Very old returning player needs advice!

[Ende]

Hey guys im a very old skool player who originally played Moria on my Amiga 500 and then on my 600... since then every now and then ill search out the latest Angband/Moria/Nethack type game to have another burst of nostalgia

Well i installed the latest Angband at the start of this weekend looking forward to some oldskool fun... and tbh most of the game is as i expected with some very nice updates

However..... A couple of glaring changes are haunting me which i must say i dont like much...

1. What happened to selling your loot in the town? There doesnt seem to be much point of the shops as all i can do is get items identified and buy a few things too.

2. What happened to cursed items? A part of the game which needed decent skill to work around was the existence of cursed items.

3. Where are the packs of beasties with a leader? Ive only gone down 5 levels so far but i havent seen a single pack of nasties, something i would expect to have seen by now.

Overall it looks to me like the game has been simplified somewhat and the difficulty has been tuned right down to pretty easy.

If its not possible to toggle these changes ingame then can someone point me to a version of Angband which includes these original elements?

Thanks

~Ende~

[Derakon]

Hey, welcome back!

1. What happened to selling your loot in the town? There doesnt seem to be much point of the shops as all i can do is get items identified and buy a few things too.

By default, the "no-selling" birth option is turned on. It prevents you from gaining money by selling items, but in exchange you get more money from cash in the dungeon. The goal is to keep you from having to worry about the cash value of every single useless magical item you find in the dungeon, and let you spend more time actually using items and exploring.

You can turn the option off when creating a new character.

2. What happened to cursed items? A part of the game which needed decent skill to work around was the existence of cursed items.

One of the long-term goals of "recent" Angband development (in the last five years or so) has been to streamline the identification metagame. Part of this is to encourage ID by use, that is, you find out what an item does by using/equipping it and seeing what happens. The game will tell you if your character notices that e.g. that shield they equipped protects them from a fire-based attack, or if their weapon deals extra damage when they hit an orc.

However, nobody would ever equip an un-ID'd item or quaff an un-ID'd potion if there was a chance of something seriously bad happening, so the old sticky-cursed equipment is gone, as are potions with strictly negative effects (e.g. drain stats). In the long-term we'd like to have more "mixed-blessing" items that have more interesting negative effects than just being unable to remove a cursed item, but nobody's dedicated the development time yet.

3. Where are the packs of beasties with a leader? Ive only gone down 5 levels so far but i havent seen a single pack of nasties, something i would expect to have seen by now.

They're around, but monster packs in general have been toned down in the interests of increasing monster variety. Instead of spending entire levels fighting nothing but Zephyr Hounds, now you'll see more giants and dark elves and so on. There are also more mixed packs -- for example, the different kinds of adventurers now show up in heterogenous groups instead of an entire pack consisting solely of Novice Priests or the like. And there are some other clever groupings, like the elemental giants showing up with the appropriate corresponding Zephyr Hound.

Overall it looks to me like the game has been simplified somewhat and the difficulty has been tuned right down to pretty easy.

The difficulty that has been removed is difficulty that many people (including the devs) considered to be not very interesting, since it mostly consisted of going "Gotcha!" when the player did something they had no reason to believe was a mistake until after they did it. Though you aren't the only one to disagree with the way things have been going. It's basically impossible to please everyone while developing a game with a history like Angband has.

If its not possible to toggle these changes ingame then can someone point me to a version of Angband which includes these original elements?

You'll probably want something from the 3.0.x era, if I recall correctly.

[Ende]

By default, the "no-selling" birth option is turned on. It prevents you from gaining money by selling items, but in exchange you get more money from cash in the dungeon. The goal is to keep you from having to worry about the cash value of every single useless magical item you find in the dungeon, and let you spend more time actually using items and exploring.

You can turn the option off when creating a new character.

Thanks ill turn it on when i reroll my next character

One of the long-term goals of "recent" Angband development (in the last five years or so) has been to streamline the identification metagame. Part of this is to encourage ID by use, that is, you find out what an item does by using/equipping it and seeing what happens. The game will tell you if your character notices that e.g. that shield they equipped protects them from a fire-based attack, or if their weapon deals extra damage when they hit an orc.

However, nobody would ever equip an un-ID'd item or quaff an un-ID'd potion if there was a chance of something seriously bad happening, so the old sticky-cursed equipment is gone, as are potions with strictly negative effects (e.g. drain stats). In the long-term we'd like to have more "mixed-blessing" items that have more interesting negative effects than just being unable to remove a cursed item, but nobody's dedicated the development time yet.

I must say that i dont like the sound of that direction at all... removes the D&D culture from the game and replaces it with the modern-day console gaming mentality.

It took skill to manage the negative effects from items/potions/scrolls etc. Skill to manage your backpack, the stacks, the items, and decide what u carry to the surface to get checked out. Your rewards were worth the risks once u pulled out a superb bit of kit.

