Those first few rings are crap

[Derakon]

I'm in the same camp as d_m. Ring of the Dog is almost as useless as Ring of the Mouse these days; I haven't had any character use one since it got downgraded.

[Timo Pietilä]

I'm in the same camp as d_m. Ring of the Dog is almost as useless as Ring of the Mouse these days; I haven't had any character use one since it got downgraded.

Ring of mouse can be very useful (early) if you find right combination with powerful enough weapon. Something that gives you even just 0.5 blows more when weapon & STR & other bonuses counter the damage penalty it can be better than extra damage from reckless attacks for example. Damage bonus varies a lot with those. Also added stealth is something not to underestimate. That window of usefulness is short though, you soon find better rings to replace them.

Rings of Dog are now way worse than Rings of Mouse.

[fizzix]

Seems like I'm the only one who things =dog is marginally useful. Should we change that in 3.5, or is having another early useless ring ok?

[Derakon]

I think the problem is that rFear is a situational resist, which means that taking on a continual penalty to get it doesn't really make much sense.

Maybe if it gave +1-3 STR? Then you might want to use it if only because otherwise your pack would be slowing you down...

[Philip]

[snipped]
Maybe if it gave +1-3 STR? Then you might want to use it if only because otherwise your pack would be slowing you down...

I'm not sure, it doesn't have too many drawbacks that would compensate. Maybe making it reduce INT and WIS or making it give some other important penalty?

[Derakon]

Penalizing your stealth is a pretty big penalty in the early game; you don't have any escapes to speak of and you can't tackle out-of-control breeders very well, so letting everyone know you're there is not a good idea.

[CliffStamp]

I'd be interested to know what you think of this split approach.

I can understand why someone might think that Angband proper could benefit from development (every game does) but you can't develop it and really still call it Angband at some point there is a line being crossed. For example to me it is obvious that changes such as these, while I would argue do have advantages to game play cross that line :

-questing, NPP
-wilderness, zang
-random speed + LOS (heng)

Not to mention the big ones like :

-persistent dungeons, heng
-main story/quest rewrite, tome

Moria for example still has a maintainer but isn't being developed in any sense, but it was developed into uMoria which was developed into Angband, then to Pern, then to TOME.

But to be quite frank, this is an unpaid volunteer service, demanding that anyone do anything is kind of retarded. The reason there is rarely (if ever) any civil war on these issues is that no one is really that passionate to actually make that step and simply "do it right" themselves.

The development versions basically take the historical organized patches and micro-variants make an organized and systematic effort of beta testing. Huge amount of effort, I am rather surprised that it is happening for such a project, especially if it can be maintained for any length of time. It is obvious that those involved have a huge passion for the game (or lots of OCD).

I think an option for store contents would cause huge balance issues that nobody really wants to deal with.

Options do bloat code obviously but they also maintained flexibly. The decision is just made on basically size of the group going to be offended/lost. Harsh as it is, that is what it will come down to, some minimum size of people whose population is squelched if it is under a certain number/loudness.

In regards to the store, the balance has to be there to hard code it anyway, you are simply making the restrictions optional. But again, to option or not to option is just a matter on population size in both camps.I don't like the move towards a more restricted ironman type game, while I play ironman and had one of the first winners I don't like just ironman.

[Estie]

I'm not sure, it doesn't have too many drawbacks that would compensate. Maybe making it reduce INT and WIS or making it give some other important penalty?

Compensate for what ?
Strength would be a nice boost for sure, but if your looking to give it a penalty of the same order, it would again become junk. The mixed blessing item needs two plusses and one minus, to compete with the basic item of one plus.

I actually like the str/stealth tradeoff; in particular, the original str ring is always an upgrade because of the sustain. Such a str/-stealth dog ring would be used by most of my characters and not squelched, and so be about as good as a reckless attack ring.

[Timo Pietilä]

Compensate for what ?
Strength would be a nice boost for sure, but if your looking to give it a penalty of the same order, it would again become junk. The mixed blessing item needs two plusses and one minus, to compete with the basic item of one plus.

