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

[buzzkill]

Basically, as you say, you're solving a problem that's only an issue in the standart game, and I think your fix for it would unbalance the difficulty of the randart equipment puzzle to the point where it would stop being fun.

I don't necessarily disagree with any of your substance, but the standard game is the default, and if Angband is to try to achieve any degree of balance then that balance must be struck against the default setting. Optional percentile stacking resists, Hellllll yeah!!! Maybe it's time to revert that whole "No, I not adding it as an option".

[Raxmei]

As for holy spells, there's rather a lot of redundancy in them and the paladin spell difficulties and costs haven't been seriously examined in awhile. That said, holy spells are far and away better than arcane spells; they're only missing Haste Self, Resistance, and a high-DPS attack spell (Orb is great but a bit slow). If you're going to make more holy spells viable, then you'll need to take away something else to compensate. There've been plenty of discussions on ways to better-differentiate the different spell types and the different caster classes.

Yeah, conspicuously the Purifications and Healing versions of Cure Serious and Mortal Wounds are actually inferior (more expenseive) to the town book versions if you're playing a paladin. The only reason to keep a copy of that book at all as a paladin is restoration. Not that there's much point to casting anything between CLW and Heal anyway as a priest or paladin. CLW blows away anything short of a late game Heal in terms of SP efficiency and the other cure spells don't offer enough action efficiency to make up the difference. Cure Mortal heals twice as much as Cure Light, but costs five times as much SP for priests, ten times as much SP for paladins. That line of spells basically offers small incremental improvements in effect at rapidly escalating cost. And then Heal comes along, which is more expensive but actually worth it.

And then there are all the issues with their spell list other than healing. This would be an undertaking.

[Patashu]

I don't think item damage is a problem that needs fixing.
Nethack has item damage and destruction.
DCSS has item damage and destruction.

[debo]

I don't think item damage is a problem that needs fixing.
Nethack has item damage and destruction.
DCSS has item damage and destruction.

I could be wrong (haven't played a ton of DCSS), but I don't think any of those games have anything as bad as disenchantment (re: item destruction) or time attacks (re: stat drain).

Closest thing I can think of that is nearly as rage-inducing in DCSS is sticky flame?

[Patashu]

I could be wrong (haven't played a ton of DCSS), but I don't think any of those games have anything as bad as disenchantment (re: item destruction) or time attacks (re: stat drain).

Closest thing I can think of that is nearly as rage-inducing in DCSS is sticky flame?

DCSS has rot, which permanently reduces your maximum HP, stacks indefinitely and usually requires expending resources to cure points at a time. (There might be other things but it's been forever since I played)
And Nethack has a squillion ways to damage your equipment, items and stats/exp.

[Magnate]

I don't necessarily disagree with any of your substance, but the standard game is the default, and if Angband is to try to achieve any degree of balance then that balance must be struck against the default setting. Optional percentile stacking resists, Hellllll yeah!!! Maybe it's time to revert that whole "No, I not adding it as an option".

You must be joking, right? Of all the things to balance around an option being on or off, stacking resists must be about the most difficult suggested so far!

Nomad raises an interesting point though - I was indeed stuck in the mindset that the standart game is the "normal" one, and I think I agree that the optimisation puzzle is already pretty interesting and complicated with randarts.

I wouldn't be averse to making randarts the default - or, as has been oft suggested, having a mixture of the two.

[buzzkill]

You must be joking, right? Of all the things to balance around an option being on or off, stacking resists must be about the most difficult suggested so far!

Well, that's my point. We don't have to fine tune the balance against the option being on. We fine tune against the default setting, which in this case would be the status quo. Doesn't mean that we can't take a broad brush and paint in an option, even if it is more or less unbalanced. It's not like Angband is running with the precision of a Swiss timepiece to begin with.

Isn't this how no selling came to be. Jack it in there, slap a 3x multiplier on GP and see if it flies??? Balanced? I don't think so, but a great option none the less.

