Late-game

[archolewa]

P.P.S. My attempt at humor seems to have escaped those with heated fingers whapping away at the keyboard.

Insulting people you are trying to have a discussion with isn't funny. And honestly, the only person on this thread whose posts have come across as heated are yours.

Okay---let's tackle this topic because it is too important for it to be mis-labeled as a "newb trap". Newb Traps are hardly a thing. That's a weak-minded useless catch-all phrase to simply avoid anything one does not like. ---> typical YesMen straw man tactic. Not working this time, Flask of Oil right back at ya, bud.

A newb trap is fundamentally a false choice. It *looks* like a choice to someone who isn't experienced in the game, but anyone with any sort of experience understands that the choice is so bad, that it's not in fact a choice at all. Using your limited spell points to learn Light Area is an example of a newb trap. It *looks* like a choice to someone who isn't familiar with the game, but anybody who knows that Rods of Illumination exist, and that Mana Storm exists and you will need a lot of spell points to learn it, understand that it isn't really. Unless the game gives you a surplus of spell points (in which case spell points are just needless complexity), wasting one on Light Area is *so bad* that it's not even really a choice.

It doesn't matter how often you insult those of us who use the term, newb traps are absolutely a thing, and a perfectly valid way of assessing whether an idea would improve or degrade a game.

The YesMen are seething. They cannot comprehend that is is precisely a 1:1 correlation with equipment and gear finds going down the levels. You are not guaranteed to find another Scroll of Remove Hunger for some time. Do you keep Rations as well as Dried Fruit or do you sacrifice your slots for a few more scrolls of Phase Door? These are choices the newb player is already dealing with, @ewert. But, you seem to not want to call that a newb trap---inconvenient, I know.

Surely you understand the difference between rations that you can drop at anytime, and spells you are stuck with forever? One mistake can be corrected in the current playthrough. The other cannot.

One thing I like about Angband is that the only mistake a player can make that can't be corrected is the one that gets you killed, and the death happens very quickly after the mistake.

Edit: Well, ok I guess not bringing food could get you slowly killed. Though the game communicates the hunger mechanic blatantly enough, it's an intuitive enough mechanic, and food generates frequently enough that in practice it will rarely if ever get someone killed. But maybe that's an argument in favor of removing hunger.

There are other roguelikes where you can make longterm uncorrectable mistakes that don't immediately get you killed (Sil and DCSS come to mind) and I don't like them as much. I'm sure you can understand why I wouldn't be a fan of changes that bring into Angband elements that I don't like from other games.

As far as your actual proposed design, it's fine as far as it goes. A pretty significant bump in complexity, but it doesn't seem that much worse than what we have now with the resistance shuffle minigame. It significantly increases inventory pressure (either you have to more frequently return to town to build binders, or carry around some empty/partially full binders), and would probably require the item distribution to be rejiggered but neither of those are inherently bad things.

One thing that could introduce a *lot* of tedium is having to build multiple copies of binders, and rebuilding binders that were destroyed or stolen. That sounds unfun to me unless a lot of work was put into designing a UI that makes it easy to create multiple copies of the same binder assuming you had all the spell scrolls.

[AceRimmer]

As far as your actual proposed design, it's fine as far as it goes. A pretty significant bump in complexity, but it doesn't seem that much worse than what we have now with the resistance shuffle minigame. It significantly increases inventory pressure (either you have to more frequently return to town to build binders, or carry around some empty/partially full binders), and would probably require the item distribution to be rejiggered but neither of those are inherently bad things.

A lot of good points in your post, archolewa, but I think you are missing on this one:

The spell binders would be *great* for inventory pressure -- indeed, I think it's one of their two best selling points. Rather than needing to carry around the pre-programmed spell books complete with the mix of useful and unused spells, you can create your own spell book with only the spells that you rely on. It would be much more compact.

[The other selling point is introducing an element of choice into spell acquisition rather than the same old ladder of progression].

[archolewa]

The spell binders would be *great* for inventory pressure -- indeed, I think it's one of their two best selling points. Rather than needing to carry around the pre-programmed spell books complete with the mix of useful and unused spells, you can create your own spell book with only the spells that you rely on. It would be much more compact.

You're not wrong here. I think it would probably end up being mostly a mixed-bag: more inventory pressure while you're building the binders, less once you have the binders where you want them.

I play without the town, and I'm looking at this proposal largely through that lens. This proposal would *massively* increase inventory pressure in the midgame when you don't have reliable access to binders. Not necessarily a bad thing. I find managing my inventory and deciding what to carry and what to drop to be one of the more compelling parts of Angband. But definitely something to take into consideration. After all, too much or too little inventory pressure can degrade the game.

