Your favorite and least favorite parts of Angband gameplay

[PowerWyrm]

My favorite part: the midgame. Because it's when you build your character. The early game is boring as hell, killing weaklings for junk. The endgame is also boring... you can kill Morgoth at level 32 with a hobbit, as proven by the last comp, it's just a matter of having the right amount of supplies with the right equipment.

[mushroom patch]

The way I play the game, I dive straight to the bottom (recalling for supplies and such every so often), with a brief stop around level 75 for speed rings, then scumming for vaults and key consumables at 98. I make no effort to max stats before 98. I make no special effort to kill uniques and I win with a very minimal list -- the only one I consistently kill that isn't required is Saruman, because he's annoying and not easy to avoid.

The most interesting part is the awkward interval between about level 50 and finding the first speed ring where almost everything is too dangerous to fight.

The early game is kind of interesting too, because weapons I'd consider garbage in a normal game play a major role. For example, I'm often in a position where the only monsters I can profitably kill are trolls, because I have a weapon with slay troll.

[Timo Pietilä]

100 levels in angband have far more monsters/loot than you need to win. There's no need to fullclear every level.

If you visit every level only once and leave before new monsters spawn, that statement is dubious at best. You might get everything you need in those 100 levels, but chances are that you don't, unless you start to scum some levels for more monster.

[Derakon]

If you visit every level only once and leave before new monsters spawn, that statement is dubious at best. You might get everything you need in those 100 levels, but chances are that you don't, unless you start to scum some levels for more monster.

I take it you haven't played with forced descent on? That mode coerces you to play each level at most once, and you can still skip out on a bunch of levels without missing much. I basically always play with forced descent now, and while there've been times that I've felt I wasn't as prepared as I'd like to be for the endgame, I've still had enough of a safety margin to win -- which says more about how cautious I am about the endgame than anything else.

[fizzix]

If you visit every level only once and leave before new monsters spawn, that statement is dubious at best. You might get everything you need in those 100 levels, but chances are that you don't, unless you start to scum some levels for more monster.

My experience says otherwise. You don't need to full clear anything close to 100 levels to get enough gear. However, I will conjecture that 50 levels is currently not enough for classes without heal spells, although I've only tried 3-4 times. If the town sold unlimited CCW and _teleport, even 50 levels might be enough!

[Estie]

The original point was that for some reason levels would be less boring with forced descent, and I dont see how. Of course youre not forced to clear every level in the sense that skipping even one will make you lose the game. If that is what you are arguing, I cede the point.

However, with limited levels every skipping reduces your chance of winning, so you will be more reluctant to leave. I hope we can agree on this ?

Now the parts of each level I want to skip are the boring ones, so I fail to see how restricting my skip ability helps making things more interesting.

[fizzix]

Now the parts of each level I want to skip are the boring ones, so I fail to see how restricting my skip ability helps making things more interesting.

The boring parts of the level are more interesting if you are "underleveled." Basically, Angband allows you to overprepare. To grind as much as possible so that you face zero risk. Additionally, since there are infinite retries, you can avoid high risk/high reward situations, since you're likely to hit a low risk/high reward situation later on. You can completely pass up the vault on level 40, because you know you can scum for infinite vaults on level 80. This is part of the original design, and it's not likely to go anywhere.

Forced descent prevents overpreparing. It's not perfectly balanced so that you match the threat as you descend, that still likely needs work. It is better than vanilla in this regard, unless you are very adept at diving to an appropriately entertaining level. Forced descent also makes you more likely to engage in riskier activities with high reward, since you're not guaranteed another high reward situation. Hitting that vault at level 40, now is extremely appealing, because just getting some of the loot from it will make you much more capable of gathering stuff later on.

I like that Angband gives the infinite level option, and even that it's the default. However, I also maintain that we should balance it towards a forced-descent like play.

[Estie]

I like that Angband gives the infinite level option, and even that it's the default. However, I also maintain that we should balance it towards a forced-descent like play.

