Tears unnumbered ye shall shed

[fizzix]

Man i missed a lot of discussion. I guess I should chime in with my thoughts.

Forced descent: I've been of the opinion for a while that this should be what angband is balanced around. As in, a player should be able to reach the bottom with enough gear to kill Morgoth by playing each level once. This is actually how I've been tweaking the drop rates, using MC simulations to figure out what the probabilities are. As for whether it's default or not, I don't care too much. You do need a design goal for balance though, and this seems as good as any.

Short dungeon: I've been toying with this for a while (conceptually). I think Angband is too long, but it's short circuitable by just skipping levels 60-95. Obviously you can't do that in forced descent. However, angband does have a marathon type feel to it, and I"m not sure that's a bad thing. It's just something that I don't really have the time to finish.

Dangerous fights: Isn't this already the case? Any late game fight with two big breathers is an immediate "escape or die" situation. The problem is that Angband has both situations that require escape and unlimited escapes. I'm not sure a higher danger fraction will improve the situation.

Crippling traps: The most interesting types of crippling are the ones that require the player to actively do something to remove it. Maybe there's a monster to kill, or a shrine somewhere on the level to reach, or something. Just returning to town...seems a bit boring.

Ironman difficulty/town recovery: The difference between forced descent and ironman currently is inventory and consumable purchasing. You are making town a recovery source, so i'm guessing that without that, you need to be very careful to avoid the crippling traps? I dunno if I like this, I must think about it more.

Object usefulness: even amulets of adornment?

Game balance: Well that's always the challenge, isn't it.

I have some thoughts on endgame difficulty to. I don't think adding additional late-game non-uniques is the way to go. But that will need to wait for tomorrow.

[AnonymousHero]

And remember that there's a massive code restructure to happen before any gameplay changes.

Definitely a good idea.

[Monkey Face]

Object usefulness: even amulets of adornment?

You can throw the amulet at a pack of orcs and they spend a turn or two fighting over it.

[Philip]

From a different thread.

I had resistance redundancy on just about everything (and resistance for stuff I hadn't encountered yet, like chaos) *snip*
fire was burning up all sorts of fine equipment in my pack, not to mention delivering some nasty damage to me, even with res-fire on multiple pieces of equipment.

As evidenced by this, the current resistance system is unintuitive. It should be clearer that multiple sources of the same resistance do not stack, or multiple sources of a resistance should stack. I would also make the argument that to-hit needs to be useful, since new players are likely to add tohit and todam and use weapons with the highest combination.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Short dungeon: I've been toying with this for a while (conceptually). I think Angband is too long, but it's short circuitable by just skipping levels 60-95. Obviously you can't do that in forced descent. However, angband does have a marathon type feel to it, and I"m not sure that's a bad thing. It's just something that I don't really have the time to finish.

Dangerous fights: Isn't this already the case? Any late game fight with two big breathers is an immediate "escape or die" situation. The problem is that Angband has both situations that require escape and unlimited escapes. I'm not sure a higher danger fraction will improve the situation.[....]

Game balance: Well that's always the challenge, isn't it.

I have some thoughts on endgame difficulty to. I don't think adding additional late-game non-uniques is the way to go. But that will need to wait for tomorrow.

My problem isn't that DL98, 99 and 100 aren't difficult, they are. It's that once @ reaches DL 50 or 60, @ might as well Deep Descent all the way to DL 98 since from DL60 or so, insta-death is always a risk so @ might as well go where the risk is balanced with better rewards. Artifact drops and Uniques don't scale well throughout the dungeon. The weaker and mid-level artifacts and uniques seem to scale pretty well in the earlier levels, but from mid-dungeon onward it seems like there isn't much reward scaled to the increased risk of insta-death, therefore dive to where the rewards are commensurate with risk. If the scaling were better and then the bottom levels were difficult, then forced descent makes some sense to me. As it stands now, I try to skip levels 60 down to 98.

