Making the game harder, take two

[Timo Pietilä]

I do like Timo's suggestion of making speed penalties a percentage of total speed, rather than a fixed amount.

Are you sure that was my suggestion? I don't remember doing that and I hate getting appreciation from someone else suggestion. If it was mine then it was just a suggestion without much thought. An idea thrown in the pool of other suggestions.

[buzzkill]

Here's a simple idea for making the game harder: make the carrying capacity limitations more stringent. This has the following main effects:

This is a problem with point based character creation. Most players start out with an unusually high STR (and CON). The standard roller mostly solves it.

I do like Timo's Estie's suggestion of making speed penalties a percentage of total speed, rather than a fixed amount. At speed +25 (35), a -3 (32) penalty is nothing to worry about. A -10 (25) penalty would get your attention. Also, remove the -5 cap or prohibit picking up items that would exceed it. Apply some sort of encumbrance penalty to AC, to_hit, and spell failure rates too (maybe even number of blows). Carrying around a boat load of crap is going to affect more than just your foot speed.

EDIT: It's actually Estie's idea, don't know where I got Timo from. Sorry Estie!

[buzzkill]

I fully endorse this suggestions.

- It would definitely make the game harder.
- It would reduce the amount of wandering around in the early game.
- It would make leveling faster early on.
- Overall it would make the game more fun and less boring, while probably reducing the real-world gameplay time a bit.

Though keep in mind I come from the school of ToME and forced small levels, which means lots of monsters...

IMO, this would make the end game even more mind boggingly (too) long/boring. You'll level faster, become immune to your DL faster, thus become nearly invincible (end-game strong) faster. More of the dungeon will be simply be skipped. This could result in even more scumming for end game consumables.

[Derakon]

Anyone would think you'd just been playing NPP

I can't imagine why. Nope.

[Nick]

Another simple thing we can do is bump several monsters up a half-step in speed

Anyone would think you'd just been playing NPP

[Derakon]

Another simple thing we can do is bump several monsters up a half-step in speed (e.g. +0 => +5, +10 => +15). Some possible candidates:

Creeping coins
Mid-level adventurers (swordsman, ranger, priest, etc.)
Stronger trolls (c.f. water trolls, ice trolls)
Dragons of all types
Mummies
Vortices
Vrocks
Ringwraiths

[fizzix]

I fully endorse this suggestions.

I think this is a very trivial change to make. If you think you'd like it, play-testing it is useful. I can do it after I finish testing out my TO and *dest* changes, but I play slowly, so that may take a while...

in defines.h, change:

#define MIN_M_ALLOC_LEVEL     14

to

#define MIN_M_ALLOC_LEVEL     35

and you should have about twice as many monsters per level.


More details:

Current number of monsters per level is:

a game constant + a level depenent value + a random number

the game constant is currently set to 14
the level dependent value is level/3 capped between 2 and 10
the random number is between 1 and 8

This does not take into account monsters in vaults,pits,nests or 'special' rooms. These are created in addtion to the random monsters. Obviously more of these rooms appear at higher levels, so more monsters will be created on them. Mucking with the level dependent value will also create more traps and rubble on higher levels. It will not affect object generation, which is handled later.

the relevant piece of code in generate.c is:

/* Basic "amount" */
k = (p_ptr->depth / 3);
if (k > 10) k = 10;
if (k < 2) k = 2;

/* Put some rubble in corridors */
alloc_object(ALLOC_SET_CORR, ALLOC_TYP_RUBBLE, randint1(k), p_ptr->depth);

/* Place some traps in the dungeon */
alloc_object(ALLOC_SET_BOTH, ALLOC_TYP_TRAP, randint1(k), p_ptr->depth);

/* Determine the character location */
new_player_spot();

/* Pick a base number of monsters */
i = MIN_M_ALLOC_LEVEL + randint1(8);

/* Put some monsters in the dungeon */
for (i = i + k; i > 0; i--)
{
(void)alloc_monster(0, TRUE, p_ptr->depth);
}

[Therem Harth]

Here's a simple suggestion that I'm surprised no one mentioned.

Increase the number of monsters per level, maybe by a factor of 2-3 across the board. This will make a big difference in dlevels 20-40, before you get the ability to TO.

