Angband Philosophy I: Player choice

[Nick]

Sure variants are great, but I thought this was more about encouraging people to not even play Vanilla at all but rather change small things they don't like about it.

I certainly don't want people to not play Vanilla at all. I guess I feel like the trend has been away from people modding the game, and I want to remind people that they can, and also make it easier for them to do so if they want to.

[TJS]

I agree on one level that it's nice to have everybody in the community playing the same game, however variants exist because people like to try new things. I would certainly encourage somebody to play around with radical changes in their own variant, rather than stifling their creativity by veto'ing their idea saying it's not suitable for Vanilla. There are lots if ideas people have that would be lots of fun to try out, but deviate too far from Vanilla's design. I know I would enjoy playing through with some of the neat ideas I've seen people come up with, but I wouldn't necessarily like them to be implemented directly into V.

Sure variants are great, but I thought this was more about encouraging people to not even play Vanilla at all but rather change small things they don't like about it.

I think having a base game that people play in pretty much the same way is what has allowed Angband to maintain interest as long as it has. If no one was playing the same game as me I'd have got bored years ago.

[Timo Pietilä]

I'm not sure about encouraging people to play different versions.

There's something good about the community all playing the same game. I think when v4 appeared and also later on pyrel the dev teams and community fractured a bit and things weren't quite the same for a while after that. It's easier to lose interest when you aren't playing/working on the "official" version of the game.

I think community was pretty much the same, but development fractured. Current 3.5 is good, but at one point angband development was way too ... sloppy I think is a good word for it. There were lots of changes that didn't interact well with each other making game way too easy.

[Raajaton]

I agree on one level that it's nice to have everybody in the community playing the same game, however variants exist because people like to try new things. I would certainly encourage somebody to play around with radical changes in their own variant, rather than stifling their creativity by veto'ing their idea saying it's not suitable for Vanilla. There are lots if ideas people have that would be lots of fun to try out, but deviate too far from Vanilla's design. I know I would enjoy playing through with some of the neat ideas I've seen people come up with, but I wouldn't necessarily like them to be implemented directly into V.

[TJS]

I'm not sure about encouraging people to play different versions.

There's something good about the community all playing the same game. I think when v4 appeared and also later on pyrel the dev teams and community fractured a bit and things weren't quite the same for a while after that. It's easier to lose interest when you aren't playing/working on the "official" version of the game.

[Timo Pietilä]

but...but...rockets in V!

Early zangband. Topi Ylinen curse. Cyberdemons.

"unbalanced" in a way that it was actually very well balanced, just crazy. And serious fun.

[debo]

and III is ignore debo

v.good philosophy for any open-source project

[getter77]

What about something like one-way tangential paths on given floors to approach the "clock" a different way? As in, as opposed to just endlessly meandering DL..3...as stuff so very slowly manifested while reckoning about going back to town or down prior to comfort, you could take a one-way "path" that would essentially have you wind up in a totally rerolled and repopulated DL 3 where all is fresh and a desperate hunt for both kinds of stairs and all else anew. You still get to "settle in" at a depth, but in a far more effective and streamlined manner versus the slow re-population and virtually non-existent looting possibilities once you've combed the floor in the level in the first place. Your treadmill evolves into the pedestrian conveyor at an airport!

[krazyhades]

but...but...rockets in V!

[Nick]

Angband Philosophy II: Always Compare Angband To Sil

and III is ignore debo

[Nick]

When writing inflation, I thought it was obvious, that I was not writing about the power curve in general (there are different ways to implement an increase in power). The thrust is that making it possible to repeat floors infinitely in Angband is tied to making the gear acquired there pretty useless for later stages of the game so as not to unbalance the game.

The other thing is that essentially gear is progression. Increasing your level and stats is important too, but really that happens almost incidentally as you go looking for better equipment.

[krazyhades]

Yeah, No Selling is much better than selling. It makes the dungeon create more money, to make up for not selling loot. It's just much easier to manage, and doesn't make you feel awful for not dragging every piece of junk back to town for gold.

[Lionmaruu]

What could be done, maybe, is to make a "challenges" mechanic on the game, maybe linked to the website ladder, maybe just like an self-challenge.

Where the game can be played with all sorts of "limitations", like no scumming/farming, no selling/buying, no visiting previous levels, forced deep descent, et cetera...

But then again, if I want to play the game like a hoarder, finishing every level then going back to sell my crap and mining every single spot of metal, I should be able to, that's the only thing Angband does that is actually different from most roguelikes or roguelike-like games like "FTL"/"desktop dungeons"/"whatever the flavor of the month is". (and more like games I love like fallout and elder scrolls hehehe)

Most roguelikes these days have a way to limit your exploration for "Difficulty" sake...
I think Angband is already pretty hard on itself, take away Teleport Other and Telepathy and lets see how many people will still go down sooooo fast...

I'm not suggesting to take them away! Just think, that's your choice to use it to advance faster, I may as well not use it and still finish the game. On my own therms.

BTW I actually love the no selling option it makes the game more liberating.
If I could still sell I would be doing several travels back to sell my crap, now I don't need too, it IS a better way to play... but still is good to know I CAN toggle sell and play that way too.

Sorry for any mistake my English is as crappy as it is self-taught(completely).

[debo]

Angband Philosophy II: Always Compare Angband To Sil

[taptap]

When writing inflation, I thought it was obvious, that I was not writing about the power curve in general (there are different ways to implement an increase in power). The thrust is that making it possible to repeat floors infinitely in Angband is tied to making the gear acquired there pretty useless for later stages of the game so as not to unbalance the game. (Thus Angbanders should not hope for other games to allow infinite repetition at the cost of completely breaking their balance.) And where there isn't a mechanism to devalue the results of infinite repetition Angband does inflict limits rigidly on the player (why stop at L50?).

P.S. Removed whole increasingly off-topic Sil section of my post. Just remember Sil has smithing (which depends on turn count)... and players who start with high smithing. No min-depth = unlimited smithing.