3.3.0 Hobbit Rogue / Death

[Malak Darkhunter]

I agree that stat-draining/restore is not perfect now and could stand some significant improvement. I have not yet seen the "yes, this is the way to go!" suggestion yet. I don't like time drain-all attacks or nexus stat swap at all. I would rather both of those be removed, but that hits a lot of resistance, so it's never been implemented except in personal versions.



Honestly, I do this too.


I agree with Derakon that it's more fun finding things in the dungeon than finding things in the stores. I also still wind up buying a non-trivial amount of weapons/armor/jewelery from the stores. I'd be ok with ego items showing up in armory and weaponsmith more often but at prices closer to BM value (large discrepancy between selling price and asking price is needed).


Angband will never go full ironman. One of the appeals for me playing Angband instead of, say, Nethack is how "nice" it was to allow you to replay early levels to try things out and learn the game. That's why I got hooked on Angband and never really progressed in Nethack.


old shop ui works in 3.4


Yay. ID by use has turned out to be pretty popular.



How much of this is nostalgia for a non-existent past? 3.0.6 had some features which annoyed the hell out of me. Overabundance of hounds, way too much time spent hockey-pucking hounds around a corridor bend. Way too many junk items and no squelch, especially when you started hitting Wyrms that dropped 12 items that were all weapons and armor that needed to be ID'd. Amnesia that caused you to forget all your items and require you to either take notes on everything or re-ID everything. Neither of which is "fun". Useless mage attacking spells except for MM. Destruction abuse to loot vaults.

Specifically, what did you like about 3.0.6 that is missing now?

I'm hoping you like 3.4, I think we've fixed a good chunk of the problems in 3.3, at least with item generation.

I hope I like v 3.4 to, there sounds like a lot of good changes, to be honest I'm a little indesisive on what version I want to play, I like 3.3 screen changes, and the way the game feels, It feels clean and dosen't seem to be buggy at all, very good work there.

Now on the other hand and I acknowledge that I might be in a minority here, I like older version "WoW" moments, where you didn't know everything about the game, I feel there is almost too much information given, blows/round damge/round etc, making it easier in some ways, but also it's nice for new players to have that wonderment feel about that item and not immediately knowing all about it as soon as they pick it up.

I think from 3.0.6 backwards had that wonderment feel about item generation, less in game knowledge.

specificaly I like 2.7.8, after that I stopped liking the changes aside from bug-fixes, which are always nice, this version still had the Moria/original Angband feel, so I guess you could call that nostalgia, and I might be in a minority
here.

As far annoying gameplay, yup 3.0.6 and as far back as 2.7.8 had annoying hounds, I still think they are a problem though, I think they should be nerfed to solitary creatures, and the "Friend" flag removed from the code, you still have packs of wolves, white wolves, spiders to deal with, and more than that I hate hell hound pack generation, again fine as solitary creatures.

Amnesia, was actualy a minor annoyance, usually had a permanent means of Id anyway, I'm a verteran of Sang, where Ameneisa, mind-blast, was common so used to it I guess.

To sum it up change wise, the town is less intersting from 3.0.6 on, don't like that change, I for one liked finding things I needed in town, it was a way to spend my money, and there was still a thrill of excitement when you found soemthing interesting in the stores, and more when you tried to come up with a way to buy it without having the gold.
Stat drain worked better with restore potions, again in 2.7.8/3.0.6 you didn't always find the restore potion you needed so I felt worked just fine.

Love the new randart code, and the old shop ui code going into 3.4, if stat drain was reverted back to the way it was, the shops generating things interesting again, and less player knowledge about item generation, to where you know what it does but blows/round/ damgage calculation was hidden, then I would chalk up 3.4 as probalby my favorite, but for now I'm playing 2.7.8, will try 3.4 when it comes out.

