Waiting for the other shoe to drop

[jens]

I've been wanting no_stores, but with home for ever... But now that there is no_selling I think my main issue is fixed (the compulsion to drag back stuff to sell). But I still think it's a good idea to change it :-)

[Magnate]

I once thought that "no stores" would approximate this. Unfortunately, "no stores" is useless because it also closes the home. You might find it worthwhile to change "no stores" to allow using the home and see how it feels. If that's not good enough, change ironman to allow recall but not upstairs in conjunction with "no stores" as above. Not quite what you want, but it might be close enough.

I've never understood why no_stores also closes the home - would anybody mind if we changed this? I don't know anybody who plays with no_stores. I don't have the skill to write a script to trawl all the V dumps, but I'd be surprised if more than one in a thousand non-ironmen used no_stores.

[PowerDiver]

Now if there was a mode "ironman with extra space", I would probably play that exclusively.

I once thought that "no stores" would approximate this. Unfortunately, "no stores" is useless because it also closes the home. You might find it worthwhile to change "no stores" to allow using the home and see how it feels. If that's not good enough, change ironman to allow recall but not upstairs in conjunction with "no stores" as above. Not quite what you want, but it might be close enough.

[Estie]

Mmmm. For more challenge there is iron-man. What I really like in iron man mode is the no return aspect. Having to secure terrain and to find the safest spots in a hostile environment gives me this good giddy dungeon feeling.

However, I rarely use it because it lacks the other aspect I like about *band: equipment juggling (which is also why I always play with randarts). The reason for this is lack of inventory space; since you can only carry like 3 extra items, choice becomes a rather trivial "if its an immediate upgrade, use it; if not, leave it behind".

Now if there was a mode "ironman with extra space", I would probably play that exclusively. Thinking about how to rationalize/implement it, one way would be to have the character start out with a magic bag. Something similar exists in ToME 2 in the form of the rod of home summoning, which is a rod that, when "z"apped, opens up the inventory of your town house.

Just an idea I have been mulling about for a while, throwing it out to be picked up or not.

[Derakon]

...hunh, okay. That's certainly an interesting concept, though I find it a bit implausible. Warriors definitely have more trouble with quylthulgs than other classes do since their only way to spot them out of LOS is rods of detection (arcane casters have Reveal Monsters, divine casters have Detection in spell form). I'd be inclined to send constructs after rangers, since artificial is an opposite of natural. We're just a bit short on deeper golems, though; drolems and bone golems are pretty much it and both are not very fun to fight.

I tried to think up some ideas for challenge classes, but nothing's coming to me right now.

[Magnate]

I agree that it's a neat idea, but I'm a bit leery of making the only divine hybrid class a challenge class. Maybe we could add a Crusader to fill that slot in? Then paladins could be moved to be a bit worse at combat and better at spells (more or less the Ranger analogue) if necessary.

Well, discussion on #angband-dev has come up with challenges for all classes: we started by discussing this stealth malus for paladins, and thought that more in-theme would be "attracting" more undead opponents as clev rises instead. (Harder to implement, but we'll leave that for now.) That naturally led to considering which monster genera would be attracted to which classes:

paladins - undead
priests - demons (could actually swap these first two, in fact)
rangers - dragons
magi - giants (because they're tough to melee)
rogues - hounds (ha ha ha ha ha, I mean, because they're always awake)
warriors - quylthulgs (or other nasty immotiles - mimics?)

Not sure if anyone will code this, but it shows we are definitely thinking about making the game harder in interesting ways ...

[Derakon]

I agree that it's a neat idea, but I'm a bit leery of making the only divine hybrid class a challenge class. Maybe we could add a Crusader to fill that slot in? Then paladins could be moved to be a bit worse at combat and better at spells (more or less the Ranger analogue) if necessary.

[Magnate]

Or maybe they aggravate after a certain level, or have stealth penalties that go UP with level increases. But that would effectively make them a challenge class I think.

Yeah but we need more challenges. I really like the idea of a stealth malus, say -1 per 5 clevs, topping out with aggravate at cl45.

[Taha]

Or maybe they aggravate after a certain level, or have stealth penalties that go UP with level increases. But that would effectively make them a challenge class I think.
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Web shows

[Magnate]

[paladins boring]

They just are. No interesting weaknesses, not interesting abilities or interesting strengths. They are about as dull class as it can be in angband. Give them something like constant aggravation and I could enjoy playing them. Then it wouldn't matter if items have aggravation and avoiding too tough fights would be interesting challenge.

It would even fit the class name. I can't find much more aggravating thing than people that try to force-feed their religion to other people by violence.

That's a superb idea! It would need something to help them survive the early game though, I think. The advantage of using multiple aggravating items (which are essentially just Fury and artifacts, I think) comes quite late in the game.

[Djabanete]

I don't think there's any Angband class that's a model of good behavior in any way, shape, or form...

[Timo Pietilä]

Can I ask why?

[paladins boring]

They just are. No interesting weaknesses, not interesting abilities or interesting strengths. They are about as dull class as it can be in angband. Give them something like constant aggravation and I could enjoy playing them. Then it wouldn't matter if items have aggravation and avoiding too tough fights would be interesting challenge.

It would even fit the class name. I can't find much more aggravating thing than people that try to force-feed their religion to other people by violence.

[ulrichvonbek]

Paladins are boring.

Can I ask why?

[Scraper]

I think it depends a lot on your play style as well. I have played a lot of mages and more recently a couple of paladins. My playstyle has always been, though it is changing quite a lot now, "kill everything you can find" so as you can imagine, I've had very little success with mages. I haven't even got a mage close to end game yet.

My playstyle naturally makes playing mages harder imo. As a paladin, I can whack whack heal - rinse and repeat -. As a mage I don't have the luxury of free healing, so am in a constant battle to output as much damage as I can while trying to sustain as little as possible. Thus trying to kill the monster before it kills me. I've had a lot more close calls with a mage than with a pally. I can easily give up a few turns as a pally to heal myself to full. When I play a mage I am sometimes in such a precarious "do or die" position that my last key stroke of spell is pressed so heavily, I think my finger might go through my keyboard.

By the time I get to mid game, my mage doesn't have the gunning power versus the monsters I run into to kill them before they can kill me. Result = dead mage.

[Timo Pietilä]

Mmm I would make that warrior > ranger > mage > paladin > rogue > priest but I guess it depends on when you let the "early" game end.

Very much so, because I count this as

warrior > priest > paladin > ranger > rogue > mage. I have never had any problems with priest, their detection abilities give them edge above paladins, extremely fast level gain makes diving "too fast" no issue, and early and more powerful OoD takes care of the rest of the way. Mage with wimpy mm and very low HP mages it a difficult to play there.

In near endgame it is warrior > priest > ranger > mage > paladin > rogue. Priest second because healing makes dealing with just about anything easy, and warrior just can kill everything fast. At that point rogue has worst damage-dealing/combat endurance ratio. No serious distance-damage like mages, rangers or priests, no healing like priests or paladins.

In mid-game it is mage > ranger > rogue > paladin > warrior > priest (with very small difference between mage, ranger and rogue). At that point lack of detection (hounds) is making life really difficult for warriors, priests and paladins. If you get early ESP or Godly Insights then it gets easier fast. Mage spells are superior to the priests for a while there, and ranger and rogue benefit from them too in addition to ranger getting second shot and rogue getting ability to sneak past just about anything.

Fastest is probably warrior, easiest priest. Rogue is interesting, but hard at the end. Paladins are boring. Rangers make pincushions out of enemies, which can be fun.