Drain experience => temporary level drain

[Magnate]

You will find that there are enough grizzled veterans on these forums that many threads are about making the game harder or faster, etc. etc. Unfortunately most of the inexperienced players of the game either aren't on these forums or aren't as vocal as the others.

Au contraire, the vast majority of posters on Oook seem to have only been playing Angband since Takkaria took over as maintainer. And the debates aren't specifically about making the game easier or harder (those are side effects), they're about changing things which appeal to (or contradict) the poster's play style. Diving fast does not equal harder and clearing levels does not equal easier, or vice versa.

That said, the changes in recent versions of the game have made it slightly easier than older versions (many more ego items which can turn into artifacts, the quiver for better inv management etc.). So Takk might make some compensatory adjustments in future. Or not - this is evolution after all. JLE's changes in 2.9.x also made the game slightly easier, and they've never been undone.

[Derakon]

Well its just my opinion but if stat drain is temp then stat gain should also be temp. You quaff a potion of STR and after a while it fades away just as a creature drains your strength and after a while it goes back to your original level.

Doing this would greatly change the entire game, which is predicated on the assumption that the player makes massive permanent stat improvements after 2000' or so. You'd need to weaken basically every monster deeper than that to compensate for the player's decreased abilities. I can see the appeal from a symmetry perspective, but gameplay-wise I can't justify a change like this.

[PowerDiver]

That said, the changes in recent versions of the game have made it slightly easier than older versions

"Slightly"? Do I need to do my Inigo Montoya impression?

There used to be heavy crossbows of the Haradrim. They were removed, because the grizzled veterans deemed a 20lb x5 +1 shot launcher to be unbalancingly overpowered. I could easily name a dozen changes since 3.0 that are more unbalancing than they were.

A change that made the game slightly easier was the part of id-by-use that allows learning SI and brands immediately rather than waiting a little while. Whether in total id-by-use reaches beyond "slightly" to "significantly" is debatable, and that's just one change among many, and the smallest one of them that comes to mind.

There has been only one change to make things harder I can think of, the reduction in drops of consumables and jewelry.

[Nick]

"Slightly"? Do I need to do my Inigo Montoya impression?

Yes, yes you do. And link to the video, please.

[Rizwan]

Doing this would greatly change the entire game, which is predicated on the assumption that the player makes massive permanent stat improvements after 2000' or so. You'd need to weaken basically every monster deeper than that to compensate for the player's decreased abilities. I can see the appeal from a symmetry perspective, but gameplay-wise I can't justify a change like this.

Exactly my point. I am sorry if I was not clear but I was actually disagreeing with your viewpoint that stat drain should be temporary.

[Derakon]

Exactly my point. I am sorry if I was not clear but I was actually disagreeing with your viewpoint that stat drain should be temporary.

So basically, you're arguing that symmetry in stat gain / stat drain is important in its own right? I'd really like to see an argument that justifies "permanent temporary" stat drain (as opposed to timered temporary stat drain) on its own strengths, and not simply because of consistency. As far as I'm concerned, when it comes to game design consistency goes right out the window as soon as it interferes with gameplay.

[Timo Pietilä]

"Slightly"? Do I need to do my Inigo Montoya impression?

There used to be heavy crossbows of the Haradrim. They were removed, because the grizzled veterans deemed a 20lb x5 +1 shot launcher to be unbalancingly overpowered. I could easily name a dozen changes since 3.0 that are more unbalancing than they were.

A change that made the game slightly easier was the part of id-by-use that allows learning SI and brands immediately rather than waiting a little while. Whether in total id-by-use reaches beyond "slightly" to "significantly" is debatable, and that's just one change among many, and the smallest one of them that comes to mind.

There has been only one change to make things harder I can think of, the reduction in drops of consumables and jewelry.

...which was quite severe change. Too severe IMO.

In very old versions "fog of war" was much more present. You couldn't look what's what without actually seeing it (for example enlightement just revealed that there is some dungeon book in the next room, but you couldn't tell which one it is before you had LoS to it), you couldn't tell if monster is about to die or not without probing etc. No branding of ammunition, no "tiny speed boost" -items, less ego-items. Items didn't stack, no preserve mode etc.

OTOH there was globe of invulnerability for mages, GCV was one of only four GV:s making its appearance much more probable / game, Chaos resist did give immunity to confusion effect, some of the more dangerous monsters didn't exist or were less dangerous, demons were all fire-based so that with immunity to fire they all were nearly harmless, there were no non-basic4 element Great Wyrms, less items did mean more probable to find what you were looking for, less uniques made unique hunt easier.

I don't think id-by-use is making game easier, it is more like making game more comfortable. If something I think it should be made even more powerful and allow identifying known attributes of seen weapon without actually picking item up.