[NCountr]

Your eyes seem less sensitive to YesMen comments.

AceRimmer gets it. Pretty sure Sky and Selkie get it as well.

In the end, novice players will tend to over commit to too many spells not really needed. As iterations stack up, players will better understand what spells coincide with their individual play styles.

--------------------------

There are other roguelikes where you can make longterm uncorrectable mistakes that don't immediately get you killed (Sil and DCSS come to mind) and I don't like them as much. I'm sure you can understand why I wouldn't be a fan of changes that bring into Angband elements that I don't like from other games.

Who said learning or not learning a spell or agility will get one killed? There's no precedent for that statement. I didn't learn Magic Missile. I will die at level 750'.

That's a fallacy. In 3.x, I played some of the dumbest mages imaginable, Half-Trolls. I purposely made choices to not learn certain spells knowing what it would cost me short-term, mid-term, &/or long-term. Only when I got close to Max Stats did I finally learn most of them. I, to this day in 3.x, still do not learn Telep Level and a few other spells that could or would get me into trouble should I finger-fault something on the keyboard. The risk is not worth the reward---I can always find a stair case nearby if I really need it. Same for a lot of Kelek's spells---just were not worth the risk.

As far as your actual proposed design, it's fine as far as it goes. A pretty significant bump in complexity, but it doesn't seem that much worse than what we have now with the resistance shuffle minigame. It significantly increases inventory pressure (either you have to more frequently return to town to build binders, or carry around some empty/partially full binders), and would probably require the item distribution to be rejiggered but neither of those are inherently bad things.

I'm going to go back to 3.x and it's still fairly true for 4.x, but less so.

Mages and all spell-casters get a HUGE amp up in power for each BOOK found.

Once you parcel it out into scrolls, the ramp-up in power for spell casters is lessened. One new major spell, like Rift, would be a game changer in itself, but otherwise, you're only finding these spells piecemeal. Not like, when one finds "Raal's Tome of Destruction", and suddenly you've practically just won the game with that one find with ALL those spells packed in and all practically learnable on the spot. Were it not for Chaos Strike and Banishment spells, I wouldn't even bother carrying Kelek's in 3.x. Mana Storm? Who wants a 16% failure rate at Max Stats, Max level???

Spell-scrolls temper the power increase of players as they proceed through the levels. And as @AceRimmer accurately perceived, intelligent, experienced players will find a way to do more with less.

One thing that could introduce a *lot* of tedium is having to build multiple copies of binders, and rebuilding binders that were destroyed or stolen. That sounds unfun to me unless a lot of work was put into designing a UI that makes it easy to create multiple copies of the same binder assuming you had all the spell scrolls.

No less un-fun than being subjected to an indefensible TIME or Plasma attack. The UI already handles multiple copies of similar items quite well. Kudos to Nick or Ben or whomever did that.

[archolewa]

Who said learning or not learning a spell or agility will get one killed? There's no precedent for that statement. I didn't learn Magic Missile. I will die at level 750'.

This is not an accurate description of what I was trying to communicate. Of course longterm mistakes aren't as precise as that. But just go look at the Sil forums. Those have plenty of examples of people asking questions about how to get through Sil because they keep dying at floor 6 or whatever, and it quickly comes out that they're putting too much experience into talents, and not enough into Melee and Evasion. A long-term mistake that is by no means obvious, but leads to a weak character who will likely die without exceptional tactical play.

That's the sort of thing I'm talking about. A player can't seem to get much past DL50. Is it because they made poor tactical choices (they're raiding too many vaults, or not valuing detection enough) or is it because they made poor strategic choices (they picked Call Light, but because they picked Call Light they don't have enough spell points to take Mana Bolt, so they don't have enough damage to survive at that level). :shrug: Hard to say without talking to experienced veterans.

Now, some people like that kind of mix of longterm strategic problem solving and shortterm tactical problem solving. Which is great! There are Roguelikes for that already. Some of us don't. Some of us prefer roguelikes with a relatively simple strategy, that focus on short-term tactical decisions. Which is also great! But those of us who like the latter are going to push back against any efforts to turn a roguelike more like the latter into something more like the former.

Can your suggestion be made to work, and even create a compelling roguelike? Absolutely. Would I be happy if that roguelike was Angband? No. Nor do I think it would necessarily make Angband better, just different and in a way I wouldn't like.

