Making the game harder, take two

[Magnate]

I very much doubt that you would do it and your ability to do it that fast. It requires too many changes to current code.

Well, thanks for making your opinion clear. If you gave me a list of things to change, I am certain that I could do most of them, and reach agreeable compromises on the really difficult ones. I would be perfectly willing to do it, so your doubts about that make no sense - unless you don't actually want me to (in which case they're not really doubts about me at all).

And no I will not stop repeating that when someone writes something that makes it feel like just ancient version of current vanilla. It is a different game. Completely different atmosphere. Difference is almost as big as between Moria and Angband. Almost.

Indeed. And there's a reason few people play Moria any more too.

But that's fine - you go ahead and repeat it as often as you like. There are always newcomers who haven't heard it before.

[Magnate]

Thing is that it feels unfair at that moment. It does however make game feel more dangerous which is a good thing.

But OTOH you are now talking about "unfair" instant death from source you have no knowledge about. That is a bit different thing than just having source of instant death. There are quite a few of those in modern angband too, if you just leave some resistances out. Problem is that high-level character is in no danger with good enough gear against anything. There is no feel of danger. You need to have something you can't handle in the game. Something that causes fear and panic when you meet it. Like big pack of time hounds that don't act stupidly like they do now.

Getting killed every now and then is refreshing. Problem is that in current vanilla you don't die unless you want to. Avoiding death doesn't require much skill, only basic knowledge of what's out there, patience and lack of greed.

Er ... and how is that different to how Angband has ever been? Neo used to win 2.9.x with almost every character because he spent five million turns being patient, taking no risks and not getting greedy. Angband has always been a game where "you don't die unless you want to" - unlike, say, Crawl or Nethack, which can give you inescapable deaths quite often - and nothing about it becoming "easier" has changed this fundamental fact.

To clarify, by "instadeath" I mean a death that you couldn't see coming - e.g. from a monster that was faster than you, and moved (or, as in NPP, teleported) towards you and one-shotted you before you even saw it. That's what offscreen AMHD poison breaths did in Moria, and that's what V has worked hard to eliminate, because people generally don't like them. The risk of reintroducing these is precisely why you objected to my MAX_RANGE hack, so you should know exactly what I mean! We are in agreement that any other kind of death is avoidable - you seem to be saying this is a bad thing, but IMO this is how people have always wanted Angband to be.

[Magnate]

I was thinking about the original RAK Moria...25 years ago. Home computers were a little bit more of a novelty back then. You had your commodore 64, but home computing was kind of a novelty back then. Things had progressed a long way by 1990.

I would respectfully suggest that approaches to gaming which have been around since the early 1990s should not be considered upstart Johnny-come-lately fripperies ... but this is really about philosophy, not history. I think our philosophies are not as far apart as it might seem: I remember playing C64 games in the early 80s and preferring those games which didn't end, which simply got harder and harder until you lost. The key is to make the game engrossing while it's being played, not to focus people on finishing it. In that I completely agree with your earlier post about people saying how they "beat the game" and moved on. I still play some 1990s PC games (like MoO1 and MoM), despite having "won" numerous times - because their gameplay has never been bettered despite better graphics and slicker UI in modern games.

Angband does have an end, and is therefore "beatable". Contrary to any conspiracy theories, the current dev team has not intended to make winning easier - but over the last couple of years has not focused on making it harder either. That's now changing after 3.2, with the caveat of still trying to appeal to new players (so mainly focusing on making the second half of the game harder). You will be pleased that this will include adopting a number of features from variants - though you will then have to work harder to keep NPP distinct!

If I can respectfully suggest a third option, it is that at some point the Angband dev team agree to all stop making changes and creating new ideas, and for 1-2 months to work on nothing but the "boring stuff", such as: refining game balance, de-bugging, and handling administrative details like help files. That's kind of how Diego and I work in NPP. As much as I hate stopping the creative progress, I found it very necessary.