If you don't want to muck with beginners. Make the increase start at dlevel 10 and then in linear steps to dlevel 20.

I fully endorse this suggestions.

- It would definitely make the game harder.
- It would reduce the amount of wandering around in the early game.
- It would make leveling faster early on.
- Overall it would make the game more fun and less boring, while probably reducing the real-world gameplay time a bit.

Though keep in mind I come from the school of ToME and forced small levels, which means lots of monsters...

[fizzix]

Here's a simple suggestion that I'm surprised no one mentioned.

Increase the number of monsters per level, maybe by a factor of 2-3 across the board. This will make a big difference in dlevels 20-40, before you get the ability to TO.

If you don't want to muck with beginners. Make the increase start at dlevel 10 and then in linear steps to dlevel 20.

[Derakon]

Eddie: ah, I wasn't aware that was how carrying capacities worked. Still, the upper range could probably be curtailed. And I don't think this necessarily hits warriors worse than any other class; the other classes have to carry contingency gear too. I do agree that we could stand to lose some spells though.

It's not clear that Estie is talking about maximize mode; it sounded to me like he (she?) meant that if you roll e.g. a 13 for INT, then your natural cap for INT is 18/50 (13 + 10). Even if you're playing as a high-elf mage. Personally I think that would just reinforce hyper-optimizing your stats right at the beginning of the game. It'd also really hit a lot of characters in the HP score, which has far-reaching implications for how combat is balanced.

[Therem Harth]

That's known as "Maximize mode" and in current versions it's enabled by default. Maybe it would be a good idea to make it the only available option? That would certainly enforce the benefits and drawbacks of the various races and classes.

[Estie]

Doesnt work with current encumbrance system as being overloaded substracts a constant from speed, ~5 at most. While that is devastating if youre at speed 0 base (early game), for endgame it only means that youll have to get +25 speed into your set instead of the current +20 base, which is not a big deal.
In fact, most of my characters are way overloaded when going to face Morgoth.

Now to do what you set out to youd need to change the encumbrance system, maybe by increasing speed loss proportional to the square of pounds overweight instead of linearity (I assume thats how its currently implemented).

I would rather see a change made to how stats work: instead of capping everyone at the same 18/100 for all stats, make the cap something like starting stat +10, so 18 str would cap at 18/100 (for potions); ofcourse, gear can increase that. I dont know if that would make the game harder or easier, but I think it would be more interesting. As it is, eventually everyone can carry the same regardless if he started out as troll warrior or gnome mage.

[PowerDiver]

Here's a simple idea for making the game harder: make the carrying capacity limitations more stringent.

That might work, but I have my doubts that it is the right approach. I'd guess that warriors need the weight most, because they need to carry multiple big dice swap weapons until they find an uberweapon. It doesn't help that weapon weights are set so high. Do we really want to take an approach that attacks the weakest class the hardest?

There is no change past 18/50 str to tweak, as 18/200 is the same carrying capacity as 18/50, so I don't understand your comment about it.

This is a game of slot management. I think that removing spells [that people habitually use] from spellbooks is a better simple idea at least until such time as warriors are easier than rogues and paladins.

[Derakon]

Here's a simple idea for making the game harder: make the carrying capacity limitations more stringent. This has the following main effects:

* Players can't carry as much contingency gear with them (rarely-used staves, extra ammo, 4 copies of each town spellbook, swaps for rare damage sources, etc.)
* Heavy armor becomes more of a tradeoff. Maybe Isildur really isn't worth wearing if it means taking a -2 penalty to speed.

Frankly, the carrying capacity of even midgame characters is insane right now. Carrying over 100 pounds of gear without being slowed down at all (which includes being able to fight at full effectiveness) is beyond the pale. If the player has to prioritize which things they want to be able to deal with, and have to improvise for the rest, then IMO the game would be more interesting; certainly it'd be harder.

I don't think carrying capacity at low strength levels really needs to be touched. As it stands, young mages can barely carry all their gear without being slowed anyway. But I do think it'd be worth trying a big reduction in improvements to capacity improvements past, say, 18/50 strength. It's a simple change, it doesn't really touch the early game, and my guess is it'd have a big effect on difficulty. What's not to like?

[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