Now, if mages were able to learn every spell, or were able to forget spells they already know, then I'd have no real problem with binderes. Because then we're back into short-term tactical decisions. Rather than asking "Is this spell worth having *right now* even if means I can't have a spell I'll need later?" you're just asking "What spells do I need *right now*?" And player are free to experiment, shuffle, and tweak their spell list until they have the spells they want without having to navigate a minefield of irreversible build decisions.

[Nick]

---Mechanics of Spell Scrolls---

Store 4 has 3-4 basic scrolls for sale. Maybe 1-3 scroll spells normally found in Books 2 and 3 now. Store 7 could have a couple of more sensational scrolls for an additional price.

Store 6 will have Bindings for sale. A couple of variety -- trade-offs include bulkier, cheap bindings:

• An Ethereal Binding which is light weight, impervious to fire and acid, but only holds 3-4 scrolls. So the trade-off becoming, do I want to sacrifice more precious slot space for security of my spell books?
• a Wooden Binder which could hold 5-6 spell scrolls, yet be susceptible to Fire or Acid. (Never understood why plasma was a thing, but that's another worthless attempt at making mobs more difficult to counter earlier expansion of player power.)
• A Scroll-Sheath of the Elves which would be something found primarily deep in the dungeon where Elvish Shields and Dwarven Armor can be located. Holds 5-8 scrolls, impervious to elements. Medium weight.
• A Gnomish Textbook which only holds a few 3-4 scrolls but resists (not immune) Fire and Acid. Or maybe its not as sturdy and has a potential for pages (scrolls) to fall out? Maybe that could be a curse placed on some binders.

Scrolls should be moveable from binder to binder, should the player come across a more optimal book. Players should have the option to have as many books as they deem necessary, not limited to 5 or 9.

Simpler spells will be easy to find, and numerous. So, you can rather easily come-across and acquire a new one every level or so.

Spell scrolls could operate like normal scrolls, except the player has the option to commit to memory or just read and consume once on-the-spot. So, you find a Scroll of Light, say. You can study and commit that spell to Memory (and place in a binder if one has it), OR, you can read it verbatim and light up the immediate area, destroying the scroll in the process.

The UI will know the difference when a player 'r'eads a scroll for 1-time consumption, or 'm'agically casting / 'p'raying from them. (Perhaps the UI could warn players of such a choice the first few times before not asking further... have to avoid those Newb Traps. Insert_eye_roll) 'G'aining a spell/prayer will tell the UI the player intends to commit the scroll-spell to memory.

Priests coming across mage scrolls or Necro scrolls -- maybe they can read them, for immediate, one-time consumption, but maybe they cannot (depending on how much cross-contamination you want)... certainly they could not comprehend them to commit to memory.

Deeper down, past level 30, is where one begins to find the really interesting stuff. I would not code any spell-scroll to be deeper than the current level 60. The point is not to make them AS difficult to find as Rings of Power or other such Artifact items, though, they should not be commonplace, easy-to-find. Set the rarity to 8 to 10..?

The whole point is to slowly build up a large list of spells and prayers to make those choices more interesting as the game progresses.

My favorite spell I've never coded: Ventriloquism (a spell that comes from the oldest of Dungeon and Dragons books as a level 1 mage spell). A mage casts this to alert mobs to a Player being somewhere else in the dungeon. The higher the level the mage, the more effective the spell becomes (better range, mobs are more likely to respond to it). I.e., I can get those annoying Hounds to go bark off in a different hallway for a while. Ventriloquism should be found from level 0 onward. (And/or be a consumable, 1-time scroll.) Scrolls consumed will be consumed at the level of the caster. Level 1 for warriors or non-class casters. Level whatever otherwise for the same-class.

Scrolls not put in binders are susceptible to standard Fire / Acid attacks and also take up a critical slot space. So, unless you intend to stack up Scrolls of Holy Chant, you're better off placing one of those prayers in memory and into a binder with the rest of one's prayers.

Scrolls may be ripped from the binders. If a scroll is removed from player inventory, the spell will only be cast-able as a spell if the scroll is returned to player inventory (or he/she happens to be standing on it).

The number of spells a player may memorize depends on class, class-level, and Wisdom/Intelligence characteristics. Like now, a player may not unlearn something in favor of another spell later on. These are choices we all learn and adapt to as we play the game. Not a Newb Trap. More eye rolling.