[Susramanian]

I like having a town in Angband, but it was clearly bolted on ages ago with little thought for its impact on gameplay. It takes pretty much all the urgency out of the food clock, for example, and does something similar to the light-fueling mechanic. I'd like to see some changes with this sort of problem in mind. If the town is part of the core Angband identity now, which it seems a lot of people believe to be the case, then lets have some rules updated to reflect this.

Here's a idea for town-overhauling that I think would be fun.

First, eliminate all the randomness in the town's stocking of consumables. Also, have the consumables in stock change depending on the progress of the player. If you have the money, you can always buy the consumables you need, even high-powered stuff like healing potions (later in the game).

Obviously this would be broken if implemented on its own, so we pair it with another change: drastically restrict the player's potion carrying capacity. Let's say, for example, that we give the player four slots in which to carry potions, and the potions themselves only stack to five. I'm just making numbers up here. When you're in town getting ready to hit the dungeon, you're no longer asking yourself, "how much of potion X is in the temple?" but rather, "which four potion types do I take with me?"

This would have the happy side effect of removing the pre-Morgoth consumable scumming phase of the game. Now when you go to face the big M, you just have to choose very carefully what you take with you.

This would go a long way towards intensifying the experience of each individual dungeon level. You've got your twenty potions, five of each of four types; consider carefully how you approach this superb-feeling level. No more chain-chugging dozens of potions to get through a tough fight. It would also allow guilt-free usage of potions in non-dire situations, since you can just restock whatever you drink after the level's done anyway. If you're almost done with a level and about to go back to town, go ahead and drink that potion of healing instead of running and resting. The town'll sell you more if you have the money.

Do something similar with scrolls. If you want, introduce the mechanics as potion cases and scroll cases or something, though I doubt you'd need to bother with trying to justify any bizarre behavior of the freakish Angband backpack. I'm just concerned about gameplay improvements here. Individual levels get more interesting, the town gets a purpose, money gets more useful, developers get more control over game balance through a much tighter inventory-management minigame, and that stupid consumable farming phase of the game disappears. Hooray!

Also, go Nick! It's great to see an ambitious list of radical ideas for Angband, even if I don't agree with everything. I'll happily try out anything you implement! I never would have bothered posting the above idea if I didn't see that folks were serious about digging around in the game's guts and making real changes.

[Timo Pietilä]

As evidenced by this, the current resistance system is unintuitive. It should be clearer that multiple sources of the same resistance do not stack, or multiple sources of a resistance should stack.

I have sometimes suggested that basic four & poison should be treated like all the rest of the elements. No double-resistances. It should be binary like everything else: you either have it, or you don't. No grey areas there. Immunity obviously is something that could still exist, maybe even extend that to all elements, but make it a lot rarer to other than basic four. Maybe as rare potion? Way less common on items as permanent flag (currently especially fire immunity is too easy to get).

Other way is to implement % -based resistances, but I like combination game more than hording game.

I would also make the argument that to-hit needs to be useful, since new players are likely to add tohit and todam and use weapons with the highest combination.

Current critical hit system needs rework. Your ability to hit should mean a lot more than weapon weight. Especially important for shooters. Currently it's something that is broken I would say, just in a way that it doesn't affect your playing much.

[debo]

First, eliminate all the randomness in the town's stocking of consumables. Also, have the consumables in stock change depending on the progress of the player. If you have the money, you can always buy the consumables you need, even high-powered stuff like healing potions (later in the game).

Obviously this would be broken if implemented on its own,

I like this. If descent is forced, this isn't broken, is it? You can't scum gold forever anymore (unless you're allowed to permascum 4950').

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Let's say, for example, that we give the player four slots in which to carry potions, and the potions themselves only stack to five.

Stack size is an interesting variable.

Torches only stack to four in Halls of Mist (and each torch has only 2000 turns of light). This change made the light clock relevant, even with (non-guaranteed) shop visits.

