Making the game harder, take five: stealth

[UglySquirrell]

Just had a thought, maybe you could put a minus stealth value on high level spellbooks. This would insure that the spellcster, had a way to deal with less stealth, and would make Delr ingame. Books surrounded by power. On a side note, my Mage found +9 Boots of speed on level 10 from a novice warrior. Two robes of permanence, shortrly afrerward. Then art gloves +8 speed imm. acid on level 30. Waiting to get hit, by lightning

[EpicMan]

It may suffice to make the noise check trigger when @ moves, rather than when the monster moves. Cf. Zaiband.

+1.

Monsters waking up is (in the game world) a reaction to the player making noise, not the monster looking around every turn for the player (because the monsters can not see the player when he's standing next to him before 'waking up'.

The other reason to do this is you no longer need to make a stealth malus at given char levels, characters will gain speed over the course of the game anyway. You would need to give warrior a tiny stealth bonus at given levels to cancel this out, if warriors are going to not lose stealth like casters, and give rogues more stealth progression to cancel this out and get better over time.

[zaimoni]

I say it should halve your stealth instead since as you are moving faster you're making more noise.

It may suffice to make the noise check trigger when @ moves, rather than when the monster moves. Cf. Zaiband.

[TJS]

As your character gets faster and carries a heavier burden then stealth should be reduced.

It would bring in some interesting trade-offs about whether to wear good heavy armour or speed boosts whilst taking a hit in stealth.

It's silly at the moment where doubling your speed actually also doubles your effective stealth. I say it should halve your stealth instead since as you are moving faster you're making more noise. Although I've long argued that speed should have some drawbacks such as increased spell failure rates and lower to-hit values.

[UglySquirrell]

Sorry, was unclear in my post. Had a few drinks after work, and was trying to figure out if the registering question was pig Latin . Yeah the minus to stealth was for Mage's or priest types. Don't see how having warriors or others getting penalized would be fair. Magic users have so many ways to get rid of unwanted guests. Maybe give them a fiery aura or something to compensate.

[EpicMan]

I rather like that - stealth as an anti-grinding measure. Rogue gets +1 stealth per level, everyone else gets -1 ... (adjusted to a suitable scale, of course - +1 per 10 clevs or something).

That also leaves a middle ground, where stealth is static. I would use magic ability as the fluff for why stealth decreases (monsters can sense your powerful aura), and not penalize warriors stealth beyond what they start with. That would help warriors in the later parts of the game relative to everyone else. So you could play a stealthy warrior if you wanted, providing you picked a stealthy race to start with.

[Magnate]

Hi everyone, new here. Thanks for the great game/site/community. The stealth issue was dealt with in. I believe it was hengband or entroband really well. You began with regular stealth values, but as you became more powerful yore stealth decreased. Eg. You were so
Baddass you couldn't hide you're presence. Probably would work well, my level 50 kobold priest doesn't wake up anything unless he wants to, ans it gets a little boring. Well time ta sleep. Cheers and thx again fo
r all you're hard work on this awesome game.

I rather like that - stealth as an anti-grinding measure. Rogue gets +1 stealth per level, everyone else gets -1 ... (adjusted to a suitable scale, of course - +1 per 10 clevs or something).

[UglySquirrell]

Hi everyone, new here. Thanks for the great game/site/community. The stealth issue was dealt with in. I believe it was hengband or entroband really well. You began with regular stealth values, but as you became more powerful yore stealth decreased. Eg. You were so
Baddass you couldn't hide you're presence. Probably would work well, my level 50 kobold priest doesn't wake up anything unless he wants to, ans it gets a little boring. Well time ta sleep. Cheers and thx again fo
r all you're hard work on this awesome game.

[Antoine]

Letting rogue stealth improve with level sounds interesting. That class needs something to help it stand out.

It seems to work well in NPP.

A.

[Napsterbater]

Apologies to all respondents if my previous post sounded like I or the devteam wanted to encourage grinding. That isn't the case. I was trying - unsuccessfully, obviously - to point out the opposite. The reason stat restoration was moved to level-up is because it took away a whole lot of tedious scumming for stat restore potions.

Moving stat restore to level up is in my opinion an innovative move, a perfect way to make stat drain at deeper levels more terrifying and less terrifying at lower levels, all the while removing the necessity for 6 consumables and increasing the value of 6 abilities, the sustains.