Ideally, I think we're still talking spell-casters having 30-40 spells maximum in the game, with an expanded option set of 60-80 spells knowable (of assorted levels). Your current YesMen group will be happy to know they can still go and learn the current stock of vanilla spells _as_is_. Nothing will change if they want to pursue the same set of spells currently furnished by the 5 Mage books in the game. They'll just be spread out more. Those looking for creativity, though, will relish the new expanded horizons for spell casters (and eventually warrior/rogue classes where new abilities and skills could be learned in the same way ... albeit without binders).

First, note that 4.2 rangers have a Decoy spell, which is similar to Ventriloquism, but the player has to lay it beneath them rather than being able to (essentially) place it from a distance.

Now, the general idea. On the face of it, this looks like a really interesting system. It has the capacity to build a character in a very different way to most Angband variants (gear-based), or things like Sangband and Sil (largely skill-based). I don't know exactly how you manage spell-casting realms - you could do it by having some scrolls only available for some classes, or cost more to learn depending on class, or you could abandon classes altogether. Nice idea, well done

The work to implement this from a starting point of current V would be considerable, but not overwhelming - I'm thinking something of the order of the revamp of classes between 4.1 and 4.2. So not prohibitive, but you'd need to be really sure you wanted to do it.

And here's where we get to my difficulty - I don't really want to do it, and I think it's (currently) a bigger change to the game than most people want. This is an absolutely classic case of something that should be implemented in a (new or existing) variant. Not as a birth option - that scale and complexity of change would make that a coding nightmare that would be handed down for generations.

So in summary, great idea, not for current Angband with the current maintainer (although you might be surprised how close you came to game-design-nerd sniping me ). Code it up yourself, or find someone who will. And good luck, I would definitely be interested in how it went, and I wouldn't be too surprised to see it eventually in Vanilla.

[NCountr]

Code it up yourself, or find someone who will. And good luck, I would definitely be interested in how it went, and I wouldn't be too surprised to see it eventually in Vanilla.

If I attempt to code this, don't be surprised if your toaster isn't working tomorrow morning. You have been warned.

[wobbly]

Ncountr - there is a similar system for some classes in Multiband (multi class angband). It's not identical but close. You could look what was done there.

[ewert]

P.P.S. My attempt at humor seems to have escaped those with heated fingers whapping away at the keyboard.

Okay---let's tackle this topic because it is too important for it to be mis-labeled as a "newb trap". Newb Traps are hardly a thing. That's a weak-minded useless catch-all phrase to simply avoid anything one does not like. ---> typical YesMen straw man tactic. Not working this time, Flask of Oil right back at ya, bud.

And I stopped reading. Have a nice day.

[NCountr]

Project KNT Progress Report

1. D/L compile current 4.2.2 code, get on the same page as Nick.
2. Digest current code structure, much has changed since 3.x.
3. Pare down to just Mage with simple spells. Light Area. Detect Monsters. Etc.
4. Create Binder and Binder mechanics and UI operations. This will be the most difficult step as I don't foresee being able to borrow much from the current quiver / book code sections, but we'll see. Some book code will nicely overlap, but there's no method to insert or rip out pages, as yet. Once we have 'G'ain working properly, ... .
5. Begin expanding list of spell-scrolls and types of binders available.
6. At this point, we can take a breather and celebrate by Killing Nick's Toaster.
7. Bonus step 1: expand number of spell-scrolls beyond Max Knowable Spells.
8. Bonus step 2: Reset scrolls to include parameter for knowable-ness, or, set list in each class to know which scrolls are a.) native / learnable, b.) non-native / partially-learnable, c.) unknowable, but readable, d.) just plain foreign gibberish.

Right now, I'm on Step 3.

[Voovus]

Thanks to everyone for their interesting comments. There has been plenty to think about. Based on the discussion, here are two specific suggestions. These are not meant to represent everything that has been mentioned. And I'm not lobbying for these - I'm trying to figure out whether they might work and might make late-game Angband more fun for more people!

1. Create birth option for increased home space.
Is this at all contraversial?


2. Remove ultra summoners and insta-killers. For example, by banning summoning of critters of the same or higher lever than the summoner and massively nerfing breath and magic attacks.
Identified obstacles:
2a. The player has access to many easy escapes, so normal monsters are simply not dangerous.
2b. Combat in Angband is pretty shallow, and currently the player at least needs to make some serious decisions.
2c. Angband should continue to disincentivize killing everything.
Unidentified obstacles:
{??}

It sounds to me like fiddling with the easy escapes might fix the issue. (2b) does not seem to be a problem at shallower depths, so hopefully will get automatically better, and (2c) is still likely to be true; though I think ideally different @'s would try to avoid different monsters, rather than everyone running away from the same ones (*cough* time hounds *cough*).

