Making the game harder, take four: curses

[Estie]

Well, so I did - and I think that I still think that. Classically, the big reason for IDing things was to avoid wielding cursed stuff. If "cursed" now means something different, that kind of forces a redesign of ID.

It probably also reflects the fact that I don't really know how I feel about ID, whereas I'm pretty happy with the FA curses implementation.

Alas, I strongly disagree. Classically the reason for IDing things was to know if they gave resistance to fire or not. The process of accumulating an item set starts at level 1, ends right before the last fight and is a dominant procedure, which imho should be made as good and fluent as possible. Making changes to that to better accomodate a wanted type of curse flavour makes little sense to me unless you want the majority of items to be cursed.

Well. That being said, we both end up at the connection of ID and curse. If your happy about FA curses, thats good. I am not sure about either.

[EpicMan]

If you do it for realXP, it takes one extra field in the info for each specific monster (as opposed to info about the general monster type) to cover the situation :XPAwarded. Whenever you award some XP for damage, increase that amount. When the total reaches whatever the maximum allowed is, you stop giving more. When the creature dies, award max(FullXP-XPAwarded,0).

Isn't the monster's kill XP already included in the monster struct? You could just subtract any XP rewarded from this, and just give the remainder on kill.

Hengband implements giving some XP for damaging a monster, if you're looking for an existing implementation.

[Zyphyr]

Isn't the monster's kill XP already included in the monster struct? You could just subtract any XP rewarded from this, and just give the remainder on kill.

If you level during the kill, the reward changes. That will, of course, only happen a few times per game but I felt it worthwhile to address the possibility right from the start.

[EpicMan]

If you level during the kill, the reward changes. That will, of course, only happen a few times per game but I felt it worthwhile to address the possibility right from the start.

Hmm, so much for a simpler implementation...

Why do we change how much XP a monster is worth based on player level? What does that give us over a system with fixed XP costs and bigger level thresholds? Other than the current system is in a working state?

[Derakon]

Why do we change how much XP a monster is worth based on player level? What does that give us over a system with fixed XP costs and bigger level thresholds? Other than the current system is in a working state?

Because it rewards the player for taking on bigger challenges better.

I don't think that edge case is a huge deal myself. Instead of recording how much experience we've given the player so far, we can just record the maximum percentage damage the player has dealt to the monster so far; each time this is increased we award the player (new percentage - old percentage) / 2 * (monster current XP value).

[Zababa]

Temporary curse

I have another idea how to spice up curses.

Sometimes when we find out something is cursed, we may try to take it off, but we try only once (or few times), but we usually don't try to take it of after a long while again. We just give up trying. We rather look for a scroll of remove curse.

This is what a 'temporary curse' can exploit. Such a piece of equipment cannot be unwielded for certain amount of turns (like 10,000–20,000 turns, maybe more, depends on the quality of the gear and strength of the curse).

If the player puts on such thing, he may find out it has some undesirable bonuses. So he will try to take it off. It won't go. It would only be possible to take off after at least a certain amount of turns have passed since the last time the player equipped it or tried to take it off. If he tries to take it off earlier, the duration of the curse may get refreshed/re-randomized (for another 10–20k turns or so).

I can very well imagine also items with all positive bonuses which may be cursed in this way, e.g. A pair of leather boots [2,+2] but "they look so nice, you just want to wear these for a little longer"

[Magnate]

I have another idea how to spice up curses.

Sometimes when we find out something is cursed, we may try to take it off, but we try only once (or few times), but we usually don't try to take it of after a long while again. We just give up trying. We rather look for a scroll of remove curse.

This is what a 'temporary curse' can exploit. Such a piece of equipment cannot be unwielded for certain amount of turns (like 10,000–20,000 turns, maybe more, depends on the quality of the gear and strength of the curse).

If the player puts on such thing, he may find out it has some undesirable bonuses. So he will try to take it off. It won't go. It would only be possible to take off after at least a certain amount of turns have passed since the last time the player equipped it or tried to take it off. If he tries to take it off earlier, the duration of the curse may get refreshed/re-randomized (for another 10–20k turns or so).

