So what else should we revert?

[Magnate]

I was struck by the 2000-4900 thread by the proposition from Jeff (nppangband) that quite a few recent changes to V should be acknowledged as not having worked. Rather than reply to Jeff, I thought I'd start a new thread.

Takk frequently tells me to be bold, so I have in r2016 changed the monster drop algorithm to the one suggested by d_m:

MAX((p_ptr->depth + r_ptr->level) / 2, r_ptr->level)

Jeff (and everyone else) - I am curious to know which other changes you think should be reverted or revisited in V.

[PowerDiver]

I hate the power-based pricing scheme. Things you bring home to sell now sell for much more, and the occasional great items you want to buy seem to cost less. That really increases the shopping aspect of the game. Just make a table of price additions for random "xtra" powers if you want something with ESP to cost more than a hat of ESP.

Revert CLW in the mage book to the old behavior and call it cure insignificant wounds.

[fizzix]

Revert CLW in the mage book to the old behavior and call it cure insignificant wounds.

I like this suggestion (i dislike the reverting power pricing suggestion)

edit: removed stuff not germane to 'what to revert'

[Timo Pietilä]

I was struck by the 2000-4900 thread by the proposition from Jeff (nppangband) that quite a few recent changes to V should be acknowledged as not having worked. Rather than reply to Jeff, I thought I'd start a new thread.

Takk frequently tells me to be bold, so I have in r2016 changed the monster drop algorithm to the one suggested by d_m:

MAX((p_ptr->depth + r_ptr->level) / 2, r_ptr->level)

Jeff (and everyone else) - I am curious to know which other changes you think should be reverted or revisited in V.

I think one of the changes I don't think was completely successful was removal of autoscum by tuning level generation. IMO there are now way too many boring levels.

This needs a bit tuning that reduces the value of OoD monsters (to avoid getting as many pits), items (to not get great feeling for just bunch of ego-items) and increasing the value of vaults.

If I play a about million turn game without seeing one GV I feel that one of the major things in the game is broken.

Then the vaults themselves. We need to rework them. Remove some of the weaker uninteresting ones, boost some of the greater ones and IMO get rid of those that are huge in vertical direction. IMO we should have same kind of distribution system for them as we have for items, IE. rarity, native depth, min and max depths etc.

Next is quiver. Quiver should not be that huge extension of the inventory space it is now. I think that is already under development. (IMO 50-75 ammo max in quiver, quiver not able to expand to next letter IE. not practically infinite quiver, just like there is no infinite inventory)

Then there are items. For those I have way too many not easily agreeable suggestions to post here. Generally I think many of the changes made for "consistency"-reasons are broken, and there are now way too much boost for items (artifacts mainly) making them too similar to each other creating a overall dull experience.

Item drops in general. TMJ-problem fixing has gone to other extreme in this: there's not enough "junk" now. I think it was Ewert that posted here a re-tuned item rarity/depth object.txt which seem to work just fine. Take that as base and do a bit more sophisticated work to follow what it does. Monster drops sizes should have a small boost.

Monsters:

Hounds. There was a change that made hounds more rare, but then someone posted a suggestion to just reduce the pack size. IMO reducing pack size is much better change than making them more rare.

Pack "intelligence" makes them trivial now. That intelligence routine should be revisited. Maybe even reversed (IMO. a pack of hounds attacking blindly is way more dangerous than their current behavior).

Elemental attacks. This isn't exactly something that has been changed recently but anyway: With right immunity something like Pazuzu doesn't do squat to you in melee. We need to make some changes to difference between attack types, physical damages and elemental damages. Touch should not hurt if you have immunity, hit should/bite should, kick should be more powerful version of hit and so on.

Resistances and abilities, which gives immunity to what. There was a suggestion from me a while ago to change some of the old separation of "which is effect and which is element" which originated from Eddies suggestion to alternative solution to "chaos should give confusion resist" debate.
Takkaria already showed green light for that, so I think it just should be made, and then playtested. IIRC someone posted that this is quite trivial change in current vanilla base engine. I think most challenging is to redesign Debug-mode item tweak screen :-P

[PowerDiver]

Magnate -- before things get out of hand, we need a ruling!

