Reducing Mandatory WoR

[buzzkill]

As Vanilla (and most variants) stands right now, Word of Recall is mandatory equipment for both new and veteran characters simply because taking the stairs back to the surface is mind-bogglingly dull, and time consuming.

Without altering the core of the game itself, what if an up staircase plus [shift + <] took you up 10 level instead of just one? In this way, new characters wouldn't have to start with or immediately purchase WoR, and even advanced characters could walk back to town if necessary. Now, having your last WoR burn up or running out of food would be less of a death sentence. There are already enough ways to die.

I wouldn't be adverse to making this default behavior, as it would have the happy side effect of eliminating stair scumming, but I felt it would meet with less resistance if it was introduced as 'shift optional'.

As an afterthought, [shift + >] could take you down 10 levels, not to exceed your previously established maximum depth.

[konijn_]

As Vanilla (and most variants) stands right now, Word of Recall is mandatory equipment for both new and veteran characters simply because taking the stairs back to the surface is mind-bogglingly dull, and time consuming.

Without altering the core of the game itself, what if an up staircase plus [shift + <] took you up 10 level instead of just one? In this way, new characters wouldn't have to start with or immediately purchase WoR, and even advanced characters could walk back to town if necessary. Now, having your last WoR burn up or running out of food would be less of a death sentence. There are already enough ways to die.

I wouldn't be adverse to making this default behavior, as it would have the happy side effect of eliminating stair scumming, but I felt it would meet with less resistance if it was introduced as 'shift optional'.

As an afterthought, [shift + >] could take you down 10 levels, not to exceed your previously established maximum depth.

Well, what if I am cruising on level 15 ? Do I need to slug 5 levels or just face level 20 suddenly ? Just give a scroll of recall at birth if you dont do that already, give 2 if you're worried about fire attacks.

T.

[Derakon]

How about if we re-imagine the staircases as continuing more or less indefinitely in both directions? The default behavior would be to get off at the "next stop", but there'd be no reason you couldn't keep going, either.

The biggest problem I'd see with this would be the temptation for young characters to immediately drop to 99 to look for cool loot on the ground.

[konijn_]

How about if we re-imagine the staircases as continuing more or less indefinitely in both directions? The default behavior would be to get off at the "next stop", but there'd be no reason you couldn't keep going, either.

The biggest problem I'd see with this would be the temptation for young characters to immediately drop to 99 to look for cool loot on the ground.

For Hellband I was seriously considering for post-Dis to have every staircase be joined by an opposite staircase, with character descending ending up on a set of stairs that descend as well, with a stair that ascends next to it and vice versa.

This way the player just keeps pressing '>' or '<', maybe make it an option ;]

T.

[Zikke]

I don't mean to throw WoW into this, but you can't have a conversation about Recall without mentioning the idea of the Hearthstone from WoW. It's an item you start the game with that you can use every 30 minutes to recall. I suppose it would be like a Rod of Recall at birth.


This topic of recalls came up a few months ago as well, and somebody mentioned the idea of starting the game with 10 ?Recall that couldn't be sold, which seems feasible to me.

[Hariolor]

I like the idea of stairs that go up (not down) many levels at once. How about this for another idea in the mix:

establish benchmark levels (every 10?) that are standard recall depths. Then have a recall spot in town (part of the home?) that takes the player to their choice of previously reached benchmark depths.

?recall could still exist, as a means for escape out of the dungeon, but could effectively reduce the need for them by 50%

if we wanted to get way out into variant territory, they could be associated with achieving a certain objective on each level (one of the nine maybe, each progressively stronger than the last, on each even multiple of 10?)

[Pete Mack]

I don't recall the last time I lost all my ?WoR.
Angband now supplies you with a single ?WoR at the start (which I think is a good change.) By hound depth, extra scrolls are easily affordable.

Since it's quite easy to avoid losing all your recall, I don't see how Recall is broken.

[Donald Jonker]

What if CTRL+< on any up-stair simply took you back to town (maybe for a price?), and CTRL+> took you to your max depth? Any possibility of abuse above and beyond regular stairscumming?

