autoscum bites me in the foot

[shadus]

Next version and autoscum's gone (so this is fair warning!). I'm thinking of removing level feelings most of the time too, and only giving them when something truly exceptional is on the level, or perhaps just for artifacts. Something like that.

Not that my opinion means anything, but I just wanted to weigh in and say I think thats a *really* bad idea. It's absolutely miserable to play with autoscum off (although somewhat safer) at least for my play style... I like it as a birth option... you either choose to live with it or live without it. I can't imagine not having it though, I've tried playing without it. Please please please reconsider yanking this out... maybe attach a score penalty or something, but it really does make the game a lot more fun for many people.

[Mondkalb]

Same for me. I'm always playing with autoscum "on". I wouldn't play any version without.

[Magnate]

Folks, I think by "gone" El Maintaini meant that autoscum would be permanently on, not permanently off. (Or more likely somewhere between the two, but nowhere near as boring as off, so you can relax a bit.)

CC

[fyonn]

Huh (just tried quivers), apparently I've never noticed what the quiver does. I always thought that it was just a way to use inscriptions on arrows without having to bother actually inscribing them, rather than actually having an in-game use for combining stacks.

Yeah, if we had 'quivers' for other item types, it would be rather good.

err, what are quivers? Are they in vanilla, and if so, how do I use them?

Dave

[Big Al]

Quivers are not in vanilla - some variants (NPP I think, among others) have them. Basically, each 99 arrows (of any type) in the backpack, takes up one equipment slot, rather than the current method where each different type of arrow takes a different slot. Saves on backpack space. Also, the arrows in the quiver are treated effectively as if they were automatically inscribed with @f1, @f2, etc.

[Irashtar]

I've always found it odd how the backpack works, but I guess I'm used to it, so doesn't really bug me much. It just seems illogical that 99 !ccw take up less space in the backpack than one of each !ccw and !csw.

I was considering whether a new method would work where (eg.):
- up to 99 ammo, of any type, would take up one 'slot'
- up to 20 potions, of any type, would take up one 'slot'
- up to five wands, of any type, would take up one 'slot'
- one weapon would take up one 'slot'
- one armour would take up one 'slot'
- etc.

Still limit it to the 20 or so slots, but allow mix-and-matching of the items of the same kind. Numbers would need to be tweaked. I think that it would totally be impossible to implement in a logical, easy-to-use way, so this is probably just wishful thinking. Just an idea.

You could go a step farther, just give every item a volume to go along with the weight, limit that instead of number, and you got yourself a game without any hammerspace at all!

[Daven_26d1]

You could go a step farther, just give every item a volume to go along with the weight, limit that instead of number, and you got yourself a game without any hammerspace at all!

For me, the fixed slots in inventory (although probably just a convention in the original code - perhaps the author hadn't wrapped his head around dynamic memory, or just couldn't be bothered to implement it) has become such a part of angband play that a weight/volume system would spoil the game.

If you didn't have to carefully choose your kit form the available pots, wands etc the game(s) would get a lot easier, IMHO.

Not that quivers were a bad idea - it fixed a problem were slaying ammo was next to useless, or at least expensive for no good reason - but to allow similar systems would be very unbalancing.

EDIT - on the autosum thing: I think removing from V might be smart. I find the current release of V too easy, and genuinely dull with autoscum_off. I think new ego items etc, while nice, are just too easy to get your hands on. Some enforced rebalancing of floor contents might be just what V needs.

[Big Al]

I think that the reason that there are only 23 slots is because that many lines fit on a standard 80x24 terminal screen (plus one line for messages). I would agree that if you get things too complicated, inventory management becomes a lot less fun. The only thing that could be improved is the wand/staff charge stacking - when wands stack, they don't just average the number of charges between all of them. If you have eg. two identical wands with ten charges each, you should be able to use all the charges in one wand before using the other wand.

[andrewdoull]

I think that the reason that there are only 23 slots is because that many lines fit on a standard 80x24 terminal screen (plus one line for messages). I would agree that if you get things too complicated, inventory management becomes a lot less fun. The only thing that could be improved is the wand/staff charge stacking - when wands stack, they don't just average the number of charges between all of them. If you have eg. two identical wands with ten charges each, you should be able to use all the charges in one wand before using the other wand.

But surely you want to use the charges in the wands evenly, in the event one of them gets destroyed...

[Daven_26d1]

Heh, of course - terminal conventions.

The wands issues have been a pet hate of many players (myself included).

Either way of using wands should be catered for, because its a question of playing style (my tactics brain says charge sharing is smarter though). Perhaps variants that have the quiver might adopt a system for identical wands? I might even come around to the idea of a quiver for all wands.

Never, ever for !s and ?s though!

EDIT- This is a very interesting thread about game-balance, considering it started of as an AAR!

[andrewdoull]

Heh, of course - terminal conventions.

The wands issues have been a pet hate of many players (myself included).

