Point-based stat distribution is too powerful

[tony]

The notion that the current dungeon is instant death to newbs is absurd. Even standard roller characters can survive given rudimentary knowledge and a sane play style. Newbs who will quit playing because they find the early dungeon is too hard is not an Angband player to begin with (and we should not compromise our extensive history to try to appease them into becoming such).

Super-powered character and the the willingness of current Angband to hold the players hand teaches bad habits. Dying is how one learns to survive. A forgiving start and inflated stats teach all the wrong lessons and lessen the status of the victor should one ever reach it.

hear, hear!

[buzzkill]

The notion that the current dungeon is instant death to newbs is absurd. Even standard roller characters can survive given rudimentary knowledge and a sane play style. Newbs who will quit playing because they find the early dungeon is too hard are not an Angband players to begin with (and we should not further compromise our extensive brutal history to try to appease them into becoming such).

Super-powered character and the the willingness of current Angband to hold the players hand teaches bad habits. Dying is how one learns to survive. A forgiving start and inflated stats teach all the wrong lessons and lessen the status of the victor should one ever reach it.

[Max Stats]

Now, there's some question as to how much of the game needs to be intentionally forgiving -- where does it stop? 300'? 500'? 1000'? I think you could make reasonable arguments for any of those points. Whatever you end up with, though, unless you can resolve my first point, you're going to end up with a section of dungeon that veterans basically end up skipping, or at least blazing through as fast as possible.

What about some sort of starter dungeon? It could be maybe 3 or 4 levels deep, with the levels being comparable to the "real" dungeon, but no OOD monsters, no uniques, and perhaps whatever the most dangerous "in-depth" monster is for each level could be eliminated as well. Because of this nerfing, EXP awards could be lowered, all equipment found could be no better than lightly enchanted (maybe +2), and the best consumables should not be available. In other words, there should be no incentive for someone who knows the game to try to find a cheap, powerful item. At the bottom there could be a moderately challenging quest monster that can give you a slightly better object when defeated. Once the quest monster is defeated, the starter dungeon becomes unavailable.

After completing the starter dungeon, a character should typically be maybe level 3-5, enough to give a good head start for the regular dungeon. I liken this to the cliche "starter quest" in RPGs that typically involves clearing out an infestation of rats for some paltry sum of gold or a +1 dagger.

[Magnate]

Speaking as the person who suggested the basic concept, this seems a bit late to be putting such a change into 3.3. That's just my opinion though. Also, I'd be leery of trying to rank the races too much; I don't think more than three tiers are needed at most (human, high-elf/dunadan, and everyone else).

Ok. As always, s/he who codes it gets to decide the finer details of implementation. If it doesn't happen for 3.3 I don't mind at all - if it does I'm happy to test it (and revert it before release if it's not deemed to be a good change).

[Derakon]

Speaking as the person who suggested the basic concept, this seems a bit late to be putting such a change into 3.3. That's just my opinion though. Also, I'd be leery of trying to rank the races too much; I don't think more than three tiers are needed at most (human, high-elf/dunadan, and everyone else).

[Magnate]

Seconded! We could give Humans 24 points and everyone else, say, 18 or 21 points. I think that fits nicely with the "humans can be anything" theme that is found in many RPGs.

Hey Gabe - if you want to push a commit that does this, I'll put it in a 3.3 RC for testing. Perhaps a different points total for each race, according to how difficult they are? So Humans 24, half-elves 23, elves/gnomes 22, kobolds/half-orcs 21, dwarves/hobbits 20, dunedain 19, high-elves 18 ....?

[Starhawk]

As a journeyman player who loses plenty of characters before level 20, this thread is saddening. A nerf like this would end in plenty more of my gravestones attributed to early orcs and their leaders. Probably even to Fang and Grip, for that matter.

[jens]

Would fit well I guess But not for Windows players that use an overhead map, it slows the game to a crawl while resting away the hallucination...

[Derakon]

How about an early frog that bites to cause hallucinations, then?

[jens]

The snake that spits to blind can be dangerous, at least I always feel in danger when I am blind...

Making a level forgiving for newcomers does not have to mean boring. We can introduce a few status ailments that are not really dangerous, but can scare, and differentiate among them.

[Derakon]

Stegocentipedes are pretty terrifying for many of my characters.

I have to admit that all of the snakes and ants are pretty unmemorable though. But if you make the ants show up in groups early on, they basically become jackals.

[CJNyfalt]

I've been thinking that the monsters in the first levels need to be more differentiated when it comes to how dangerous they are.

I would say that the the problem is more that the monsters are so boring the first levels: yellow centipede, white centipede, white icky thing, large brown snake, large white snake, small kobold, rock lizard & soldier ant are all quite similar and lacks anything that makes them stand out from the rest.

The worst boring monster problems are in my opinion:
- the centipedes, of which only the carrior crawler does something interesting.
- the snakes, of which only the poisonous are dangerous. Would work better modeling them after real world snakes. They are after all nastier than the *band ones.
- the ants, which seems to curiously be loners in *bands. Giving them FRIENDS flag would make them more interesting.

[jens]

One thing to keep in mind is that the early game needs to be forgiving. Newbies need to have a place to figure out the basic game rules without being killed over and over again; otherwise they're too likely to simply give up. Unfortunately, "forgiving to newcomers" readily translates to "too easy for veterans". I'm not aware of any way to reconcile those two so that veterans can have a challenging early game, short of expecting veterans to use weaker race/class combinations (or intentionally not fully exploit the point-based stat buyer).

Now, there's some question as to how much of the game needs to be intentionally forgiving -- where does it stop? 300'? 500'? 1000'? I think you could make reasonable arguments for any of those points. Whatever you end up with, though, unless you can resolve my first point, you're going to end up with a section of dungeon that veterans basically end up skipping, or at least blazing through as fast as possible.

I've been thinking that the monsters in the first levels need to be more differentiated when it comes to how dangerous they are. What I was thinking was that 50' could be made easier, 100' a bit easier, 150' as it is, then start getting tougher than currently. So, I'd say the first 2 levels can be forgiving oh, and the farmer's dogs would then need to be moved to 150', and Smeagol to 200'...

Another option would be to intentionally lead newcomers to easier starts, say by making human a better race with relatively better stats allocation.

[CunningGabe]

I really like this idea! In the birth code it's just one constant that sets that you have 24 points to play with. It should not be very difficult to have this set by race instead.

Seconded! We could give Humans 24 points and everyone else, say, 18 or 21 points. I think that fits nicely with the "humans can be anything" theme that is found in many RPGs.

[Derakon]

One thing to keep in mind is that the early game needs to be forgiving. Newbies need to have a place to figure out the basic game rules without being killed over and over again; otherwise they're too likely to simply give up. Unfortunately, "forgiving to newcomers" readily translates to "too easy for veterans". I'm not aware of any way to reconcile those two so that veterans can have a challenging early game, short of expecting veterans to use weaker race/class combinations (or intentionally not fully exploit the point-based stat buyer).

Now, there's some question as to how much of the game needs to be intentionally forgiving -- where does it stop? 300'? 500'? 1000'? I think you could make reasonable arguments for any of those points. Whatever you end up with, though, unless you can resolve my first point, you're going to end up with a section of dungeon that veterans basically end up skipping, or at least blazing through as fast as possible.