Angband (or variant) Feature Suggestion Poll/Feedback thread

[Pete Mack]

OK, here's my vote, somewhat strategic. I have no problems with the top few, and UI changes are generally uncontroversial anyway, so I'll vote:
NO: add stealth as a stat.
NO: Nerf zephyr hounds.
YES: Strengthen mage & priest "charm" spells. (If CHA stays, strengthen its effects as well.)

[PaulBlay]

OK, here's my vote, somewhat strategic. I have no problems with the top few, and UI changes are generally uncontroversial anyway, so I'll vote:
NO: add stealth as a stat.
NO: Nerf zephyr hounds.
YES: Strengthen mage & priest "charm" spells. (If CHA stays, strengthen its effects as well.)

I already had you down as a no for
F019 A 0 "Naturally increasing stats, no stat potions"

It's one negative and three positive, so you need to pick your least favourite of the three.

Did someone else suggest strengthening priest and mage charm spells? Otherwise I'll put you down as 'originator' for that.

[buzzkill]

NO: add stealth as a stat.

I don't know why (which probably means it should go), but I'd like to see CHA stay in Vanilla. Leave it up to the variant to replace it with stealth.

NO: Nerf zephyr hounds.

Leave the hounds as they are. There was just a huge thread about this. You may want to gather votes from there, as nerfing hound was definitely not the majority opinion. Nerf of slow Gelatinous Cubes (and thier eerie GPS like tracking ability) if you want to neuter an annoying monster.

YES: Strengthen mage & priest "charm" spells. (If CHA stays, strengthen its effects as well.)

Sure, why not.

[Donald Jonker]

There seems to be a bit of an "anti-userfriendly" tendency among devotees of roguelike games. Maybe a backlash from people who find character based displays too difficult to bother trying. Sure most people here don't need more easily accessible and relevant help-pages etc. but everybody was a new user once.

It's not exactly that.. though on reflection my weighing against Magnate's macro dumping things came across as a bit too fervent.

I'm not philosophically opposed to minor improvements in the UI (and help files should always be kept up to date). It's more a reaction fueled by the fact that Angband is probably the most user-friendly roguelike out there (of the major roguelikes at least), and most of the suggested improvements in this regard are already implemented in one way or another, if you only take a little time to get familiar with the UI. The negativity in my response is more a reflection that I'd rather see concentration on improving game mechanics than on new features that are basically already available.

But I'm not a coder, so I suppose it's a bit presumptuous of me to argue coding priorities. If we can have both, hooray.

[PaulBlay]

if you only take a little time to get familiar with the UI.

And (one of) my major aims is to see to it that the 'little time' required is as small as possible. I have a lot of ideas in that area but I'm not sure that they'd actually get added (even if I was to put together a patch)

Anyway, to show willing here's a gameplay suggestion.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
F022 A 0 "Run-stop centring when monster in sight"

When running and automatically coming to a stop because a monster is in sight I think the character should be centred on the screen if there is a monster in LOS but off screen. This is essentially to reduce the number of times your character can see stuff but you can't.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

[Pete Mack]

@Paul: then it's a tossup between
NO: naturally increasing stats
NO: naturally increasing stealth

Either would make the late game too easy for divers.

[will_asher]

here's my votes

NO: F001 A -1 "Remove charisma."
- I prefer to find uses for it. Even if it doesn't become more useful, I don't see any reason to remove it.

YES: F002 A +2 "Add player history to character dumps"

YES: F013 A 0 "improve mage sleep/confusion/slow/polymorph/wonder spells"
- These spells are currently almost useless, but IMO they could and should be made quite useful by making them actually work on monsters.

YES: F017 A 0 "Nerf zephyr hounds"
- but I don't feel as strongly about it as some people do..

NO: F019 A 0 "Naturally increasing stats, no stat potions"
- if you must limit my NO votes, count this one.

