Loving 3.5.0

[fizzix]

One replacement idea (I can't remember whose) is to increase one stat by 2 and decrease another by 2. This would have the advantage of maintaining the spirit of the stat-swap idea (and the player's wariness of it) without being as disastrous.

This was an early implementation of mine that I played with for a while (altough I think it was only +1/-1. It doesn't really do that much honestly. Getting teleported is a bigger deal, off the level a bigger deal yet.

[EpicMan]

I would rather nexus ALWAYS swap stats a little. The stat swap effect of nexus is something unique to Angband and I would be sorry to see it go. If it happened every time (or every time it didn't teleport you) then it would become something new players learn the first time they get hit with nexus, rather than having nothing happen until Boom! you're(as good as) dead!

Also, if it happened every time you could realistically heal yourself by getting hit again several times.

If we must get rid of the stat swap at least do the +2/-2 thing (every time unless saved) so they remain an annoyance / worry.

[Nick]

Another option here is to introduce Sangband's metamorphosis effect, which permanently changes your race. That will stop people complaining about stat-swap

[debo]

Another option here is to introduce Sangband's metamorphosis effect, which permanently changes your race. That will stop people complaining about stat-swap

One effect that exists in crawl which I really like is a "flayed" status or something, which cuts off a tremendous amount of curHP while the status is active, but then that HP is immediately restored when the status disappears (by killing the dude who did it to you).

What if nexus did temporary but really awful things to your stats? 50% curHP, 50% curMP, 50% stats would be a potential start. (Or it could just temporarily put you at clvl/2.) That would be sufficiently dangerous that you wouldn't want it to happen in a crowd, and you'd be very wary of just teleporting away because things that couldn't 1-shot you before now probably can!

"just an idea"

[Derakon]

I've been running a low-level campaign to replace the current XP-drain effect with a "temporary level loss" effect. Thus, each time you get hit by a wraith, your current level is reduced by 1, but you'd get it back within, say, 10 turns. A lot more scary in the short term, a lot less scary in the long term.

I guess what I'm saying is, I'm against your proposal for nexus because it competes with my proposal for nether.

[debo]

I've been running a low-level campaign to replace the current XP-drain effect with a "temporary level loss" effect. Thus, each time you get hit by a wraith, your current level is reduced by 1, but you'd get it back within, say, 10 turns. A lot more scary in the short term, a lot less scary in the long term.

I guess what I'm saying is, I'm against your proposal for nexus because it competes with my proposal for nether.

Haha!

The other thing I thought of was to add a couple of warping effects. "Space warps around you!" and possibly random demonic summons show up. Alternately, a banishment-style thing like crawl has would be consistent with the nexus "flavor", but would be very obviously stolen from that game.

If angband had the notion of mutations from zang variants nexus could be an obvious trigger of those, with "cure mutation" being a rare consumable? That seems like strictly variant territory though.

[Derakon]

Pulling in monsters from elsewhere on the level, or just summoning them outright, is a neat and flavorful effect. I dig it, but I wouldn't restrict it to demons. Let it pull in anything.

You could also let nexus teleport you to a new level at the same depth, per Alter Reality.

Variant territory: it could unleash the randart generator on items in your inventory, trying to generate new equipment of the same power level.

[debo]

Variant territory: it could unleash the randart generator on items in your inventory, trying to generate new equipment of the same power level.

Funny -- I'd thought of that one too

The summoning effect could be combined with locally "scrambling" your terrain -- that way if you're hiding in a corridor, it could open up spaces that the summoned dudes can fit into, so that you're sort of in a situation where you just lost your LOS and crowd control and new bad guys have shown up.

The thing with this effect is that it's pretty useless in a game with instant teleport -- it's basically just forcing you to read a ?Tele. That's why I originally suggested something that would make it potentially risky to escape.

I personally hate xp drain / hold life with most of my soul -- it's the height of "I'm just going to annoy the shit out of you by making you repetitively go back to town to clear stores to buy restore life because I ran out of ideas about how to do something nonlethal to you" -- so anything that fixes that first would be better imo

[fizzix]

Something not in variant territory would be a creation of an entirely new map and then the relocation of all the denizens and items of the level onto that map. Better watch out if there was a vault on the old map...

[Timo Pietilä]

I guess what I'm saying is, I'm against your proposal for nexus because it competes with my proposal for nether.

Quick solution for nexus: remove gain one-lose one potions and reintroduce CHR with CHR potions starting to appear around 1000'.

Then no-one complains about their 17 STR swapped with 18/100 CHR.

You could add some spells that get bonus from CHR to make it useful like charm monster. Add effect back to store prices (with discounts). Granted CHR would be low-priority stat, but not completely useless. Game has far more useless features, like searching.

[fizzix]

Quick solution for nexus: remove gain one-lose one potions and reintroduce CHR with CHR potions starting to appear around 1000'.

Then no-one complains about their 17 STR swapped with 18/100 CHR.

You could add some spells that get bonus from CHR to make it useful like charm monster. Add effect back to store prices (with discounts). Granted CHR would be low-priority stat, but not completely useless. Game has far more useless features, like searching.

Frankly, I'm fine with CHR being gone. I'd far rather see INT and WIS be combined into one stat MAGIC than CHR be reintroduced.

[debo]

Frankly, I'm fine with CHR being gone. I'd far rather see INT and WIS be combined into one stat MAGIC than CHR be reintroduced.

Or combine them all as GRA, and have the base value be 0. Wait...

[Derakon]

I propose we consolidate all stats into a single stat, named STAT, neatly solving the stat-swap effect by having there be nothing to swap with.

[debo]

I propose we consolidate all stats into a single stat, named STAT, neatly solving the stat-swap effect by having there be nothing to swap with.

Nethack did this. It's called Strength, IIRC

[fizzix]

Why not just make nexus statswap do a 1-1 cipher of all the display letters in the game. Not only for the player screens and information, but also on what letters are used to display monsters. That's seems like a totally awesome mechanic...