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

[Shockbolt]

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

[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.

[Antoine]

Imma try it.

"DIE!!!!!!!"

Did anyone?

A.

[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.

[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+).

[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.

[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?

[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.

[Taha]

"Dammit, my priest didn't get 18/50 WIS."

*restarts program, rerolls character*

"Dammit, my priest didn't get 18/50 WIS."

*restarts program...*

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.

Also, to someone else's point about the autoroller - that is gone, and has been for a while. You can do points based or standard roller. And using the standard roller to get a character as good or better than you would with points is slow.

When the autoroller was disabled there were still some issues with points based. So my next couple characters got stats edited to match what the autoroller could have done. Point based was substantially weaker (similar average, but lower top end since CHA was always at least 10), but eventually got used to it.

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

[ekolis]

Yeah, that's the way it was before point-based was introduced... heck, you remember the "autoroller"? You could specify minimum stats that you would accept, and it would roll repeatedly (up to a max of 1000 times or something) until you got those stats...

Oddly enough there was a warning saying not to use the autoroller on multi-user systems, as it could supposedly cause slowdowns... of course, that was probably only true back in the '80s; any PC built within the past 20 years should easily be able to handle a few RNG calls!

[Derakon]

I think we should get rid of points altogether and just start everybody with randomly rolled stats. We could allow half a dozen rolls for the class's primary stat so that it's better than the rest. We could also allow a few rolls for a chosen secondary stat to allow a little user guidance. That would simplify birth quite a bit.

"Dammit, my priest didn't get 18/50 WIS."

*restarts program, rerolls character*

"Dammit, my priest didn't get 18/50 WIS."

*restarts program...*

[fizzix]

This does remind me a thought I had some time ago: point-based allows too big max stats. For example Dwarf Priest can get 18/50 WIS and still have plenty of points left to distribute around to other stats. In 3.4 this is supposed to be a bit less than it was in 3.3 but I didn't notice any difference.

I think max points put to single stat should be less instead of points total. If you want a super char use roller and just keep rolling until you get something that you might want.

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

The auto-roller still does exist. Everyone is free to use it, no one's twisting your hands and forcing you to use the points generation. Obviously if you're competing for "best time" or something, then you sort of are twisted. But if you're just role-playing games for fun, the auto-roller is certainly a viable candidate.

Max points in a single stat are less than points total. You get diminishing returns after a certain number of added values (i think it's 6). We could instead make it diminshing returns after some static value like 18. or maybe 16 + race bonus or something. Or diminishing returns after 5.

Using something like a dwarf priest and saying the WIS is off the charts, or to do the same with Half-Troll warrior and STR or a gnome mage and INT isn't really fair. These are the best results you can get for these classes and they come at penalties to other somewhat desired stats (DEX, DEX and STR respectively.)

If you're playing mage or priest you probably don't see much significant change because they got some of their base stats boosted a little. They're probably the same difficulty to start as 3.3. The hybrid classes and the warriors were weakened a little and get less points. You should see some extra difficulty in the first 10 levels with these classes now.

[Magnate]

This does remind me a thought I had some time ago: point-based allows too big max stats. For example Dwarf Priest can get 18/50 WIS and still have plenty of points left to distribute around to other stats. In 3.4 this is supposed to be a bit less than it was in 3.3 but I didn't notice any difference.

I think max points put to single stat should be less instead of points total. If you want a super char use roller and just keep rolling until you get something that you might want.

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

I think we should get rid of points altogether and just start everybody with randomly rolled stats. We could allow half a dozen rolls for the class's primary stat so that it's better than the rest. We could also allow a few rolls for a chosen secondary stat to allow a little user guidance. That would simplify birth quite a bit.

[Timo Pietilä]

Though some of us like to play a mage without a huge str & con. It feels wierd playing a mage that looks like he's spent all his time at the gym. One of the problems I find with the point's based generator is once you find an optimal balance of stats you tend to play characters that all look identical.

This does remind me a thought I had some time ago: point-based allows too big max stats. For example Dwarf Priest can get 18/50 WIS and still have plenty of points left to distribute around to other stats. In 3.4 this is supposed to be a bit less than it was in 3.3 but I didn't notice any difference.

I think max points put to single stat should be less instead of points total. If you want a super char use roller and just keep rolling until you get something that you might want.

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

[wobbly]

Even if you like "fragile" mages put some points in CON. It might hurt early game but pays out later. 9 CON is what killed you this time. Use pretty much everything that gives you CON.

If you like spellcasters in general try priest. Dwarf priest especially is quite easy combo (not the fastest, but easiest).

Though some of us like to play a mage without a huge str & con. It feels wierd playing a mage that looks like he's spent all his time at the gym. One of the problems I find with the point's based generator is once you find an optimal balance of stats you tend to play characters that all look identical.