Useful to people who don't have the spell, but
>>> for wizards who do, not worth carrying.
>> I'm not sure what that would hold over just a rod of light or frost
>> bolts or something. Unless those rods were only available in
>> mana-draining flavours, in which case the TMJ problem for spellcasters
>> just got worse.
>
> It would have to be something a lot more potentially powerful than
> low-level rods -- and yes, probably a flavour that wasn't available as a
> non-mana-draining rod. New high-level powers that only exist in this
> form, so that wizards *can't* prefer to cast them as a spell.
>
> Might be too powerful as regards non-spell-casters, though, since they'd
> effectively get all the benefit and none of the penalty. Pinching
> another variant idea, maybe those rods should take the cost in mana
> points as far as possible and in an equivalent number of hit points
> otherwise -- so that you can use them even if you have insufficient
> mana, provided you're willing to pay the price...
I don't think it's worth fuzzying up the mechanics of how the different
activable items work.
[snip]
>> I like the idea of healing potions having a significant nutritional
>> value, so I've done that. We'll have to see if it works or not...
>>
>>
>> konijn wrote:
>>> Random thoughts, bash at your pleasure
>>>
>>> * Ring of Rage ( -10 to hit, +10 damage )
>>> * Ring of the Cat ( +7 stealth, -1 CON )
>> Implemented variations on these.
>>
>>> * Potion of Colon Cleaning ( restore CON, STR , put character hungry )
>> Tasteful name. :)
>
> Potion of Purging/Cleansing?
>
>
>>> * Potion of Caffeine ( +10 speed for twice as long as regular !speed,
>>> afterwards -10 speed for same time )
>> Done, but I'd like a more in-theme name. :)
>
> Potion of Mania? Potion of Boost/Spasm/Adrenaline/Overdrive?
>
>
> How about a Potion of Ergot or similar, providing manic speed at the
> cost of hallucinations? ;-)
I'm cautious about adding too many extra items which affect speed and
are cumulative with haste...
>> dstillwa wrote:
>>> * Ring of the Mouse (-5 dam, +5 stealth)
>> I think this is covered by the above Ring of the Cat.
>>
> Ring of the Mouse sounds more like +40AC, -10 dam... they can't hit you,
> and you can't hurt them :-p
>
> Again, probably only of use to ranged attackers...
Mm. Interesting. :)
--
Andrew Sidwell
http://rephial.org/
Andrew Sidwell
> Andrew Sidwell wrote:
>
>> Timo Pietilä wrote:
>>> Most mushrooms are very good source for "identifying by testing"-method.
>> > Other good is "bad" potions.
>>
>> I hope that the need to do this is reduced a bit now that *ID* is
>> removed and ID grants full knowledge.
>
> remove *ID* and encourage testing-method instead. Game just needs to
> record the results in tests so that you don't have to:
IMO the introduction of *ID* in 2.7.2 was a mistake and ID should have
been made to fully ID instead.
My problem is this: ID is really inconsistent at the moment. Identify a
(Defender) and you get a full summary of its powers, apart from the
random power. Identify an artifact and you get pretty much nothing. At
least in removing *ID* you get consistency-- ID does the same thing
whatever item you read it on.
If the ID and *ID* distinction to be meaningful (and *ID* were to be
reintroduced), then there would have to be some rationale between the
two, to do with which flags ID reveals and which ones *ID* reveals. I'm
not sure that this would be fun, though-- it just means that after ID,
you have to jump through an extra hoop. In the case of egos, you would
have less information than before (assuming less information was
available by ID), and in the case of artifacts, you just carry relying
on memory and/or spoilers. So I see full-ID > ID+*ID*.
I understand that having consistency isn't strictly necessary, but it
just doesn't make sense to me the way things currently work (though I'm
sure a rationale could be provided). That said, I find an ID-by-use
system appealing, and always have. I would like to somehow integrate it
into V, but the game is just not set up for it. As long as ID exists in
some form, people will either buy it or scum for it, and they'll do this
just because it makes it easier to survive. Not only that, but even is
the TMJ problem is massively reduced, I fear there would still be far
too many items around to test without tedium setting in.
If you have armour with known resists xyz, then you will be hesistant to
wear a half-unknown other armour which you're not sure of the resists
of, even for testing, just because you might die. And were
potions/mushrooms to become more available, then you would just get
people sitting eating a variety of mushrooms in a corner: in effect,
simulating an ID scroll, but with more tedium and less fun.
I would like to hear a counterargument. :)
> You eat mushroom of confusion:
>
> You get confused = all items with unknown properties get recorded that
> it does not grant resist confusion.
>
> You don't get confused and have multiple sources of unknown properties =
> those items get marked as "might grant resist confusion".
>
> If only one then it gets recorded as giving resist confusion.
>
> Those could be visible in (I)dentifying item and from CD resistances
> screen, "might be" shown as "?" in rows.
>
> Being somewhat mystified of what you have is part of the game. If you
> take that away, then you could as well just get rid of identification
> entirely and give player full info of the item as soon as he picks it
> up. There would be not much difference between that and ID giving full
> information of the item.
I agree that removing *ID* removes some mystery--and had reservations
regarding that--but removing it rids some annoyance and (at least I
think) makes the game more fun.
Timo Pietilä
> I agree that removing *ID* removes some mystery--and had reservations
> regarding that--but removing it rids some annoyance and (at least I
> think) makes the game more fun.
Well, Angband is kind of boring now. Making it more fun is not a bad
thing. I'm not sure that getting rid of this kind of "annoyances" is the
right way to do that though. Frog-knows has much worse UI but is
othervise more fun to play. Part of that fun is the limited knowledge
you get from your surroundings. For example you can't 'l'ook at the
object you don't really see.
Not all of us are divers. I don't actually like diving. I'm more a
explorer-type adventurer. I like to see what every level really has.
Diving has made me better at that, but diving itself is not fun, just
frustrating (you die a lot). If I don't have anything to explore
(because I see everything and I learn everything right away) game gets
boring.
Timo Pietilä
Nick
> Well, Angband is kind of boring now. Making it more fun is not a bad
> thing. I'm not sure that getting rid of this kind of "annoyances" is the
> right way to do that though. Frog-knows has much worse UI but is
> othervise more fun to play. Part of that fun is the limited knowledge
> you get from your surroundings. For example you can't 'l'ook at the
> object you don't really see.
>
> Not all of us are divers. I don't actually like diving. I'm more a
> explorer-type adventurer. I like to see what every level really has.
> Diving has made me better at that, but diving itself is not fun, just
> frustrating (you die a lot). If I don't have anything to explore
> (because I see everything and I learn everything right away) game gets
> boring.
Angband is many different things to different people. Make it perfect
for one group, and you'll break it for another. The best any
maintainer can do is to consult, then do what they think is the best;
some people will be annoyed, but they always have the option of
playing a previous version, or making their own variant.
That sounded more incisive and less of a platitude in my head, but
hey.
Nick.
Timo Pietilä
I'm making my own version (read: I have a to-do list :-)). unfortunately
lately I haven't got time to do any playing/coding/designing at all, so
it isn't really getting anywhere.
Timo Pietilä
Nick
I've just reread my last post, and realised it wasn't what I was
trying to say at all. I wanted to agree strongly with your exploring
comments; I think it's important to keep Vanilla viable for as wide a
variety of playing styles as possible. And I also think retaining
some annoyances is probably a good idea :)
Nick.