To a certain extent we've been doing this over the past few weeks to get 3.2 released, but only to a tiny fraction of the degree that you mean and is best practice. The problem is common to all voluntary projects: none of us can order any of the others to do the boring stuff, so it doesn't get done (this is why the docs have not really been overhauled since 3.0.6). The smaller the team, the easier it is to agree who will do what, which is why you/Diego, Nick/Psi, UnAndrew/Bandobras work so successfully together - you achieve more than a lone maintainer and in a more focused and coherent way than a constantly fluctuating dev team.

Even if we were able to impose the sort of discipline you're talking about on V development, that would not solve the basic issue with nightly builds containing changes that have not been "extensively" analysed. That would require going way beyond the 1-2 month freeze that you're talking about and agreeing to exactly which changes were going to be made when and to what extent. That's just not realistic for a project in which everybody's time input is completely variable and unreliable - things would grind to a halt because someone would disappear into RL at a time when others were waiting for their changes.

IMO what takkaria has achieved over the last 3 years is a much greater amount of development activity than V has seen since Ben. IMO the lack of strategy and co-ordination is an inevitable price to pay for that, and I think trying to impose discipline and planning on V's development would take the momentum back to the bad old days which led you to fork NPP in the first place.

As an aside, I don't think de-bugging fits into the category of activities requiring the sort of discipline we're discussing. We fix bugs very promptly nowadays, and they generally take priority over other features we're working on. All the long-standing bugs on trac are either minor enough that they're not dramatically affecting players, or are waiting on a fairly major rewrite of some part of the code. Since few people get really het up about help files, what we're really talking about is game balancing. IMO this is something best done as development progresses, which means the constant changes which so annoy buzzkill. To freeze changes and "focus on balance" would do more harm than good IMO.

[Magnate]

Tbh, isn't that just #2 but fleshed out with nice words ...

But anyways, that's happening right now, as far as I can see. Shoot the breeze, get feedback, code something, test, give to others to test and pick apart, etc. Without the superlatives though I guess.

Indeed. The problem is the existence of nightly builds. Despite the disclaimers, people do not understand that the time required to "shoot breeze, get feedback, code, test, give to others, pick apart" and finalise is much, much longer than the interval between different nightlies. Nightlies are snapshots DURING that process, not the results of it. Overlay the fact that the process is happening for dozens of different idea/feature areas in parallel (shopping, randarts, dungeon generation, detection etc. etc.), and it should be easy to understand why people cannot expect nightly builds to be anything other than what they are.

So yes, Dean's version of #2 is what's happening now. If I was takkaria I would remove nightly builds and replace them with monthly alphas, but in the meantime I will keep reminding people of the above.

[fizzix]

(this is why the docs have not really been overhauled since 3.0.6).

Whatever happened to the versions I rewrote? Surely they can't be worse than what's currently in there.

[ewert]

If I was takkaria I would remove nightly builds and replace them with monthly alphas, but in the meantime I will keep reminding people of the above.

Having "evolved" from a pure gamer to coder-gamer, and thus no longer being held bound by the nightlies, I _still_ really really want to say that:

The nightly builds are great. They give those who just play a chance to test stuff. Installing a compiler etc. is not for everyone. I have had a blast testing new builds and testing my own builds. I would have probably gone on a hiatus again if nightlies didn't exist (didn't play from -05 to -07 I think, but have played on/off since -08 regularly now).

[TJS]

Having "evolved" from a pure gamer to coder-gamer, and thus no longer being held bound by the nightlies, I _still_ really really want to say that:

The nightly builds are great. They give those who just play a chance to test stuff. Installing a compiler etc. is not for everyone. I have had a blast testing new builds and testing my own builds. I would have probably gone on a hiatus again if nightlies didn't exist (didn't play from -05 to -07 I think, but have played on/off since -08 regularly now).

Yes I like the nightlies as well. It keeps me coming back here much more often to see what has changed and provokes a lot of interest and discussion on here.

