No-sell

[DaviddesJ]

IOr maybe you should add a section to the manual: "This is how you can cheat easily in Angband. You shouldn't."

Going up and down stairs is certainly not "cheating". Sure, going up and down stairs can make the game easier. You can also refresh the stores over and over until you get good stuff. Or just grind levels over and over that are super easy for you, until you find some lucky drops. It's the ability to be as conservative or aggressive as you want to be that makes Angband appealing to many people.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Going up and down stairs is certainly not "cheating". Sure, going up and down stairs can make the game easier. You can also refresh the stores over and over until you get good stuff. Or just grind levels over and over that are super easy for you, until you find some lucky drops. It's the ability to be as conservative or aggressive as you want to be that makes Angband appealing to many people.

I wasn't critizing any of that.

Rather, the behavior of only searching the area that is very close to the stairs and avoiding any risks. At the extreme end, only collecting items in the room you start in. That's not about "being conservative"; you can dive super aggressively while doing this, minimizing risks and maximizing rewards.

All that made the game boring to me, Angband just seemed badly designed. I would have been helped by the manual stating that you need to limit your behavior to keep the game fun because Angband has a big exploit at its core. People repeat that fact all the time on the forums, but for some reason it's not made 'official' by stating it in the manual.

Maybe the manual should also tell that the game was actually designed to be played with connected stairs off. That's both how Moria worked and how current developers like to play themselves.

[DaviddesJ]

Maybe the manual should also tell that the game was actually designed to be played with connected stairs off. That's both how Moria worked and how current developers like to play themselves.

The game was designed to be played with preserve off. That's much more of a disincentive to "stair scumming" than disconnected stairs, right?

I agree that disconnected stairs are way more consistent with how I like the game. I'd just say, once you've already made the call to use connected stairs, do what you want with them. If I had to assign the name "cheating" to something, I'd say it's the choice of connected stairs in the first place.

I guess people in the past have proposed that if you have connected stairs that they occasionally "cave in" when you use them. That would be a way to make the option less broken.

[eMeM]

You must not understand what an option is. You set it to whatever choice you want. It's the exact opposite of being forced to do anything.

Not an option, game choice. Once you set birth option and start a game you can't change anything with no_selling turned on but you can start restricting yourself if it's not set.

[eMeM]

I hate cavern levels so much that I feel forced to use stair scumming to escape them. Cavern levels are boring, there's no chance to find equivalent of vault or pit there. Mazes are little better but still not good. Why they are so small? Both are in alpha state and IMO shouldn't made to the final game yet. It's something that makes me feel bad when thinking about playing ironman game.

[takkaria]

Not an option, game choice. Once you set birth option and start a game you can't change anything with no_selling turned on but you can start restricting yourself if it's not set.

Yeah, but the point isn't about voluntarily restricting selling. It's about providing a balanced way to play the game, which is why there is a gold drop multiplier.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

The game was designed to be played with preserve off. That's much more of a disincentive to "stair scumming" than disconnected stairs, right?

Yes. It's the combination of options that breaks the game.

I agree that disconnected stairs are way more consistent with how I like the game. I'd just say, once you've already made the call to use connected stairs, do what you want with them. If I had to assign the name "cheating" to something, I'd say it's the choice of connected stairs in the first place.

Angband, played "optimally", is not a fun game. It requires the player to limit himself somehow in order to enjoy the game. Limiting yourself = calling some modes of behavior cheating.

It's just important not to enforce your own internal rules on what's cheating and what's not on others. I do believe that Angband's design is the reason behind lots of flamewars.

Nowadays I prefer variants that set their "cheating" rules in stone (Ironband, Sil, Halls of Mist, are there others?). Having to set ethical rules for my behavior in the game and to choose my own difficulty level takes away some enjoyment -- I'd rather strive to play optimally. Lots of people have a contrary opinion and love Angband for it's freedom.

I guess people in the past have proposed that if you have connected stairs that they occasionally "cave in" when you use them. That would be a way to make the option less broken.

Yes, that's one good way.

[DaviddesJ]

Angband, played "optimally", is not a fun game.

"Fun" is so subjective. It's completely different for everyone. Some people don't care if the game is easy or hard. Some people don't care if the game is repetitive or not. Angband has settings designed for people who want the game to be challenging and not especially repetitive. You don't have to make up your own rules. You can just use the game options that achieve that result. The fact that some other sets of game options don't make the game challenging is a feature, not a bug. Those are options that are supposed to reduce the challenge, in some cases to virtually zero. Nothing wrong with that, for people who like that.

