My 2 cents

[Nile]

Hi all!

I just wanted to throw a word out there to current maintainers - I LOVE the direction that vanilla has been taking over these past couple months! I'm going to just ramble a bit about some things I've seen change that I think are steps in the right direction, and a few comments on some things I'd like to see changed...for brief background, I've played on and off for something like 8 years now with numerous winners (never posted much though).

-The user interface has improved very greatly in many ways...small things like changing the standard graphic for permanent walls add up and make a big difference (we should have done this eons ago!).
-The way torches behave is awesome
-The new items are great (for the most part, see below)
-The price tweaks are great (for the most part, see below)
-Auto equipping of starting equipment (it's been here a while now, but I still appreciate it every time I roll up a new character)
-Intelligent auto allocation of points for stats
-Standardizing the detection radii was a long time coming, but it's now a seamlessly integrated
-Changing all uniques to a single color (I love it!).
-Showing fail rates for magical items is awesome
-Reduction of hounds...nuff said!!!
-Haven't tried a mage character on the latest builds, but am pretty sure I will love the spell tweaks
-Magic device damage scaling - now I can finally win with that magic device only character (the last one was a YASD to The Phoenix, but I had doubts that tackling Morgoth was even possible given the power of the most damaging wands/rods)
-Damage statistics on weapons: takes the tedium out of weapon comparisons
-For sure more I can't think of right now =)

And now, just a few pet peeves of mine:
-Items of speed too common/cheap. I prefer the old days when black market BoS cost 500k and not 50k (just bought a +6 pair for that much), gave you something good to save up for =), while at the same time too rare to scum for (IMO, I never have).
-Something that's always bugged me: high level spell books in the black market. I feel like they should either be much more common, or not there at all. Probably the later, make them dungeon only. Right now, they appear with just enough frequency to temp me to scum the town for a high level book if I have tons of cash and lack high books.
-The elemental rings. They are just too good. Especially since you can combine them with a powerful artifact weapon. My current character is using Balli Stonehand and a Ring of Acid, with a Ring of Fire in tow or acid resistant creatures. This pretty much guarantees I can get elemental multipliers vs. any creature without full base resists. IMO, there are just not any other rings of comparable quality until RoS and artifact rings, save maybe a ring of con +5 or ring of poison resist, but even that loses value when you start accumulating stat pots and artifacts. (We always say it's good to have more choices, and in the ring department I don't think there are enough in the dlev 30-70 range. The new rings are great for the lower levels, but there is still a void in the mid levels.) IMO, the elemental rings should be deeper and rarer. I'd like to see them pushed back to 50+. Or, change them back to how they were with just a ball activation, and make them rare and shallow, like ~20. Or...what doing both, make a weak elemental ring with just the activation/resist?

Bottom Line: Thanks, and keep up the great work!

[Timo Pietilä]

-Changing all uniques to a single color (I love it!).

Be careful around monsters that share now same color. It doesn't stop at uniques.

I hate to fight Ancalagon the violet, Ar-Pharazon the violet, Fundin Violetcloak, Smaug the violet etc., and find out that previously purple monsters like purple worm and nexus Q are now red.

[Nile]

Yeah, good point. Although I habitually hit the 'l' key, so shouldn't be too much trouble. Too many deaths due to trying to kill big Ds that turned out to be ancients multis...

[fyonn]

am I the only person who plays in tile mode?

[Magnate]

Thanks for the detailed feedback, and glad you are generally happy. Please rest assured that the pricing of speed items is a known problem: I have tried many tweaks over the last couple of years and nothing has quite solved it. I am going to try a complete rewrite when I get time (hopefully xmas) to address this and other power-related issues.

That speed items are also too common is a separate but related issue. The code needs to settle down a bit before we can do serious balancing work on generation probs.

I hate shopping so I will skip the BM point - no strong views either way.

The elemental rings are good ... but as you state in your post, you are using up two inv slots to carry the =Acid and =Fire to guarantee your multipliers (and/or are not wearing two rings of CON, damage, speed etc.). Ring slots and inv slots are precious, and the game is all about making you choose what to wear/carry. I think branding rings are here to stay, but your feedback about making them deeper and rarer is useful.

Thanks again.

[fizzix]

I don't wear branding rings every game. More like, once every 4-5 games, and then only for some stretch. If I find an extra attacks MoD, SoS or BoC I might wear branding rings up through Sauron. They usually lose out in the endgame to Rings of Power, speed rings or rings of con. In the mid game I'll often choose a ring of con or a =dam, or =acc depending on my weapon.

Branding rings are powerful, but not too powerful. Mainly because the ring slot is incredibly valuable. Off weapon brands/slays seem acceptably rare in the randart set.