Late-game

[ewert]

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

My thoughts are somewhat similar ideas. Basic summon is same type but lower native DL, the minion version. This would limit cascade effect. Uniques of certain late-game caliber would have the summons as is currently.

That summon stuff in level thing actually is a great idea as well.

I think that three-pronged delineation could work nicely.

[Pete Mack]

Summoning as it is now has a 25% chance of bringing orher monsters from the level. Summkn Kin for low level monsters pretty much is summon minions

[ewert]

Summoning as it is now has a 25% chance of bringing orher monsters from the level. Summkn Kin for low level monsters pretty much is summon minions

Which highlights the issue is at late-game, not early game. Summon Kin only breaks down with the 2 hit killers.

[Angdrim]

"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."


I've stopped playing with TO, _ and ? of teleportation, ?teleport level, ?deepdive, etc. Doing without them forces you to play more carefully and think more about your choices. I allow ?phase because it's mostly a tactical thing, rarely useful for genuinely escaping. It's made things more dangerous but more fun. Just a few minutes ago there was a nightcrawler in a vault that I'm not up to fighting. So I lured him out of the vault, walked him around it (absorbing some nether in the process), and then ducked back into the vault to get the stuff before WoR and then doing my best to keep out of LoS until the spell went off. Much more fun than just TO him and getting the goodies. (I also turn on the option that prevents artifacts from re-spawning, so unless you play tag with the nightcrawler you miss out on the loot for good.)

I also like it that it makes stealth _very_ valuable, since there's no easy way to get away from nasties. Playing with escapes I basically ignored the stealth bonuses on items; not anymore.

Destruction is fine. Saves your skin, but you lose everything.

[will_asher]

I've stopped playing with TO, _ and ? of teleportation, ?teleport level, ?deepdive, etc. Doing without them forces you to play more carefully and think more about your choices. I allow ?phase because it's mostly a tactical thing, rarely useful for genuinely escaping. It's made things more dangerous but more fun. ...(I also turn on the option that prevents artifacts from re-spawning, so unless you play tag with the nightcrawler you miss out on the loot for good.)

wow. that sounds like masochist mode to me.

[Nick]

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.

This is not the first time that (roughly) this idea has come up. It would be quite a big change, but (as expressed) seems like it might work. I think it would require a lot of adjustment to hit the right balance, and there's a lot of detail to argue, but I think it's possible.

It seems to me that the big difference in play would be that combat becomes less explosive, and more drawn out. Currently, I would argue most encounters are brief - player quickly kills monster, or player quickly realises they are outclassed and escapes (or fails to ). So individual monster encounters are typically not important in themselves, but rather as obstacles on the way to exploring interesting bits of the level and/or opportunities to get good loot/XP. This can be seen as a disadvantage (gameplay is shallow) or an advantage (the dungeon is so big, you can't spend forever strategising against each monster).

So it looks to me like this will tend to draw the game out - unless, of course the dungeon size is reduced (which is something that can be effectively done by adjusting stair-skip in constants.txt).

I am (on the whole) not personally in favour of changing the game like this, but

• it could well be that once it was changed I think it's better and
• it's not my game, it's the community's.

I will watch the continued discussion with interest

[Selkie]

I've been thinking a bit about the late game. I'm currently playing a necromancer at character level 46 and it's becoming a real crawl. This isn't unique to any specific class (with the exception of mages, because as a mage I find the end game much quicker and less frustrating).

For me the big thing seems to be the speed of leveling up. The first ten levels you can make in half an hour of play. The next 20 doesn't take too much longer, particularly if you get lucky with an artifact or a launcher.

Levels 20-40 are much slower but that's partly because you're methodically plugging resistance holes and stat gain hunting. They're also some of the most fun in the game because you start to come across scary breathers who need careful management at this stage. Not to mention you will start finding the real game changing artifacts.

Levels 40-50 can be quite tedious. Your character is 95 per cent on their way to the end fight in terms of gear etc. Instead you're slowly stocking up on supplies of healing potions, etc. I am usually at my most sloppy from level 45 onwards and many deaths come from just the careless grinding.

Could healing potions become much more common at level 80 and deeper? This would give you incentive to dive down and quickly replenish potions. Ditto scrolls of mass ban.

Could the XP requirements for levels 40-50 be reduced slightly, so you can level up quicker?

Could the number of time attack monsters be reduced?

Could there be an option where your character can leap to level 100 at any point in the game? A sort of instant "bring him on" button.

I don't particularly want to make the game any easier (although I recognise that a lot of my suggestions would have that effect). I just want to make the late game play faster and not drag on.

[archolewa]

Levels 40-50 can be quite tedious. Your character is 95 per cent on their way to the end fight in terms of gear etc. Instead you're slowly stocking up on supplies of healing potions, etc. I am usually at my most sloppy from level 45 onwards and many deaths come from just the careless grinding.

You could also try taking on Morgoth before you think you're ready. I recently beat Morgoth with a Ranger for the first time (trying out the ammo changes). I think I had two scrolls of *Destruction* one scroll of MBan, one scroll of Ban and 8 rods of TO, all found by diving naturally. Admittedly I did have a fair number of healing potions (8 Heal, four *Heal* and one or two Life I think). Didnt do any grinding at all.

