My observations on vanilla 3.1.1

**Marble Dice** · August 5, 2009, 23:03

Water hounds are grey because they're actually acid hounds, and grey is the acidic color (eg black dragons). These aren't fresh spring water hounds, they're dank, vile, corrosive water hounds. I know you didn't expect people to agree, but there's more reason to it than just "it's always been that way" (which is not a good reason IMO).

For flavor, I don't mind it as long as it doesn't interfere with game play. Broken bones, shards of pottery, etc just exacerbated TMJ.

I'm neutral on food types, except if I recall none of them were worth buying compared to rations and if you didn't know that you might end up taking them down into the dungeon with you even though they don't stack with food you're likely to find and they don't provide adequate sustenance per weight or cost.

I agree with you completely on the series of <color> <critter> enemies (early snakes, centipedes, and to a lesser extent, ickies). They all meld together in my mind because they aren't distinct, their names are not descriptive, and the colors have no thematic or mechanical implications (unlike the dragons and hounds). I'd rather see large garden snake, giant constrictor snake instead of large white snake, large yellow snake, etc.

**PowerDiver** · August 5, 2009, 23:45

Originally posted by will_asher

- I still can't really decide if I like the new identify-by-use stuff or not, but I don't hate it. Is there a plan to add pseudo-ID on jewelry because that's something I know I want. (Or has it already been added and I just haven't spent enough turns with unIDed jewelry in my inventory yet?)

Pseudo on jewelry has not been added. Takkaria wasn't interested in anything more complicated than {good} vs {bad}, and I wasn't interested in anything that weak. Perhaps you can convince someone else to implement something Takkaria might accept.

**takkaria** · August 5, 2009, 23:55

Originally posted by PowerDiver

Pseudo on jewelry has not been added. Takkaria wasn't interested in anything more complicated than {good} vs {bad}, and I wasn't interested in anything that weak. Perhaps you can convince someone else to implement something Takkaria might accept.

Mostly, I think pseudo on jewelry is mostly redundant with learn-by-ID. I haven't missed it. And when we have different curses, there'll be no penalty for just trying out items by wearing them.

**Zikke** · August 6, 2009, 01:10

Originally posted by takkaria

Mostly, I think pseudo on jewelry is mostly redundant with learn-by-ID. I haven't missed it. And when we have different curses, there'll be no penalty for just trying out items by wearing them.

Recently there has been a big push towards the "learn by using it" approach to items, but where did that come from? Even with the new features, I never put anything on until I ID it, it's just not my play style in this game or any other. I'm sure there are other people out there like me (or so I believe).

**takkaria** · August 6, 2009, 01:45

Originally posted by Zikke

Recently there has been a big push towards the "learn by using it" approach to items, but where did that come from? Even with the new features, I never put anything on until I ID it, it's just not my play style in this game or any other. I'm sure there are other people out there like me (or so I believe).

It came from the idea that you should be able to figure out what items do by using them, basically.

**Rodimus** · August 6, 2009, 03:28

Originally posted by Zikke

I'm sure there are other people out there like me (or so I believe).

Count me in on that. I've been playing Moria, Angband, and other variants since I was in college (back in 1986 and later..whenever it showed up on our vaxcluster)..

I don't drink anything, put anything on, etc.. until I've ID'ed it.

It's the equivalent of drinking a bottle with Mr Yuck on it. What does that Mr Yuck mean? Maybe I should just drink it and find out.

No thanks!

This is my first post on the forum, so.. I guess I'll weigh in more now that I've actually registered.

Been lurking a while.

I'm not a diver, I guess I qualify as a scummer. I revisit each level until I've found all the possible unique monsters, unique/ego items, etc.

These I store in my home for display and pleasure if I'm not using them.

Beyond that, I've never killed Morgoth.

But that's not my goal in playing the game. My goal is to find as much stuff and kill as many uniques as I can.

I'm an odd one in that the 'endgame' isn't the game for me. I'd kill Morgoth if I ever got far enough down to find him... but somehow, I always get breathed on by an AMHD or some such thing.

Anyway, greets to you all.

Rodimus

**Maupin** · August 6, 2009, 03:28

I'm the same way. I carry stuff until I get a feeling for what it is and then either ID it by scroll or destroy it. Since Moria I have learned never ever wear/wield anything unless I know exactly what it is.

I think the ID-by-use feature is kind of cool, especially for Ironman players, but as a towny I'd be really unhappy if Scrolls of Identity were made more rare or more expensive (so I hope that's not on the horizon).

**Rodimus** · August 6, 2009, 03:32

Originally posted by will_asher

I agree with the other people who were saying that the extra question about squelching whenever you try to destroy something is really annoying. A few times I accidently told it to squelch something and had to go to the squelch menu and unsquelch it. Please put the destroy command back to how it used to be.

Oh, and I second, third, fourth, whatever this request.

I like my destroy. I never use squelch, never need it. I have a specific and enjoyable habit of destroying every little piece of trash I pick up.

Examine, ID, sell or destroy.

**Pete Mack** · August 6, 2009, 04:51

Originally posted by Maupin

I'm the same way. I carry stuff until I get a feeling for what it is and then either ID it by scroll or destroy it. Since Moria I have learned never ever wear/wield anything unless I know exactly what it is.

