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I just finished a game of 3.1.0 (see http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=8494), and I thought I'd post a list of comments and observations that I made during the game. I liked 3.1.0 quite a lot, even with the few bugs (for instance, I gather that there is a problem with *Remove Curse* not working? I was too scared of this to use Calris...). The late game was rather easy, but that may just be because Elen was fortunate enough to find Cubragol, Thorin, Feanor, and Narya (the first source of telepathy all game!), in that order...
Anyway, the comments:
- As others have reported, stat potions were very rare. For most of the game, my stats were far from maxed and I had to rely heavily on stat bonuses from equipment. I think that this meant that I used Rings of Strength/Intelligence more than usual.
I actually thought that this worked quite well -- it meant that I was much more excited by individual stat potions, and Potions of Augmentation were incredible finds (I think I found three in total, which probably accounted for half of the stat gain in the game). Perhaps stat potions should be made a little more common, but I would prefer to balance the game to work with the increased rarity.
I also never saw the gain/lose stat potions that I've heard exist, presumably because I dived fairly quickly to about 1500'. Thus I have no comment on them.
- Good items were indeed plentiful, especially ones providing speed. My first artifact was Maedhros, at about 1500', but then they started pouring in. None of them were particularly rare other than Feanor and Narya, but by the end I had probably seen the vast majority of the more common artifacts. The new object-generation algorithms felt good in general (less junk, more excitement... though Wormtongue didn't drop anything at all, which seems like something to be avoided), but they should probably be toned down somewhat.
Also, perhaps this character was just very lucky, but speed items were everywhere. Feanor was the highlight of these, of course, but I had already found two pairs of boots of speed (+1 and +9) and Cubragol before that, so it didn't actually make that much difference. Rings of Speed also seemed to be quite high -- I saw several that were +10 and +11. It was nice to play a character that didn't need to wear two speed rings to have a chance against Morgoth, but maybe some of the speed boosts should be reduced in size?
- I don't like Rings of Escaping. Up until one gets substantial other speed boosts, wearing two of them for a +8 speed boost is really, really good. Archery is perfectly feasible even with the penalty to hit, and that much speed makes a large difference. But these rings are also rather annoying... having to switch them out to melee small crowds is a pain. For this reason, I didn't take advantage of them as much as I could have.
I'm not sure what to suggest be done with these rings, but they are an interesting idea. The other "mixed blessing" rings (Dog, Mouse, etc) just seem unusable as is, though.
- Monster pits were of much weaker types than usual. Even very deep in the dungeon (4000' or so), it seemed that most pits were jellies or orcs, with some troll and giant pits and only other pits/nests very rarely. (I think I saw just one dragon pit and two demon pits all game, for instance.) I don't know if this was intentional, but I didn't like it... if nothing else, it felt strange to be seeing so many jellies so deep in the dungeon.
- Elemental rings were actually quite strong -- I used a Ring of Acid at various points, including against Sauron. I was hoping to find the Glaive of Pain at some point to use with such a ring, but it didn't appear. But even with lesser weapons, they often added more damage than a Ring of Damage would.
- I was quite pleasantly surprised to discover that Staffs of Healing heal a LOT of HP... I believe I gained over 500HP (to reach full health) from one activation a couple of times. I don't know how much they actually heal (I didn't test this out for obvious reasons...), but this may be too much.
- In general, staffs seemed very strong in the late game... Greater Recharging usually worked, and the staffs couldn't be destroyed by other means once I acquired immunity to acid and fire. I don't think this is necessarily a problem, but it is something to keep an eye on... in particular, having essentially infinite mana with Staffs of the Magi seemed a little overpowered. Perhaps only mages should get Greater Recharging, at least?
- Finally, am I correct that there is no way to see the history of a dead character? I'd like to see Elen's history so that I would know when I found various artifacts, etc, but I don't know how to do this now that she has retired...
Anyway, the comments:
- As others have reported, stat potions were very rare. For most of the game, my stats were far from maxed and I had to rely heavily on stat bonuses from equipment. I think that this meant that I used Rings of Strength/Intelligence more than usual.
I actually thought that this worked quite well -- it meant that I was much more excited by individual stat potions, and Potions of Augmentation were incredible finds (I think I found three in total, which probably accounted for half of the stat gain in the game). Perhaps stat potions should be made a little more common, but I would prefer to balance the game to work with the increased rarity.
I also never saw the gain/lose stat potions that I've heard exist, presumably because I dived fairly quickly to about 1500'. Thus I have no comment on them.
- Good items were indeed plentiful, especially ones providing speed. My first artifact was Maedhros, at about 1500', but then they started pouring in. None of them were particularly rare other than Feanor and Narya, but by the end I had probably seen the vast majority of the more common artifacts. The new object-generation algorithms felt good in general (less junk, more excitement... though Wormtongue didn't drop anything at all, which seems like something to be avoided), but they should probably be toned down somewhat.
Also, perhaps this character was just very lucky, but speed items were everywhere. Feanor was the highlight of these, of course, but I had already found two pairs of boots of speed (+1 and +9) and Cubragol before that, so it didn't actually make that much difference. Rings of Speed also seemed to be quite high -- I saw several that were +10 and +11. It was nice to play a character that didn't need to wear two speed rings to have a chance against Morgoth, but maybe some of the speed boosts should be reduced in size?
- I don't like Rings of Escaping. Up until one gets substantial other speed boosts, wearing two of them for a +8 speed boost is really, really good. Archery is perfectly feasible even with the penalty to hit, and that much speed makes a large difference. But these rings are also rather annoying... having to switch them out to melee small crowds is a pain. For this reason, I didn't take advantage of them as much as I could have.
I'm not sure what to suggest be done with these rings, but they are an interesting idea. The other "mixed blessing" rings (Dog, Mouse, etc) just seem unusable as is, though.
- Monster pits were of much weaker types than usual. Even very deep in the dungeon (4000' or so), it seemed that most pits were jellies or orcs, with some troll and giant pits and only other pits/nests very rarely. (I think I saw just one dragon pit and two demon pits all game, for instance.) I don't know if this was intentional, but I didn't like it... if nothing else, it felt strange to be seeing so many jellies so deep in the dungeon.
- Elemental rings were actually quite strong -- I used a Ring of Acid at various points, including against Sauron. I was hoping to find the Glaive of Pain at some point to use with such a ring, but it didn't appear. But even with lesser weapons, they often added more damage than a Ring of Damage would.
- I was quite pleasantly surprised to discover that Staffs of Healing heal a LOT of HP... I believe I gained over 500HP (to reach full health) from one activation a couple of times. I don't know how much they actually heal (I didn't test this out for obvious reasons...), but this may be too much.
- In general, staffs seemed very strong in the late game... Greater Recharging usually worked, and the staffs couldn't be destroyed by other means once I acquired immunity to acid and fire. I don't think this is necessarily a problem, but it is something to keep an eye on... in particular, having essentially infinite mana with Staffs of the Magi seemed a little overpowered. Perhaps only mages should get Greater Recharging, at least?
- Finally, am I correct that there is no way to see the history of a dead character? I'd like to see Elen's history so that I would know when I found various artifacts, etc, but I don't know how to do this now that she has retired...
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