Jerk kept summoning too, so there were a few times where I was weaving through the rubble luring Morgoth from his minions while blocking LOS for as many as possible while waiting for my TO rods to recharge.

My general approach is that I go fight Morgoth once I get bored. Sometimes I have to run away, once I got killed, but I usually win. And when I overprepare, I end up with like 10+ healing potions at the end.

[sffp]

Of course, if you do try Morgoth too early, you can either die (easily) or just run out of required consumables too soon.

I tried with my level 45 elven ranger and ran our of quality arrows/destruction/to and pd (I carried 80) and had to abandon the fight with Morgoth down to 2 stars

Now I need to scrounge destruction/ammo again.

Life would be a lot easier if I'd had 1 or 2 rods of TO (where are those prevalent btw)

[Pete Mack]

They show up all over. But surely wands are OK for a ranger. It actually sound like your bow is the problem. I just lost a Ranger to frustration at DL 80; with a

shortbow of Might <x3> (+14,+25)

I just started mashing keys with a not-really-endgame weapon.

[archolewa]

Of course, if you do try Morgoth too early, you can either die (easily) or just run out of required consumables too soon.

Thats what makes it exciting! 😆

[sffp]

They show up all over. But surely wands are OK for a ranger. It actually sound like your bow is the problem. I just lost a Ranger to frustration at DL 80; with a

shortbow of Might <x3> (+14,+25)

I just started mashing keys with a not-really-endgame weapon.

That is possible:
I had this for a while:

b) a Long Bow of Power (x3) (+8,+23)
Found lying on the floor at 550 feet (level 11

which made for a highly over-powered early game character

But replaced it with this:

b) the Short Bow 'Pelum' (x4) (+10,+15) <+3, +2>
Dropped by a dread at 2500 feet (level 50)

+3 constitution.
+2 shooting speed.
+2 shooting power.
Branded with weak acid.
Provides resistance to Nexus, Disenchantment.
Provides protection from fear.
Cannot be harmed by Acid, Fire.
Sustains wisdom.

When activated, it grants temporary resistance to acid,
electricity, fire, cold and poison for 1d20+20 turns.
Takes 270 to 330 turns to recharge at your current speed.
Your chance of success is 95.8%


Most of my arrows look like this:

2) 9 Arrows (1d4) (+7,+7)
Combat info:
When fired, hits targets up to 140 feet away.
Average damage/round: 412.8 vs creatures not resistant to acid and
275.1 vs. others.
35% chance of breaking upon contact.

This was great for Sauron/Ringwraiths and the like. Just not the big P.

If I had some rods of TO, I could do most of the damage with archery and finish with:

a) the Tulwar of Garamin (2d4) (+10,+31) [+1] <+4, +1>
Dropped by The Witch-King of Angmar at 4950 feet (level 99)

+4 stealth.
+4 searching skill.
+1 light.
Slays undead (powerfully), dragons (powerfully), demons
(powerfully), giants, trolls, orcs, animals, evil creatures.
Branded with weak poison.
Provides resistance to Acid, Lightning, Light.
Provides protection from fear, confusion.
Cannot be harmed by Acid.
Sustains intelligence, dexterity, constitution.
Grants the ability to see invisible things. Prevents paralysis.
Blessed by the gods (combat bonuses for holy casters).

When activated, it restores your wisdom.
Takes 214 to 237 turns to recharge at your current speed.
Your chance of success is 93.7%

Combat info:
5.0 blows/round.
Average damage/round: 460 vs undead, dragons, and demons, 400.5 vs
giants, trolls, and orcs, 370.5 vs animals, evil creatures, and
creatures not resistant to poison, and 341 vs. others.

[sffp]

Thats what makes it exciting! 😆

Oh it was exciting
But it reminded me of the quote, "When you come after the king, you best not miss."

[Pete Mack]

That mace isn't really suitable for melee with M. Getting around 500/round vs evil should be relatively easy. Since you're not using it as a stat stick, you might as well go with damage. Sustains are not worth the tradeoff--and definitely not for a Ranger.

[skydyr]

As a separate suggestion, what if ?Deep Descent were removed, and instead stairs moved you a random (say 1-5) levels up or down? I do think the endgame suffers from there not being as much distinction between the levels as in the earlier game, and this might help alleviate it.

Newbies could just go back up if necessary (perhaps with a birth option to preserve stair length), and you could find the right stairs to get you down quickly if you want to dive.

As a separate change that follows on this, perhaps the really good vaults like a GCV could be found by coding the game to create a set of several deep descents terminating in a level with no stair down but with the vault in it, and you'd have to go up a bunch of levels to get back to the main line, so to speak. A greater vault would really be a series of a few levels culminating in a major score, and could easily incorporate the gauntlet style level in between. Alternatively, there could be a level design specifically for a greater vault, that generates a lot of OoD loot and monsters in rooms together that is found at the end. If you teleport out or recall, of course, you don't go back to the side path with the vault at the end.

I realize the way the code for level 100 works would need to be rejiggered for this next one, but you could potentially set up vaults that sit deeper than than by skipping past it where you could dump a serious horde and fantastic loot to challenge the player. If you can take a major vault sitting at DL 120, you should hopefully find most of what you need to take on Morgoth when you get back to the main dungeon line.

I do think if this is fully implemented, teleport level would need to be modified somewhat to account for the stairs jumping around.