Something between 2000' and 5000'

[Timo Pietilä]

But that's a direct result of the drastic reduction in consumables (in general, and stat pots in particular) in 3.1.x - in the old days nobody went below 2000' without all stats maxed, and thus resists were THE thing you wanted from armour.

Diving below 2000 wasn't stat-based, but gear-based. Basically you needed CON and spellcasting stat high. Diving with enough HP and spells was quite possible without maxed stats.

But now you can scum for PDSM of Speed (+10) ....

What's that? Another boost to items to make diving faster?

[Magnate]

Diving below 2000 wasn't stat-based, but gear-based. Basically you needed CON and spellcasting stat high. Diving with enough HP and spells was quite possible without maxed stats.

Maybe it was, but people generally didn't do it. Until Eddie and Cliff came along the received wisdom was that you didn't leave 1500'-1600' until STR, DEX, CON and mana stat were at 18/100.

What's that? Another boost to items to make diving faster?

Yup - ego DSMs, which are long overdue. I doubt they'll be common enough to make much difference to anyone, it's more the principle of the thing.

[buzzkill]

Just throwing it out there.. What if everything sold in town was severely limited. Detection, healing, etc. may not even be present. Each store just stocks a handful of items (2d4) in low (single digit) quantities. The only guaranteed item would be a single WoR (or the stairs in town function as recall). After limited considerstion, this is probably not good for general play but I think it would be an interesting experience. I guess that buying out stores would have to be nerfed as well.

[Magnate]

There are two major other things:

1) lack of small speed boosting items. Only sources of speed were: Ringil, Cubragol, Feanor, BoS, and RoS. (and you couldn't use both Ringil and Cubragol at the same time). That mean that between 2500 - 4000' you were moving one third of the speed of fastest monsters and half of the speed of dangerous most monsters _unless you got speed from vault_. You needed to go slower down and examine levels because of that. You needed to gain enough HP and detection stuff to survive and/or avoid monsters that are faster than you are. That also did mean that you probably needed to use two RoS deep down, which hurts classes/races with low HP. Especially mages.

2) Preserve mode didn't exist. You needed to examine levels or risk losing artifacts. That obviously doesn't stop powerdiving, but players that powerdived would need to cope with the fact that you lose artifacts and are probably permanently much weaker down there than slower player.

Minor things were:
There has been huge change in drops (was (dlvl+mlvl) / 2, items didn't stack), ammunition (now more types, much more common), slays (only one kill slay: dragon and it was very rare) and brands (acid and poison are new ones), shops (especially infinite ammo and enchant scrolls) in addition to fact that almost every single artifact have got a some sort of boost in order to make them "less boring" and ego items got boost to compete with artifacts and artifacts got boots to beat ego items... In old days at the point where you were at stat-gain you were usually much weaker, and after that your char was quite good, but your gear was much weaker than it is now, and that continued to the endgame.

This is an interesting essay. I would wholly support removing preserve mode if level feelings were fixed so that "special" feelings never occurred without an artifact on the level. I think some people might be quite upset if preserve were removed, but in a game with permadeath it seems consistent.

I think Takk plans to revert the MAX(mlev, dlev) for drops, which should solve part of the problem. He will also doubtless tone down armour and weapon drops quite a bit more, so that the powerful ego items and improved artifacts are less common. (That said, I have never yet found "Trickery or "Weaponmastery, and have only ever seen one shield of Preservation, so these things aren't exactly flooding the place even now.)

The most interesting points are about ammo and shops. It is my fervent hope that Takk does something radical about shops for 3.1.3 - it's third on his list after the drop tweaking and curses. Personally I'd support prices increasing to reflect demand, or finite supply, or both. The important thing is to make any changes scum-proof to prevent players slipping into boring modes of play (like waiting for stock to change etc.). I think if the shops problem is fixed the ammo problem will go away (assuming the nerf of archery continues to a balanced conclusion).

EDIT: I forgot to address the speed point. Yes there are small speed boosts on artifacts, but presumably they don't add up to more than +40 speed - which is what you effectively ended up with if you had BoS+1, 2x RoS+1 and Ringil or Cubragol. In fact I've never had +30 perm speed, though I know it is possible with two rings. I think you're right that fast (+10 speed) monsters are probably less threatening than they were, because a single small speed boost will, if hasted, make you faster than them. But very fast (+20) monsters are still pretty scary...

[ewert]

Tbh, I really reallllly like NPP style store services for things such as enchants, restores, gains, etc. I mean REALLY like. And fireproofing! Aaaaah!

[Magnate]

Just throwing it out there.. What if everything sold in town was severely limited. Detection, healing, etc. may not even be present. Each store just stocks a handful of items (2d4) in low (single digit) quantities. The only guaranteed item would be a single WoR (or the stairs in town function as recall). After limited considerstion, this is probably not good for general play but I think it would be an interesting experience. I guess that buying out stores would have to be nerfed as well.

Dude, there has been thread after thread on this, with about a dozen models of store stocking proposed. There's no consensus, so it's one of those issues where one just hopes that Takk does something bold.

[Atarlost]

Maybe it was, but people generally didn't do it. Until Eddie and Cliff came along the received wisdom was that you didn't leave 1500'-1600' until STR, DEX, CON and mana stat were at 18/100.