Is this a "what to revert" thread, or a "what to change" thread? Obviously I would argue to simply remove selling and mage CLW entirely in a what to change thread.

[Timo Pietilä]

Magnate -- before things get out of hand, we need a ruling!

Is this a "what to revert" thread, or a "what to change" thread? Obviously I would argue to simply remove selling and mage CLW entirely in a what to change thread.

Well, he said "revert or revisit". With exception of elemental melee damage everything I suggested there is something that has been changed at some point and needs reverting or revisiting.

[Magnate]

Well, he said "revert or revisit". With exception of elemental melee damage everything I suggested there is something that has been changed at some point and needs reverting or revisiting.

But I meant specifically changes which have been made in the 3.1.x line - so I wasn't intending to reopen the debate about resists and abilities, for example, as those changes were made long ago. Ditto any (other) JLE changes.

In fact there are many and varied threads about significant aspects of the game which need attention: overpowered archery, shopping, spell lists, vaults etc. etc. I wasn't intending this thread to reopen any of those. I was more interested in specific issues like the changes to paralysis, as Jeff mentioned. I deliberately didn't create a list because I wanted to see what people came up with.

[Derakon]

Seeing as I made a bunch (though not all) of the vaults that have now actually made it to Vanilla, here's a list of the ones I think should probably be removed, either for inconvenient sizing or because they just lack interest.

Lesser Vaults:
* #1 round**
* #2 octagon**
* #3 octagon**
* #17 Cross
* #19 Camouflaged

Greater Vaults:
* #20 The I in the Storm
* #21 The Bank from Hell
* #22 Snake Maze
* #24 Roundabout Two
* #28 Divisi
* #29 Curlicues One
* #34 V-Vault
* #39 Twisted Cube
* #41 Hourglass
* #43 Mazer

** These vaults are original Angband vaults, so I'm leery to remove them...but honestly I consider them to be basically equivalent to the moated checkerboard rooms in terms of level of interest.

I believe the current vault placement behavior is to generate the map, and then try to fit a vault into it. This means that large vaults are significantly less likely to be placed than small ones, because they simply don't fit into most dungeon layouts. So I'd support a change that places vaults first and generates the map around them; I recognize that changing the map generator is a hairy project though.

For the quiver, the original intent was to allow people to still get use out of small stacks of ammo without having such a heavy penalty in inventory space usage. With that in mind, I would suggest retaining the current overall behavior but dropping the size of a slot in the quiver to 30, since that seems to be about the size of a stack of dungeon-generated ammo, and thus is the expected amount of ammo that fits into one inventory slot.

I would definitely support a reduction in hound pack size. I've also noticed that pack animals can often "push out" other creatures in vaults; this is particularly noticeable in the Miniature Cell vault, where you have five squares that are supposed to get monsters in them, but often you end up with five hounds instead of a hound, an angel, a humanoid, etc. I think it'd be nice if vault monsters were never group monsters; you fight enough of 'em outside of vaults as it is! But that's getting into revisions instead of reversions.

I think power pricing is an improvement, but the ratio between what shopkeepers buy things for and what they sell things for is too even. Prices for selling stuff should be way lower, assuming we aren't ready to move to a no-selling game yet. You shouldn't be able to hit even a 5k purchase limit without a really good item.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

I'd rather keep it reverted, but with one caveat: revisions to features being considered for reversion.

That said, I'll make 2 comments on those lines.

1. Price by effectiveness simply makes far more sense than anything else, IMO. The question really is the algorithm that determines price. I think most of us would agree, more or less, on the following order to slays (least desirable to most desirable):

slay orc, slay animal
slay troll, slay giant
slay undead, slay dragon, slay evil

Or at least agree with me, that there are some slays that are a lot less valuable than others. But are they all priced the same? If so, then the algorithm needs revisiting.