Disconnected stairs should be the default, because, as you say, connected stairs mean there are "good" strategies that are also no fun for most people. That's a bad combination. But if someone likes those strategies, fine, let them play that way. Doesn't do me any harm.

[Timo Pietilä]

Angband, played "optimally", is not a fun game. It requires the player to limit himself somehow in order to enjoy the game.

I find "playing optimally" not fun because <u>that</u> requires that you limit what you do. I usually play for fun, not so much to win. Actually winning the game is so anticlimactic to me that I find myself grinding in lower levels just to prolong the game a bit. I'm usually way overprepared when I finally go after M.

This is also why I like 3.5 new rooms and stuff very refreshing, it is now again fun to just explore the dungeon.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

"Fun" is so subjective. It's completely different for everyone. Some people don't care if the game is easy or hard. Some people don't care if the game is repetitive or not. Angband has settings designed for people who want the game to be challenging and not especially repetitive. You don't have to make up your own rules. You can just use the game options that achieve that result. The fact that some other sets of game options don't make the game challenging is a feature, not a bug. Those are options that are supposed to reduce the challenge, in some cases to virtually zero. Nothing wrong with that, for people who like that.

"Optimally" can also be defined in a number of ways. For me, the natural definition is: "Try to keep my character alive, using whatever means necessary". In Angband that means keeping my power level much higher than the average monster power level. But I would also want the difficulty level to be pretty deadly! That's the reason I'd ideally want the game to force me to descend.

Outside of game options, I still have to decide whether I want to townscum or not. And whether to exit a level as soon as it starts to look risky -- even without connected stairs, exiting a level is the optimal strategy too often and carries no cost.

So I'd have to craft some sort of ethical rules for myself before I could really enjoy Angband. Or more realistically, keep it open and subconsciously think about my rules all the time. It adds a meta level to the gameplay that distracts me from the pure roguelike survival horror. Do I want to cheat on my ethical rules to save a character?

For others, optimally means "Try to win with the lowest turncount", and that works much better with Angband.

Disconnected stairs should be the default, because, as you say, connected stairs mean there are "good" strategies that are also no fun for most people. That's a bad combination. But if someone likes those strategies, fine, let them play that way. Doesn't do me any harm.

Yup.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

I find "playing optimally" not fun because <u>that</u> requires that you limit what you do. I usually play for fun, not so much to win. Actually winning the game is so anticlimactic to me that I find myself grinding in lower levels just to prolong the game a bit. I'm usually way overprepared when I finally go after M.

This is also why I like 3.5 new rooms and stuff very refreshing, it is now again fun to just explore the dungeon.

That's a good perspective. I'm a very competitive person in games. (Outside tabletop roleplaying games.) Perhaps Angband was designed for explorers, not optimizers?

I was more of an explorer before, and I recall enjoying Moria a lot.

[DaviddesJ]

So I'd have to craft some sort of ethical rules for myself before I could really enjoy Angband.

I don't find I have to deliberately make up rules for myself that limit what I do, in order to enjoy Angband. I don't have to make up a rule against "townscumming", it just lacks interest and doesn't get me anything I can't get in other, more interesting ways, so I don't have any desire to do it in the first place. Winning the game isn't going to be determined by how many magic arrows I can scum in the town, it's just not worth the trouble.

If I could click my mouse as many times as I want and get 1 gold per click, I wouldn't sit at my terminal clicking for hours even though it's "optimal". Not because I create a rule against it, but just because, you know, I don't have any desire to do that. Life is too short to sit around clicking a mouse. My own personal time is by far the most limited and valuable resource in any game that I play.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

A robust scroring system, like the one in Sangband, allows me to play suicidally and still pretend that it's optimal. Porting that to Angband might be enough to make Angband fun for me.

I know I'm seriously niche in my "fun" definition.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

I think the solution for you is to just play a different game. There are lots of other games that are more tuned to your personal preferences.

Yeah, and that's what I've been doing, too. I mostly play my own variant, Halls of Mist, that is perfectly tuned to my preferences.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

I think the solution for you is to just play a different game. There are lots of other games that are more tuned to your personal preferences.

A little addition: I've loved to read about the way Derakon and others play the game nowadays, diving aggressively and going for a quick win. I might be able to adapt that playstyle in Angband and really enjoy myself. (But I'm not good enough to actually win.)