Stat zaps

[Spacebux]

Gain-stat potions do still restore stats. Most characters are going to only have three sources of stat restoration: gain-stat potions, mushrooms of Vigor, and gaining levels. There's also the priest spell Restoration (which, IIRC, paladins don't get), the very rare rod of Restoration, and potions of Life (which you won't waste on mere stat restores unless you're in dire straits).

Plenty of resources right there. Although the Rod of Restoration's rarity could be reduced a tad....

I can see how Spacebux's contention that the new method is more generous applies when you're playing ironman -- there, the early-game difference is marked. And I could believe that it'd be worth splitting Vigor into physical and magical versions. I still feel that the current version is an improvement over the previous version. It should never be optimal play to townscum. Yes, the player has the choice of not townscumming, but most players feel obligated to optimize their play in various ways, which generally ends up including "Don't enter the dungeon in a suboptimal state if you can help it". Thus availability of stat-restore potions in the town means they feel obligated to townscum. Does that make sense? Humans are weird sometimes.

Again - it sounds like you are justifying the change based on making sure humans do the right thing. Who are "most players"? I don't think I am. Nor, do I want to feel like I am being pushed into a new situation to make sure I "play like the rest". I could not care less if the player across the Internet Town scums, Stairs scums, whatever scums. That is His/Her choice. Even if that is "most" of them.

It worries me that this will not be the end of attempts to curtail how players play the game. That's why I'm making such a stint of this.


In the past few revisions, I've seen revisions in trying to curtail how powerful mages are/were. The auto-roller was disabled: I suppose we had auto-rolling scummers. Guilty, I guess. Then the missile shots were so powerful, those had to be reigned in. Now, we have mobs whose attacks cannot be defended - brain smashing, the silly time attack, and mana attacks.

Just for fun, I put the code back in so Mages had all the spells again, in all books. CLW, Detect objects, Heroism, Berserk Str, Enchant everything. You know, those spells do not ruin the game. With the exception of CLW not being a true Mage spell to begin with, none of those spells ought to ever have been removed from the mage's playbook. Why were those spells taken out? Oh, probably someone perceiving someone else was "scumming" again. Detect Objects only slows down the game in the early levels, actually. For mages are then inclined on going around and checking _every_ object on a level, rather than just hit the stairs and go down to the next level when convenient. Heroism/Berserk - I bet those were taken away because mages were whacking away like warriors too much, and the warrior players got jealous. What happened was, over time, as mobs were made to be tougher, more resistant to nearly all mage spells, mages probably had little recourse but to imitate warriors and go for melee. Ever notice that of all the mage attack spells, only 2 of them are not resistable by mobs? (Magic missile and Meteor storm - Rift would also be but for RGravity mobs such as Gravity hounds, Kavlax, etc.) Chaos strike is only really useful for uniques. Mana storm - too little damage for too high a failure rate compared to other forms of attack. Ad naseum, point is: most mage spells fall far short of what a Heroistic/Berserked mage can do with a good beat-stick. Why would a mage attempt 400-pt. / round Mana Storm at 5~10% fail rate when the same mage can WHACK away at mobs for 700 - 1,000pts.+ w/ 5 swings (Haradrim) in melee combat? Nevermind what Warrior players can do w/ 6 or 7 swings.... "Oh, well, that's why we took away Heroism / Beserker Rage from the mage playbook!" Oh really? Thesedays---now that bow/xbow shots are once again worthless---I find it easy enough to dedicate slots for !s of Heroism/B-Rage. It's not hard to "scum" that up, even in IronMan games.

The problem is not that mage players should not be imitating warriors and thus have those spells removed from the mage playbook. The problem is most mage spells are in fact defunct and/or obsolete against high level mobs.

I remember a time when "Fire Ball" was a great spell to actually have and use.

I digress... (easy to do, I suppose). The Point I am trying to make is the underlying causes and the apparent issues are often different. You will not solve human behavior through policy change - that's a misguided concept spread by liberal thinking socialists. You will not stop town-scumming simply by eliminating one less need to return to town. In fact, I would dare say the "town-scummers" have won.