[d_m]

I can't post a direct diff, because I've made other changes to the files too. However, it's a simple change to make.

Dean, thanks for posting that here.

I'm in the midst of trying to fix tile bugs and other stuff for 3.2 so I haven't had a lot of time to try out new features/changes. As soon as 3.2 launches I will try play testing this and see how it works, given that you had fun with it.

[Atarlost]

I think the specific proposal in question does have a problem with that.

Newbies are more likely than veterans to wind up in a trap where their strength is too low to fight anything and there are no restore strength potions at the alchemist.

I think it also does less to make things difficult for divers than for slower careful players. This would be another move to make diving the one true angband strategy and I'm not sure we want to go there unless it's coupled with other measures that punish diving more severely than this punishes not diving.

[Dean Anderson]

I think the specific proposal in question does have a problem with that.

Newbies are more likely than veterans to wind up in a trap where their strength is too low to fight anything and there are no restore strength potions at the alchemist.

I think it also does less to make things difficult for divers than for slower careful players. This would be another move to make diving the one true angband strategy and I'm not sure we want to go there unless it's coupled with other measures that punish diving more severely than this punishes not diving.

Have you tried it?

From my experience it's the other way around. Careful players who return to town regularly (at least once between each level gain) will get more chances to get restore potions et al. Divers on the other hand, who may stay in the dungeon for a few levels and only come up for air when they need something badly, will find that they can't scum the shops for what they need and have many fewer chances to buy goodies.

Similarly, characters who are more careful and reach higher level before going down to fight really nasty stuff will have had more refreshes and therefore more chances to stock up on items before those fights.

[Derakon]

Basically these arguments about the town come down to this: should the town be limited? If so, then players who are more reliant on the consumables that the town generates will have a harder game; those that are less reliant will have an easier game. A limited town will de facto make warriors' games harder, for example, since they cannot replace any of the abilities the town provides with spells (and only a few with non-consumable rods).

I can see an argument that new players are more likely to rely on the items in the town than veterans, but I don't buy it. True newcomers will tend to make bad value judgements -- how many newbies have you seen carrying enough CCW potions? Not many. So limiting their access to consumables doesn't really impact their play all that much. Veterans should be able to cope pretty much regardless. It's the informed newcomer who has a harder game, since they've developed the addiction to unlimited consumable items, and haven't worked out the strategies to do without yet. But it's the informed newcomer that we're trying to make the game harder for, yes?

On the specific example of stat restore potions, which are obviously useful and also easy to become in need of using if you are unexperienced...with a limited town, I'm sure players can learn to deal. It's hardly the only way for you to get a character that's unplayable but not dead -- accidentally wielding a weapon of Morgul, or getting your STR and INT swapped, are similarly "lethal", and you derive similar important life lessons from them (and there's plenty of early-game situations that are outright lethal which we aren't making any moves to reduce). And in practice, a badly-drained stat is far more survivable than either of those examples. We shouldn't take this one flaw as reason to junk the entire concept.

[Magnate]

Whatever happened to the versions I rewrote? Surely they can't be worse than what's currently in there.

They are in my docs branch (https://github.com/magnate/angband/tree/docs/lib/help), ready to merge for 3.2 - that's what I was referring to - this is the first real overhaul of these docs for a long time.

P.S. If I have missed any of the ones you wrote, please let me know.

[nppangband]

I would respectfully suggest that approaches to gaming which have been around since the early 1990s should not be considered upstart Johnny-come-lately fripperies ... but this is really about philosophy, not history. I think our philosophies are not as far apart as it might seem: I remember playing C64 games in the early 80s and preferring those games which didn't end, which simply got harder and harder until you lost. The key is to make the game engrossing while it's being played, not to focus people on finishing it. In that I completely agree with your earlier post about people saying how they "beat the game" and moved on. I still play some 1990s PC games (like MoO1 and MoM), despite having "won" numerous times - because their gameplay has never been bettered despite better graphics and slicker UI in modern games.