On a similar point, does Slay Undead on a dagger, add the same amount as Slay Undead on a BoC?

Resistances are similar. Shards and nether are both nice-to-have's; disenchant is pretty much for the Tarrasque only, it seems. So not all high resists should be valued equally either. (I assume the low resists are valued a lot less than the high resists.)

Telepathy is, IMO, grossly undervalued, and I like regen so I think it's a bit undervalued. And so on. We won't all agree on any assessment, but I'd rather see an effort made to improve the pricing approach, rather than reject it entirely.

Cure wounds spells/potions generally: the problem's two-fold. First, they're too effective; second, they overlap too much. Still, there's room to adjust these; we went from totally useless to overpowered, so there has to be a middle ground. Oh, and yes, I'd love to see a couple of these *disappear*...but that's beyond the scope of pure reversion.

[Magnate]

I think power pricing is an improvement, but the ratio between what shopkeepers buy things for and what they sell things for is too even. Prices for selling stuff should be way lower, assuming we aren't ready to move to a no-selling game yet. You shouldn't be able to hit even a 5k purchase limit without a really good item.

Now this is why I started this thread - this is an excellent idea. At the moment with less-than-max CHA it's possible to sell stuff for the price the shopkeeper will then sell it on for - i.e. s/he makes no profit. That's silly, so I would support a significant increase in the buy:sell ratio as a move towards no shopping.

I never thought of vaults as a problem, but I agree with Timo that one doesn't see enough any more. Is that a reason to remove some of them, or just to make the generation algorithm better at placing them?

Off to fix some serious misconceptions about pricing ...

[Timo Pietilä]

But I meant specifically changes which have been made in the 3.1.x line

I'm not sure if you can reasonably restrict it to that. I mean 3.1.x has done very few changes over to 3.0.9 with exception of quiver and too strong TMJ settings. There isn't much to discuss with that restriction, especially because game have to be considered as a whole for every single change.

[fizzix]

I never thought of vaults as a problem, but I agree with Timo that one doesn't see enough any more. Is that a reason to remove some of them, or just to make the generation algorithm better at placing them?

I see GVs so rarely, (if I'm lucky I'll find one a game) so I don't think any of them should be removed. They're always a newish experience, because it'll probably have been many many games since I've come across that vault before. The smaller vaults pop up enough that removing some of the more boring ones seems like a good idea.

If the dimensions are bad, I'd rather see the vaults flipped 90 degrees than removed entirely.

I never played a version where GVs were more common, so I can't comment on reverting to that. (I think my first version was 3.0.6) A GV once every 10-20 levels between 80 and 100 seems good, although scumming for them is exceedingly lame. I would say now that it's about once every 40 levels.

[Magnate]

I'd rather keep it reverted, but with one caveat: revisions to features being considered for reversion.

That said, I'll make 2 comments on those lines.

1. Price by effectiveness simply makes far more sense than anything else, IMO. The question really is the algorithm that determines price. I think most of us would agree, more or less, on the following order to slays (least desirable to most desirable):

slay orc, slay animal
slay troll, slay giant
slay undead, slay dragon, slay evil

Or at least agree with me, that there are some slays that are a lot less valuable than others. But are they all priced the same? If so, then the algorithm needs revisiting.

On a similar point, does Slay Undead on a dagger, add the same amount as Slay Undead on a BoC?

Resistances are similar. Shards and nether are both nice-to-have's; disenchant is pretty much for the Tarrasque only, it seems. So not all high resists should be valued equally either. (I assume the low resists are valued a lot less than the high resists.)

Telepathy is, IMO, grossly undervalued, and I like regen so I think it's a bit undervalued. And so on. We won't all agree on any assessment, but I'd rather see an effort made to improve the pricing approach, rather than reject it entirely.

Cure wounds spells/potions generally: the problem's two-fold. First, they're too effective; second, they overlap too much. Still, there's room to adjust these; we went from totally useless to overpowered, so there has to be a middle ground. Oh, and yes, I'd love to see a couple of these *disappear*...but that's beyond the scope of pure reversion.