??: F021 A +2 "Strengthen mage and priest charm spells"
- what charm spells? Where is the original discussion about this?

F022 A 0 "Run-stop centring when monster in sight"
- I always play with 'center map continuously' turned on. If you want this feature, why not just turn on that option?

If I didn't vote on it, it means I'm pretty much indifferent

[Pete Mack]

21 and 13 are the same. (21 includes a hint of #1 as well--'charm' spells is the term of art for spells affected by player charisma.)

[Big Al]

F001 "Remove charisma."
No - leave as is or make more useful.

F002 "Add player history to character dumps"
Yes

F003 "Combine points-based with standard roller"
Both methods should be able to generate identical stats IMO, though I think this is slated for removal.

F004 "Context sensitive help for inventory / equipment"
Sure - though the whole help interface will be revamped at some point in the future.

F005 "Update help for (f)ire and item"
meh

F006 "Store pre-order system"
No - This is appropriate for a variant, not vanilla.

F007 "Newbie command menu in Roguelike keyset"
Sure

F008 "User friendly display of existing macro trigger keys and actions"
Sure

F009 "Advanced macro handling with actions, not keypresses, shown"
Meh - I think most people either use roguelike or standard keys (not both) so you don't really need to switch between them.

F010 "merge prayers dTraps & dStairs"
Meh

F011 "Add stealth as a stat"
No

F012 "Macro command 'pause and accept direction/target'"
Meh - probably too complicated to be useful.

F013 "improve mage sleep/confusion/slow/polymorph/wonder spells"
Sure - maybe make them work on (some) uniques.

[b]F014[.b] "monsters waking up shouldn't act right away"
Already in.

F015 "Slightly reduce natural depth of scrolls of acquirement"
Meh

F016 "Get rid of magic mushroom patches. Completely."
No

F017 "Nerf zephyr hounds"
No

F018 "Change 'append macros to file' into four options:"
This would get really complicated very quickly I think. Sure some way of browsing your saved macros would make keeping lists of seperate macros much more managable, if the user felt so inclined.

F019 "Naturally increasing stats, no stat potions"
No - keep this for variants. It's nice unangband but not vanilla.

F020 "Add a 'Feature requests' section to the forum"
Meh - Just start a thread.

F021 "Strengthen mage and priest charm spells"
Is this not the same as F013?

F022 "Run-stop centring when monster in sight"
Meh - just keep turn on the screen centered all the time instead.

[PaulBlay]

??: F021 A +2 "Strengthen mage and priest charm spells"
- what charm spells? Where is the original discussion about this?

This arose from some confusion when the Feature number was not used to refer to F013 and the unfamiliar (to me) term of 'charm spells' was introduced. See new first page.

NO: F019 A 0 "Naturally increasing stats, no stat potions"
- if you must limit my NO votes, count this one.

I will. I know people aren't keen on the "three for one against" voting system I'm using but I want people to think about what they really want (/hate). Anybody who wants to put in the editing effort is welcome to tally votes by whatever system they prefer, but I'm sticking with mine.

[PaulBlay]

F003 "Combine points-based with standard roller"
Both methods should be able to generate identical stats IMO, though I think this is slated for removal.

The autoroller (not the standard roller) is slated for removal (from what I remember of recent discussion in the developers' mailing list). I haven't checked the code for the standard roller but the stuff I've read on the web suggests it currently isn't guaranteed to produce stats that you could get from points-based.

Anyway, was that a 'for' or a 'don't care' vote?

Sure - though the whole help interface will be revamped at some point in the future.

I would like to know more about that - do you know where/when it's been discussed?

[Pete Mack]

I thought of a couple others:

E001: add gold/object sales code from eddieband
E002: add ID-by-trial system from eddieband
N003: add some of the ego lanterns from NPP
F024: make (ego) shot slightly more common deep in the dungeon so that Slings of Buckland are actually useful.