[bio_hazard]

In an ideal world, and mainly from a role-playing perspective I'd like to see the town be a little more interesting and interactive. My guess is quests from town NPCs are variant territory even with the scale of the changes being discussed, but there might be optional things that are skippable/turn-off-able by experienced/minimalist players, but would be fun for new players and/or people who just want to decompress a bit after a tough time in the dungeon. A few ideas:

a tavern for gossip (and food). This is pretty far out there, but imagine you could talk to an NPC, and then the game could show a scene of a battle or encounter as the NPC relates this. Maybe these would be taken from earlier games, maybe randomly generated, maybe a few pre-programmed.

a museum for depositing things we don't need anymore and that don't fit in the house. Maybe a house that starts out smaller but gets bigger with level, achievement (killing one or enough of certain set of uniques), or that we can buy with a certain amount of money.

a historian for some interactive hall-of-fame/leaderboard information. Maybe with a beginner "hints" mode, or as a solution to the cross-game monster memory mechanic that I freakin' hate right now, where what the character knows depends on whether he's a new character or a resurrection of an old character.

dialog that references recent achievements in the dungeon "Great job killing Bolg son of Azog. That creep will never bother us again"

Also maybe a refactor of the stores- I don't see the benefit to having scrolls spread across 2 stores, weapons and ammo across 3 stores, etc... I'm all for stores offering services as well.

[Nick]

First, eliminate all the randomness in the town's stocking of consumables. Also, have the consumables in stock change depending on the progress of the player. If you have the money, you can always buy the consumables you need, even high-powered stuff like healing potions (later in the game).

Obviously this would be broken if implemented on its own, so we pair it with another change: drastically restrict the player's potion carrying capacity. Let's say, for example, that we give the player four slots in which to carry potions, and the potions themselves only stack to five. I'm just making numbers up here. When you're in town getting ready to hit the dungeon, you're no longer asking yourself, "how much of potion X is in the temple?" but rather, "which four potion types do I take with me?"

This would have the happy side effect of removing the pre-Morgoth consumable scumming phase of the game. Now when you go to face the big M, you just have to choose very carefully what you take with you.

This would go a long way towards intensifying the experience of each individual dungeon level. You've got your twenty potions, five of each of four types; consider carefully how you approach this superb-feeling level. No more chain-chugging dozens of potions to get through a tough fight. It would also allow guilt-free usage of potions in non-dire situations, since you can just restock whatever you drink after the level's done anyway. If you're almost done with a level and about to go back to town, go ahead and drink that potion of healing instead of running and resting. The town'll sell you more if you have the money.

Do something similar with scrolls. If you want, introduce the mechanics as potion cases and scroll cases or something, though I doubt you'd need to bother with trying to justify any bizarre behavior of the freakish Angband backpack. I'm just concerned about gameplay improvements here. Individual levels get more interesting, the town gets a purpose, money gets more useful, developers get more control over game balance through a much tighter inventory-management minigame, and that stupid consumable farming phase of the game disappears. Hooray!

Whether or not this ends up actually implemented or not, it's a fantastic idea. Best of all, it opens up the possibility of allowing specified inventory slots - which we already really have with the quiver, but nobody had thought of it like that.

Fair warning to everyone - read this, if you don't like it, you'd better start marshalling arguments against it.

[debo]

Whether or not this ends up actually implemented or not, it's a fantastic idea. Best of all, it opens up the possibility of allowing specified inventory slots - which we already really have with the quiver, but nobody had thought of it like that.

Fair warning to everyone - read this, if you don't like it, you'd better start marshalling arguments against it.

DiabloBand

can I hit 1, 2, 3, 4 etc. to instaquaff potions?!

[TJS]

Hello, sorry I'm going to be a bit of a misery guts over these ideas.

First, eliminate all the randomness in the town's stocking of consumables.

Reduces flavour a bit, but I'm not opposed to this and think it might be a good idea.