I do see your point & agree. It is an extremely fine line the Angband Dev team is trying to walk, in trying to make the game more accessable to new users, while preserving what made Angband great in the first place. I am going to try to re-state what I wrote before, hopefully in a better & more productive way:

What makes the game fun to me is the fact that you only get one life, there are no checkpoints or do-overs. When you are taking a risk, if it doesn't work, you die and start over. It is harsh and unforgiving, but that is what makes it so thrilling. Plus, the game has so many milestones that don't involve winning....It feels like an accomplishment when you get strong enough to dive down to stat gain...when you will an ancient dragon for the first time...finding that first ring of speed....going a few rounds with the Tarrasque to see how strong your character is....etc... In Halo, the worst thing that happens is you go back to the last checkpoint, and even the worst player can complete the campaign if they repeat the same checkpoint over and over enough. And, in my humble opinion, making the game more accessable to new players is great, but I would not want to see many changes that reduce Angband's trademark tension/excitement that is a by product of the harsh and unforgiving environment in the Angband dungeon.

Angband does have an end, and is therefore "beatable". Contrary to any conspiracy theories, the current dev team has not intended to make winning easier - but over the last couple of years has not focused on making it harder either. That's now changing after 3.2, with the caveat of still trying to appeal to new players (so mainly focusing on making the second half of the game harder). You will be pleased that this will include adopting a number of features from variants - though you will then have to work harder to keep NPP distinct!

LOL. Actually, I wish you all would slow down a bit so I can keep up with all your changes. I am just geting caught up with Angband 3.1.2v.

But NPP will always offer a distinct gameplay because it has a couple features, such as quests, full-fledged 4gai, player ghosts, and Unangband terrain that give a completely different gameplay experience, but are probably not quite right for vanilla Angband.

{snip a bunch of stuff I agree with & needs no further comment}

As an aside, I don't think de-bugging fits into the category of activities requiring the sort of discipline we're discussing. We fix bugs very promptly nowadays, and they generally take priority over other features we're working on. All the long-standing bugs on trac are either minor enough that they're not dramatically affecting players, or are waiting on a fairly major rewrite of some part of the code. Since few people get really het up about help files, what we're really talking about is game balancing. IMO this is something best done as development progresses, which means the constant changes which so annoy buzzkill. To freeze changes and "focus on balance" would do more harm than good IMO.

What I meant was, witha new release usually comes a *ton* of bug reports. That usually takes up 100% of a developer's time for a couple weeks after a release.

[Timo Pietilä]

The risk of reintroducing these is precisely why you objected to my MAX_RANGE hack

Not quite. Your change changed gameplay for minor annoyance caused by one single item in the artifact list. That's wrong way of doing things. Luring monsters somewhere got harder or even impossible for some monsters, you introduced one unavoidable insta-death scenario and generally did it the easy way around "fixing" one thing that wasn't broken and changing gameplay in the process. This change made dealing with open vaults with insta-death monsters annoying "avoid" -objects instead of challenging "lure those monsters out of the vault" -objects.

Instead of fixing targeting allowing targeting range 20, you changed every single thing that had MAX_RANGE 18 to be 20. Not a good way of doing things.

[Molach]

My take on city/shops:
I'm a relative newbie here. I've beaten the game once or twice, but lack much in the playstyle department. I go slow and sure and look up monsters' abilities when I meet them. Also played ADOM a lot before this mabye that helped with survival.

Anyway, I like the shops the way they are now. Some must-have items guaranteed, other consumables stocked, and always a chance of great items in BM or elsewhere, even. So I like the 'check the shops and see' game as well as the 'sweep and clear in dungeon' game. I've not seen a proposed change that I'd be real happy about. If the point is making the game tougher, please look elsewhere. Especially that about shops having limited inventory for the game. So when the food runs out, every other shopkeeper starves?

Anyway, happy to see game evolving. Had my victories about 2 years ago, giving it another twirl now.

-M