An idea to alleviate Rangers LOS abuse

[Estie]

I use the level feelings deep into the game. E.g. there is a pit you could clear but don't really want to, and there are multiple items on the floor in the pit. The object level feeling swings my decision. The same is true for vaults. There is an unaware amulet guarded by scary monsters. Is it adornment or an artifact? Often the level feeling lets you know.

Late in the game, the item feeling might be something like 5-7. You are going to find _something_ in that pit, but is is as likely to be only junk egos as it is to be a valuable artifact. Junk, of course, being relative.
For me, other considerations are far more important than ilvl feeling at this point. For example, if it is a pit of mostly 1 letter monsters and I have a ?banishment, I am going to banish and check out the pit; otoh, if its an undead pit with many Ls and Ws and Vs and I dont have hold life and/or restore life potions, no amount of level feeling is going to make me take that on.

[Ed_47569]

Sorry, I somehow understood this as fractional blows. I don't think I ever played a version without t fractional speed.

Think fractional speed was introduced by Ben Harrison starting with 2.7.x.

[Pete Mack]

Sorry, I somehow understood this as fractional blows. I don't think I ever played a version without t fractional speed.

[Ed_47569]

Here's a V winner from 3.0.1: http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=437

In their final kit, they have a total of +15 fractional speed from six items, including two (Elessar and Numenor) that didn't exist at all in 2.x and two (Colannon and Thror) that existed but lacked +speed. (The other two are Narya and Vilya, which did already give fractional speed in 2.x but lacked the damage bonuses seen in 3.0.)

That's correct, although some small speed bonuses were later removed such as crowns of Numenor and Gondor. Think Colannon went from +3 to +2 speed only. I can remember a lot of debate on RGRA back in the early 2000's when V3.0 was released and many people complained it was too easy. Certainly the new amulets like Trickery and Weaponmastery made the later game easier, along with new egos like weapons of Gondolin, boots of Elvenkind etc.

Somewhere around V3.2.x the game became ridiculously easy, but I think 4.2 has improved the balance significantly. Many more dangerous monsters added and OOD monsters seem much more common. Overall the current game is quicker because of major UI improvements such as squleching and Rune based ID, but the actual difficulty is probably about right. My winners play through the current game much quicker than in say V3.0.5, but I probably lose the same ratio of characters in the current version as in the older versions.

[PowerDiver]

True, but only for the early game. There I leave levels with low item indication all the time. Later on, monsters and vault layouts are the predominant factor when deciding whether to stay or leave, same as it used to be.

I use the level feelings deep into the game. E.g. there is a pit you could clear but don't really want to, and there are multiple items on the floor in the pit. The object level feeling swings my decision. The same is true for vaults. There is an unaware amulet guarded by scary monsters. Is it adornment or an artifact? Often the level feeling lets you know.

[Sideways]

Here's a V winner from 3.0.1: http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=437

In their final kit, they have a total of +15 fractional speed from six items, including two (Elessar and Numenor) that didn't exist at all in 2.x and two (Colannon and Thror) that existed but lacked +speed. (The other two are Narya and Vilya, which did already give fractional speed in 2.x but lacked the damage bonuses seen in 3.0.)

[Pete Mack]

Fractional speed was never part of 3.0.

[wobbly]

(16) Rodent Skeletons

I have no idea what game we are playing anymore, but I wanted to play too.

[Nick]

(15) Blood falcons

[Sideways]

Also back then i used to play with Standarts only so i can't say if the fractional speed bonuses existed, but with randarts now it's soo easy to find random stuff that's got a handful of "+3 Spd" bonuses on it, and before you know it you're at +15.

Fractional speed bonuses were made much more common in 3.0.0, together with a load of other changes to the monster and item lists that combined to make the game much easier. Up to 2.9.x the only +speed artifacts were Ringil, Cubragol, Feanor and the four rings of power, the only +speed ego was Boots of Speed (no Elvenkind - but yes two cursed boot egos with -speed), and Rings of Speed were native to DL 80.

Also,

(13) Fractional blows. In the old days, just getting the blow count up from 1 was a huge achievement.
(14) Summoning is a lot less dangerous now.

[Estie]

True, but only for the early game. There I leave levels with low item indication all the time. Later on, monsters and vault layouts are the predominant factor when deciding whether to stay or leave, same as it used to be.

[PowerDiver]

(12) Level feelings. In the old days, it was an amalgamation of monsters and treasure. Now they are separated. This a huge boost of free information about which levels are most worthwhile to explore.

[Pete Mack]

There were ways to get rid of cursed weapons and armor.
There were remove curse scrolls in town, and it is green book spell.
Enchanting armor or wespons above zero will eventually break even heavybl curses.
Cursed objects (except artifacts) are destroyed by Orb.
On the plus side:
It was actually possible to use Nazgul bows for SI, as drain life on objects had negligible effect.

[Sky]

TBH i dont remember a lot of the old game. What i do remember is,

1. Cursed and *Cursed items. "Oops - it feels deathly cold" means nine times out of 10 your character was dead.

2. Stat draining was atrocious.
I can't remember if Mushrooms of Vigour existed back then, i'm not sure they did.

3. a single potion of Speed or Healing was gold. Earth & Cold hounds were the devil.

Also back then i used to play with Standarts only so i can't say if the fractional speed bonuses existed, but with randarts now it's soo easy to find random stuff that's got a handful of "+3 Spd" bonuses on it, and before you know it you're at +15.

[Pete Mack]

Stat restore potions were sufficiently common that Stat draining was rarely an issue. The catastrophic issue was nexus breath.