for Takkaria: on features

[bebo]

short term (according to Bebo - some of these are not short term at all)

yeah, i'm almost clueless about coding , so feel free to change also the position of the various points of the list - i tried to sort them in ones that had a chance of being implemented relatively soon and didn't have huge game changing effects, and ones that required a lot more of work/thought

1. rework mage & priest spells, sp calculation algorithm (#533 is first step)

personally i'm particularly interested in what plans Takkaria has for this...

2. remove charisma & related objects (as stated in trac......) (I can't find this one!)

it's on the roadmap for milestone 3.2.0

4. npp style quiver (#34)
5b. dungeon books become artifacts (rarity issues?) (#353)

whoah! didn't see these, i thought Takkaria was against them...

Doing this properly is a major undertaking, involving many different components, and I haven't/won't release until it is stable and done properly. I'm still working off of 1375. Who's made it "almost perfect" in the nightlies?

My bad - but i do think the current system is still a huge improvement in the ID department

PS - thanks for the help with the list

[buzzkill]

Let's not start tweaking 'regular' game play for the sake of 'ironman'.

[Zikke]

Let's not start tweaking 'regular' game play for the sake of 'ironman'.

I agree with this

[Donald Jonker]

Let's not start tweaking 'regular' game play for the sake of 'ironman'.

I'd say tweaking the game in favor of ironman would be an unqualified improvement for the regular game, though I'm not particularly crazy about Eddie's notion of specific monster inventories (but maybe I could be convinced). Does it really take much of a leap of faith to believe that it's better to find things in the dungeon than to have to find them in town? Longer dives, fewer recalls, less time shopping, more time fighting. Right now you go up for air whenever you run out of consumables, require ID, or need to sell off your excess gear. If, on the other hand, you *didn't* run out of consumables or ID because you found them in the dungeon, then you wouldn't need to stock up on so much crap simply for the sale value. That's a win for both ironman- and vanilla-Vanilla.

[PowerDiver]

What I want has less of a future. .

My apologies for hijacking this thread. That was supposed to be a reply to "the request doesn't have much of a future", not starting an argument about what to change.

[buzzkill]

Just to be clear, I'm not anti-ironman. My 'normal' play routine involves quite a bit of ironmanish style play, and as you well know, I hate scumming. Disconnected stairs, diving until I run out of supplies, and trying to make use of the things that I find, and not really worrying about selling stuff or what the town has to offer is my normal mode of play.

I do believe that 'ironman mode' is an option, a by-product of it's parent variant, and I'd like the parent game to be the one that drives change and have ironman simply follow along. If ironman changes are good for the parent, then that's great. I just don't want ironman pushing development strictly for the sake of ironman.

[Pete Mack]

There are very few changes that are ironman-only--distribution of food, torches, and oil come to mind, along with sources of curing (other than !CCW).

[PowerDiver]

I'd like the parent game to be the one that drives change and have ironman simply follow along.

I believe that the way to understand a complicated argument or system is to start with the extreme cases. A clean fix of behavior at the extremes often results in better behavior of the average. I think it makes sense to use ironman testing to produce ideas that should be considered to be incorporated into the larger game.

[d_m]

I believe that the way to understand a complicated argument or system is to start with the extreme cases. A clean fix of behavior at the extremes often results in better behavior of the average. I think it makes sense to use ironman testing to produce ideas that should be considered to be incorporated into the larger game.

I think this makes sense as a source of new ideas; as far as arguing in favor of a change, it's important to be sure it's not a zero-sum gain (e.g. that other cases aren't losing out in favor of the edge cases).

That said, in this situation I think reducing reliance on recall improves the game for everyone. Except for those who don't like being in the dungeon--historically Angband has failed to excite this group!

[Atarlost]

Yeah, but they have the wilderness-heavy variants like FA to cater to their desires for open-air gaming.

[bebo]

list updated and cleaned a bit

1. merge priest dStairs & dTraps spells
2. merge all !rStat in two different potions
3. artifact memory
4. rework (ie reduce) rarity of -detection -speed -mapping
5. use of ImpSp flag in char screen?
6. might as well add other items that cause ImpHp other than =Open Wounds
7. a good idea might be to substitute this to aggravation in some cases
8. clarify in char screen difference between the two Fear flags
9. percentage of max carriable weight before slowdown in char screen
10. element-proof town spellbooks? only found in dungeons
11. remove spikes
12. disturb on reverse LOS (not certain what this is, ask Eddie)
13. minor nerfing of zephyr hounds
14. Macro command 'pause and accept direction/target'
15. remove priest penalty for pointed weapons & remove blessed ego
16. merging of magic books (huge old thread)
17. new ego light sources
18. modifications to race/class exp ( http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=1683)
19. O-style combat / fractional blows / whatever
20. appropriate drops for certain monsters/uniques
21. rework colour coding of monsters (for ex all uniques purple)
22. possible modifications to hockey-stick targeting/LOS

in progress (if i remember correctly)
1. store restocking mechanism/fixed items/etc (see separate thread)
2. scramble monster list when hallucinating
3. activate without id (possibly part of point 1)
4. Activate/Aim/Use/Zap Estimates

[Pete Mack]

I think (2) is probably a mistake. It doesn't make thematic sense, but for gameplay I'd go with something contradictory like:

RDex + RWis
RStr + RInt
RCon + RChr

if I were to eliminate the individual RStat potions. What I'd rather see is the various stat restore mushrooms (which are VERY good now) be a little more common.


