Things I don't like about current V (long-ish)

[fph]

Resists: I wholly disagree with Derakon(+MattB) that the "solved" kit is important - I think it's a positively bad thing for the game. Optimisation ought to be endless and with diminishing returns and stacking resists align with this. Percentile/fraction is a red herring - just make it easy for the player to understand. I agree with [can't remember] that immunity should not be obtainable via stacking, but as a separate and rare mod.

Maybe we should think in terms of encouraged player behaviour. Making resistances stack encourages swapping gear often ("Red Dragon? Let me just change amulet, put on my two rings of Frost (+40%), my Helmet of RFire, and my cloak of flames."). This is how it works in Sil, but there are only a few breathers in it and the game is shorter. I think it would be boring in Vanilla, though, at least for basic resists and common monsters. The game is already grindy enough, as noted.

Or, if the maximum resists are easily attainable, you are just making the optimization problem more difficult, and encouraging grinding for better gears (so, for instance, all end-game builds will contain 3-resist helm). This is how it works in Path of Exile, for instance, and I think Diablo was the same but I've never really played it for a significant amount of time.

[Magnate]

FAangband have this and it does not work well. IMHO it is the worst part of what FAangband have. (normally monsters don't run out of mana, and then they do, It is either very boring fight or unfair player's advantage)

This is very interesting, because it works very well in NPP, and also very well in O (on which FA is based!). I'll have to play some more FA to see if I share this view. Certainly in O the whole point is about getting monsters to run out of mana - if you can do enough damage you can kill them before that, but if you can't it's a really good way to weaken them so you can then kill them before they get it back. It opens up a whole new set of tactics, plus the "mana burn" special ability.

Elly coded it up for V a long time ago, way back around 3.2 I think, but none of the rest of us had the time to test and balance it properly. It's really not a difficult change to make, code-wise. It does have a huge effect on the game though, so it's a big job - and of course comes after Nick's code restructure ...

[LostTemplar]

I wholly disagree with Derakon(+MattB) that the "solved" kit is important - I think it's a positively bad thing for the game.

I also think it is bad. It makes the game like WoW, where all characters are the same.

Monster breaths AND boring behaviour: we've got to have monster mana.

FAangband have this and it does not work well. IMHO it is the worst part of what FAangband have. (normally monsters don't run out of mana, and then they do, It is either very boring fight or unfair player's advantage)

If we want a simple solution, individual spell cooldowns or frequency may work, maybe try to add 1_IN_X flags for every spell as a start.

[Derakon]

Oh hey, random thought -- the cause-status-ailment player spells would be a lot more interesting if they were copies of the psionic monster spells (mind blast and brain smash). Those not only try to cause several status ailments (making it more likely that at least one will succeed); they also deal some damage, so the spell is never a complete waste of time.

It'd be tricky to keep them balanced, but I think they'd be an improvement over the existing spells that are, as far as I'm aware, only ever cast for the experience points.

[fizzix]

I tend to imagine lightning as focusing on creating a very large voltage drop through the player, while plasma is more about enveloping the player in a very hot, charged gas. I don't know how much scientific sense that makes, but it's my interpretation.

Let's just say, I put lightning and plasma in the same realism category as the 8 hands but 2 fingers of @.

I'm not in principle opposed to this, but are we going to give them all to the arcane casters? Every single high-level mage spell is a different element already and many of them are more or less junk (c.f. Cloud Kill). If we're going to give them to holy casters, then which ones are holy? More generally, there are an awful lot of monster spells. Making each one into a player spell will result in huge spellbooks with a ton of redundancy, even if we unify similar spells (c.f. the various cause-wounds spells).

I think there's a happy medium here. But I agree it will take a while to get there. In many cases it's just a matter of renaming stuff, however. The cause wounds spells are a different ballgame altogether.

[Derakon]

Lightning is a plasma. Whatever effects occur from plasma should occur from lightning as well

(btw, I'm a plasma physicist)

I tend to imagine lightning as focusing on creating a very large voltage drop through the player, while plasma is more about enveloping the player in a very hot, charged gas. I don't know how much scientific sense that makes, but it's my interpretation.

Personally, i'd like some symmetry. Water ball as a monster spell would make more sense if the player had a similar water ball spell that caused confusion. Same with ice bolt and mana bolt. I never understood why these particular spells weren't symmetric, at least in the sense that the player should have similar spells, even if the damage calculation is different.

I'm not in principle opposed to this, but are we going to give them all to the arcane casters? Every single high-level mage spell is a different element already and many of them are more or less junk (c.f. Cloud Kill). If we're going to give them to holy casters, then which ones are holy? More generally, there are an awful lot of monster spells. Making each one into a player spell will result in huge spellbooks with a ton of redundancy, even if we unify similar spells (c.f. the various cause-wounds spells).