Also, have the consumables in stock change depending on the progress of the player. If you have the money, you can always buy the consumables you need, even high-powered stuff like healing potions (later in the game).

Not sure what you mean here, it you can always buy something then why do the shops change depending on progress?

Also do you mean that you can buy any consumables at all in town? Not sure this is a good idea as it removes the risk/reward part of seeing and getting rarer consumables in dangerous places. Suddenly grinding for money yields the same result. I'm not entirely against this though as long as money is in short supply and buying up consumables means you go without other things that are equally important.

Obviously this would be broken if implemented on its own, so we pair it with another change: drastically restrict the player's potion carrying capacity. Let's say, for example, that we give the player four slots in which to carry potions, and the potions themselves only stack to five. I'm just making numbers up here. When you're in town getting ready to hit the dungeon, you're no longer asking yourself, "how much of potion X is in the temple?" but rather, "which four potion types do I take with me?"

I don't like this, because it is breaking one of the core mechanics in the game (inventory slots which allow one of each type to stack with no other restrictions) in an attempt to solve a completely different problem (the boring consumable collection part of the game).

It reduces tactical choices whereby you can say choose to have more potion slots in exchange for less magical devices. Suddenly these choices would be removed. Do I keep a slot for !CSW still or carry that weapon I've just found with poison resistance as a swap? Oh hang on I had to ditch my stack of !CSW as I reached the potion slot quota ages ago when I found my first !Life.

Another problem I see is making inventory management more opaque and complicated for new players. It also doesn't make sense to me because you can carry 10 different swords or anything else, but for some reason potions are restricted. I think it unnecessarily complicates the game.

As I said before I think a better mechanism for this is price. If the amount of consumables you can collect in the dungeon is limited, then you can use your accrued gold to purchase consumables for use in the dungeon OR some other cool stuff for sale but not both. For example if enchantment scrolls were improved as I suggested before then you could purchase these to improve your end game equipment to forego a number of consumables. Also if you restrict the number of levels you can play then you are probably going to have equipment holes so you can fill those OR stock up on the potions you need. With limited cash available these decisions becomes interesting.

This would go a long way towards intensifying the experience of each individual dungeon level. You've got your twenty potions, five of each of four types; consider carefully how you approach this superb-feeling level. No more chain-chugging dozens of potions to get through a tough fight. It would also allow guilt-free usage of potions in non-dire situations, since you can just restock whatever you drink after the level's done anyway. If you're almost done with a level and about to go back to town, go ahead and drink that potion of healing instead of running and resting. The town'll sell you more if you have the money.

My problem with this is that you are removing the need to be careful with consumables in most situations. Careful management of your resources makes less dangerous fights more interesting, but if you are guaranteed to just restock up to 20 then these situations become even more tedious.

For example you might decide to keep taking up an inventory slot to keep !CLW for longer than usual because you want to use them up rather than your more valuable healing potions. Knowing that you can get 20 of any type of potions whenever you want will reduce these sorts of choices (and also encourage returning to town whenever you are running low).

[debo]

I think people are losing track of the fact that these changes are in lieu of also bumping your mindepth by 1 every time you return to town, and that the game will be forced descent. You won't want to go back to town every 5 seconds if it means you're permanently losing a DL where you could be powering up for the endgame

[Patashu]

Again, I'm ambivalent. I don't mind this per se, but I really don't like "random bad thing happens" mechanics without an upside. One of my all-time favourite games (Master Of Orion) had random events, 95% of which were bad, so I just turned them off. If only 50% had been bad, I'd have enjoyed them and had a better game. So if traps are going to get worse, I'd like to see more positive features too (shrines, wandering healers, whatever). Or, if that's too variant-y, just a much more sophisticated and rewarding detection system (where you can optimise for perception and there's no detection magic or whatever).

What if some traps have positive effects? There is precedence for this (Sword of the Stars: The Pit)