The other change I'd like to see is: make ID in the shops both rare and expensive, and use Eddie's ID-by-use patch. Now that *ID* is eliminated, the occasional staff of ID on the floor should be enough for you to discover what you really need.

I'm playing Eddieband ironman right now--being freed of ID is great; with the elimination of Curse Armor/Weapon I could completely live without it. (There would still need to be a reliable source of Remove Curse to help ID jewelry.)

[takkaria]

Sorry for the delay. Here's short answers to each item on your list.

> short term (according to Bebo - some of these are not short term at all)
> 1. merge priest dStairs & dTraps spells
Sure.

> 3. merge all !rStat in two different potions
No, I'm pretty at home with how things are now.

> 4. artifact memory
There's some code to keep track of what artifacts have ever been seen in a savefile in 3.1.1, maybe sometime I'll be convinced that it's a good idea to add the few lines of code to make artifact memory happen.

> 5. rework (ie reduce) rarity of -detection -speed -mapping
In 3.1.2 I'll be looking at broadly rebalancing the % of items of each kind found; ask again if by then it's not more to your taste.

> 7. use of ImpSp flag in char screen?
Eventually.

> 8. might as well add other items that cause ImpHp other than =Open Wounds
Again, at some point.

> 8b. a good idea might be to substitute this to aggravation in some cases
Indeed.

> 9. clarify in char screen difference between the two Fear flags
Done already.

> 10. percentage of max carriable weight before slowdown in char screen
No-brainer, really, isn't it?

> 11. element-proof town spellbooks? only found in dungeons
Maybe, but spell stuff mostly waiting until post-3.1.x

> 12. remove spikes
Probably another 3.2.x change

> 14. disturb on reverse LOS (not certain what this is, ask Eddie)
LOS and FOV will be changed at some point, this will be unnecessary then

> 15. minor nerfing of zephyr hounds
Point me to the thread where this was debated extensively and I'll tweak them down a bit

> 17. Macro command 'pause and accept direction/target'
Macros are going to change quite a lot at some point in the next few years so that they're not keypresses but lists of commands. We'll see about this then.


> long term (yet some of these are quite easy)
> 3. remove priest penalty for pointed weapons & remove blessed ego
It's on the agenda, I'm not quire sure when though

> 5. merging of magic books (huge old thread)
Again, post-3.1.x

> 6. new ego light sources
Eventually (there are some commented-out ones in ego_item.txt)

> 8. modifications to race/class exp ( http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=1683)

> 9. O-style combat / fractional blows / whatever
Fractional blows will probably arrive fairly soon.

> 10. appropriate drops for certain monsters/uniques
I believe there's a bug open for this somewhere but it's not a priority.


> in progress (as far as Bebo knows - I only know about the first one)
> 2. store restocking mechanism/fixed items/etc (see separate thread)
> 5. scramble monster list when hallucinating
> 6. activate without id (possibly part of point 1)
> 7. Activate/Aim/Use/Zap Estimates
Ayes all round, but no time estimate...

> For those interested, the following already have tickets:
>
> 2. home inventory in knowledge menu (#256)
> 6. improve =Dog =Mouse =Reckless Attacks (#716)
> 13. jelly pits/orc pits below certain dlvls have no impact on feelings (#50)
> 16. give meaning to object colours (#837)
> 17b. Advanced macro handling with actions, not keypresses, shown (#105)
> 1. rework mage & priest spells, sp calculation algorithm (#533 is first step)
> 2. remove charisma & related objects (as stated in trac......) (I can't find this one!)
> 1. id by use/wield (almost perfect by now on nightlies) (#752 - Eddie is doing this)
> 3. magic item %success displayed on "I" & recalculation of the algorithm per classes (#715 and #483)
> 4. npp style quiver (#34)
> 5b. dungeon books become artifacts (rarity issues?) (#353)
> 7. the starting equipment conundrum... (#31)
> 8. Thieves should drop stolen gold when killed (#29)

And yeah. Most of these have a fair chance of happening.

[TJS]

I think I'd be a little disappointed if the pointy penalty disappears for priests. It is one of the few flavour things in the game that have a bearing on gameplay.

Also I'm under the impression from people on here that priests are one of the easier classes to win with. Wouldn't making priests easier unbalance things a bit?

[buzzkill]

I think I'd be a little disappointed if the pointy penalty disappears for priests. It is one of the few flavour things in the game that have a bearing on gameplay.

The pointy penalty is puny as it currently stands, I frequently ignore it. But I don't want to see it go, quite the opposite, I'd like to see it beefed up a bit. I think that negating XP gain while wielding a pointy weapon would be a real deterrent. I'd would keep that sword out of your hands in all but the most dire of situations, as it should be.