Feature request - other forms of detection.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

I wouldn't mind seeing max depth on monsters. It's a waste of time to deal with, say, a novice mage on DL 50...even a pack of them.

On !potions...it's not just those, IMO it's ALL potions. I took a break for a while from playing because I had a really stupid, actually perhaps *frustrated* death with my ranger around DL 75. The frustration was a *serious* lack of healing potions ever being available, and just letting that goad me a bit too much trying to take out...I think it was Feagwath.

It was also triggered in part because the last several trips had seen me get *crunched* on stats, and taking a very long time to find anything to fix them. My high-level mage had the same issue. Yeah, fine, I had a few at home...so I could've had some...but not many. The rate that you use them...or lose them...is FAR higher than the drop rate.

[fizzix]

I wouldn't mind seeing max depth on monsters. It's a waste of time to deal with, say, a novice mage on DL 50...even a pack of them.

On !potions...it's not just those, IMO it's ALL potions. I took a break for a while from playing because I had a really stupid, actually perhaps *frustrated* death with my ranger around DL 75. The frustration was a *serious* lack of healing potions ever being available, and just letting that goad me a bit too much trying to take out...I think it was Feagwath.

It was also triggered in part because the last several trips had seen me get *crunched* on stats, and taking a very long time to find anything to fix them. My high-level mage had the same issue. Yeah, fine, I had a few at home...so I could've had some...but not many. The rate that you use them...or lose them...is FAR higher than the drop rate.

I agree with this and Hariolor's comment. I'm just saying we need to fix the consumable drop problem first and *then* implement a max depth.

A while back, I played with modded edit files that had !Aug and !Healing sold in the Alchemist. (This was before !CCW was changed to actually be useful). This isn't the right approach, but you'd be surprised how different the game becomes when stat gain is easier. Now you can get by with mostly !CCW, so I don't really see the healing issue as too much of a problem, I think that's been addressed. My normal dive speed nets me about 7-8 *healing* or life by the time I reach Sauron and M, and that's usually enough along with a stack of ~50 ?phase and ~50 !CCW. Stat gain however is a *huge* pain. It's been at the top of my 'annoyances' list for a while now and everything I've suggested has been unliked so far.

To recap, here are some suggestions:
Include them as good items so drop_good monsters can have them
Move more of the stat dependence to clevel instead of stat. (I.E. Con gain from 18/180 to 18/200 at clevel 50 should hp from say 920-1000 not from 800-1000 as it currently is.)
Have them available at insanely high frequencies in the BM or purchaseable at inflated prices from the Alchemist
Change all !restore to the corresponding !stat_gain after some sufficiently deep level.
Give characters "minimal" stat values that are clevel dependent. I.E. a warrior's STR at clevel 30 is 18/50 if it's lower than that.

Not all of these are good ideas. But, they can't all be winners.

[Derakon]

Other possibilities could include:

* Theming drops. ToME does this so that e.g. orcs tend to drop weapons and armor, "mage" enemies (including liches) tend to drop wands, rods, and books, and so on. This doesn't directly affect the availability of potions, but it does mean that a character who needs potions can seek out certain enemies if he sees them, and not waste time on the enemies he knows aren't going to give him anything useful. Then you just add consumables to a few of the themes and you're good to go.

* Increasing the frequency with which items are generated on the ground as you get deeper into the dungeon. More floor loot == more consumables. Also means diving becomes even more of a dominant strategy, though.

* Making the desired items "pileable", so that instead of finding a single potion, you could find 1-4, say.

* Gaining stats on level-up. Numerous variants do this in different ways. Has the side-effect of making the early game rather faster, especially if you can control which stats improve.

[Hariolor]

Another possibility that doesn't require changing frequency might be making each !stat improve the revelant stat by a random amount, say +1d6 (or whatever the equivalent in angband points is)?

If the average gain per quaff is +3.5 instead of +1, then in most games far fewer potions will be needed to get through stat gain.


May I also say, though, that I rather like the idea of Theming drops - though this is a bigger change and potentially far more unbalancing.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

Theming drops shouldn't change the balance per se. One thing it would do, tho, is make liches (book-droppers) less viable candidates for Banishing...until you have all the spellbooks anyway.

And not everything need be themed; wouldn't surprise me that most *don't* justify a theme. But, say you give most non-unique p monsters...the humanoids...an emphasis on scrolls and potions. This kinda figures, cuz hey, all the @s are humanoids and they've all got them too. Now that pack of stupid novice mages on DL 50 is...rather attractive.

Theming can be done a million different ways...so if it feels like a good idea, it'd probably be wise to start with a very simple approach, one or two of the more clearly-defined monster symbols getting a narrowly defined drops preference. And, heck, if we define 2 or 3 monster symbols to focus on consumables drops, and leave uniques and dragons with their current strong preference for wearables...we might find we get a better balance. What I wouldn't start with is, say, the warrior-p's with different drops from the cleric-p's or the mage-p's. Maybe later, but that's overkill for a first cut IMO.

[Pete Mack]

I wouldn't mind seeing max depth on monsters. It's a waste of time to deal with, say, a novice mage on DL 50...even a pack of them.

Not if there's a chance that they will drop stat potions.
All deep monsters are DROP_GOOD, so they probably won't drop stat potions.

[JohnCW9]

Sounds like stat potions need a better distribution curve, then.

I've never cared for the fact that scumming o/O/T is the fastest way to find stat potions -at any depth

or you have stats that level up when you do. in some vairants you have the equal of drinking a !Aug every 5 levels and their are other soultions possible not I seem to execpt to Vanila.