[fizzix]

Oh yeah, I'm fine with changing the names of elements to something more intuitive. I don't think there's a problem with plasma (it's a gas composed of ions, thus hot and electrically charged), but ice and water could use better names.

Lightning is a plasma. Whatever effects occur from plasma should occur from lightning as well

(btw, I'm a plasma physicist)

Personally, i'd like some symmetry. Water ball as a monster spell would make more sense if the player had a similar water ball spell that caused confusion. Same with ice bolt and mana bolt. I never understood why these particular spells weren't symmetric, at least in the sense that the player should have similar spells, even if the damage calculation is different.

[buzzkill]

Percentile/fraction is a red herring - just make it easy for the player to understand. I agree with [can't remember] that immunity should not be obtainable via stacking, but as a separate and rare mod.

Could just show the resist as a %, in much the same way FA does. It would just always be 66% or 89% for most resists.

[Derakon]

Oh yeah, I'm fine with changing the names of elements to something more intuitive. I don't think there's a problem with plasma (it's a gas composed of ions, thus hot and electrically charged), but ice and water could use better names.

[fizzix]

@Derakon: Not quite. Monsters can still pull stronger monsters, just not more than one stronger monster. (also monsters that come in groups are heavily discounted.)

@Magnate: I have an "I'll believe it when I see it" view on monster mana. I'm just not sure it solves the main problems in an interesting way. In games I've played, I tend to find dumb randomization is far better to avoid repetition than higher level AI.

[Magnate]

Late to the party (obsessed with Path of Exile atm) but I love these thinkpiece threads:

Food (and light): as Nick said - "struggling to care". As Scatha said, they add a little flavour, which is IMO slightly more important than we may realise, and they're not really irritating to me. I'm not against making them more interesting (or less irritating to others), but ... meh.

Resists: I wholly disagree with Derakon(+MattB) that the "solved" kit is important - I think it's a positively bad thing for the game. Optimisation ought to be endless and with diminishing returns and stacking resists align with this. Percentile/fraction is a red herring - just make it easy for the player to understand. I agree with [can't remember] that immunity should not be obtainable via stacking, but as a separate and rare mod.

Monster breaths AND boring behaviour: we've got to have monster mana. That's not to disagree with other suggestions (range attenuation, friendly fire, granular monster resists, non-advancing archers, etc. - all good), but monster mana is a no-brainer. It solves a LOT (including summoning), and adds richness and flavour, and opens up cool tactics. Bring it on.

Overpowered utility spells: yup, this one is bang on.

Too many elements: nah, I'm with Derakon on this one. By all means let's make them more intuitive, consistent, easier to understand, but more is better.

[Derakon]

Aren't summoners vastly depowered in current Vanilla anyway? Something about them only being able to pull monsters of roughly equal power to themselves?

[Zireael]

My three copper pieces:
1) I like the proposed hunger changes
2) I like the increased benefits from light & making basic light permanent
3) I like the idea of vent monsters and teaching the player about damage types

I like these extra elements, but I take your point. It took a while to learn what plasma actually is. Water doesn't make sense as it is applied to water hounds, water trolls (?!) and a confusion attack from certain uniques. Ice is particularly daft as there is a ring of ice.

Maybe a change in terminology is all that's needed. {Ice} could become {Sandstorm} and {Water} could become {Wind}, or at the very least rename Water Hounds as Acid Hounds (and Water Trolls could become Bog Trolls, or whatever).

Sounds sorely needed.

4) I'd like the chain summoning effect to be restricted a bit

[debo]

As dumb as it is, I've always found it kind of fun when some gruntling summons a greater monster who summons the witch-king of angmar It's sort of exciting. Way more fun than hounds, that's for sure.

[AnonymousHero]

Reminds me of D&D. In the edition I'm familiar with summon monster spells have a short duration and a full round casting time (monsters appear the turn after you start casting the spell to summon them). There are a couple other interesting differences between D&D and Angband summoning.

Summoned monsters are incapable of summoning more monsters. This neatly prevents the endless flood of greater demons summoning more of themselves.

Summoned monsters yield no treasure nor experience. They're treated as spell effects, not monsters in their own right, so you don't get a reward for an enemy's summon monster spell any more than you would for their fireball spell. This ensures that summoning is still something that the player would rather not have happen because fighting it out with them is a waste of player resources.

Except if they're gated in which case you're basically in Angband-summoning mode, right?

(I've played too much BG2-AD&D.)

Still, point taken: If chain-summoning were banned or prevented the summoning would be way less dangerous (and wouldn't require TeleAway+Destruction nearly as regularly). I'd vote for changing this (even in 3.5!) just to see what happens to gameplay!

EDIT: Spellink