Does this sound reasonable, and do people have suggestions how to tweak the escape mechanisms without creating other problems in that case? My impression is that scrolls are fine as they are a limited resource. The problem may be wands/staves/rods or the actual spell effects of teleport self, teleport other and destruction. There are plenty of options: remove these items, remove scrolls of recharging, change both teleportations to trigger after a few turns a la Word of Recall. Yes, there will be subproblems to think about, like what happens to vaults.

[archolewa]

The problem with weakening escapes (especially TO) is that what can be interesting problems of "How do I approach this Big Nasty to line up a TO to get all that nice loot with minimal danger" becomes "Welp, guess Im gonna ignore *that* spot and go slaughter some orcs instead. They *might* drop something nice."

In other words, unless we make some potentially large and non-trivial changes to monsters, weakening escapes risks making our problems worse.

Frogcomposband is I think a good example of what happens when you weaken escapes. Many endgame monsters are resistant or outright immune to teleportation, and I find Frogs endgame to be a slog. Way worse than anything Ive seen in Angband. Weak TO means you're fighting way more (and fighting takes longer than teleporting), and skipping past the interesting stuff (like vaults) way too often because they're just not worth the risk.

Im not necessarily opposed to weakening escapes, bit I feel like the endgame is very much balanced around them, and will require a pretty massive overhaul of endgame monsters.

[Nick]

1. Create birth option for increased home space.
Is this at all contraversial?

You can do this by editing the inven-max entry in constants.txt to something bigger than 24.

[ewert]

1. Create birth option for increased home space.
Is this at all contraversial?

As mentioned, a quick file edit does this. This was literally one of the first things I ever did for myself coding Angband. I hate inventory juggling in town, just bogs me down and slows me for stuff I don't enjoy. At least now you don't have to go into code to change it and can do it just with a file-edit.

2. Remove ultra summoners and insta-killers. For example, by banning summoning of critters of the same or higher lever than the summoner and massively nerfing breath and magic attacks.

First part, the summoners, is one thing I am looking at myself. My initial feels have been:
avoid summon cascades of highest level mobs (demons not summoning other demons who can summon other demons, or wyrms)
allow unique summoners to bypass above limitation (trains you for Sauron/Morgoth)

Breaths/spells:
I think the balance of spells as danger is ok, teaches you LoS stuff
however, breaths feel to me they force too much plinking from distance
So I am thinking, a rebalance of lowering the max dmg of breaths but increasing relative strength in range
(in essence, halve the strength, but halve the decrease per range as well)

Spells I feel are okay. You can survive two at high levels. More than two, you messed up bad, and I am okay with me dying.

My impression is that scrolls are fine as they are a limited resource. The problem may be wands/staves/rods or the actual spell effects of teleport self, teleport other and destruction. There are plenty of options: remove these items, remove scrolls of recharging, change both teleportations to trigger after a few turns a la Word of Recall. Yes, there will be subproblems to think about, like what happens to vaults.

Very good talking point.

Scrolls are also foolproof if you have blind/confusion resist, and as such are actually the best ones already. As far as resources go, I don't think we want to go that route, farming for consumables for the end-fights is a thing that in the past has been tweaked many times, making it too slow never helped.

Delay for the best escapes sounds perfect actually. Total escapes a bit longer, best avoids medium, and dangerous escapes least. So WoR is longest delay, teleport other could have a couple base speed turns, teleport self minimal, and phase still instant.

Very interesting idea.

edit: Further thought on the delays. If combined with putting vault gear loot into mobs, then *Destruction being still instant will deny you the loot and as such ... I think this could work.

PS. I disagree with making people avoid fighting even more than before as a plan for end-game balance as some have mentioned.

[Huqhox]

2. Remove ultra summoners and insta-killers. For example, by banning summoning of critters of the same or higher lever than the summoner and massively nerfing breath and magic attacks.
Identified obstacles:

We had a discussion a while ago about having different kinds of summon monster; nothing ever came of it but it might help to address this issue.

The current thinking around summon monster is that a mob will summon one or more *powerful* mobs in order to defend themselves, so that is why you get the summon cascades you are describing. And although that makes sense for some of the highest level monsters (especially uniques) for others it makes less sense.

The idea was to have (at least) 3 different summons

* Summon Monster/Monsters as it is now, used by powerful spellcasters to summon powerful monsters
* Summon Minion(s), used by lower powered monsters. This would summon monsters of a lower level than the caster, a sort of 'call to arms'
* Attract Monster(s) which will tele-to existing monsters on the level