I have been playing Angband for 16 years now. Other people don't understand it. I have yet to meet someone who has heard of it. But alas, for me, I am hooked. Indeed, when I bought my monster gaming rig, I found myself sitting there playing Angband on it lol.
I greatly appreciate the time and effort the current maintainers put into this game that I love. The very least I can do is offer these humble comments and critisisms.
I find the removal of restore stat potions a hindrance and more than a bit of an annoyance. Being somewhat Monk-ish, it has always bothered me greatly when one of my stats is reduced. I feel the irrational need to have all of the stats a green color, besides which it affects my charachter. You did attempt to compensate the player for this by restoring stats when you advance in charachter level. I don't know that this is adequate when considering the freedom you have removed. Perhaps you could add a store service to the temple, such as seen in NPPAngband. You would not have the additional potions cluttering the dungeon, and the player is still free to choose whether to repair his charachter now or wait for an advance in level.
This is a nice place to segway into a discussion on the new stat potions. Increase a stat, lower a random stat. It reminds me a lot of playing Morraf's World as a kid, and killing Puffballs. Their death produced a similar effect. I personally do not often use them. I may drink one or two to get that extra blow I need - unless it backfires and raises dex but reduces str lol. But typically it's simpler to just squelch them and continue a bit further into the dungeon and harvest stat potions. To encourage the use of the new potions, perhaps you could sink the stat gain potions deeper into the dungeon. I don't know if this really encourages the use of the new potions, however, due to the random nature of the inherent penalty associated with them.
Onto the subject of Smeagol. He seems a bit wan as of late, and slack in the pockets. Too often have I slain him only to find copper coins. He is far too annoying to be worth such paltry rewards. I suppose I could just edit his text file, but I still wanted to include that here.
The inclusion of Nomads tiles is not new to this release, but he deserves recognition. I have never been a tiles player, as I found the tiles wanting. However, the tiles created by Nomad are outstanding. I love the little details, such as the numbers on the spell books indicating their level. The monsters are easily recognizable, but uniques do tend to get lost in a crowd of escorts. This is especially true of the orcs. The spell effects are a far cry from exploding colored stars as well.
You have added the NPP style targeting path, this is a great addition. Also the birth option to have items sell for 0 gold, with increased gold in the dungeon, is a welcome sight. I personally always play with this option on. There is a LOT of cash waiting to be grabbed down in the dungeon now, I have seldom been lacking for gold. And no longer feeling the need to hoard expensive treasures for that trip to town is liberating.
This sort of fits in with ID by use. This is great. And I noticed some items that used to be cursed are no longer. Such as the Ring of Teleportation. It's great to be able to psuedo ID an ego, than just start hacking away with it. Now I can spend more of my % burden on things like armor and not stacks of scrolls etc... Speaking of armor, it's nice to see the AC has been looked at. It's a welcome boost, and not overpowering.
One thing I will take this time to lobby for is the inclusion of the NPP "You see it, it's identified." system. For example - when you go into the temple, all of the things for sale become identified, whereas in 3.3.0 they are labeled unseen. The NPP system has several benefits. It's easy to die in Angband. It is SO nice to pop into all the stores and get the basics identified. The time and money you save is incredible. And it makes the early game more fun. Not only the above, but it makes sense from a logical perspective too.
All in all, great job you developers are doing. Angband is a gem, and it's nice to see people still taking such an interest in it.
I greatly appreciate the time and effort the current maintainers put into this game that I love. The very least I can do is offer these humble comments and critisisms.
I find the removal of restore stat potions a hindrance and more than a bit of an annoyance. Being somewhat Monk-ish, it has always bothered me greatly when one of my stats is reduced. I feel the irrational need to have all of the stats a green color, besides which it affects my charachter. You did attempt to compensate the player for this by restoring stats when you advance in charachter level. I don't know that this is adequate when considering the freedom you have removed. Perhaps you could add a store service to the temple, such as seen in NPPAngband. You would not have the additional potions cluttering the dungeon, and the player is still free to choose whether to repair his charachter now or wait for an advance in level.
This is a nice place to segway into a discussion on the new stat potions. Increase a stat, lower a random stat. It reminds me a lot of playing Morraf's World as a kid, and killing Puffballs. Their death produced a similar effect. I personally do not often use them. I may drink one or two to get that extra blow I need - unless it backfires and raises dex but reduces str lol. But typically it's simpler to just squelch them and continue a bit further into the dungeon and harvest stat potions. To encourage the use of the new potions, perhaps you could sink the stat gain potions deeper into the dungeon. I don't know if this really encourages the use of the new potions, however, due to the random nature of the inherent penalty associated with them.
Onto the subject of Smeagol. He seems a bit wan as of late, and slack in the pockets. Too often have I slain him only to find copper coins. He is far too annoying to be worth such paltry rewards. I suppose I could just edit his text file, but I still wanted to include that here.
The inclusion of Nomads tiles is not new to this release, but he deserves recognition. I have never been a tiles player, as I found the tiles wanting. However, the tiles created by Nomad are outstanding. I love the little details, such as the numbers on the spell books indicating their level. The monsters are easily recognizable, but uniques do tend to get lost in a crowd of escorts. This is especially true of the orcs. The spell effects are a far cry from exploding colored stars as well.
You have added the NPP style targeting path, this is a great addition. Also the birth option to have items sell for 0 gold, with increased gold in the dungeon, is a welcome sight. I personally always play with this option on. There is a LOT of cash waiting to be grabbed down in the dungeon now, I have seldom been lacking for gold. And no longer feeling the need to hoard expensive treasures for that trip to town is liberating.
This sort of fits in with ID by use. This is great. And I noticed some items that used to be cursed are no longer. Such as the Ring of Teleportation. It's great to be able to psuedo ID an ego, than just start hacking away with it. Now I can spend more of my % burden on things like armor and not stacks of scrolls etc... Speaking of armor, it's nice to see the AC has been looked at. It's a welcome boost, and not overpowering.
One thing I will take this time to lobby for is the inclusion of the NPP "You see it, it's identified." system. For example - when you go into the temple, all of the things for sale become identified, whereas in 3.3.0 they are labeled unseen. The NPP system has several benefits. It's easy to die in Angband. It is SO nice to pop into all the stores and get the basics identified. The time and money you save is incredible. And it makes the early game more fun. Not only the above, but it makes sense from a logical perspective too.
All in all, great job you developers are doing. Angband is a gem, and it's nice to see people still taking such an interest in it.
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