Playing 3.4.1 after a few years off

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Major changes in the ID system would change the feel of the game.

Yeah. That would be good.

Seriously, most people on this thread seem to like rune-based Id. Porting it to Vanilla seems like a good idea.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

I believe that originally things like the identify system and food clock were just copied from Rogue to Angband (well, copied to Moria of course) without much thinking. In Rogue they made sense and had a very important gameplay function, but nobody has ever made real game design decisions about them in Angband. Now Angband is an ancient game, and these features have so much historical weight that they can't be changed. Luckily we have variants.

[TJS]

To improve the ID system you have to decide exactly what the point of it is.

Is it to add flavour? Is it a minigame diversion at the beginning of the game before the interesting stuff happens? Is it to add difficulty early on?

For what it's worth I think the rune-based system is definitely the way to go. Keeps the difficulty, but removes the tedium of IDing the same thing multiple times.

[Derakon]

I believe that originally things like the identify system and food clock were just copied from Rogue to Angband (well, copied to Moria of course) without much thinking. In Rogue they made sense and had a very important gameplay function, but nobody has ever made real game design decisions about them in Angband. Now Angband is an ancient game, and these features have so much historical weight that they can't be changed. Luckily we have variants.

I remember playing Moria and laying down a line of Pints of Fine Grade Mush with repeated castings of the Create Food spell, then hoovering up the line to get back to Full. I think it took six castings. I was young enough that I never really questioned why you had to cast the spell more than once.

TJS: part of the problem is that ID does two fundamentally different things -- it tells you what consumable objects (including wands, rods, etc.) do, and it tells you how effective equipment is. It's perfectly reasonable to expect the player to ID every consumable object by use, but IDing every equipment item by use gets tedious in the mid-late game. Hence why we need two different ID systems (or turning egos into "flavors").

[Mikko Lehtinen]

It's perfectly reasonable to expect the player to ID every consumable object by use

I agree with Scatha and half that reducing the number of consumables makes this more fun.

When I first made identifying consumables much harder in Mist, the early identify-by-use game was fun for a while but got very boring after about three games. I went through all consumables and removed all the boring ones, perhaps 40% or so. No need for Bless when there's Chant, for example.

[fizzix]

I agree with Scatha and half that reducing the number of consumables makes this more fun.

When I first made identifying consumables much harder in Mist, the early identify-by-use game was fun for a while but got very boring after about three games. I went through all consumables and removed all the boring ones, perhaps 40% or so. No need for Bless when there's Chant, for example.

The amount of consumables should scale with length of game. If you cut the game to 50 levels like in Halls of Mist (i think!) or 20 levels in Sil, you should expect the number of flavors to drop roughly in proportion. (probably not a 1 to 1 because angband isn't really an 100 level game, more like a 75 level game).

[Malak Darkhunter]

just to add my voice to the cause, I like rune based id, I think it makes perfect since, and think it should be ported to Vanilla.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

The amount of consumables should scale with length of game. If you cut the game to 50 levels like in Halls of Mist (i think!) or 20 levels in Sil, you should expect the number of flavors to drop roughly in proportion. (probably not a 1 to 1 because angband isn't really an 100 level game, more like a 75 level game).

Originally I pretty much just cut the last 50 levels from Halls of Mist, without changing the depths of early monsters and objects. My experiences are not so much removed from Angband. The identifying game felt most problematic in the early game, where there are tons of consumables to identify.

Sil is a very different case, of course.

[TJS]

The amount of consumables should scale with length of game. If you cut the game to 50 levels like in Halls of Mist (i think!) or 20 levels in Sil, you should expect the number of flavors to drop roughly in proportion. (probably not a 1 to 1 because angband isn't really an 100 level game, more like a 75 level game).

Why should the amount of consumables be proportional to the number of levels? Is it to keep the ID game going until the end or for some other reason?

It seems slightly arbitrary to add in loads of unnecessary flavours just because of the game length.

Anyway, back to 3.4.1. Clone monsters now hastes monsters too which negates their only very occasional use which was to get more items/exp from certain monsters. So a tactic has been removed for the player and another object has been relegated to complete junk.

[Magnate]

Anyway, back to 3.4.1. Clone monsters now hastes monsters too which negates their only very occasional use which was to get more items/exp from certain monsters. So a tactic has been removed for the player and another object has been relegated to complete junk.

Ummmmm ... it's been that way for a long, long time. It's not supposed to be a useful item (that's considered farming) - it's a one-shot trick item, when used unIDd.

[TJS]

I actually think the ID-by-use of weapons and armour is good, but IMO the problem is the time taken to swap kit. I think it should take only half a turn to swap weapons (or less, say 30 energy). Similarly it should take less energy (than 100) to swap most armor pieces (body armour excepted).

Ugh no! I'm completely against making more one-off rule changes to fix the symptom of a problem.

At the moment each action takes the same length of time regardless of what it is which is a simple and transparent system for the player.

Breaking this rule so it takes the player less time to change armour is a bad idea.

A good well thought out rule-set needs very few special cases.

[TJS]

Ummmmm ... it's been that way for a long, long time. It's not supposed to be a useful item (that's considered farming) - it's a one-shot trick item, when used unIDd.

Has it? I thought it was only changed in the last couple of years.

It seems odd that an item that is probably useless 99% of the time, but might have a use sometimes with an added risk (ie. two monster to deal with instead of one) needs to be nerfed. They take up an inventory space which could otherwise be used for something to keep you alive (a resist swap etc).

Don't forget you have items that give you complete immunity to a dragon pit, or allow you to banish all monsters in a vault which are many times more overpowered than the clone monster wands.

Personally I've never used them myself, I just like the idea that there is a use for most items even in unlikely scenarios.

[TJS]

Revealing the map just means casting clairvoyance (or enlightenment if you want to know items too) automatically.

To reveal all monsters, check the wiz command u. That displays all monsters. You can copy that command and run it before every player movement.

Thanks for the help.

Any idea of the syntax for casting clairvoyance, what form are the index/dir variables?

cast_priest_spell(index, dir);

Also where does the player turn begin?

[half]

IDing everything in LOS is a bad idea because it marks artifacts as seen.

It is interesting how much V has to baby people with their artifacts. The players support insta-death in a many day long game (e.g. by groups of gravity hounds breathing on you on the first turn you get in a dark room), but they howl with protest if they didn't get one of the hundred artifacts because they walked past it without checking it out. I'm glad Scatha convinced me to drop this kind of silliness, as it really leads to all kinds of perversity in the game play and mechanics.

[Magnate]

Has it? I thought it was only changed in the last couple of years.

It seems odd that an item that is probably useless 99% of the time, but might have a use sometimes with an added risk (ie. two monster to deal with instead of one) needs to be nerfed. They take up an inventory space which could otherwise be used for something to keep you alive (a resist swap etc).

Don't forget you have items that give you complete immunity to a dragon pit, or allow you to banish all monsters in a vault which are many times more overpowered than the clone monster wands.

Personally I've never used them myself, I just like the idea that there is a use for most items even in unlikely scenarios.

You're preaching to the choir. Clone monster is one of those precious tropes that goes right back to Moria. It's a "gotcha" item. It's not supposed to have a use. Debate has raged about removing it for about two decades - precisely because it is useful for farming.

takkaria took out the potion of death, so perhaps in a few more years we can remove clone wands.

On the other hand, if we really increase the rewards for ID-by-use, the status of "gotcha" items will increase. In that scenario I'd make it create about half a dozen clones.