[Nick]

You must be joking, right? Of all the things to balance around an option being on or off, stacking resists must be about the most difficult suggested so far!

That sounds like a challenge

Seriously, I think this might well be possible. As an alternative to the current model, instead make each resistance let, say 60% of damage through. Then one source gives 40% resistance, two sources 64% (roughly what one gives now), three sources about 78% and so on. Now you need more than one source...

The 60% was only a guess; it would need tweaking. Also it might be hard to balance for all elements - some might need a different percentage.

[emulord]

Yeah noselling is so unbalanced. It actually makes sense to buy a pick and dig out a level on your first dive. enough $ for the game pretty much :P

Multiplier should really be 1.5x (1.0 if its a challenge option, not a birth option)


Stacking resists vs not is a big enough change that balancing both is hard. I think the [1/3 1/9 imm ---] display would make it clear enough for not stacking.

If we do stacking, I like [1/2, 1/4, 1/6, 1/8...] for low resists
[2/3, 2/5, 2/7...] for high resists. Poison will have to have something specific. Maybe [1/3, 1/4, 1/5...]?
Its obvious what the progression is, while still being close to the unstacked behavior.

[Grotug]

Provides immunity to Acid! baahahhahahahahhwhhhh@@ hahhhh11hh1h@1! not to mention a couple other fine resistances. (picked up Shield of Thorin)

Yes, rAnything should reduce the amount of damage and frequency of damage done to equipment by acid, cold, fire and others. This only seems obvious to me that it would.

True, my melee weapon only took one or two to-dam hits off that I replaced later. Bought a mace of disruption from the black market. 837 damage to dragons. Still, two multihued ancient took me to the 100s hp twice, one with fire and the other with lightning. 500 something damage on dl52. crazy.

Max wisdom and regeneration sure do make one helluva powerful spell-caster!

I've just gotten used to getting armor damaged by acid and having potions get blown up by cold attacks, so it stopped bothering me ages ago...but it's clearly a big deal for other players. Do we want to rethink acid damage somehow? Currently every acid attack will damage something (assuming you have acid-vulnerable armor in every slot). And this is in addition to destroying a wide range of inventory items. We could nerf this:

* Only have a chance of damaging armor at all (say, 50%, or 75% without resistance, 25% with, or whatever)
* Only ever destroy inventory items or armor, but not both

Or something else?

As for disenchantment, I'm afraid this is Working As Intended. Monsters that disenchant gear are rare, and you're usually best-served by avoiding them. You said you couldn't run away; why not? Because he's faster than you? That's why you should be carrying a Staff of Teleportation (or casting Portal, but as a paladin you're probably not very good at that). Angband is always going to have monsters that are not worth fighting at your current power level, and Mim is definitely one of those. Come back later when you have one of resistance to disenchantment, a speed advantage, or strong ranged attacks.

And look at it this way: at least he (presumably) didn't badly drain your melee weapon!

As for holy spells, there's rather a lot of redundancy in them and the paladin spell difficulties and costs haven't been seriously examined in awhile. That said, holy spells are far and away better than arcane spells; they're only missing Haste Self, Resistance, and a high-DPS attack spell (Orb is great but a bit slow). If you're going to make more holy spells viable, then you'll need to take away something else to compensate. There've been plenty of discussions on ways to better-differentiate the different spell types and the different caster classes.

[Derakon]

Yeah noselling is so unbalanced. It actually makes sense to buy a pick and dig out a level on your first dive. enough $ for the game pretty much :P

Multiplier should really be 1.5x (1.0 if its a challenge option, not a birth option)

We keep having this discussion. You say there's too much money with no-selling. I say my characters with no-selling have barely enough money to afford basic consumables (especially, staves and stacks of Cure Critical Wounds) through 1500', let alone to buy nice equipment. Clearly anecdotal data is insufficient for deciding this issue.