I can very well imagine also items with all positive bonuses which may be cursed in this way, e.g. A pair of leather boots [2,+2] but "they look so nice, you just want to wear these for a little longer"

Human beings are perverse though. Quite a lot of players (including me, I suspect) would just go to town and wait for CURSE_MAX turns until they could be certain of taking it off.

[Derakon]

Presumably you wouldn't be able to tell by inspection if the item is cursed.

So what's to stop me from just resting for a few tens of thousands of turns to get rid of the thing? I'm generally against rules that have to specially rule that resting is treated differently from adventuring -- if you're going to go that route, the curse I like better is the one that uncurses itself after you've killed so many monsters (or so much XP worth of monsters, or a unique, etc.).

[Zababa]

Presumably you wouldn't be able to tell by inspection if the item is cursed.

I like that, Derakon. The temporary curse actually does not need to show up as {cursed}. Makes even more sense when you see some worthless items with positive bonuses being temporarily cursed.

go to town and wait for CURSE_MAX turns

I have noted that in 3.2.0 in the player stats you make a clear distinction between Game Turns, Standart Turns, and Resting Turns. So, to avoid such wise guys who want to rest out the curse, the temporary curse could be programmed to count only Standart Turns.

[Magnate]

I have noted that in 3.2.0 in the player stats you make a clear distinction between Game Turns, Standart Turns, and Resting Turns. So, to avoid such wise guys who want to rest out the curse, the temporary curse could be programmed to count only Standart Turns.

You mean player turns, I think - i.e. turns where a player does things other than resting. That's actually even worse, because we'd then have to jog around the town for 10k turns instead of just resting.

No, that really isn't the way to implement this - Derakon's solution is much better: make the temporary curse wear off when a certain thing has happened in the dungeon: reached level X, killed Y monsters, opened Z chests, whatever.

[Zababa]

Derakon's solution is much better: make the temporary curse wear off when a certain thing has happened in the dungeon: reached level X, killed Y monsters, opened Z chests, whatever.

I see your point, guys. Under these conditions the cursed item drives you into more adventure rather than just jogging around. I like this kind of temporary curse, too.

Another possibility than fulfilling the curse's demands could be the classical (*)Remove Curse(*) scroll/spell, if this is going to stay in the game and won't be completely removed.

[Derakon]

I suspect that Remove Curse will be around for awhile longer, though the priest spell might get moved to a dungeon spellbook whenever the long-sought priest spellbook shuffle gets implemented.

[Timo Pietilä]

I suspect that Remove Curse will be around for awhile longer, though the priest spell might get moved to a dungeon spellbook whenever the long-sought priest spellbook shuffle gets implemented.

What's wrong with priest spells? I see that as one of the best balanced thing in the whole game. Mage spells need a lot more work IMO.

[Derakon]

I guess you could look at it that way. The alternate way to look at it is that the priest spells are too good, and need to be brought down to the level of the mage spells.

Also, Holy Infusions is a worthless spellbook, while Godly Insights is ridiculously awesome.

[Timo Pietilä]

I guess you could look at it that way. The alternate way to look at it is that the priest spells are too good, and need to be brought down to the level of the mage spells.

Also, Holy Infusions is a worthless spellbook, while Godly Insights is ridiculously awesome.

Godly Insights has two spells that you absolutely need: Detection and ID. Third useful is Clairvoyance which you don't really need. Other than that it isn't that great. Holy Infusions has Unbarring ways (disarming. priests suck at disarm), recharging (weak, but very useful to charge speed/banishment/destruction staves), enchantments and Dispel Curse which equals *remove curse*. It isn't worthless, just less frequently required than Godly Insights.

What makes finding Godly Insights that great is that when you find it (and get detection) you don't need first town book anymore. I like that. I would like to replicate that in mage books too. Greater versions of one town book weak spells replace that entire book.

BTW, I thought bringing Holy Word to 0% failure with blunt/blessed weapons, with high manacost. That would make choosing edged weapon a bit more difficult, except that this is now a moot point because that penalty is being removed.

In contrast especially rogue spell selection sucks big time. Ranger has too many, rogue too few. Mage combat would need some weapon that doesn't destroy items, like darkness storm. LoS spell like Dispel Evil, but with different selection, perhaps everything like with staff of power.