Loving 3.5.0

[UglySquirrell]

A few thought's on 3.5.0

Having spell users dropping books is great for ironman, and groups consisting of more than one type of monsters adds a more natural feeling.

The different level and room types is very refreshing, and i really enjoy the smaller more diverse pits/nests , i had lots of fun seeing and eventually killing my first pit of assorted J's and n's.

Equipment, especially early game seems to be really well balanced. Played a handful of guys to 30, and all of them had just enough good drops to keep them happy, and in decent fighting shape but not overpowered.

Just a few things iv'e noticed though,

Nexus resistance is insanely rare, i cleared around 120 levels in Ironman and have found a total of 3 sets of Stability boots and 1 Amulet of Trickery. I could have been just unlucky but i found more speed boots than nexus resist. Nexus breathers add an element of danger that i like mid level, but especially for classes with no detect, having your stats swapped because of lack of resistance, is in my opinion worse than being 1 shot.

The inclusion of ego lamps is also a really nice touch, but it seems flasks of oil don't drop in stacks.

Gondolin weapons seem to be really common now, iv'e found at least 20 on my mage.

One last thing, iv'e been killing every Q that i come across. Draconic, Greater, undead etc. and have not had any of them summon anything at all. They just teleport away.

Other than those relatively minor things, i am enjoying the game immensely and thank you again all for all your hard work

[krazyhades]

Odd. I usually find more boots of stability than I know what to do with. Trickery always shows up sooner or later and makes it in to many of my builds. Come lategame it's more about finding a Trickery amulet with the best plusses. I've certainly seen flasks of oil in stacks on the dungeon floor, but I'm not sure about whether I've often monsters drop them in stacks. Q's still do have that summon chance and they can destroy you when they use it, so count yourself lucky. The gondolin and company of weapons show up a lot come mid/lategame but they're not really lategame items unless on a greater weapon IMO (scythe of slicing and pals).

The room variations are great, and fizzix's modification to monster group spawns definitely add fun, flavor, and variety (e.g. ice giants spawning with cold hounds).

Really glad to hear you're enjoying it even though I'm not one of the devs! They've done a lot of great work to make the most user-friendly version of the game yet, while maintaining the roles of luck and sheer unfair brutality. It's not the hardest it's ever been, but it is the best it has been. Good luck!

[fizzix]

It's a good point about oil drops. Although one flask of oil lasts for quite a long time that I usually don't run into problems. Were you running out of light?

Ego items are now weighted, specifically you are a lot more likely to find the weaker egos early, then they stop being dropped and late game your egos are more likely to be the more powerful ones, gondolin, HA, westernesse. To compensate for this change, weapons have a much flatter chance to be made into an ego in the first place. So yeah, you're going to find a lot of gondolin weapons in the late game, because any weapon that's made into an ego is going to be a "high" ego. You're also going to find a lot more boring magical weapons in the late game, than you would in any version since the war on Too Much Junk. Overall, your chance of finding a high ego early hasn't changed much, and neither are your chances of finding an uber-weapon late (Mace of Disruption Holy Avenger, for example), which was one of the design goals of this.

I'm glad people have noticed these changes, they took a lot of finicky manipulations and multiple runs of stat-gathering to get stuff that looked right, and in the end, I still feel like I kind of "guessed" the allocation levels. There certainly is room for improvement, especially with artifacts and the early game slay weapons.

Also I'm with you on nexus stat swap. I disable it in my personal version and don't feel bad about it at all.

[Derakon]

I've had several games where I stick with a Lantern of True Sight the entire game; that SI+pBlind combo is vital and oftentimes with randarts you don't have another source of pBlind.

Anyway, consequently I have experience with fuel in the lategame, and it's not a problem. The trick, though, is to not squelch lanterns. You can refuel from them as well as from flasks of oil, and in the lategame they're many times more common.

[MattB]

I've had several games where I stick with a Lantern of True Sight the entire game; that SI+pBlind combo is vital and oftentimes with randarts you don't have another source of pBlind.

I too have found that pBlind is one of the hardest slots to fill with randarts.
Glad it's not just me!

[krazyhades]

Yeah but ego lanterns and helms always show up eventually. Still, it is a pain. I often end up collecting mushrooms of second sight to shore up the blindness hole.

[MattB]

It's a good point about oil drops. Although one flask of oil lasts for quite a long time that I usually don't run into problems. Were you running out of light?

I don't have this problem at all (although it probably stems from the fact that I recall too often). Whenever I pass a lantern or flask of oil I refill my lantern straight off the ground. When I'm in town I buy one or two flasks of oil and instantly refill. If you want a stack you can always buy 40 from the shop. Heck, you could even buy 400 if you want!

Also I'm with you on nexus stat swap. I disable it in my personal version and don't feel bad about it at all.

I know this has been covered before. Equally I would defend to the death anyone's right to mess around with their own version of Angband. However...
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.
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.

[MattB]

Yeah but ego lanterns and helms always show up eventually. Still, it is a pain. I often end up collecting mushrooms of second sight to shore up the blindness hole.

Oh yeah, I often end up with a hat of seeing in my best equipment. I just meant that randarts seem pBlind light. ESP seems more common, for crying out loud!

But like you say, not a real issue thanks to egos.

[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".

[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

[MattB]

I believe a stat can swap with itself

Ah, even better then!

[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.

[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.

[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]

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.