This is what Fizzix wrote on the reddit thread, and I'm reposting it here because I thought it was really constructive:
I used to play angband a lot, and even wrote some code for it back in the day. (old-timers might recognize my user name)
I think a lot of the commenters hit on some of the key points. Some are design decisions, some are historical, some are accidental (and could be changed). I'll discuss a few of them and try to explain why they are why they are from my point of view.
1) Slow pace/grind. This is the number one complaint and it's a bit of an annoying one. It comes from a mindset that the player will always choose the most boring way to progress possible, so you need to force the player into difficult scenarios. Most games today are "tight" meaning that the game progresses you along at a constant pace and throws appropriate challenges at all steps. It's easy to be tight with an RPG, it's harder with a roguelike. Yet it's clear that games like DCSS (and even TOME) are much tighter than Angband. Angband basically let's you progress at your own pace, which was actually a draw to me when I first picked it up many years ago. You can make Angband tight if you want. Turn on forced descent (one of my additions) and the game quickly becomes pretty tight, although it isn't optimized nearly as much as DCSS.
2) Large, empty levels. This is partly a design choice, and partly gameplay forced. Angband has large field of vision (20 tiles) compared to like 8 for DCSS and 12ish for TOME. Furthermore, high level game play relies on avoiding/removing monsters you don't want to face, often by teleporting them away. These two things (and what I discuss next) set the level size. Finally, the endgame of Angband centers around epic sized giant vaults. These need to actually fit as part of a level, rather than be the full level, like some of the giant vaults are in TOME. There are ways around this, reduce the field of view to 10 or so. Reduce level size up to around level 50 and so on.
3) One-shot kills. "It breathes, you die" is an old angband trope and is still true. Games tend to try to avoid one-shot kills because it seems unfair, especially for a roguelike. TOME has them, but DCSS does not. Most of Angband's danger after the midgame come in the form of one-shot kills and if you're inexperienced you don't even realize when you had a close call. The fact that monsters are deadly mean that you usually can only face off against one at a time, which prevents small/crowded levels too. (Angband does have some small labyrinth like levels, and those are death traps.)
4) The graphics are terrible. The interface isn't that bad per se, but Angband always prided itself on modability, nearly everything in the game can be easily changed through text files, etc. A lot of the stuff requires no coding ability to edit. Angband's original popularity came from this as people replaced the monster list with whatever they wanted. It still prides itself on this. It's a lot harder to make a new monster or a whole new monster list if you also need to create tiles. Angband never had a strong graphical team. The best was Shockbolt who made the tiles for Angband and TOME, but the tiles were too big for Angband's 20 tile field of view, so they're difficult to use. I think Angband could really benefit from a strong graphical overhaul, but it's never had a dev who was skilled in that area, so that never happened. I noted that Angband was getting killed by DCSS in this area 10 years ago or so. It's only gotten worse since then.
5) Repetitive late game. Granted this is only a concern for old-timers like me who regularly reach the late game. While I don't find the first half of the game grindy at all, the late game is really boring. I find the epic vaults not that interesting, and I have argued against removing them all in the past. It was not a popular opinion. I don't have a good solution to this beyond just condensing the last 50 levels into 10 or so, but that requires a major rebalance change.
there's probably more that I'll think of, but I should get back to work. As for why I don't play Angband so much? It's the same as why I don't play many roguelikes. They require too many keypresses. After a day of typing at work, I usually need to rest my hands in the evening.
I think a lot of the commenters hit on some of the key points. Some are design decisions, some are historical, some are accidental (and could be changed). I'll discuss a few of them and try to explain why they are why they are from my point of view.
1) Slow pace/grind. This is the number one complaint and it's a bit of an annoying one. It comes from a mindset that the player will always choose the most boring way to progress possible, so you need to force the player into difficult scenarios. Most games today are "tight" meaning that the game progresses you along at a constant pace and throws appropriate challenges at all steps. It's easy to be tight with an RPG, it's harder with a roguelike. Yet it's clear that games like DCSS (and even TOME) are much tighter than Angband. Angband basically let's you progress at your own pace, which was actually a draw to me when I first picked it up many years ago. You can make Angband tight if you want. Turn on forced descent (one of my additions) and the game quickly becomes pretty tight, although it isn't optimized nearly as much as DCSS.
2) Large, empty levels. This is partly a design choice, and partly gameplay forced. Angband has large field of vision (20 tiles) compared to like 8 for DCSS and 12ish for TOME. Furthermore, high level game play relies on avoiding/removing monsters you don't want to face, often by teleporting them away. These two things (and what I discuss next) set the level size. Finally, the endgame of Angband centers around epic sized giant vaults. These need to actually fit as part of a level, rather than be the full level, like some of the giant vaults are in TOME. There are ways around this, reduce the field of view to 10 or so. Reduce level size up to around level 50 and so on.
3) One-shot kills. "It breathes, you die" is an old angband trope and is still true. Games tend to try to avoid one-shot kills because it seems unfair, especially for a roguelike. TOME has them, but DCSS does not. Most of Angband's danger after the midgame come in the form of one-shot kills and if you're inexperienced you don't even realize when you had a close call. The fact that monsters are deadly mean that you usually can only face off against one at a time, which prevents small/crowded levels too. (Angband does have some small labyrinth like levels, and those are death traps.)
4) The graphics are terrible. The interface isn't that bad per se, but Angband always prided itself on modability, nearly everything in the game can be easily changed through text files, etc. A lot of the stuff requires no coding ability to edit. Angband's original popularity came from this as people replaced the monster list with whatever they wanted. It still prides itself on this. It's a lot harder to make a new monster or a whole new monster list if you also need to create tiles. Angband never had a strong graphical team. The best was Shockbolt who made the tiles for Angband and TOME, but the tiles were too big for Angband's 20 tile field of view, so they're difficult to use. I think Angband could really benefit from a strong graphical overhaul, but it's never had a dev who was skilled in that area, so that never happened. I noted that Angband was getting killed by DCSS in this area 10 years ago or so. It's only gotten worse since then.
5) Repetitive late game. Granted this is only a concern for old-timers like me who regularly reach the late game. While I don't find the first half of the game grindy at all, the late game is really boring. I find the epic vaults not that interesting, and I have argued against removing them all in the past. It was not a popular opinion. I don't have a good solution to this beyond just condensing the last 50 levels into 10 or so, but that requires a major rebalance change.
there's probably more that I'll think of, but I should get back to work. As for why I don't play Angband so much? It's the same as why I don't play many roguelikes. They require too many keypresses. After a day of typing at work, I usually need to rest my hands in the evening.
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