@Pete - WoR isn't really broken, but it could be made neater.

[z118]

I don't recall the last time I lost all my ?WoR.
Angband now supplies you with a single ?WoR at the start (which I think is a good change.) By hound depth, extra scrolls are easily affordable.

Since it's quite easy to avoid losing all your recall, I don't see how Recall is broken.

I agree completely.

[Zikke]

I agree also that recall isn't broken. After a certain point, you don't need to recall at all, anyway.

[buzzkill]

My main point was that you can't (reasonably) play a standard game without Scrolls of WoR. The cast spell and the rod both come too late in the game for starting characters to attain in their first dive. It's perhaps the only item in the game that is absolutely necessary and doesn't have a viable substitute or workaround.

Recall isn't broken, but if it ever was, Angband would be unplayable. By using [shift + <] one could play a slightly more cumbersome game (without using WoR at all) if recall was instead offered as a shop service. Furthermore, I don't see downside of traversing 10 DL's up at a time, even if it was made the singular default [<]. Does anyone really have a problem with players getting to the surface more quickly? It's not, at first glance, abusable and it wouldn't make the game significantly easier or harder.

Personally, I never have as much GP as I need. I don't like the selling game anymore (DAJ with no selling is a great way to condition yourself to accept this). I destroy valuable, useless, items (without even thinking about it) constantly. I recall when I need to resupply, and I seldom stockpile many items in my home (IMO, widespread stockpiling shouldn't be necessary). While it would be rare for an moderately successful character not to be able to afford a few extra WoR, I'd rather it not be absolutely necessary to do so.

With my current NetAngband character something caused me to read my starting WoR at DL2 or DL3. I was unable to afford another, but proceeded into the dungeon none the less, what choice did I have? Townscum? I was starving and nearly DL30 before a found my first WoR, and that was with quite a bit of thorough dungeon exploring/level clearing. I know this proves nothing, I'd just thought that I'd relate the experience that inspired the idea.

Stairs up at DL 15 would move you to DL 5. Find another up staircase and you would land in town.

I could scrap the afterthought of [shift + >] for going down 10 levels. I much prefer the notion of having recall offered as a shop service.

Take it or leave it, I've said all I have to say .

[nobody]

yeah i also agree with pete and others that recall isn't broken. and if you don't like to sell things then find you don't have enough money, thats sorta your own fault

[will_asher]

I remember when I first started playing Angband (after playing Nethack for a long time), I thought the need for recall was rather cumbersome. After a while I got used to it but never liked it. I like the idea of using CTRL < to go up 10 levels at a time, and think it wouldn't really change the game much at all except that you wouldn't have to carry recall (and fire-attacks wouldn't be quite as scary in the early game). I'd just be like having one more inventory slot.

I might even implement this in DaJAngband (I'd probably make it so CTRL < took you more than 10 levels up when you get deeper, so that you'd never have to take more than ~5-6 sets of stairs to get back to town .. On second thought, it might be better just to have CTRL-R as a recall command that's available without having to carry anything around. Otherwise it could be pretty annoying getting back to town from level 90+).

BTW, I don't think the current recall system is broken, I just agree that the game might be better without needing to carry the scrolls all the time. I never get caught without recall because I always carry plenty (minimum of six when I leave the town as soon as I can afford that many).

[d_m]

One idea I had which is probably variant territory was to have X% of staircases be a different color, corresponding to how drastically they would change depth. So a red up staircase might try to go 20 levels, for instance.

Depending on how you do the percentages and the depth-enhancement(s) it could be either useless or overpowered, but it would address the issue without (entirely) obviating WoR or adding new items like hearthstones or new commands.

[bio_hazard]

Somehow the multi-level shaft idea would make more sense to me (thematically) with persistent levels.
I don't see how this won't end up with massive stair scumming for a room that has another up-shaft, and/or having to traverse an entire boring level to find another up-shaft.
Why not combine recall and teleport scrolls, and let the player decide whether to tele on the same level, or visit another level (including town, current level -1, current level +1)?