I think the ID-by-use feature is kind of cool, especially for Ironman players, but as a towny I'd be really unhappy if Scrolls of Identity were made more rare or more expensive (so I hope that's not on the horizon).

Try it, you may well like it. I certainly do.
Sticky cursed items are quite uncommon now, and the only really disastrous sticky curse is on bad ego weapons. Rather than 20 ?ID, you can get by with a handful of ?Remove Curse for a whole lot of identification. Further, you get to discover high resists & abilities, so the old problem of scumming for *ID* is gone forever. (And yes, ?ID gives full identify now--that's just another reason to make it less common.)

**Pete Mack** · August 6, 2009, 04:54

Originally posted by Marble Dice

I agree with you completely on the series of <color> <critter> enemies (early snakes, centipedes, and to a lesser extent, ickies). They all meld together in my mind because they aren't distinct, their names are not descriptive, and the colors have no thematic or mechanical implications (unlike the dragons and hounds). I'd rather see large garden snake, giant constrictor snake instead of large white snake, large yellow snake, etc.

I have some sympathy on this, but the first levels are boring no matter what names you give the monsters. They all hit you for a little damage; some are quick and erratic; and some cause minor poisoning/confusion/blindness. I spend so little time on dl 1-5 that I hardly notice the names of the various critters. I certainly don't see one of each species; it's closer to one or two of each genus.

**will_asher** · August 6, 2009, 05:34

A couple more observations: (and bugs)

- Saw potions of resist poison in the BM for 90 gold each. Do they stack with permanent resistances like the other resist potions do? That's cool that they've been added, but they're too cheap whether they stack or not.

- Looks like there's been three more slots added to the home just like DaJAngband has. Cool. Didn't expect that that would get into vanilla.

- Bug: torch of brightness says radius 2 light in the description, but that's the same as
regular torches.

- Bug: inspected a quarterstaff of extra attacks in a shop and it said 1 attack/round.

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=9197

**Sirridan** · August 6, 2009, 06:02

Yeah those potions do stack with the perma resist, reducing incoming poison damage to 1/9 I believe.

**pampl** · August 6, 2009, 10:33

Originally posted by Pete Mack

I have some sympathy on this, but the first levels are boring no matter what names you give the monsters. They all hit you for a little damage; some are quick and erratic; and some cause minor poisoning/confusion/blindness. I spend so little time on dl 1-5 that I hardly notice the names of the various critters. I certainly don't see one of each species; it's closer to one or two of each genus.

Do you think there's a solution to this? It seems to me the problem is you can't expect low level characters to have very many tools to deal with a diverse set of monsters - they probably don't have detect invis or see invis so you can't make overly strong invisible creatures, they probably don't have resist X so you can't make a big breather of element X, etc. I don't know how that can be changed without just having everyone start at level 25 with some ego items and good consumables (not that I would necessarily have a problem with that...). The one thing I can think of is to have more stunning and cutting monsters, as CLW is cheap and available and could stand to be more useful. There could maybe be some visible monsters that cause fear, too, as that's so easy for anyone to deal with.

edit: !RFire and !RCold are really low level, so maybe a big fire or cold breather that's slow, immobile, and gives off light would be threatening but solvable for low-level characters

**ekolis** · August 6, 2009, 13:18

But who says you have to FIGHT everything? Sure, I compulsively disarm traps for the XP, but even I know to rest a while when running low on hitpoints

So in regards to "big immobile fire breather that emits light", I'd say why not make it "HUGE SLOW fire breather that emits light and causes fear", and players will learn to run away from it after their first encounter or two... or would that be too cruel to newbs?

Then, heck, if you want to fight it later on, say, once you've reached double digit clvl, go right ahead - you get the added bonus of not needing as many recall scrolls just to avoid the "boring" levels!

Now, what would you call one of these things anyway? Hmm... I was thinking maybe it could be a hatchling of a very rare, gigantic dragon species... or maybe some sort of golem or elemental...

I'm also thinking of an interesting game mechanic found in a number of console RPG's and adventure games, whereby later in the game, even the "boring" areas have tougher monsters (usually explained as "the monsters are coming out in full force" or "the Chaos/Noise/Phazon/whatever infestation is corrupting the local wildlife/robots/whatever")... heck, in one game (Megaman Starforce 3), I was totally freaked out when I was wandering along shortly after beating a boss by the name of Spade Magnes, who had 400 HP, and OMG!!! suddenly *random encounter* with "Spade Magnes V2" who had *800* HP and attacked much faster and stronger! (Fortunately I was able to flee, but I avoided the spot where I encountered him for quite some time!) So maybe even "resurrected uniques with more HP" would be an interesting scheme... of course then they wouldn't quite be so UNIQUE :P

edit: oh, yeah, and I never really cared much for the "fear" mechanic in Angband... why is it that the SAME monster that causes fear to a level 1 character also causes fear to a level 50 character??? But a level 1 character encountering an OOD monster that's normally found on level 50 but does NOT cause fear, is not afraid? :P

My observations on vanilla 3.1.1

My observations on vanilla 3.1.1

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