I'd happily vote for any of these. Since I'm limited to 2 more votes, I vote for E001 and E002.

[PaulBlay]

I thought of a couple others:

E001: add gold/object sales code from eddieband
E002: add ID-by-trial system from eddieband
N003: add some of the ego lanterns from NPP
F024: make (ego) shot slightly more common deep in the dungeon so that Slings of Buckland are actually useful.

I'd happily vote for any of these. Since I'm limited to 2 more votes, I vote for E001 and E002.

I admit my 'F' for 'f'eature numbering was both uninspired and doesn't really serve much purpose but I think I'll be sticking with it now I've got this far anyway.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Pete Mack)
F023 +1 "add gold/object sales code from eddieband"
V2 from Pete Mack(originator)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
F024 +1 "add ID-by-trial system from eddieband"
V3 from Pete Mack(originator)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
F025 0 "add some of the ego lanterns from NPP"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
F026 0 "make (ego) shot slightly more common deep in the dungeon"

So that Slings of Buckland are actually useful.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

************************************************** **************
Current voting lineup

F002 +4 "Add player history to character dumps"
F007 +3 "Newbie command menu in Roguelike keyset"
F010 +3 "merge prayers dTraps & dStairs"
F013 +3 "improve mage sleep/confusion/slow/polymorph/wonder spells" Dicuss
F004 +2 "Context sensitive help for inventory / equipment"
F005 +1 "Update help for (f)ire and item"
F009 +1 "Advanced macro handling with actions, not keypresses, shown"
F016 +1 "Get rid of magic mushroom patches. Completely."
F017 +1 "Nerf zephyr hounds"
F018 +1 "Change 'append macros to file' into four options:"
F023 +1 "add gold/object sales code from eddieband"
F024 +1 "add ID-by-trial system from eddieband"
F008 0 "User friendly display of existing macro trigger keys and actions"
F011 0 "Add stealth as a stat"
F012 0 "Macro command 'pause and accept direction/target'"
F015 0 "Slightly reduce natural depth of scrolls of acquirement"
F020 (Oook) 0 "Add a 'Feature requests' section to the forum"
F022 0 "Run-stop centring when monster in sight"
F025 0 "add some of the ego lanterns from NPP"
F026 0 "make (ego) shot slightly more common deep in the dungeon"
F019 -1 "Naturally increasing stats, no stat potions"
F001 -2 "Remove charisma."
F006 -2 "Store pre-order system"
F003 N/A "Combine points-based with standard roller"
F014 N/A "monsters waking up shouldn't act right away"
F021 N/A "Strengthen mage and priest charm spells"

If you want your votes reassigned (or if you notice any mistakes I've made) please ask.
All users are being given '3 votes for, 1 vote against' to use. If a request reaches +10 I will attempt to code a patch for it.

[Pete Mack]

It occurs to me that you've mixed up two distinct issues that really don't belong in the same poll.

1) UI improvements. These are by and large non-controversial, and should be implemented assuming they are (a) reasonably sane, and (b) feasible without major churn. (Innocent unless proven guilty)

2) Gameplay changes: These are controversial by nature, and actually deserve serious thought. (Guilty unless proven innocent)

[zaimoni]

The autoroller (not the standard roller) is slated for removal (from what I remember of recent discussion in the developers' mailing list). I haven't checked the code for the standard roller but the stuff I've read on the web suggests it currently isn't guaranteed to produce stats that you could get from points-based.

Actually, roller is supposed to be the reference for points-based. I pointed out a few months back that it was possible to use the autoroller to get strictly preferable stats to anything reachable under the old points-based, so that was overcorrected. [It is possible to autoroll three base-17 stats. Now, if the "base" points-based stat had been reset to 8 from 10 auto-rolling and points-based would have been strictly equivalent. (Not that I'm complaining.)

The Auto-roller has been nominated for destruction since Ben Harrison (V 2.7.x). Its expiration is just closer to being imminent.