Level feelings

[fizzix]

You should get the monster feeling before the treasure feeling. Perhaps you should get a monster feeling immediately on entering a level, and have to do some more exploration before getting a treasure feeling.

[jens]

Yeah, I agree that the order's not any more intuitive, and less fine division of feelings would definitely help. I guess my main point was that by splitting the feelings into two components they've already been made explicit for those who understand that the two parts of the message refer to danger and treasure; the information is already there, so vaguer wording just means players in the know will be able to read it while newer players won't.

This I can agree on, so do we want to do away with the age old feelings then?

Hmm. Maybe we could split the feelings so you get a danger feeling as soon as you arrive on a level, but don't get the treasure feeling until you've explored for a while? That could work quite well, since it would penalise players for immediately fleeing a dangerous level instead of sticking around.

This idea I like, and I usually find dangerous levels more interesting than the levels with good items... Though I will usually explore for good items of course...

[Therem Harth]

Just IMHO, level feelings should never distinguish between monsters and loot. I think it makes the game more interesting when you don't know... Also, while the idea of a character being able to sense the presence of powerful things strikes me as plausible, the idea that (s)he can distinguish between monsters and items just seems cheesy.

Granted, Angband Is Not Real Life (TM), but I think it would be counterproductive to make level feelings more specific. And also, I just happen to like being completely in the dark about what a level feeling is.

[EpicMan]

I would say just go with the "Special" feeling, and *only* show that for (a) an artifact on the floor, or possibly for a greater vault.

I agree we don't want to hand the player a super-rewarding level every time, but I think boring levels add nothing to a non-ironman game. It's extremely easy to re-create a level if you don't like the one you have, whether by staircases (which is an interesting situation since you have to find one and then survive reaching the staircase), scrolls of deep descent, recall, teleport level, trap doors.

You can easily stair scum for an interesting level, especially when you get plenty of detection spells/items and don't need to rely on feelings and exploration.

Levels in Angband are temporary and disposable, if they are boring they reduce enjoyment.

But this is off-topic. I will start a new thread for discussing how to make levels interesting without necessarily making them more rewarding in terms of items.

[Magnate]

This I can agree on, so do we want to do away with the age old feelings then?

There's already an option for people who want to do that.

This idea I like, and I usually find dangerous levels more interesting than the levels with good items... Though I will usually explore for good items of course...

I like this too - if there are any further changes to level feelings, they should be in this direction. Splitting them up allows them both to be up to 78 chars (much more room for flavour), and holding back the loot feeling is good. At its easiest, this would just be a pair of counters, say 20+d20-M20 for the monster feeling (so it always appears in the first 40 turns, and quicker as you go deeper) and an additional 20+d100 for the loot feeling.

Making the randomness depend on the actual danger/loot values is more difficult but do-able. Personally I'm not sure it would be better than straightforward random numbers.

[bulian]

Can level feelings please be normalized to player speed? In 3.2, with +10 speed you have to make twice as many actions before the level feelings kick in. The expression I have in mind, using Magnate's formula, would be:

(20+d20-M20)*10/EPT, where EPT = energy per turn.

Note the NPP stochastic approach should not have this problem.

[jens]

There's already an option for people who want to do that.

I mean, when playing with level feelings, would it be OK if they are reworded so the old messages are changed as well, i.e. superb, excelent, very good, etc. As it stands today they don't really fit in the pattern, but I left them in for nostalgia.

[Magnate]

Can level feelings please be normalized to player speed? In 3.2, with +10 speed you have to make twice as many actions before the level feelings kick in. The expression I have in mind, using Magnate's formula, would be:

(20+d20-M20)*10/EPT, where EPT = energy per turn.

Note the NPP stochastic approach should not have this problem.

Neither does the 3.3 RC series. At some point, by accident I think, the delay to level feelings went away. Probably my fault, but no idea how I did it without noticing.

[Max Stats]

Neither does the 3.3 RC series. At some point, by accident I think, the delay to level feelings went away. Probably my fault, but no idea how I did it without noticing.

I call it a feature, not a bug. Tying feelings for the current level to how long you spent on the previous level never made any sense to start with. Delaying feelings until you spend time (or turns, or squares explored, or whatever) on the current level does make sense, if you want to stick it to the scummers. But I vote against going back to the old way no matter what.

[bulian]

Tying feelings for the current level to how long you spent on the previous level never made any sense to start with. Delaying feelings until you spend time (or turns, or squares explored, or whatever) on the current level does make sense, i

My previous post was imprecise. I was trying to describe the old behavior where turn count on the previous level did not scale with speed. I would consider this buggy. Whether the level feeling depends on the amount of time on the previous level or amount of time on the current level, the timer should be set to player turns, not game turns. In my opinion at least.

[jens]

I do feel some anti-scum measure needs to be set before 3.3

Magnate, when I fiddled with the feelings the old turn check had been removed, I assumed there was some reason behind it (like variables having moved, been renamed etc. making it harder to implement). So I never tried to put it back.

In 3.2 the code was in: in src/generate.c, generate_cave

[jens]

Hey fizzix, I just reviewed your feelings branch, nice work :-) Two comments (I have just read the code, not actually tested it)


1) Two messages are too long, so they will in some conjunctions require two rows. Both of these are 39 chars, and need to be reduced to 37 to be able to fit.

there may be something worthwhile here.
there may not be much interesting here.


2) Now the two base feelings, for when you have not delayed long enough, will never be printed. These could be cleaned away, and the code modified to suit.

obj: "Looks like any other level."
mon: "You are still uncertain about this place"

[Magnate]

2) Now the two base feelings, for when you have not delayed long enough, will never be printed. These could be cleaned away, and the code modified to suit.

obj: "Looks like any other level."
mon: "You are still uncertain about this place"

?? So what happens if I press ctrl-f before I've got a feeling? Does anything get printed?

[fizzix]

@jens, I'm not worried about the length for the following reason. You will usually only see half the level feeling at a time. The only way you will see both is you ask to repeat the feeling (command ^f) or reopen the game, where you are presented with the level feeling at the start. The fact that these can overflow to two lines does not bother me at all.

That being said, I'm perfectly fine with them being rewritten to be smaller, or incorporating someone else's suggestions.

@magnate: The way it works is that you *always* get a monster feeling on descending. If you ^f before you've explored enough you get just the monster feeling. If you explore around, at some point, you will get an object feeling. At this point you will be presented with the object feeling only. If you ask for a feeling after this point you will get both the level feeling and the object feeling, with the appropriate joining phrase.

Now you can also add a 3rd or 4th feeling as more exploration is done. It's pretty easy to add additional feeling types (pits, vaults, artifacts etc.). These will certainly be more than one line though.

[CJNyfalt]

I'm increasingly of the opinion that level feelings, aside from the "special" feeling, are a misfeature and should simply be done away with. If the game isn't making interesting levels, then the solution isn't to tell the player; the solution is to fix the level generator.

I agree. There is no point of generating levels that are too boring for the players.