This is exactly the feature of Angband I like most. Its easy to make an intense game by placing the player into do or die situations. Pretty much every other game does that. I dont want the game to prevent me from overpreparing; my preparation is my own and none of the games business.

This feature is the reason I play vanilla Angband and not ToME4, Sil, younameit.
Ironman has always been an option for those who desire a more forced approach, and forced descent expands on that; if people feel that they need this to keep up their interest, I guess we can just agree to disagree.

[Derakon]

I don't think fizzix is disagreeing you; he's just saying "We need some standard game mode to balance towards, and forced-descent is a pretty good one to use." Balancing based on infinite scumming is impossible since everyone has a different level of tolerance for grinding; balancing based on ironman would mean ignoring the shops. We need to pick a fixed amount of levels at each depth that the player is "expected" to play to be powerful enough for the endgame, and 1 of each is a reasonable standard.

Of course the player would not actually be coerced into playing this way. If they replay levels, then they get ahead of the power curve, and if they dive faster, then they get behind; that's all.

[Nick]

I hope all the posters in this thread realise that I'm taking notes on how to ruin the game for EVERYBODY

[Estie]

You seem to have plenty time for posting here; arent you supposed to maintain or something ?

[Timo Pietilä]

I take it you haven't played with forced descent on? That mode coerces you to play each level at most once, and you can still skip out on a bunch of levels without missing much. I basically always play with forced descent now, and while there've been times that I've felt I wasn't as prepared as I'd like to be for the endgame, I've still had enough of a safety margin to win -- which says more about how cautious I am about the endgame than anything else.

AFAIK forced descend is not same as ironman, you can visit town when you want?

I have played ironman. You need to scum for more monsters at some levels to get the stuff you need. Dungeon itself is too poor for that to happen. Usually just clearing the level is enough for that though (it takes enough time to get more monsters at other end when you reach the another; level is never empty).

3.5 is a bit better at healing potions though that previous versions have been, so you might get enough of those. Those were problem in earlier versions, you could reach the bottom before seeing any life-potions and only three or so *healing*.

[Timo Pietilä]

The boring parts of the level are more interesting if you are "underleveled."

That's not universal truth. To me levels where I'm weakly prepared are so annoying that they become boring. Killing stuff is more fun than avoiding stuff.

[EDIT] Some levels where risk is high are fun though. For that reason I suggested those quests that you can take. I think dungeon is too uniform now.

[Derakon]

AFAIK forced descend is not same as ironman, you can visit town when you want?

They're separate options. Forced-descent prevents you from visiting any dungeon level more than once, but you can visit the town freely. Recalling from the town sends you to max depth + 1 (so at most you could visit the town 98 times before hitting endgame). A separate option disables the stores in the town.

I have played ironman. You need to scum for more monsters at some levels to get the stuff you need. Dungeon itself is too poor for that to happen. Usually just clearing the level is enough for that though (it takes enough time to get more monsters at other end when you reach the another; level is never empty).

I've only played a few ironman games, but I don't remember having trouble with a lack of gear. Then again, I think I mostly played holy casters, who of course would have less trouble with consumables.

But really, it's a question of how big your safety margins are. The kind of player who refuses to meet Morgoth unless they have at least 20 *Healing* potions is not going to be happy with forced-descent because there won't be enough dungeon to meet their goals. But it is entirely possible to fight Morgoth with substantially fewer resources and still come out on top. Not that I'm trying to imply that you're that, um, excessive when it comes to restoratives.

3.5 is a bit better at healing potions though that previous versions have been, so you might get enough of those. Those were problem in earlier versions, you could reach the bottom before seeing any life-potions and only three or so *healing*.

This is enough, especially if you've been careful about maintaining a good stock of CCW and Healing potions. You should only need to break out the *Healing* in panic situations, which IME only happen a few times in the Morgoth fight and not at all against Sauron.

[Estie]

Healing potions are sufficent, but phase door scrolls are not. My last 2 attempts at an ironman paladin died somewhere in midgame when destruction of scrolls by fire was faster than acquirement of new scrolls.
The mage I was playing before naturally didnt encounter this problem (and won).