Whereas tying stealth to clev removes one more way games can differ from each other. I don't think it's right to say that players will grind for stealth if they don't have it. Maybe some players who really value stealth will, but changing the game to accommodate those players isn't optimal. Some players scum until they can start a game with a particular item in the shops so they can start with, say an enchanted dagger or whip. If people want to do that, let them, it's better than changing the game so that the shop 4 guarantees a +4 whip.

Personally, I think stealth works as a mechanic which you have to pay to get. Items and artifacts with stealth should carry fewer total resists/sustains/buffs. In return, stealth probably should get a small boost. Stealthy players gain a significant advantage but have to play much more carefully. Like aggro works currently, only the opposite.

EDIT: For example, some variants have stat increases on level-up. I don't recall anybody saying this has turned Un into a grind-fest. O gives special abilities, NPP gives a to-hit bonus for rogues with slings. There are lots of possibilities.

The problem (to me anyway) is not grinding, but variability. Un doesn't have a problem maintaining variability of games. Vanilla, on the other hand, has much tighter, leaner gameplay. If you take away too much, it starts looking like Progress Quest. It's worth noting that even in Un, stealth only goes up by clev for one class.

In fact, I'd probably go so far as to switch to playing mostly variants if both stealth and stats went up linearly to clev. It just wouldn't be the same game.

[Nick]

Apologies to all respondents

Accepted - just don't do it again

[Magnate]

Because this is an adventure, not a schoolroom where you get a gold star for working hard. I know some people want to be able to grind out wins in a predictable fashion; if I wanted that sort of entertainment in my spare time, I'd get a job delivering junk mail.

So the only reason FA still has clevs at all is because you're not imaginative enough to take them out, right ;-) After all, as Derakon says, there's no reason the game couldn't be entirely based on items and stats.

Apologies to all respondents if my previous post sounded like I or the devteam wanted to encourage grinding. That isn't the case. I was trying - unsuccessfully, obviously - to point out the opposite. The reason stat restoration was moved to level-up is because it took away a whole lot of tedious scumming for stat restore potions. Lots of players, at some point in the evolution of their playing style, footle around at a particular depth where they're comfortable in the hope that some good OOD item(s) will drop and enable them to continue. Obviously we don't want to take away the joy of a great find - but judiciously making certain things increase with clev (like, say, stealth) would shift the balance a little. As has been noted, it doesn't have to be the same for all classes (there's no particular reason why priests or magi would get stealthier as they level up).

EDIT: For example, some variants have stat increases on level-up. I don't recall anybody saying this has turned Un into a grind-fest. O gives special abilities, NPP gives a to-hit bonus for rogues with slings. There are lots of possibilities.

[Derakon]

Jumping in on the bandwagon of "don't move more stuff to be clvl-dependent, please". In fact I'd almost rather do away with character levels altogether, and have the character's capabilities derive solely from stats and gear. Of course then there'd be no point whatsoever in monsters that don't drop loot or drain-experience attacks...my point is more that if I'm blocked from continuing because my clvl is too low (e.g. to learn a spell I need to be able to kill things) then the game comes to a screeching halt with nothing to do but grind. The same thing can happen with items (needing to grind until I randomly get a weapon that lets me take on the local monsters), but then at least it's random and I don't typically have a specific item I'm looking for, so it's more interesting.

Letting rogue stealth improve with level sounds interesting. That class needs something to help it stand out.

[jens]

I have always disliked the inconsistency that some skills increase with clev while some (stealth, perception, searching) do not. I would support a move to per-level stealth increases for all classes, like for the other skills. (But maybe stealth increases should be race-dependent as well?)

Some incosistencies are good to have... It does not bother me in this case, but I guess most players assume that all skills work the same.

Letting all classes get per-level increase for stealth would not work with the current stealth system. Letting just one class get it would work, and would give a clearly different play experience.

[Nick]

Why not indeed. We've been mulling for a couple of years over how to make the game less dependent on gear, and thereby less prone to lucky finds (or unlucky games).

Because this is an adventure, not a schoolroom where you get a gold star for working hard. I know some people want to be able to grind out wins in a predictable fashion; if I wanted that sort of entertainment in my spare time, I'd get a job delivering junk mail.