Future of Angband development

[Shockbolt]

The whole point of stat drain was that it was genuinely dangerous to the player (a mage with drained INT wasn't nearly as powerful), so the player was expected to prevent their stats from being drained if they wanted to live. IMHO it is much more fun for stat draining to be dangerous and take on the responsibility to not have my stats drained in the first place. And you had to use slots in the home and in your inventory/equipment to make sure your key stats couldn't be drained or you had something to restore them.

I guess in one person's viewpoint, it is strategy. In another person's viewpoint, it is tedium.

I totally agree with the above, experience/life force and stats should be affected by npc/trap drain effects, forcing the player to be prepared with a stock of potions to restore any drained stats or drained experience. Where's the fun in playing if you can only get killed?

[Malak Darkhunter]

Restoration potions were never a significant drain on the player's gold. If you want him to really have to ration his money, then charge more for C*W potions. And I don't know about you, but I find far more tension in modern stat drain, since I can't just go back to town and then townscum for a few thousand turns to get my stats restored. Of course in the early game the drained stats go away pretty quickly, but what about when the next level is several hundred thousand experience points away?

Meh. Play randarts sometime, go the entire game without once finding a usable source of protection from confusion. The game's eminently winnable without it (and without blindness protection too).

Warriors are at a disadvantage, sure, but not IMO due to a healing potion shortage; more due to lack of versatility compared to the spellcasters. If you're careful with your use of healing potions you ought to be able to win with a warrior.

At deeper levels, restoring is not much of an issue, rods of restoration start to drop and the fear is overwith, along with items that hold life, and weapons and artifacts with sustains.

I've played randarts a few times, I like the idea behind it, it's more fun IMO but at the same time you don't always get what you expect from a standart game, so I would rather play without artifacts at all. Constant forms of confusion and chugging potions is aggravating to me, it's not dangerous really either after you carry around about 20 potions of ccw, you end up just healing yourself basicaly, and confusion is gone.

I certainly agree that warriors arent versitile enough, or balanced, in the first 25 levels of the game the kick everybodys but in no time, i can dive from level 10 to level 25 and clear every level, before going back to town, or it gets dangerous. On the other hand from about level 30 onwards they are sitting ducks, CCW potions start becoming less useful means of healing, warrior almost has to play very stealthy.

[Shockbolt]

I've played randarts a few times, I like the idea behind it, it's more fun IMO but at the same time you don't always get what you expect from a standart game, so I would rather play without artifacts at all.

The only fun that comes with finding artifacts is being able to equip/use items associated with Middle-earth, for example Glamdring or Phial of Galadriel, unique items.

[Therem Harth]

Strongly disagree. I like randarts better - they're complete unknowns, and discovering their abilities is fun.

That said, some of the new ego items in v4 could almost be considered randarts.

[Shockbolt]

Strongly disagree. I like randarts better - they're complete unknowns, and discovering their abilities is fun.

That said, some of the new ego items in v4 could almost be considered randarts.

Then we have opposite opinions of what an artifact is or should be. To me it's a special (one of a kind) item that in most cases come with an unique name and/or has a legend tied to it. A mighty crossbow of might of the bear (3d8) (+10,+10) is no artifact in my eyes, simply "just" a powerful item.

[buzzkill]

I find far more tension in modern stat drain, since I can't just go back to town and then townscum for a few thousand turns to get my stats restored. Of course in the early game the drained stats go away pretty quickly, but what about when the next level is several hundred thousand experience points away?

Many players, mostly newbs, never reach the point where level-ups are few and far between. They die long before that. The change to level-up based stat restoration makes stat drain almost entirely irrelevant to this class of players (which I include myself in, which I'll also go out on a limb and call the majority), and for the first half of the game for anyone.

The stat-restoration process was never the problem, town-scumming was the problem, that and the over arching PoV that the player shouldn't have to deal with any genuine hardship, such as prolonged stat-drain, because such things are "tedious". There is something to be said for tedium. It give you something to (try to) avoid. Ditto that philosophy for ID-by-use and sticky curses.

I'd support a return to the stat-restoration potions, but in lieu of that, how about tweaking the current system so that is doesn't guarantee restoration. Maybe a % chance based on CL, or just restore 1 point of one drained stat upon level-up? Just throwing it out there.

[Derakon]

I'd support a return to the stat-restoration potions, but in lieu of that, how about tweaking the current system so that is doesn't guarantee restoration. Maybe a % chance based on CL, or just restore 1 point of one drained stat upon level-up? Just throwing it out there.

How about if leveling up restored each stat by 1 point? I'd rather not have chance-based things happen when you level up, because it creates the potential for leveling to be disappointing (because you didn't get what you wanted).

At deeper levels, restoring is not much of an issue, rods of restoration start to drop and the fear is overwith, along with items that hold life, and weapons and artifacts with sustains.

I can't remember the last time I saw a rod of restoration. It's one of the most rare rods in the game -- most games you won't find it unless you spend a long, long time in the dungeon (e.g. because you're trying to find and kill every unique).

Maybe sustains should be harder to get?

[Malak Darkhunter]

How about if leveling up restored each stat by 1 point? I'd rather not have chance-based things happen when you level up, because it creates the potential for leveling to be disappointing (because you didn't get what you wanted).