And that's the problem. Angband was designed with one paradigm and it no longer applies and the people who broke the old paradigm and turned a nice long marathon game into a sprint are the most influential people now because their low turn count wins are viewed as impressive instead of aberrant.

Going down a level should be something you do after careful consideration. The stick isn't going to get in, so how about the carrot. Every level (or every level past 50) you get one greater vault the first time you enter the level and those are the only greater vaults you'll ever see. That's more GVs than most people need, but if you dive past a level or have to flee one because you dove too fast earlier that's a GV you'll never see again.

[Magnate]

And that's the problem. Angband was designed with one paradigm and it no longer applies and the people who broke the old paradigm and turned a nice long marathon game into a sprint are the most influential people now because their low turn count wins are viewed as impressive instead of aberrant.

Going down a level should be something you do after careful consideration. The stick isn't going to get in, so how about the carrot. Every level (or every level past 50) you get one greater vault the first time you enter the level and those are the only greater vaults you'll ever see. That's more GVs than most people need, but if you dive past a level or have to flee one because you dove too fast earlier that's a GV you'll never see again.

As Derakon said earlier, I don't think we can infer much about the design intent. I'm willing to wager that "hanging around stat gain" was not a design concept at all, but an unforeseen consequence of the drop algorithm and depth of stat potions. So I have no problem with that approach no longer being popular, as long as it isn't actively penalised. As far as I know, none of the developers (who are not all divers, by any means) has attempted to do that. Conversely, I don't see why people should be encouraged not to dive, either.

[Timo Pietilä]

Maybe it was, but people generally didn't do it. Until Eddie and Cliff came along the received wisdom was that you didn't leave 1500'-1600' until STR, DEX, CON and mana stat were at 18/100.

That was the wisdom of angband strategy guide which was used by newbies. It didn't apply to more experienced players like me though. To me maxing stats wasn't the reason to stop. I did slow down quite a bit to find RoRPoison (or some other source of poison resist) though. Dying was embarrassment. All deaths were considered literally yaSd.

[Magnate]

Dying was embarrassment. All deaths were considered literally yaSd.

I think Eddie gets the credit for single-handedly changing this mentality, and IMO it's a good thing. Dying should be a learning experience, and if so then many deaths aren't YASDs - though a few will still be embarrassing!

[Timo Pietilä]

As Derakon said earlier, I don't think we can infer much about the design intent. I'm willing to wager that "hanging around stat gain" was not a design concept at all, but an unforeseen consequence of the drop algorithm and depth of stat potions.

More like consequence of native depth of poison resist and AMHD and Drolem and general jump in monster deadliness in about 2500'. Stat-gain was basically "safe depth" to get gear and stats before trying deeper levels. Nothing more.

It still is, and even more so than earlier when you needed to kill deeper monsters to get those stat-gaining potions.

[Timo Pietilä]

I think Eddie gets the credit for single-handedly changing this mentality, and IMO it's a good thing. Dying should be a learning experience, and if so then many deaths aren't YASDs - though a few will still be embarrassing!

In my point of view all deaths are still stupid. Dying should be a learning experience, but dying a lot just to get occasional lucky "as fast win as possible" is just stupid.

[nullfame]

From YA1W thread:

the big find was the crazy randart armour that covered almost every resist and meant I didn't really have to juggle any artifacts. From then on it was dive (stop - check any level with a feeling), dive (stop - check any level with a feeling), dive

I think most people don't stop for level feelings because they see them as broken. If they were fixed you might have less diving. Certainly eliminating preserve mode would "fix" that too.

I also have to agree with Nightmarjoo that adding more quest monsters doesn't change the current gameplay much. It just means that I stop to create another kit another time. Maybe people see that as good, but I don't think it changes things.

[LostTemplar]

Probably eliminating preserve mode or making stairs harder to find is wrong way to stop diving. If somebody wants to power up his character at dlvl 98, there is no reason to deny it. If diving have to be stopped, good way is to make deep levels deadly for weak characters, maybe make stealth dependent on level difference, so high level monsters will allways be aggravated by low lvl @. Personally I see nothing bad in diving, there are ironman and no preserve options for people who dont want to dive.

[Derakon]

Historically, what you had was cautious play that tried to minimize threat while maintaining a depth that meant that you could theoretically improve your equipment. People were quite willing to replay levels over and over again until the specific item they were looking for made it past the OoD drop limiter and showed up. Heck, I remember going to dlvl 20 with my paladin and casting Clairvoyance / Alter Reality over and over again until one of the longswords on the floor was Ringil, though I think that's an extreme that only showed up because I was young and very easily amused.

Boldness is probably the single most important characteristic that we can rank players by. We have everything from the "plays dlvl 1 until clvl 10" types to the "takes every staircase seen as soon as it is seen" types. I wouldn't recommend any changes that enforce one playstyle over another (and thus I'm inclined to agree that adding more required quest monsters is not a great idea). However, I do think that some playstyles are "more optimal" than others; that is, they will beat the game faster and/or more consistently. That doesn't mean that they're more fun for everyone, but it does mean that the game as written is already biased against some playstyles and in favor of others.