Future Angband

[Nick]

Stir of the day: Angband needs a practice/tutorial mode, with explanations of what's happening and relaxation of permadeath.

[thapper]

I was thinking last night that we should actually develop a third keyset - cutdown keyset? - which

1. Is not based on vi movement keys,
2. Does not require a keypad and
3. Is compatible with a reduced set of commands.

...

Attempt 3:

i  o  p

k  l  ;

m  ,  .

seems to be universally good for qwerty keyboards.

Even the third version falls short of universal conformity, my keyboard (Swedish) looks like

i o p
k l [B]ö[/B]
m , .

and I have the ";" as "shift+," so that would make moving right awkward...

[Derakon]

There's no way that we're going to be able to make a keyset that puts movement on the center island and works for all layouts. It's simply not possible. About the best we can do is make it easy to make complete rebindings of the commands list and then include a long list of them (presumably user-generated) with the game so you can choose the right "roguelike commands" list for your personal keyboard.

[half]

In writing Sil, Scatha and I spent a while thinking about interface and managed to seriously reduce the number of commands, very much along the lines suggested by Derakon. Here is the complete key command set. Notice that the commands on the final page are all unnecessary for new players.









I should also mention that Sil actually contains 4 different keysets. While the primary focus is the 'Sil' keyset, there is also an 'Angband-like' keyset which almost completely preserves the Angband keys, and an 'hjkl movement' keyset, and a keyset which is a combination of Angband-like keys and hjkl movement. Note that if you select the Angband-like keyset and view this help screen, it shows the Angband-like keys instead.

[ekolis]

Why is 123 on the top of the movement keys? On my keyboard, 123 is on the bottom...

[buzzkill]

You're holding it upside down.

[Scatha]

Thanks, ekolis, that's a good catch! This is a mistake with the help screen, as 1,2,3 do move down and 7,8,9 move up.

[half]

That is a pretty amusing bug actually (just with the help screen). Can I claim that I was designing it for play on phones? The non-smart kind?

[bio_hazard]

Stir of the day: Angband needs a practice/tutorial mode, with explanations of what's happening and relaxation of permadeath.

Nobody stirred, but I think this is a great idea. Besides tutorial-specific content (messages), set some birth/display/gameplay

-turn on full monster knowledge
-turn on all HP warnings (color, messages)
-turn on Center Char
-turn on purple uniques
-(probably a bunch of others)

I don't know about cheat death- I think it would be too hard to learn good habits with that on. If there were a way to implement a Blood of Life type effect where you get 1 extra life, that would be helpful to get past some noob mistakes while still forcing some smart play.

I think in the birth screen could start with "Tutorial mode (y/n)"
If you answer "N", then "Never ask again? Y/N"

Tutorial mode could also start with a restricted set of races/classes.

One more thought- maybe stock a small number of helpful items in the home. CCW, ?Identify, maybe a lantern and oil, a low-level attack wand?

[Magnate]

The moment has somewhat passed, but it might still be worth reminding Nick of the comprehensive database of aspirations for the game at trac.rephial.org. Ticket number 14 is particularly interesting. Kudos to Sil for actually implementing it.

[ekolis]

-turn on full monster knowledge

I don't think that one would be a good idea; that's a cheat option and encouraging new players to cheat is probably not very smart

[bio_hazard]

I don't think that one would be a good idea; that's a cheat option and encouraging new players to cheat is probably not very smart

I see your concern, but I think this would be entirely appropriate for a tutorial mode. I think this would actually build good habits (i.e. checking monster knowledge). I'd much prefer this type of modification in a tutorial rather than some sort of easy mode where the player is more powerful.

If full monster knowledge is too much, perhaps start a tutorial char with partial knowledge of all the monsters native to the first few (20?) DL's.

[Nomad]

I don't know about cheat death- I think it would be too hard to learn good habits with that on. If there were a way to implement a Blood of Life type effect where you get 1 extra life, that would be helpful to get past some noob mistakes while still forcing some smart play.

If full monster knowledge is too much, perhaps start a tutorial char with partial knowledge of all the monsters native to the first few (20?) DL's.

Maybe the tutorial mode could operate over a fixed 'zone', e.g. the first 10-20 levels? So the player would have full monster knowledge for creatures native to those levels, and 'cheat death' stays in effect until they reach the end of the tutorial zone. There could be a warning message when you're about to take the stairs down that you're leaving tutorial mode and from now on there are unknown monsters and death is for real.

And rather than the full "cheaters aren't recorded in the high scores table" penalty, you could just suspend scoring until the player left the tutorial zone, so they'd only start gaining points once they were beyond that depth.

[Derakon]

A tutorial really needs to be nonrandom and have a fixed set of tasks the player is guided through. So they start out in an empty room, learn how to move, go over to a door, open it, enter a new room with a small kobold, look at it, kill in in melee, etc. Not only is the dungeon nonrandom, so is the character -- make them a level 10 rogue or something, so they can fight, cast spells, and use ranged attacks all fairly well (you could do a ranger, but IMO rogues are better learner characters since they're sturdier).

At that point, you can turn on cheat death if you want to, but it shouldn't be necessary so long as the player follows instructions. If this were a modern game we could have an achievement for getting killed in the tutorial.

[Nick]

The moment has somewhat passed, but it might still be worth reminding Nick of the comprehensive database of aspirations for the game at trac.rephial.org.

Yeah, I actually really need to shut up and code.