Loving 3.5.0

[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

[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]

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]

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]

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"

[Nick]

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

[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.

[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.

[Nick]

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.

[fizzix]

With regards to nexus stat-swap, I'm pretty much entirely of the same opinion as AnonymousHero. However, last time it was discussed, that opinion (nexus stat-swap should be removed) was a minority opinion both among players and devs. That may change at some point.

[Nick]

Before playing with fizzix's patch I just always suicided any character hit with stat swap -- not worth the bother since it would usually be quicker to just start over.

IMHO this is an expression of a larger change that's going on.

When Angband started it was a cutting-edge game - there were no first-person shooters - and mainly played by nerdy teenagers and twentysomethings (apologies to Magnate, Derakon, etc). It was played ultra-cautiously, diving was pretty much unheard of, and the death of your character was a major event.

Nearly 25 years on, and Angband now has a tiny portion of the gaming population as players, many of them 30- to 45-year-olds who were 15 to 25 in the 90s. Most of us don't have infinite time to play, and there are a wide variety of alternative games to choose from.

So gradually over its life, Angband and its players have changed. Diving has become the prevalent way of playing. Rolling for stats, waiting to identify stuff, heavy curses, light curses have all been removed as too annoying. The nexus stat swap looks like a relic of an era that's over.

The challenge for a maintainer and devteam, then, is to continue a game that is still spiritually Angband, but has removed a lot of the things that past players would have regarded as defining qualities of it. In my opinion this has been happening successfully since takkaria took over as maintainer, and I will be trying to make sure that continues.

One thing is certain - this process of (I would guess eternally ongoing) change relies heavily on input from the community, and the devs listening to that. Currently I think that's working well.

[AnonymousHero]

I think the game would be much reduced without statswap.
It's absolutely terrifying yet incredibly rare. This makes it a great mechanic in my book.

(Sorry if this is a derail.)

It's an unbelievably stupid mechanic. Its danger effectively decreases with the dungeon level since you're more likely to have rNexus covered the deeper you are. Also, it's a completely arbitrary "let's-ruin-your-character-but-let-you-live-just-because-we-can-not-because-you-have-any-realistic-chance-of-regaining-what-you-lost-in-a-sensible-amount-of-time" mechanic. Those are not fun.

Before playing with fizzix's patch I just always suicided any character hit with stat swap -- not worth the bother since it would usually be quicker to just start over.

[MattB]

I believe a stat can swap with itself

Ah, even better then!

[krazyhades]

I think the problem with nexus swaps is that most of the sources are non-evil and mindless.

edit: to clarify with the obvious, this means they're hard to detect for non-arcane classes, and so can be arbitrary

[fizzix]

I mean, IF it breathes and IF you've got no rNexus and IF it scrambles and IF you fail your saving throw then...what?
Assuming you're not a warrior you've only got one junk stat. Which makes it unlikely that you'll be swapped against your junk stat. There are enough mathematicians on this forum to tell me those odds, but I make it 60% in my favour (maybe...).
Suffice to say that in my last hundred games I've never had a bad scramble. Even if you do, you're probably in statgain so it won't take long to sort out. But that's just my opinion.

The chance of not picking a junk stat (assuming one) is equal to 4/5 * 4/5 + 1/5 * 1/5 (I believe a stat can swap with itself). 17/25 is 68% of being "ok". If you have two junk stats, the chances are 3/5 * 3/5 + 2/5 * 2/5 or 52% of being "ok".