It might be worth experimenting with removing the restore on levelup, in favor of re-introducing stat potions as dungeon-only items that could be found, rarely, at any depth. The difficulty would be in ensuring an even distribution across all depths.

It was fine the way it was.... Players who like to rely on restoring stats in town can recall back to town if/when they feel they need to.

[Derakon]

Again - it sounds like you are justifying the change based on making sure humans do the right thing. Who are "most players"? I don't think I am. Nor, do I want to feel like I am being pushed into a new situation to make sure I "play like the rest". I could not care less if the player across the Internet Town scums, Stairs scums, whatever scums. That is His/Her choice. Even if that is "most" of them.

I don't think you read my post very carefully. Let's go over it again.

1) Most players feel obliged to play the best they can, which includes not returning to the dungeon if stats are drained.
2) Stat restore potions are available, unreliably, in the alchemist's store.
3) You can refresh the stores by townscumming
4) Townscumming is boring.
5) Therefore, most players feel obligated to bore themselves when stats are drained.
6) Therefore, removing the incentive to townscum (without neutering the concept of stat drain) is a net win as most players will be more entertained.

Are some players going to be less entertained? Sure! Absolutely! But you can't please everyone with every change you make, so it's pointless to try. You just do the best you can.

And I'm sure the devs would appreciate it if you didn't try to make it out like there's a huge conspiracy to dictate the way you play the game. There isn't. It's fine if you feel strongly about an issue. Great! But please try to write your posts respectfully.

Incidentally, fireball has always sucked. It had a terrible mana-to-damage ratio back in the frog-knows days; I only used it to expedite taking out groups of weak monsters that were still strong enough that Stinking Cloud was pointless.

There was a big discussion awhile back about who should get which spells and whether spells should be removed/added/etc. One of the big goals is to increase the differentiation between the arcane and holy casters, and between different subtypes of the arcane casters. Rogues get Detect Objects; mages and rangers have to wait for Detect Enchantments which still isn't as good. Only rangers get CLW. And so on. I fully expect more spells to be removed in the future. You don't want each class to play broadly similarly, after all.

[takkaria]

Again - it sounds like you are justifying the change based on making sure humans do the right thing. Who are "most players"? I don't think I am. Nor, do I want to feel like I am being pushed into a new situation to make sure I "play like the rest". I could not care less if the player across the Internet Town scums, Stairs scums, whatever scums. That is His/Her choice. Even if that is "most" of them.

I'm not interested in making sure that anyone does anything, and I don't do anything out of considerations of what "most players" want or like. I'm interested in what I consider a more interesting game, with more varied mechanics and one that is not optimally played by repetitive boring actions.

If people want to scum, they still can in a whole variety of ways. I have nothing against scummers. They're just not who I'm designing the game for.

It worries me that this will not be the end of attempts to curtail how players play the game. That's why I'm making such a stint of this.

Any game chance curtails some possibilities and enables others, that's the point.

Games are sets of rules which you follow in order to have fun. Angband is just a program which makes it easy for you to follow them. I am not curtailing how people play the game; I am changing the game. This changes the possibilities of action when you follow the rules. You can do just as many kinds of things post-restore change as you could before; they're just different things, there are different playoffs, and different tactics. I prefer the new set of possibilities, and because I'm the person the community misguidedly accepted as maintainer, what I say goes, mostly.

However, if it doesn't go with you, that's fine. There's nothing objective about which game is "better" or "worse"; they're just different games. If you prefer an older version, you can still play it. In no sense am I curtailing your freedom–in fact, I am giving you more possibilities, because there is now a game where you can play without restore potions when before there wasn't. So, please don't dress up your dislike of a game change as anti-authoritarianism. (If for no other reason than that you'll get multi-paragraph replies boring you to death on philosophy of game design.)

In the past few revisions, I've seen revisions in trying to curtail how powerful mages are/were.

Yup. They were widely considered to be unbalanced when they had invulnerability.

[quote]The auto-roller was disabled: I suppose we had auto-rolling scummers. Guilty, I guess.

Auto-rolling was disabled because point-based was changed so that you could get equally good outcomes without spending ages pretending that you were doing something randomly.

Then the missile shots were so powerful, those had to be reigned in.

Again, balance.

Now, we have mobs whose attacks cannot be defended - brain smashing, the silly time attack, and mana attacks.

These aren't "the last few revisions"...

Just for fun, I put the code back in so Mages had all the spells again, in all books. CLW, Detect objects, Heroism, Berserk Str, Enchant everything. You know, those spells do not ruin the game. With the exception of CLW not being a true Mage spell to begin with, none of those spells ought to ever have been removed from the mage's playbook. Why were those spells taken out? Oh, probably someone perceiving someone else was "scumming" again. Heroism/Berserk - I bet those were taken away because mages were whacking away like warriors too much, and the warrior players got jealous.

Differential access to spells is a way of differentiating between classes. If you don't agree that classes should be different (and their difference be enforced by means of rules affecting certain classes that make them play differently), then you're playing the wrong game–you might prefer Sangband.

In fact, I would dare say the "town-scummers" have won.

If they declared war then I certainly wasn't paying attention.

You will not solve human behavior through policy change - that's a misguided concept spread by liberal thinking socialists.

Oh, bugger off and go design TeaPartyBand. If you give a rat two mazes, A and B, and they're different mazes, the rat will behave differently in either.

[Spacebux]

I don't think you read my post very carefully. Let's go over it again.

1) Most players feel obliged to play the best they can, which includes not returning to the dungeon if stats are drained.
2) Stat restore potions are available, unreliably, in the alchemist's store.
3) You can refresh the stores by townscumming
4) Townscumming is boring.
5) Therefore, most players feel obligated to bore themselves when stats are drained.
6) Therefore, removing the incentive to townscum (without neutering the concept of stat drain) is a net win as most players will be more entertained.

Yes, I did read your post correctly, but I do not concur with the logic--feeling obligated to bore oneself when stats are drained. I get bored taking out pack after pack after pack of witless hounds and 'v' storms.. and angels for that matter. Nothing about my post is an attempt to show disrespect towards the developers: I think they are doing a terrific job, actually. My gripe is with the reasoning for the change.

I'm happy we can have this discussion: helps me understand why you are attempting to modify the game... albeit I do not agree with the sentiments.


I can fully appreciate the difficulty of modifying or enhancing the game without tipping the balance one way or the other. I object, however, to attempts to modify game play style. If everyone is bored trying to restore stats, why not just give everyone 18/*** permanently from the get-go? Absurd, right? The annoyance one gets from having stats drained is part of the game - and so is learning how best to avoid getting dinged!

1) Most players feel obliged to play the best they can, which includes not returning to the dungeon if stats are drained.

That really depends on the player; and, I have an issue with the term "most" in that statement. Some of us have learned how to cope with stat drains, even overcome them, whilest in the deep.

3) You can refresh the stores by townscumming
4) Townscumming is boring.

You can also refresh stores by buying out the entire inventory.

Yes, if town-scumming is boring, don't do it! Easy. Get back in the deep and go find the remedy down there.

There was a big discussion awhile back about who should get which spells and whether spells should be removed/added/etc. One of the big goals is to increase the differentiation between the arcane and holy casters, and between different subtypes of the arcane casters. Rogues get Detect Objects; mages and rangers have to wait for Detect Enchantments which still isn't as good. Only rangers get CLW. And so on. I fully expect more spells to be removed in the future. You don't want each class to play broadly similarly, after all.

Could not agree with you more! Except with the removal of more spells from the mage class.

[Napsterbater]

Oh, bugger off and go design TeaPartyBand.

That sounds like a great idea!