I can't remember the last time I saw a rod of restoration. It's one of the most rare rods in the game -- most games you won't find it unless you spend a long, long time in the dungeon (e.g. because you're trying to find and kill every unique).

Maybe sustains should be harder to get?

Rings of bodykeeping, soulkeeping, and amulets of sustenance make it 2 easy to ignore stat draining.

[Derakon]

Rings of bodykeeping, soulkeeping, and amulets of sustenance make it 2 easy to ignore stat draining.

At the cost of losing the use of those slots for other things. Ring slots are way too valuable IMO to dedicate to preventing stat drain, and Sustenance starts showing up well after the amulet slot is doing similarly valuable things for you.

[Timo Pietilä]

At the cost of losing the use of those slots for other things. Ring slots are way too valuable IMO to dedicate to preventing stat drain

Use swaps. It becomes easy when you have space in inventory for swap rings.

[myshkin]

Then we have opposite opinions of what an artifact is or should be. To me it's a special (one of a kind) item that in most cases come with an unique name and/or has a legend tied to it. A mighty crossbow of might of the bear (3d8) (+10,+10) is no artifact in my eyes, simply "just" a powerful item.

How would you feel about a randart regime in which the most powerful swords are named Ringil and Anduril, the most powerful axes Eonwe and Durin, and so forth? Generating flavor text to match both the name and the random attributes would be challenging and possibly infeasible, I'll grant.

[RogerN]

Re: searching/traps
I've played several RPGs in which traps made a positive contribution to my enjoyment of the game. The thing these games had in common is that they didn't have permadeath

The viability of traps as a gameplay mechanic comes down to this question:
Is it OK to permanently kill a character who is otherwise healthy for walking into an invisible trap? The current system says yes, and therefore all characters without perfect searching skill must zap or cast Detect Traps every 100 turns or risk instant death.

The searching mechanic feels broken because anything less than 100% detection is too risky for long term survival. LOS searching might help, but I think characters would still feel obligated to use magical detection for safety.

Here's my spur-of-the-moment solution... Passive searching should reveal traps 100% of the time in adjacent squares. Disarmament should be tricky. Certain status effects (e.g. Fear) prevent 100% adjacent detection, so that when the player encounters monsters in conjunction with traps then the situation becomes more dangerous. Traps might need to be more deadly on average in order to stay interesting.

[buzzkill]

Here's my spur-of-the-moment solution... Passive searching should reveal traps 100% of the time in adjacent squares. Disarmament should be tricky. Certain status effects (e.g. Fear) prevent 100% adjacent detection, so that when the player encounters monsters in conjunction with traps then the situation becomes more dangerous. Traps might need to be more deadly on average in order to stay interesting.

This is very good solution for game play (providing we then make most traps genuinely dangerous and/or deadly), but I don't care for it thematically. 100% passive trap detection should be an ability that only a select few race/class combos (stat/level dependent) can achieve.

100% point-blank detection with active searching is another story. Assuming the character is taking fully 50% of his time and devoting it to not falling into a pit or stepping on a rune, then I think that most any character would notice a trap, unless they're blind or otherwise impaired. Then, as you said, disarmament is the tricky bit.

[bio_hazard]

This is very good solution for game play (providing we then make most traps genuinely dangerous and/or deadly), but I don't care for it thematically. 100% passive trap detection should be an ability that only a select few race/class combos (stat/level dependent) can achieve.

100% point-blank detection with active searching is another story. Assuming the character is taking fully 50% of his time and devoting it to not falling into a pit or stepping on a rune, then I think that most any character would notice a trap, unless they're blind or otherwise impaired. Then, as you said, disarmament is the tricky bit.

I like this suggestion better. Make active searching effective but trade-off heavily against other things (speed, to hit, AC, blows/round, spell failure).

Either that, or make some traps unavoidable, but DON'T make them deadly (except for low level characters). More nuisance traps that destroy backpack items, curse equipment, stun, trapdoors, teleport, summon, alarm, confuse, poison, prevent ESP, ...)

I guess a question would be: would you be more upset because you died by accidentally stepping on a deadly trap that you know is there by hitting the wrong key, or because you forgot to turn searching on/off and didn't detect a deadly trap?

[Derakon]

Anything that doesn't give 100% trap detection is a failed concept, because it implies that it is acceptable for the player to be randomly attacked with no possibility of preventing it. That's why hidden traps are such a terrible idea. Sure it's realistic for them to be hard to discover. But it doesn't work gameplay-wise.

Even with the current traps, which are rarely deadly (the vast majority amounting to "take a trivial amount of damage"), players refuse to explore an area before making certain they know where all the traps are. Getting hit by traps you don't know are there isn't fun. You think that making it impossible (or impossibly tedious) to reliably detect traps will somehow make them fun?

Passive 100% trap detection when adjacent to them works reasonably well -- that's what Dungeon of Dredmor does. You can be surprised by a trap while in the middle of a fight, but at least you're given a choice of how to deal with it, instead of just being randomly afflicted by the trap's effects.

tl;dr traps need to be more than a "play in a tedious fashion or accept being randomly dicked over" mechanic.