Ok, welcome to power pricing 101. Your comment about improving the pricing approach is odd, since you don't appear to know what it is.

All prices are based on "equivalent damage output". More on this later.

All weapon damage modifiers are priced according to the amount of additional damage they generate across the monster population, adjusted by relative monster power. So slay troll < slay orc < slay giant < slay dragon < slay evil, as you would expect. Same for brands, extra blows, etc. etc. Recently combinations of slays have received an extra premium, because in pure mathematical terms each slay is *less* useful than the last, but we all know that in game turns the player's intelligence in choosing what to fight makes a big difference.

So yes, the same slay on a large weapon is worth more than on a small one.

Resists are currently valued arbitrarily on a scale debated heavily on rgra in 1999-2001. Poison and confusion are at the top, and yes the low resists are worth less than the high ones. I am not intending to reopen that debate here, because soon I will be adding the empirical calculation of the value of resists along the same lines as the calculation of the value of the slays, so the debate will be moot. No it won't be perfect, and will need adjustment, but it'll be starting from an empirical standpoint rather than an arbitrary one.

Telepathy is currently valued at 35 damage per blow, i.e. you'd give up a ring of damage +15 AND you'd reduce your +25 weapon to +5, in order to have telepathy. To me that seems way more than it's worth, and here we have to separate the issue of relative power from pricing. You (one) would blanch at the price of a +35 weapon, yet still think that telepathy is underpriced. Same with boots of speed - they are enormously desirable, yet consistently underpriced. (Would you give up 30 damage per blow for +5 speed?)

So the approach isn't perfect - it's particularly difficult to conceptualise defensive qualities (like AC, resists, hold life etc.) in terms of "damage per blow". There are hacks needed to make the formula-based approach work in "real life" (by which I mean in the game) - as well as telepathy and speed, other examples are torches of Brightness and off-weapon blows/slays/shots. Those last are way more valuable than the mathematical addition to potential damage would indicate, and that's why 3.1.x has seen some overpowered randarts (the randart generator uses the same power algorithm - in fact that's where the pricing came from). I'm currently working on adjusting the power ratings of off-weapon damage boosts to reflect their extreme usefulness and prevent them occurring too often.

[Magnate]

I'm not sure if you can reasonably restrict it to that. I mean 3.1.x has done very few changes over to 3.0.9 with exception of quiver and too strong TMJ settings. There isn't much to discuss with that restriction, especially because game have to be considered as a whole for every single change.

You are so far off the mark here it isn't even funny: go here and see the 227 tickets in 3.1.0, 205 in 3.1.1 and 178 since. A lot of those were bugfixes, of course, but there are several dozen significant changes in there as well.

So I don't agree that there isn't much to discuss, but I know you have pet peeves about some pre-3.1.0 changes, so I won't try and keep them out. I warn you that lifting the restriction will essentially take us from a thread about reversion to a thread about more fundamental changes which have already been debated at length in many other threads (LOS/FOV anyone?).

[konijn_]

Greetings,

things I would like to revert :

1. Kobolds, really. They irk me.
2. New 'n' repeating code, it is functionally a step back.
3. Fricking game code files in subfolders in src
3b. I dont mind OS specific files in subfolders
4. Hengband help on enter, begone, if they aren't gone already.

I've checked the list of changes out, I have 2 remarks :
1. Wow, that is a boatload of good stuff
2. There is no consistency on using the [Regression] tag, all in all I feel that items like
* 'n' no longer repeats last action
* Casting resistance/resist poison crashes the game
* infinite loop
* Silver jellies aren't absorbing turn of light when they attack.
should have been tagged with [Regression] and if certain pieces of code cause too many regresssions, chuck it out instead of trying to fix the faulty re-implementation.

Finally,
the link to the coding standards is broken :

http://ajps.mine.nu/angband/wiki/CodingGuidelines

I am fairly curious as to what they are.

One more thing; I really don't play Vanilla all that often, so take my statements with a bucket o salt.

Cheers,
T.