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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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]

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]

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.

[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.

[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 ...

[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.

[Nick]

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.

This is indeed very interesting - and, on some thought, I see the point. I'm not really a big fan of cooldowns, though.

This is really quite a difficult problem:

• Randomness tends to make the monsters look stupid
• Monster mana leads to dull damage/mana races
• Cooldowns seem artificial

Maybe some combination would be best - or something else. More thought required.

[Estie]

As for ranged attacks, my idea was that they be powerful, but limited, thus bursty.

For example, an orc archer would be assumed to have a number of arrows (maybe 5-10; the number should be random and adjusted for gameplay value, not realism). That way, archers can use an effective ai without making the game tedious.

A similar approach can be taken for spells. Rather than monster mana, npc casters come with a spell list and a counter for each spell which goes down when they use it, akin to old d&d wizards. It is simpler than the mana approach and sufficient to make for interesting tactical fights.

Unique casters like Saruman or Sauron could be given some randomness in their spell list (at the start of the game) to make these encounters more challenging.

Once a monsters ranged counter reaches zero, it behaves like other melee monsters.

Breath weapons can stay as they are - a monster gets a random chance each round to use it. If a ranged list like suggested above is being used, the priority should be breath weapon > spell > ranged physical attack > melee for monsters who have more than one option.

Wether such changes really make for a better game needs to be seen of course. It might be a good idea to halve the dungeon depth along with making individual encounters more intricate.

[mrrstark]

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

(btw, I'm a plasma physicist)

lol! Almost spit my coffee. I love the calibre of crowd roguelikes draw.

[MattB]

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?

I think Habbakkuk Chapter 3 has the answer to that one...

2 O LORD, I have heard thy speech, and was afraid: [SCARE MONSTER]

4 And his brightness was as the light; he had horns coming out of his hand: and there was the hiding of his power. [CALL LIGHT]

5 Before him went the pestilence [CLOUD KILL], and burning coals went forth at his feet. [METEOR STORM]

6 He stood, and measured the earth [SENSE SURROUNDINGS]: he beheld, and drove asunder the nations; 
and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow [EARTHQUAKE]

9 Thy bow was made quite naked, according to the oaths of the tribes [DISENCHANT]. 
Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers. [WATER BALL]

10 The mountains saw thee, and they trembled [EARTHQUAKE AGAIN]: 
the overflowing of the water passed by[ANOTHER WATER ATTACK]: the deep uttered his voice, and lifted up his hands on high.

11 The sun and moon stood still in their habitation: at the light of thine arrows they went, 
and at the shining of thy glittering spear [BLESS].

12 Thou didst march through the land in indignation, thou didst thresh the heathen in anger [DISPEL EVIL].

14 Thou didst strike through with his staves the head of his villages: they came out as a whirlwind to scatter me: 
their rejoicing was as to devour the poor secretly. 
[NOT SURE ABOUT THIS ONE, BUT CLEARLY SOME KIND OF ELEMENTAL WIND ATTACK]

16 When I heard, my belly trembled; my lips quivered at the voice: rottenness entered into my bones, 
and I trembled in myself, that I might rest in the day of trouble: when he cometh up unto the people, 
he will invade them with his troops. [DRAIN CON + SCARE MONSTER]

17 Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; 
the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: [STARVATION]

18 Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation.