Ridiculous death due, in my opinion, to flawed design.

[Whelk]

And it might be mentioned that even Diablo 2, a very mainstream "roguelike" of sorts, attracts plenty of players in its own hardcore game mode (i.e. permadeath) - despite the fact that tough uniques on harder difficulty levels can instantly kill your character if you're not prepared. Or if your 'net connection hiccups at the wrong moment.

Oh man; those friggin lightning bosses.

[RogerN]

Remember that Angband, Moria, etc... trace their roots back to a time when video games were considerably more difficult across the board. Games were designed to be won only by a handful of dedicated players, while more casual players enjoyed progressing as far as they could (hence the High Scores list). Modern games take a totally different approach in which the player is basically considered to be entitled to a win if he keeps playing/griding long enough.

Although it's an admirable goal to make Angband more newbie-friendly, I don't think it's a good idea to change the basic philosophy that this game should be hard. If you don't want to play a sometimes-unfair game with instant kills and permadeath, it's not like there aren't dozens of other roguelikes and RPGs. Go play Diablo 2 or something.

And it might be mentioned that even Diablo 2, a very mainstream "roguelike" of sorts, attracts plenty of players in its own hardcore game mode (i.e. permadeath) - despite the fact that tough uniques on harder difficulty levels can instantly kill your character if you're not prepared. Or if your 'net connection hiccups at the wrong moment.

[Whelk]

>r
Read which scroll?
a) a Scroll of Forums {Ridiculous death due, in my opinion, to flawed design.}

>a
You feel a sudden stirring nearby!
You feel very naive.
You feel very stupid.
You feel your life draining away.

(Not aimed at anyone in particular - just saying this thread seems to be an exercise in the pointless, other than working people up. Yet I keep coming back to read it.)

[Lord Fell]

Although I'm new to these forums, I started playing Moria about 20 years ago... I haven't touched Code in about a decade, but I did write some custom monsters for "my own" Angband, which was a Frog.Knows version. So, I guess what I'm saying is... I'm am Insider, where Vogrim is an outsider.

Looking at Angband, there is definitely a steep learning curve, and there is definitely a lot of room for instant death, which will surprise the uninitiated. When I first started playing, I didn't realize what a person needed to do to win, so when I hit those Insta-Kills, I didn't really learn. I just assumed that I had been hit by an Out of Depth monster. Of course, I didn't come running to the boards to cry about losing a character, I either save-scummed, or started fresh.

Looking at the game objectively, I do think that there is something of a barrier that new players aren't going to understand. Angband is really a game that was originally written For Coders By Coders... it's not like a Bethesda D&D title, it's more like Chess in RPG format. As such, I think that there's a well developed Elitism in the world of Angband. And yes, since I'm an "Insider" that makes me one of the snobs.

So... what is Lord Fell's long winded point?

I wonder if there isn't something we can do to make the game more "approachable" for the new player? It would probably involve a LOT of work with Help Files, User Interface, and a revamp of the Options file.

[HallucinationMushroom]

This thread is like a wound in your mouth that you just can't resist picking at all day long.

[buzzkill]

No, you imbecile, I didn't expect to win the first time around. In fact, this is my second major death. The problem is WHY I died.

Like I said, "you haven't learned a damn thing". Ohhh, I lost 2 sweeeeet characters and I haven't even won yet.

Angband is not going to change for you. Indeed, the insta-death aspect of Angband is not going to change for anyone, ever. Now, answer the question that I posed earlier or shut up and go away. What do you want from us, really?

You must be related to Timo considering your utter inability to comprehend the argument being put forth.

Thank you (weak sauce ).

[Vogrim]

No, you imbecile, I didn't expect to win the first time around. In fact, this is my second major death. The problem is WHY I died. You must be related to Timo considering your utter inability to comprehend the argument being put forth.

[buzzkill]

My apologies in advance to the forum...

Vogrim. You're a stoke (and that's me being generous). You know it and I know it. Everybody knows it. IRL people know it too, or are you only a jack-ass on the Internet. No, I find that hard to believe. Quite frankly, we're better off without you and I hope you just pack your bags and leave, but we both know that won't happen.

Fanboy and troll (context considered) are terms I don't believe I've noticed on this forum before, but obviously ones you're quite familiar with. The religious slurs we're a nice touch as well. I can tell you've done this before, but knowledge of horrors of Angband and a little self-restraint aren't the only things you're lacking. We've tried to help you understand why the game is the way it is. We've given you options and advice that would help you avoid similar situations if you should decide to play again. What do you want from us?

Did you expect to win the first time you played? The slightest bit of research would have told you that that's not how Angband works. Winning without cheating is hard and is a genuine accomplishment. I've got news for you. You haven't learned a damn thing. You're not going to win your next game, nor any of the next 50 games after that, so you might as well quit now. You think that hydra was a bad ass? You ain't seen nothing yet.

Here's your stupid mistake. You must have encountered both uniques and hydras before. Therefore you should have known that uniques are much tougher than their typical counterparts, and that some of the bigger hydras can put out big damage numbers. You also should have known that it could have a poison breath because other hydras breath all kinds of crazy stuff. You should have know better.

This isn't your typical forum and your crap won't be tolerated here. That's not to say that we're going to browbeat you with insults, it's much more likely (this post excluded) that we'll kill you with kindness. Even Timo, was offering up good advice. I didn't see anything offensive or insulting in what he wrote, and even so, it certainly didn't shine a light to your level of immaturity and rudeness.

I don't like you. Angband isn't going to change, certainly not for for you, so why don't you just go away. Go make love to your X-Box of PS3, or whatever it is that you do when you're alone in your room. Anxiously awaiting your reply. Maybe you could throw in a few racial slurs, I know you've been holding back .

BTW, despite my excessive post count, my views and opinions in no way officially reflect those of Oook.cz or the community in general.

[Vogrim]

Timo is essentially a senior frat boy who had a bad hazing and, now that it's over and done with, wants everyone to go through the same thing regardless of how bad it was. And let's not forget all of those lost braincells due to binging.

The argument has been soundly made by at least three of us, with SaSa's interpretation probably being the most succinct. Timo is either unwilling or incapable of addressing it.

[Nick]

Personally, I think Vogrim's a sock puppet of pav's in an attempt to see how fast he can get a thread to 100 posts.

Don't help him!

Oops.

[Timo Pietilä]

Even free 100% probing costs the newbie a turn he might not be able to afford, and he doesn't know that before probing.

If the game is even remotely balanced for veterans with monster knowledge, then newbies will still find the game tough even if you tell them all the rules beforehand.

"might not" is better than "will not". There's nothing wrong for game to be tough. If you know what you are doing then usually you are capable of probing without losing that turn. That's probably another thing which separates veterans from newbies though.

Old games (which were a lot harder) probing was actually useful even with full monster memory: you didn't have monster health bar. In order to find out exact numbers if monster is dying or not you needed to use probing. That's one of the "fog of war"-things current generation vanilla lacks. OTOH in those days probing didn't reveal the attacks monster had.

IMO the "right" way of providing info about what monster can or cannot do is in monster description. It should give you enough hints that you "know" that this has attacks you might not be ready to handle.

Lernaean Hydra description is this:


D:A massive legendary hydra. It has twelve powerful heads. Its many eyes stare
D: at you as clouds of smoke and poisonous vapour rise from its seething form.
D: And it grows new heads as fast as you chop them off.


There are hints there: "smoke and poisonous vapour", but not too clear one. Main problem maybe is that this one is a lot bigger than 11-headed hydra. Not just a single step up from 11 headed but big leap up in danger.

Maybe help file should tell that at monster description can give you hints what it is. Help-files seem to be really badly outdated, but even in old versions don't say anything about monster description giving info about monster attacks.

So:

Work to do: update help-files and make sure monster descriptions give enough hints about nature of the monster that player encountering it the first time gets a vague idea what it can or cannot do.

[PowerDiver]

Even free 100% probing costs the newbie a turn he might not be able to afford, and he doesn't know that before probing.

If the game is even remotely balanced for veterans with monster knowledge, then newbies will still find the game tough even if you tell them all the rules beforehand.

[Timo Pietilä]

You have way more information and experience stored in your head than a newbie. Every newbie, I believe, suffers one or two "what the hell?" deaths before they start getting the basic ideas of avoiding the unknown and treating the safe and dangerous and the dangerous as lethal.

That's pretty much what separates veterans from newbies. However I don't think we should design any feature of the game to help newbies if it has any impact of longevity of the game. You need instant deaths and ways to get killed by unknowns. Otherwise game gets boring. We can do something to help newbies if it doesn't affect the longevity of the game.

Like that fizzix suggestion to double Ancient Dragon HP to make them more dangerous, which works as early warning about that poison has a lot more damage potential than just get you poisoned. That would also lead unaware newbie getting killed earlier, but that doesn't matter because early lesson by dying is better than late lesson.

I would also like to increase probing possibilities, so that newbies could get the possibility to get the knowledge of monsters without getting killed. Stealth to have more effect and spawned monsters not automatically awake and aware of where you are. It would be nice to be able to "disappear" from monsters radar if you have high enough stealth. Currently that is not possible. That one would help both veterans and newbies and make nice addition to gameplay (things to consider).

[Yogalover]

One simple solution is to make the rod of probing easier to get or even a newbie item of some kind. (drop value to 1 gp and generate it at birth)

If You get a shot at probing the monster with out coming in los of monster You are safe. (if it isn't way faster ;-))

Regulars with complete monstermemory don't need it, but newbie would like it.

[Djabanete]

Actually that is not quite true. Obviously you need to know what monsters can do, but that is not necessary for survival if you know how you can get killed. When JLE-patch monsters were introduced I build up my monster memory for those missing parts without any problem of being risk of getting killed. I did this with variants too, it's quite easy barring some new ways to die, which case you learn from dying. If you don't then you die again.

You have way more information and experience stored in your head than a newbie. Every newbie, I believe, suffers one or two "what the hell?" deaths before they start getting the basic ideas of avoiding the unknown and treating the safe and dangerous and the dangerous as lethal.

I had two newbie deaths that took me by surprise; one when my CL43 character failed a _Teleport, and one when my CL47 character got knocked out by a Master Mystic. The first was lack of common sense and the second one wasn't. I had no reason to think that being stunned more and more would make me unconscious (and thus dead) at 500+ HP with no heavy damagers in sight.

Perhaps you never suffered such newbie-surprise deaths, but in that case I'm almost positive that you're the exception, not the rule.

A veteran player in an unfamiliar variant is MUCH more likely to survive than a newbie playing Vanilla. The game just isn't designed to be fair to someone who doesn't know what's going on (drolems are the perfect example) --- it's designed to be fair to someone who DOES know what's going on. I think you might have forgotten what it's like to really not have a clue --- sure, a hypothetical newbie could win by just doing what experts do, but how is a newbie going to know what that is?

Basically, how is a newbie going to know which monsters can do 800 damage in one shot? You can't literally avoid *all* unknown monsters --- at some point you have to explore and go deeper for the game to be fun. This kind of death is practically inevitable as you learn the game.