[CliffStamp]

As far annoying gameplay, yup 3.0.6 and as far back as 2.7.8 had annoying hounds, I still think they are a problem though, I think they should be nerfed to solitary creatures, and the "Friend" flag removed from the code, you still have packs of wolves, white wolves, spiders to deal with, and more than that I hate hell hound pack generation, again fine as solitary creatures.

I always saw them as something to avoid for that reason and it made sense that not everything in the game has a high reward for its risk as that means no choices. I avoid them almost exclusively because they usually do a lot of damage both directly and indirectly, they move out of LOS, they have no drops, and the exp isn't worth the consumables. However if you happen to find a decent wand of balls/breath you can blow up a pile of them for cheap EXP as they are stupid about avoiding such damage.

[Malak Darkhunter]

I always saw them as something to avoid for that reason and it made sense that not everything in the game has a high reward for its risk as that means no choices. I avoid them almost exclusively because they usually do a lot of damage both directly and indirectly, they move out of LOS, they have no drops, and the exp isn't worth the consumables. However if you happen to find a decent wand of balls/breath you can blow up a pile of them for cheap EXP as they are stupid about avoiding such damage.

Agreed-they are great means of experience, some class combo's might be better suited to deal with them, others not. Half-trolls with no stealth and no Rblindness just get hunted, I dig jagged corridors Some levels it's best to just plum leave on.

[CliffStamp]

Some levels it's best to just plum leave on.

With poor detection they can be a bit of a problem as they don't come up on detect evil which is one of the easiest to fine and gravity / impact hounds have caused the death of more than one adventurer who stayed on the level, later forgot and teleported into LOS of a bunch of them.

It might be nice to actually reward people who hunt them by reducing the frequency, i.e., you are genociding them if you kill each pack when you see them. Similar if you kept ignoring them they would get more and more frequent.

This would prevent the min/maxing approach to Angband which is common as monster information gets learned.

[Magnate]

As I have stated this fairly frankly that is obvious, but the point remains if you are coding for what you want to be done you are not a maintaining Angband proper, you are making a variant by definition.

There is nothing wrong with that, some of the greatest roguelikes are variants. Zang for the most obvious is still played, it inspired Heng which is still played, and that inspired Entroband then Chengband etc. . These are all great, but you can clearly see how they are "this is what I want" coding.

Again, nothing wrong with that, the entire thing started off as "this is what I want" to get Moria from Rogue. But again if this is what you are doing then don't claim to be maintaining Angband proper.

Could you expand a bit more on what you see as "maintaining Angband proper"? I have a sneaking suspicion that it isn't anything that anyone would willingly volunteer their time to do (there have been effectively no takers to do this since Robert Ruehlmann packed it in) - but I don't feel I can say this with certainty until I understand more about what you mean. It's certainly true that all the members of the current devteam, recruited by takkaria, joined because we were offered the chance to help turn Angband into what we thought it should be - better dungeon generation, better item generation, better code (nobody's done "better shops" yet, but it would fit perfectly with the operating model). I have linked before to takkaria's essay on maintenance and development: may I conclude that you disagree with it? Or is it in fact not a distinction between maintenance and development that you want, but a distinction between developing the UI and developing the gameplay?

The largest thing to me which stands out is gaining replayability through randomization. Think back to when you first started playing Angband, provided there was no spoiler searching, the main thing that made it a challenge was not knowing. If there was a random element to monsters this would add challenge for experienced players (especially if it was monster level based) but be almost transparent to new players.

The only thing you could do when you see a monster that you had not saw before is :

-try to judge from its description, level/vault placements
-hit it with your best distance attack
-get fully buffed and try a round of melee etc. .

This would make probing much more powerful as well. However it could be argued this is such a major change from gameplay and it would not be Angband proper any more.

Well you'll be pleased to know that randomised monsters are on the list for v4 (which is indeed not Angband proper). I agree that this would dramatically improve replayability for experienced players.

[Magnate]

It might be nice to actually reward people who hunt them by reducing the frequency, i.e., you are genociding them if you kill each pack when you see them. Similar if you kept ignoring them they would get more and more frequent.

This would prevent the min/maxing approach to Angband which is common as monster information gets learned.

++

I like this idea a lot - it fits with the "dungeon as ecosystem" idea which (IIRC) is implemented quite well in Un. It would need balancing to make sure that the later levels weren't full of grand master mystics and black reavers, but could be done.

[Malak Darkhunter]

++

I like this idea a lot - it fits with the "dungeon as ecosystem" idea which (IIRC) is implemented quite well in Un. It would need balancing to make sure that the later levels weren't full of grand master mystics and black reavers, but could be done.

I like this too, the player realizes that their is an end to them if they just keep slugging away, and cut's down on aggravation, one might be pleased to actualy see them and presents itself as a challenge.

Might I suggest a poll-Magnate

[Magnate]

Might I suggest a poll-Magnate

Go right ahead ;-)

(But seriously, this would be a v4 change anyway, since it would fundamentally alter the gameplay. That's not to say it would never make it into v4 - but like all really big changes, it would start life in v4.)

[Timo Pietilä]

++

I like this idea a lot - it fits with the "dungeon as ecosystem" idea which (IIRC) is implemented quite well in Un. It would need balancing to make sure that the later levels weren't full of grand master mystics and black reavers, but could be done.

I don't like it. I do not back away from challenge, but I do ignore and avoid annoying monsters. For me this would mean that later levels are full of annoying monsters like mobile eyes, Q:s, mystics and other low-reward "nothing to gain, not even satisfaction from kill" -monsters.

[Magnate]

I don't like it. I do not back away from challenge, but I do ignore and avoid annoying monsters. For me this would mean that later levels are full of annoying monsters like mobile eyes, Q:s, mystics and other low-reward "nothing to gain, not even satisfaction from kill" -monsters.

You are right that this is a real danger. We'd have to make sure that the population and fecundity numbers were such that this didn't happen - that it just isn't possible to denude the dungeon of large numbers of species. But the flip side risk is that that results in the effect not really being noticeable - you dedicate @'s life to killing hounds and they still turn up in droves below 4500'. It won't be easy to balance.

[Antoine]

I don't like it. I do not back away from challenge

Wow Timo sounds really hard out. If he was a pirate I would give him my money

A.

[Timo Pietilä]

Wow Timo sounds really hard out. If he was a pirate I would give him my money

A.

My comment was for real, I fight graveyards and clear all vaults if it is even remotely possible to do and even if it takes very long time. I once take note of my turncount before and after one particularly difficult vault clearing and I used nearly million turns clearing it out. I know I would have got same things faster and probably quite a bit easier by just ignoring it and diving but it would have not been nearly as satisfying as that was.

[buzzkill]

I think this whole 'gradual genocide' is a generally poor idea to begin with. If you wanted to have it affect zeypher hounds only, I could see it function, in a limited sort of way, but applying it to every creature in the dungeon is ridiculous.

Maybe something like, for every pack of a particular type of zeypher hound you kill off completely, then the next pack is generated at (random pack size - 1). This would have an almost unnoticeable effect unless you aggressively sought out killed every hound you saw, being sure to track down the ones who flee, in which case you might notice that those pesky hounds aren't quite annoying as they used to be. And, it's my guess that this wouldn't unduly affect a given levels natural population of other monsters.

In any theoretical implementation orcs should be immune. There's no shortage of orcs in Angband.

[CliffStamp]

Or is it in fact not a distinction between maintenance and development that you want, but a distinction between developing the UI and developing the gameplay?

I should have clarified, I was not speaking of maintenance vs development but Angband vs Variant.

The problem with development is simply that it is possible to change the game so that it obviously is not Angband proper any more. There is nothing wrong with this per say but if there is no one actually maintaining Angband proper then that is the only problem with development.

Deciding to be the maintainer/developer of Angband proper, while a volunteer, can not be "this is what I want" and you can't simply argue that is ok because it is a volunteer system. The simplest way to see how this can not be the case is to consider a few extreme cases.

Lets assume that the dev team decides to implement the following changes :

-removal of all ascii interface (force graphics, pure mouse use, etc.)
-remove exp/stats vs a pure skill interface which is use/success driven
-permanent levels (nethack)
-upon death, respawn as in Diablo
-add modern/silly influences (Dracula, Justin Bieber, AK-47, BFG, etc.)

It is ease to make a list of changes which anyone who would start it would realize that it is some kind of Roguelike obviously but there is no way you would be able to look at that and say it is Angband proper. And could you argue well it is a volunteer so the dev team can do whatever they want.

It doesn't even need to be anything that drastic, just take the current monster list and replace them all with the characters from one of the dev teams personal favourite universes, or maybe replace the main questor with the ex-girlfriend of one of the dev team members.

It should be obvious that this has even moved into abusing the position for one purely of personal interest. Once this point has been accepted, at whatever level the line can be crossed, it is obvious then there is a line and the debate then simply becomes about the position of the line.

Both parties, the dev-team and the user base need to be able to work together and realize that the dev-team have things they enjoy doing and what they want to do, and the user base has things they enjoy playing and want to see and that they need to try to bring these together without application of weapons of mass destruction.

Well you'll be pleased to know that randomised monsters are on the list for v4 (which is indeed not Angband proper). I agree that this would dramatically improve replayability for experienced players.

That is excellent, that was discussed a long time ago as one of the greatest weaknesses of the game in replay as well as just the cool factor that you have when you start. It is one of the things that make moving to a variant rewarding as it is like you are starting all over again.

I have been tooling with v4, there are some amazing changes in that both from mechanics as well as just really elegant coding. The way ego weapons are created as an example of the latter. The rune/ID is really nice, it is interesting to watch weapons/armor develop/reveal themselves. I hope the squelch catches up to it.

[Magnate]

Once this point has been accepted, at whatever level the line can be crossed, it is obvious then there is a line and the debate then simply becomes about the position of the line.

Both parties, the dev-team and the user base need to be able to work together and realize that the dev-team have things they enjoy doing and what they want to do, and the user base has things they enjoy playing and want to see and that they need to try to bring these together without application of weapons of mass destruction.

Well put. There have been many threads over the past 3-4 years where your contribution would have been valuable!

It is of course impossible to gain complete consensus on where the line is, and we have certainly stepped over it several times in the eyes of many players. But although the line cannot be drawn, the solution to crossing the line is very straightforward: if what we're maintaining is not considered "Angband proper", anyone can step, realign the code with the one true Angband, and release the next version of Angband proper.

What I'm trying to say is that Angband proper is whatever people think it is. If that's not what we're releasing, anyone is free to release a truer version. We don't have any kind of monopoly - all the versions of the source code are available to everybody, so whoever wants to lead the New Real Proper Angband can start with whatever version they consider the closest to the truth. We'd soon be left by the wayside if the new version was better than ours.

(In fact, after 3 years of these debates, we released v4 precisely so that we'd do less damage to Angband proper. It seems to be working well so far.)

I have been tooling with v4, there are some amazing changes in that both from mechanics as well as just really elegant coding. The way ego weapons are created as an example of the latter. The rune/ID is really nice, it is interesting to watch weapons/armor develop/reveal themselves. I hope the squelch catches up to it.

Thanks for your kind words - unfortunately all those of us who have been active in developing v4 have been distracted by various things since around xmas (real life, Diablo III, Pyrel ...) so it's in a hiatus. Unfortunately, as with any project of such fluidity, there are a number of unfinished things (like archery, and squelch/ID improvements and so on). But it's not going away, and I for one will get back to it at some point.