[the Invisible Stalker]

In Larn/Ularn experience drainers always take you down a full level. If they hit multiple times then that's multiple levels. And there's no restore life levels. I'm not suggesting we implement that, just making an observation.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

Were I to make one suggestion to re-balance the game, it's adjust how missiles work. Been working my way down from about 70, down to 87 I think now, mostly clearing the levels, using Umbar and Haradrim, with a decent spread of bolts...venom, giant, demon, frost, wounding, animal...the latter proved awesome against the Tarrasque, who never particularly threatened me. OK, had to go defensive a couple times, usually against summoners, and almost got careless a couple times...but as a rule, it's been a relative walk in the park. And we've had pointed out the way rangers are just incredibly powerful.

But back to the notion on drain life...

How about this. Instead of draining XP, the attack lowers your Max HP, until you can counter it. They then become reset. Note that it's not damage that heals; if you start with 800 hp but are drained for 100, then your max is now 700.

I think in principle this addresses Derakon's desires. It's *definitely* something you'll want to avoid because, hey, that's making you significantly more vulnerable. But it's not as damaging in a wide variety of ways as losing a level. It doesn't delay making your levels.

There are details to work out, but what do people think of the basic principle?

[Derakon]

Tiburon: do you think that, in principle, temporarily draining entire levels is not balanceable? It seems to me that your suggestion is borne out of a concern that level drain is overpowered, when we haven't even had a chance to see it in action yet. Not that alternate ideas are a bad thing (and yours seems decent at first glance); I'm just saying that it's very hard to say whether or not something is balanced without playing a few characters with it.

Note that temporary level drain would reduce your max HP too (and for warriors, that's practically all that it would do).

[PowerDiver]

I don't think id-by-use is making game easier, it is more like making game more comfortable. If something I think it should be made even more powerful and allow identifying known attributes of seen weapon without actually picking item up.

The more old-timers who speak up in favor when I propose ID changes, the faster it will go. Now that the learning code and bitflags are well in place, even a full rune-based approach would not be hard to code.

My biggest problem with the current system is the need to hit someone to see attack dice and bonuses. In the early game, I take weapons home and have to murder the townfolk before selling. In the late game, weapons pile up so fast it is not feasible to test them, especially with limited slots to carry them around.

[fizzix]

The more old-timers who speak up in favor when I propose ID changes, the faster it will go. Now that the learning code and bitflags are well in place, even a full rune-based approach would not be hard to code.

My biggest problem with the current system is the need to hit someone to see attack dice and bonuses. In the early game, I take weapons home and have to murder the townfolk before selling. In the late game, weapons pile up so fast it is not feasible to test them, especially with limited slots to carry them around.

I think the 'hitting things to ID' system works fine in the early game, and I don't think it should be changed.

I would not be averse to some level dependent gain in pseudo-ID that gives the bonuses automatically in the mid to late game. The trick is identifying the point where having gear with unknown abilities is an interesting game mechanic and when it's just an annoying hassle.

[d_m]

I remember Takkaria speaking in favor of character-level based auto-ID (sort of the way that you automatically learn artifact names on pickup). E.g. at level 20 you get instant pseudo and at level 40 you get instant ID, or something.

I'm not sure if he still approves of this, but it seems like a sensible idea to me.

I also like the idea of getting a "free attempt at pseudo" when walking over items. While I do think that eliminating ID entirely would remove a bit of the challenge, once you are on top of an item I think the question of what item it is becomes less interesting (as opposed to detecting a vault or something).

I might code up a patch and see how this plays...

[miyazaki]

I think the best mechanic is to have a "identify mode" that you active with cntl-i and gives you ID info on walk-over. Two conditions for this would be: (1) no mosters can be in LOS and (2) it uses a player-turn for each item.

I really dislike the idea of ID on walkover when there are enemies nearby. It should take your character a moment to properly look at an item and figure out characteristics. This shouldn't be done with a greater balrog towering over you inside a greater vault.

Having this ID mode would require just a single keystroke before checking out all the loot left from clearing a troll pit or vault.

[nullfame]

Ycombinator's point is fair, though. Making drain experience a meaningful threat makes monsters with experience-draining attacks more powerful; it might be necessary to compensate for that in some fashion. Though, depending on how things go, this could actually make undead more attractive to kill for some players, since there wouldn't be a permanent cost to getting drained by them.

So the net effect is maybe it makes experience drainers more dangerous or maybe it makes them less dangerous.

I agree with Ycombinator. Drainers are dangerous enough today. I can't think of many I go out of my way out to kill. Maybe vampires.

Is the goal to make drainers more dangerous? To make hold life more valuable? To make more people carry !lifeLevels? To just change something? Another way to achieve all of these goals is to just massively increase the amount of experience drained per hit so you're losing levels all the time. If that is too much increase the rate max experience grows or the rate current experience grows when current < max.

To me the current mechanic isn't broken. The rate at which you gain experience is effectively reduced by 90% temporarily (until you kill enough to close the gap). If they are for sale I carry 2-5 !lifeLevels and drop them when I need a slot.

If hold life is pointless I say get rid of it.