Either way of using wands should be catered for, because its a question of playing style (my tactics brain says charge sharing is smarter though). Perhaps variants that have the quiver might adopt a system for identical wands? I might even come around to the idea of a quiver for all wands.

Hengband allows you to have separate stacks of every wand.

Unangband does something similar, in which you can find magical bags which hold 23 different types of wands in 1 inventory slot.

For instance, you can find a Magical Bag of Bewitchments, which holds wands of Confuse Monster, Sleep Monster etc. or Magical Bag of Four Elements which holds all the elemental attack wands.

I had to balance it this way because there is a lot more wands in Unangband than Hengband...

Andrew

[Big Al]

But surely you want to use the charges in the wands evenly, in the event one of them gets destroyed...

If you're short on weight though (or rather, heavy on weight), I'd rather carry one wand around instead of two - it's lighter.

[Daven_26d1]

Unangband does something similar, in which you can find magical bags which hold 23 different types of wands in 1 inventory slot.

Andrew

I wondered if any variants had adopted this sort of idea (like the scroll cases etc in the Baldur's Gate stuff). They'd be unbalancing in V, but in your variant particularly, I noticed there were a *lot* more low power magic items. I didn't play long enough to find the bags though.

I guess I owe Un another try, as a couple of versions have gone by since I tested. Not too much time for games at the moment though.

[mavfin]

Well, as far as Un, the main reason I haven't checked it out yet is that I've been 'Un'-able to compile even a shell or X11 version of Un for my OS X machine, let alone download or compile an OSX windowed version. The OSX versions for download are either nonexistent or Intel-only. I mean, at least V and Sang I could just pop a quick linux/Unix-type make and have a working curses or X11 version to play in a jiffy. Not so with Un, it seems. I had other variants that I could play, so I wasn't going to spend time tracking down the problem.

As far as Autoscum, yeah, it should be a birth option. Don't play with V *too* much. I still think of it as the 'base' for the variants, as in many ways it's still the Angband I first encountered in 1995, that was derived from the umoria I played in 1987-89.

I have 6 versions of Angband on my machine at the moment, and I'll give you a quick synopsis of what and why I have it, just for fun.

V 3.0.9 - I like the improvements, once I got used to the stores. This is still mostly the same old Vanilla, as it should be, with a few interface improvements, such as the wand/rod stacking, and stuff like that. Add a quiver if you want, that would be nice.

Zangband - This game, unbalanced as it may be, is perfect for those times you want some random fun. No other variant can give you the totally out-of-control feel this game can give you. Can you say Beastman Chaos-Warrior? I thought you could.

FAAngband - I'm still trying this one out, not sure if I like it yet, but we'll see. It's an interesting look.

Sangband - Leon scores again with a reworking of Julian Lighton's old code. The Monk is a bit underpowered, which was always my favorite in Sang, but, if I really wanted to power it up, I could tweak the code and recompile, after all. I'm sure some of that may get tweaked.

Oangband - O is almost a parallel V now, and some of O's goodness has made it into V. It still has some interesting ways of implementing stuff, so I still dabble in O when I'm in the mood.

and last, for my primary Angband-of-the-moment:

ToME - Yes, I know this game has some potential to be munchkinish, but, then, don't they all? You just have to decide if you'll participate in that or not. I love the Monk archetype, and no one does that better than ToME at the moment, and, the skill system here reminds me of my old favorite Sang. Personally, I like the dungeons, but I know they drive some people nuts. ToME has the best, or at least most-visible support, and the most different ways to have fun, and use the skill set to do interesting things. As I mentioned, some of those things are munchkinish. That's up to the community, of course, but, frankly, in the Angband world, doing the dungeon in a new way you haven't done before is fun, even if on reflection it was too easy. This game has the best mix of things at the moment, of all the ones I've tried.

I haven't touched Heng and Steam yet, and probably won't. WTH is Steampunk? I have no particular yearn toward anime. I know there are those out there who love and appreciate those genres, but I'm not one of them. Not a criticism of the variants, just a note on why I haven't tried them.

The fact is, there's other variants I've not touched, and probably won't. You can only play so many. I'm lazy. I look for already-compiled versions for my platform (OS X PPC), or at least easy to compile to run in shell/X11. The extra windows are nice, but not mandatory. God knows I played enough Moria on those 80x24 terminals you all mention

I'll probably check out NPP some time, as I keep hearing people talk about it, and a few others.

[andrewdoull]

Well, as far as Un, the main reason I haven't checked it out yet is that I've been 'Un'-able to compile even a shell or X11 version of Un for my OS X machine, let alone download or compile an OSX windowed version. The OSX versions for download are either nonexistent or Intel-only. I mean, at least V and Sang I could just pop a quick linux/Unix-type make and have a working curses or X11 version to play in a jiffy. Not so with Un, it seems. I had other variants that I could play, so I wasn't going to spend time tracking down the problem.

Could you download the source and give me the output of make -f makefile.osx and make -f makefile.std?

Thanks.

Andrew