Sustains, Hold Life and more

[eMeM]

Recently there are lot of talking about removing "tedious" tasks in Angband. Tedious - this word is everywhere, just like no-selling advertisements. I agree with some of them like squelching (user interface change) why I must say other changes lead only to game becoming much easier. IMO that's wrong direction for the game.

Few years ago Angband had restore stats and restore life level potions. I don't think there was anyone who liked using them because stat drain is very anoying part of the game. Later on I realised it's too easy to restore stats in current version. Few abilities became worthless. Why would anyone want sustain early on? Would you be happy to find Rod of Restoration or Amulet of Sustenance on 250'?

There are more examples:
- no-selling
- current Too Much Junk solution lead to removal of many crap items from the game, no more cursed weapons and armors, no more bad rings etc. In the end when you find new item it's more likely it will be something you are looking for. With squelch and new identification system some poor items could have stayed in the game with one difference, they wouldn't be cursed to allow wearing them.
- fizzix patch removes nexus stat swap annoyance. it's not in Angband yet but it shows what devs are thinking about.

Another question, maybe some things should be tedious and annoying to the player? Like dying, stat drain, stat swap and finding poor items instead of great.

[Derakon]

The idea wasn't for great items to replace poor items; the idea was for poor items to not get generated at all.

Angband-style sticky-cursed items have to go for ID-by-use to be remotely feasible. Nobody is going to blindly equip an un-ID'd item if they run the risk of having a worthless item stuck to them. The devs I've talked to are all in favor of more subtle cursed items -- ones you only gradually discover are bad, or that have tradeoffs that usually make them undesirable. There's a number of ways that curses could be implemented without wrecking ID-by-use; all we need is someone motivated enough to implement one of them.

As for nexus stat swap, as-implemented it amounted to an incredibly rare way to screw over the player. Personally I'd much rather a more common way to simply mess with the player. I suggested doing +3/-3, but fizzix claimed to have not liked it; since I didn't bother to actually implement/playtest it myself, it never happened.

[takkaria]

Recently there are lot of talking about removing "tedious" tasks in Angband. Tedious - this word is everywhere, just like no-selling advertisements. I agree with some of them like squelching (user interface change) why I must say other changes lead only to game becoming much easier. IMO that's wrong direction for the game.

I actually dislike squelching a lot. I don't want it in the game and I think it's a user interface fix for a game balance problem (that I don't know how to solve) (stlll).

Squelch only got added because there was so much clamour for it.

Few years ago Angband had restore stats and restore life level potions. I don't think there was anyone who liked using them because stat drain is very anoying part of the game. Later on I realised it's too easy to restore stats in current version. Few abilities became worthless. Why would anyone want sustain early on? Would you be happy to find Rod of Restoration or Amulet of Sustenance on 250'?

Under the new scheme sustain becomes more valuable later on in the game because of the scarcity of ways to restore. I think the restore-on-level-up thing is a good design choice because it makes the game easier at the beginning and harder the further through you get, instead of harder at the beginning due to lack resources. I still think the current scheme is an experiment though!

There are more examples:
- no-selling
- current Too Much Junk solution lead to removal of many crap items from the game, no more cursed weapons and armors, no more bad rings etc. In the end when you find new item it's more likely it will be something you are looking for. With squelch and new identification system some poor items could have stayed in the game with one difference, they wouldn't be cursed to allow wearing them.
- fizzix patch removes nexus stat swap annoyance. it's not in Angband yet but it shows what devs are thinking about.

Another question, maybe some things should be tedious and annoying to the player? Like dying, stat drain, stat swap and finding poor items instead of great.

Dying is always going to be annoying, but it's never tedious unless you repeat the same mistakes again and again and there's nothing the game can do about that. Stat drain is still annoying IMO. The nexus change was never seriously proposed for incorporation into the main game so I don't think you can generalise from it.

I do agree though that having fewer crap things earlier on is a loss in some sense, but I also don't think you should have to ID every item that you wear before you wear it. In practice all the means is you need to spend x AU per item to use it (or use some mana) and I don't think that's a very interesting mechanic.

I dunno, maybe adding in a small number of bad items (far fewer than before) would be a good thing if they're not cursed. I dunno though. The current situation is much better than in the past I think because historically you know most rings/amulets/etc on earlier levels were going to be crap and that's pretty dull too. Though it was fun to haggle up the price of them with a shopkeeper and have it be a ring of weakness (-5).

[Derakon]

We can always simply proliferate the number of items like the rings of the Dog, which are bad but have a niche use. If you really, really need pFear, then a Ring of the Dog might be useful. So, some off-the-top-of-my-head suggestions (all intended for the early game):

Ring of the Owl: See Invisible, +1/+2 stealth, -3/-4 STR
If you really want See Invisible, then you're covered, but it'll hurt your carrying capacity / combat abilities.

Amulet of Scholars: +INT, -STR
Mages often can't afford to lose any more STR points than they have already.

Amulet of Clerics: +WIS, -STR
Priests are barely better off than mages.

Ring of Pyrrhus: +STR, -AC, impairs HP regeneration
As a more useful Ring of Reckless Attacks, it gets a more significant penalty.

Amulet of Battle: Telepathy, -100 AC, aggravates
Draws enemies to you and nukes your defenses, but at least you can see them coming. Most of them.

[MattB]

We can always simply proliferate the number of items like the rings of the Dog, which are bad but have a niche use. If you really, really need pFear, then a Ring of the Dog might be useful. So, some off-the-top-of-my-head suggestions (all intended for the early game):

Ring of the Owl: See Invisible, +1/+2 stealth, -3/-4 STR
If you really want See Invisible, then you're covered, but it'll hurt your carrying capacity / combat abilities.

Amulet of Scholars: +INT, -STR
Mages often can't afford to lose any more STR points than they have already.

Amulet of Clerics: +WIS, -STR
Priests are barely better off than mages.

Ring of Pyrrhus: +STR, -AC, impairs HP regeneration
As a more useful Ring of Reckless Attacks, it gets a more significant penalty.

Amulet of Battle: Telepathy, -100 AC, aggravates
Draws enemies to you and nukes your defenses, but at least you can see them coming. Most of them.

Love the Amulet of Battle!
Great for a ranger, slip it on, blast away and phase out of there when the buggers reach you.

Personally, I would really like to see the negative effects of the good/bad rings reduced, just a shade, in order to make them more viable. As it is, if I'm playing a dynasty I squelch dog. mouse. open wounds and reckless before I even leave the town for the first time. While I accept a theoretical usage for them, I just never seemed to use them, so now I can't be bothered to have them lying around the place. But if the penalties were a bit less savage, or the boons a little...boonier...

[debo]

Maybe that last one should be "Amulet of the Tactician" or "Amulet of the General" or something