[V 3.4.0 RC 1] Question about how to survive "Something screams the word 'DIE!'."

[relic]

This whole restarts program thing really needs to be fixed. From the dead character page, why can't I go start a new game without quitting and relaunching? Or start a new game without dying or quitting for that matter.

No reason that couldn't be the case. Interestingly, with the original Moria (on the VAX), you could save a character and then load another without quitting and restarting the program, at least, that is how I remember it.

When Angband first came, that was gone, and it has been that way ever since. I guess the thinking was that players always would have only one character at a time. A pity, as I like to switch between a number of characters.

[Magnate]

No reason that couldn't be the case. Interestingly, with the original Moria (on the VAX), you could save a character and then load another without quitting and restarting the program, at least, that is how I remember it.

When Angband first came, that was gone, and it has been that way ever since. I guess the thinking was that players always would have only one character at a time. A pity, as I like to switch between a number of characters.

Making the game re-entrant has been on our to-do list for years (ticket #138). But it requires very good memory management to avoid leaks and corruption and crashes. Memory management is very difficult in C. That said, we've made a lot of improvements fixing memory leaks in recent years (esp. since the stats module *has* to be re-entrant), so it should be possible to implement this now. Anyone up for it?

[buzzkill]

Forcing new characters into one standard roll would be frustrating. Don't think I would get used to that.

That's the only way I ever play. I often find competition characters frustrating because of their inflated stats.

[wuphonsreach]

On my elf mages, I generally try for at least 11-12 STR and 10-12 CON. I'll put INT at 18/50, but take points out of DEX/WIS/CHR to shore up STR/CON slightly.

Before stat-gain on my current mage (there's a Ring of the Mouse in there, so +4 DEX):

STR 12
INT 18/50
WIS 10
DEX 18/40
CON 14
CHR 16

I personally like the point system. It might be slightly overpowered, but it shaves a lot of time off. OTOH, with the old system I'd reroll enough times that I'd either get what I wanted or I got bored and went with "good enough" (high INT, STR 11-12, CON 11-13, DEX 17-18+, WIS 10+).

[wobbly]

I guess when I roll I just take what I get, which stops the time issue. As long as both systems are avaliable people can play whichever way they want. I think half the problem is having almost useless stats (int,wis & chr on fighters for instance). Perhaps if the wisdom bonus to save was a bigger deal there'd be a bit more variety.

[Antoine]

Imma try it.

"DIE!!!!!!!"

Did anyone?

A.

[CliffStamp]

Rolled chars can be fun to play because you get more variety between chars, just like wobbly here says.

Timo, just think about what you are asking here. You state that you would enjoy difference in random starting stats as it would add variety but you want the code changed to FORCE you to do that because you are not willing to simply do it yourself on the point system. That is a bit odd, if you want variety there is nothing stopping you from putting all points into str for a mage, or all int/wis for a half troll warrior. If you want the variety then play that way, no one forces you to power/munchkin game.

[Shockbolt]

I always play with rolled stats, never cared much for the point based system as it feels kinda like "cheating".

[Starhawk]

Imma try it.

"DIE!!!!!!!"

Did anyone?

A.

*urk* *thud*

[Derakon]

I guess when I roll I just take what I get, which stops the time issue. As long as both systems are avaliable people can play whichever way they want. I think half the problem is having almost useless stats (int,wis & chr on fighters for instance). Perhaps if the wisdom bonus to save was a bigger deal there'd be a bit more variety.

You can blame the anti-diminishing returns for this. Most of the benefits to your saving throw come from getting your WIS up above 18; there's very little difference between WIS of 8 and WIS of 17.

[Magnate]

You can blame the anti-diminishing returns for this. Most of the benefits to your saving throw come from getting your WIS up above 18; there's very little difference between WIS of 8 and WIS of 17.

This is another long-standing wishlist item.

[fizzix]

This is another long-standing wishlist item.

That's not quite what Derakon was getting at, although if I recall from the code that shouldn't be too difficult to change. (I'll put it on my stuff to look at post 3.4)

Derakon was pointing out that there's almost no difference between 13-18 for a lot of stats you care about. HP bonuses to CON, SP values, and in this case saving throws. However there's a super linear increase after say 18/100. What this results in is a separation of an early game, where your growth comes from gaining levels, and a later game where your growth comes from increasing stats and finding equipment. It's a tricky thing to fix because if you adjust everything to a more linear scale then most characters are overpowered in the beginning. It really gets at more fundamental gameplay questions and mucking with it will change gameplay a lot.

[Derakon]

That is what I was getting at, yes. Thanks, Fizzix.

It's a tricky thing to fix because if you adjust everything to a more linear scale then most characters are overpowered in the beginning. It really gets at more fundamental gameplay questions and mucking with it will change gameplay a lot.

One potential way to rebalance after linearizing returns on stats would be to drastically reduce starting stats. For example, if everyone started at 10 + race + class (i.e. with no points to buy stats with) then half-troll warriors would start with 17 STR instead of 18/50 (i.e. 23). Looking at, say, the STR bonus to prowess, it's -30 at STR=3 and +260 at STR=40, thus, you should get about 8 points of prowess per point of STR under a linearized system, starting from -30 of course. The old half-troll warrior with STR of 23 gets a prowess bonus of 60 (+90 from baseline, 90/23 ~= 4 points/STR), while the new with STR of 17 would get (-30 + 14 * 8 = 82). 82 is of course bigger than 60, so the "new" half-troll warrior would be better than the "old" one, but we'd be in the right ballpark.

It's worth noting that a linear return on points is also a diminishing return on proportional gain, though. If every point in CON gives you +.5 hitpoints per level, then going from CON = 10 to CON = 11 gets you a (11 / 10 - 1) = 10% increase in your hitpoint bonus, while going from CON = 39 to CON = 40 gets you a (40 / 39 - 1) = 2.5% increase. In other words, the marginal utility of each additional point decreases. Which is not the same thing as saying that stats are not worth maxing -- it depends on how valuable they are -- but it is an effect to be aware of.

I think the general problem is more that most stats are currently not worth raising at all unless you can get them into the superlinear region. In the early game, you need STR for carrying capacity and either DEX for melee blows or your spellcasting stat for MP/failure rate; all other stats are basically completely pointless; you only put points into them during character creation because it'll save you time later on once you hit stat gain.

[fizzix]

There's another concern that I forgot to mention besides throwing off the early game. Right now mage gear is heavily constrained to need lots of CON bonuses. This is because, with a mage you can't really get by with < 18/180 CON since those last few points are so valuable. It's not necessarily a good thing that it's this way, but making the CON gains linear will make the endgame gear hunt easier.

[Magnate]

There's another concern that I forgot to mention besides throwing off the early game. Right now mage gear is heavily constrained to need lots of CON bonuses. This is because, with a mage you can't really get by with < 18/180 CON since those last few points are so valuable. It's not necessarily a good thing that it's this way, but making the CON gains linear will make the endgame gear hunt easier.

IMO we should get the fundamental mechanics right - intuitive, smooth, proportionate - and then adjust item generation accordingly. It's easy to make +CON less common.

I did understand what Derakon was getting at btw - "linearising the stat system" means linearising the gains as well as the numbers. There is little point doing one without the other, given the work involved.

I don't think there's any problem with 10 to 11 adding 10% and 39 to 40 adding only 2.5% - smoothly diminishing proportional returns is much more intuitive than what we have now.

I think significantly lowering starting stats is an excellent idea - and it brings us neatly back to the idea of scrapping point-based generation!!