Or they need to be useful for one class but junk for other. Fear is issue to melee-fighters, and lack of stealth is no issue only to warrior so this is early warrior ring. STR bonus and INT penalty makes sense to me, even if INT penalty is much higher than STR bonus.

I actually liked the combat bonuses it had before. Kind of competition with Reckless Attacks, where you decided which to use based on how much excess AC you have. If you had plenty of AC it was RA, if not then it was Dog.

How about Ring of Cat? Small speed and To_hit bonus with small CON and big to_dam penalty? IOW ranger ring?

[fizzix]

I actually liked the combat bonuses it had before. Kind of competition with Reckless Attacks, where you decided which to use based on how much excess AC you have. If you had plenty of AC it was RA, if not then it was Dog.

I'm probably responsible for this. I thought that the rings were too similar. Maybe that was a bad decision, and we can revert it after 3.4 if that is desired.

[Derakon]

Or they need to be useful for one class but junk for other. Fear is issue to melee-fighters, and lack of stealth is no issue only to warrior so this is early warrior ring.

But even if you're a warrior, stealth still has value all the time while rFear only has value some of the time.

I like the "boost one stat, penalize another stat" idea. They could be sort of the ring equivalent of the swap-stat potions. Only thing is that CON is kinda irrelevant in the early game when these would be used, so that limits us to modifying STR, INT, WIS, and DEX.

+STR, -INT ("Ring of the Bear" / warrior ring)
+INT, -WIS ("Ring of the Ferret" / mage ring)
+WIS, -DEX ("Ring of the Owl" / priest ring)
+DEX, -STR ("Ring of the Mouse" / rogue ring)

[Starhawk]

If you're moving away from store-bought items, are you also going to do away with gold drops and the cash mini-game completely? Because if there's going to be nothing worth buying, why are we fiddling with gold? Let me pick some starting kit from a list, and drop some random consumables on the ground every time I recall.

Maybe I'm the only one, but I deeply enjoy finding a vital piece of kit in the Black Market and actually having the money to buy it. It feels like a reward for running around picking up all those $ symbols. By extension, that makes a pile of mithril or adamantite exciting -- maybe I can afford that next stat potion, ego weapon, or whathaveyou!

Granted, this experience is more of an early-game thing -- but I still find it rewarding.

[Derakon]

If you're moving away from store-bought items, are you also going to do away with gold drops and the cash mini-game completely? Because if there's going to be nothing worth buying, why are we fiddling with gold? Let me pick some starting kit from a list, and drop some random consumables on the ground every time I recall.

Maybe I'm the only one, but I deeply enjoy finding a vital piece of kit in the Black Market and actually having the money to buy it. It feels like a reward for running around picking up all those $ symbols. By extension, that makes a pile of mithril or adamantite exciting -- maybe I can afford that next stat potion, ego weapon, or whathaveyou!

The buying game is not going away, particularly the Black Market. What I think we're trying to do is:

1) Not send the player scurrying back to the town every time they have a full pack.
2) Not need to rely on the shopkeepers to ID early items.
3) Not hand out powerful items at excessively cheap prices (i.e. powerful stuff only goes in the Black Market)

Item 1 can only really be accomplished by turning on the no-selling option, but 2 has been largely accomplished by making ID-by-use safer, and 3 is basically accomplished in my experience; the non-Black Market stores will have slightly enchanted gear but they'll rarely have an ego-item, let alone a powerful one.

[Starhawk]

Item 1 can only really be accomplished by turning on the no-selling option, but 2 has been largely accomplished by making ID-by-use safer, and 3 is basically accomplished in my experience; the non-Black Market stores will have slightly enchanted gear but they'll rarely have an ego-item, let alone a powerful one.

Agreed on all points. I am new to no-selling and am slowly growing to like it. It makes killing hydrae exciting, for one...

And I don't rely on ID-by-shopkeeper except on early items whose type isn't made plain on use. i.e. those pesky Potions of Boldness or Wands of Trap/Door Destruction that I have tried a couple times and not figured out.