You have found the Maul of *Shock and Awe*
You hit Glenn Beck, Spawn of the Pit
Glenn Beck, Spawn of the Pit hits you with Mind Blasting
Your stats are scrambled!
You feel stupider.
You feel less wise.
You die. -more-

[Derakon]

I'm making statements of fact about how most players play, and yes, "most" is the right word to use here because I'm basing these statements on my observations of other players*. Of course you aren't including in that sample, but I didn't use the word "all"; I used "most". Greater than half, but not 100%, and that matches what I've seen here. If you have evidence to indicate that most players would dive into the dungeon with drained stats rather than townscum for restoratives, I'd like to see it because it goes against my personal observations.

As for respect, I got a definite "You're doing it wrong" vibe from your posts. I suppose I should have addressed your tone rather than your attitude, since tone is what comes through when posts are written. I apologize for implying that you didn't respect the developers.

* Okay granted I can only talk meaningfully about players who post here (and players who post to the ladder, which I occasionally check out) but I don't see a reason why that particular subsample should behave differently from the total population of Angband players in this particular respect. It's not like you need access to the community to figure out how to townscum. I remember townscumming the Black Market for mithril armor back when I was a tyke with no Internet access.

[Netbrian]

Speaking of Rod of Restoration, has the recharge time for this item been examined? I found one in 3.1.2, but it took an absolutely absurd length of time to recharge. It was effectively a glorified mushroom of vigor.

[Spacebux]

That sounds like a great idea!

You have found the Maul of *Shock and Awe*
You hit Glenn Beck, Spawn of the Pit
Glenn Beck, Spawn of the Pit hits you with Mind Blasting

Don't get me started on Obama/Pelosi/Reid... the last thing you want me doing is ranting about *Hope and Change*...

[Spacebux]

* Okay granted I can only talk meaningfully about players who post here (and players who post to the ladder, which I occasionally check out) but I don't see a reason why that particular subsample should behave differently from the total population of Angband players in this particular respect. It's not like you need access to the community to figure out how to townscum. I remember townscumming the Black Market for mithril armor back when I was a tyke with no Internet access.

Obviously, I hit a sore spot among most of the readers and posters here.
I bet my fan club is huge.

Takkaria seems quite incensed.

Please note: I'm not trying to suggest this game is junk. If I thought that, I'd be posting elsewhere. Indeed, I have a whole list of ideas for the developers to ponder.

[Derakon]

Just be aware that many of the ideas you suggest may have been covered already in extensive conversations that you unfortunately weren't present for. Level feelings, spell distributions, stat drains, resistances, off-weapon combat boosts, identification, traps, and so on and so forth have all been covered in great detail on these forums. Sadly the conversations got a bit heated sometimes. You may be poking at coals without realizing it.

(Also, let's please keep politics off these forums. We really don't need that.)

[Napsterbater]

(Also, let's please keep politics off these forums. We really don't need that.)

He started it!

[Rizwan]

... I'm interested in what I consider a more interesting game, with more varied mechanics ...

Then why not have both possibilities available. Instead of reducing and or replacing why not add and let the player choose which option they want to follow? So you could have stat restore potions in town as before and also stat restore on level up. You could have selling and buying in shops and also increased gold drops. This way players can choose what they want to do. I think the game is all about choice and if there are more choices then the enjoyment factor is increased, right?

[Spacebux]

Then why not have both possibilities available. ... I think the game is all about choice and if there are more choices then the enjoyment factor is increased, right?

Bravo! Bravo!

[Taha]

Refer to the "making the game harder" thread, and the (many) TMJ threads -this would work against both.

Also, takk won't add it as an option.
________
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[Rizwan]

Refer to the "making the game harder" thread, and the (many) TMJ threads -this would work against both.

Also, takk won't add it as an option.

You know when I wrote the word option I knew Takk wasn't going to like it
Apart from that though again its a choice, harder for those that want it that way and otherwise for the others and it wont increase the TMJ problem in the dungeon itself.