New dev version

[Magnate]

Is a shift to fuzzy ESP also on the agenda? That would be awesome.

Yes, it is (#1015 and #1408). But it's *much* more work, so don't hold your breath.

[fph]

I also see that the number of stat points to spend with the point-based "roller" has been recently lowered from 24 to 20 --- is this a recent decision? Surely it makes the early game more challenging: less blows, mana and weight allowance for everyone.

(this is not a complaint --- I was just wondering if I have missed a thread mentioning it recently on the forum...)

[Derakon]

I don't think the decision was recent; there was discussion about it awhile back and people generally thought it was a good idea. The implementation certainly is recent though.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

How about making manually rolled characters better? In FayAngband they always have the maximum amount of points in stats and it seems to work really well.

[Derakon]

Ehh. Either everyone rolls a few million characters with the autoroller, or (if there is no autoroller) they sit there manually rerolling until they get close to what they want. Either way just seems to me to be rewarding tedium.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Ehh. Either everyone rolls a few million characters with the autoroller, or (if there is no autoroller) they sit there manually rerolling until they get close to what they want. Either way just seems to me to be rewarding tedium.

I don't think manually rolled characters should be better than autorolled or point-based characters, just equal to them. Some people just like randomness and the game shouldn't penalize them too much for it.

[Derakon]

Sure, equal's fine. Making manually-rolled characters better is what I was objecting to.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Of course manual rolling would be much more fun if you rolled your stats first, and then chose your class based on the scores. That was the Moria way and I have no idea why it was changed.

[ekolis]

Probably because of lots of "dammit, not low INT again - how many times do I have to reroll, I wanna play a mage!"

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Probably because of lots of "dammit, not low INT again - how many times do I have to reroll, I wanna play a mage!"

The order of rolling and choosing the class doesn't affect this at all. Except that you could get good warrior stats when you are trying to roll a mage, and then decide change your plans.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

The current order is clearly better for autoroller and point-based. But for manual rolling, switching back to the Moria method would be good.

Imagine that you could roll a random character and would always get the maximum total number of points (the same maximum that autoroller and point-based have). After that you would choose a class that suited the scores. Almost every randomly rolled character would suddenly be competitive!

[Derakon]

I would wager that the vast majority of players choose a class first, then a race, then the stats for that combination. Given that, the fact that we ask players to decide race before class is most likely wrong; asking them to decide stats before either would be particularly confusing because they both modify stats.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

I would wager that the vast majority of players choose a class first, then a race, then the stats for that combination. Given that, the fact that we ask players to decide race before class is most likely wrong; asking them to decide stats before either would be particularly confusing because they both modify stats.

What if you could choose all three in whatever order you wanted?

Let's say we keep the present order of doing things. But after rolling your stats manually you could press Esc to select your race and class again, just like you can now. But you would not lose the stats you had already rolled! Instead, you could keep the original stats and choose a more suitable profession and race for them.

[Derakon]

I'm not seeing the value-add there, to be honest. What does that gain us besides making the birth interface more complicated?

[Mikko Lehtinen]

I'm not seeing the value-add there, to be honest. What does that gain us besides making the birth interface more complicated?

Well, it only adds value to manual rollers. At the moment manual rolling is very frustrating because you have to try rolling high stats that are suitable for the character you chose. The odds for a good character would be about three times better if the order changed.

Angband is a game where all warriors or mages want almost the same stats in the beginning. There's no point in playing a high-INT warrior. For the manual roller to make any sense in Angband, you will need to be able to select the class after rolling. If that's not the case, you could as well remove the manual roller from the game.

What I propose wouldn't necessarily change the birth interface at all. All we would need to do is to save the last rolled stats (if rolling manually), and begin rolling from that after the player changes his choices.

I like rolling stats first because that is the way characters were done in Moria and in most old-school roleplaying games, both computerized and tabletop. It seems somehow "natural" to me, and both autoroller and point-based feel a bit like cheating. And they both require you to know exactly what stats you want before rolling, which removes the fun surprise element in character creation.