I have noticed that the games upped the % for recognising items hidden properties... again i was happier with the old game low rates which meant u needed to get things checked by a guy who knows or use magic to unlock their secrets.

Ultimately it meant spending the first few dips into the dungeon to gather items to get checked out so u were opening up yout characters wisdom. The current system seems to just throw all the info at u without any effort.

They're around, but monster packs in general have been toned down in the interests of increasing monster variety. Instead of spending entire levels fighting nothing but Zephyr Hounds, now you'll see more giants and dark elves and so on. There are also more mixed packs -- for example, the different kinds of adventurers now show up in heterogenous groups instead of an entire pack consisting solely of Novice Priests or the like. And there are some other clever groupings, like the elemental giants showing up with the appropriate corresponding Zephyr Hound.

Ok i can go along with this... ill see how i get on with the newer spawning system.

The difficulty that has been removed is difficulty that many people (including the devs) considered to be not very interesting, since it mostly consisted of going "Gotcha!" when the player did something they had no reason to believe was a mistake until after they did it. Though you aren't the only one to disagree with the way things have been going. It's basically impossible to please everyone while developing a game with a history like Angband has.

Hmmm i cant agree with this sorry.

If u died it can always be put down to a poor decision u made at some point. Sure, the game was quite punishing at times but thats where the challenge lied... to beat it.

Like i said above, it sounds more like console gaming mentality over the original D&D culture which is where Moria etc was born from.

It looks like the game has been streamlined and made far more linear... in fact the old game gave a player far more options on how to play the game. now it appears ive got the play the game in the playstyle the designer wants me to play it.

By that i mean it looks like the games been twisted to function in how 1 person wants to play it. At the very least please have some toggle options so us players can set the game up to how we like it?

You'll probably want something from the 3.0.x era, if I recall correctly.

Thanks

[Malak Darkhunter]

give 3.5.0 a try...it starts off kind of easy and takes you through the boring begining and then gets pretty challenging about mid-game or so, Uniques start to appear groups...ex ..khim,mim,Ibum...this makes the game more interesting and challenging, also better ego's with variety in blessings are more useful now..so give it a try, I'm an old school player, but I've become pretty fond of this version.

Also the no selling option takes a while to get used to, however you find more money to compensate for this and it's quite refreshing to only carry what you have to have, I actuallly hate having to wait to ID an item.

[debo]

You sound like the kind of person who might like oangband.

http://angband.oook.cz/variants.php?variant=oangband

[AnonymousHero]

If u died it can always be put down to a poor decision u made at some point. Sure, the game was quite punishing at times but thats where the challenge lied... to beat it.

The game is roughly as challenging as 3.0.x was. It's just that they removed the (metaphorical) "press X to not die/become fatally crippled" button that was identifying everything before using it.

[wobbly]

There's also NPP Moria:

http://forum.nppangband.org/viewtopic.php?id=1573

I haven't tried it my self but it's an attempt to get something as close to Moria with a better interface etc.

[Ende]

Also the no selling option takes a while to get used to, however you find more money to compensate for this and it's quite refreshing to only carry what you have to have,

Its not an issue of money... it was the challenge i enjoyed... cherrypicking what to keep and what to throw away. Loads of items u didnt know if they r magical. The Wisdom stat was more relevant.

I actuallly hate having to wait to ID an item.

That sounds like a console gamer to me! lol

Well the realism of D&D gave the player the challenge of several possible ways to ID the item, all of them took effort and skill. Now it looks to me like u just stand still for a few turns till your 'wisdom' gives u the examination.

And to get the exact stats u just give the item to a shopkeeper.

All of this takes loads away from the games immersion. In the old game the shopkeepers were relevant and now theyve been reduced to examination locations.

Like i said above, forcing the player to just one linear way of playing loses some of what was great about Angband imo

[debo]

This 'console gamer' analogy is not going to get you very far here imo. There exist variants that do exactly what you want, probably to a degree that will make you want to rip your eyeballs out even if you enjoy self-flagellation. I've pointed out one above; NPPAngband/NPPMoria, which wobbly pointed out, is also another good one. There are others too. Some of them I'll even play once in a while

[Ende]

This 'console gamer' analogy is not going to get you very far here imo. There exist variants that do exactly what you want, probably to a degree that will make you want to rip your eyeballs out even if you enjoy self-flagellation. I've pointed out one above; NPPAngband/NPPMoria, which wobbly pointed out, is also another good one. There are others too. Some of them I'll even play once in a while

Sorry if that sounded a bit sharp, but i assure u its just a blanket label for the direction of most modern games today. They seem to cater to players who need instant gratification and dont want to invest time into developing their game...

Im sure i will try out more of the variants so thanks for the advice

I guess i remember the beauty of Angband was that the game was very open and the player had many more options open to him... the current incarnation feels very restrictive and linear.

It would be great if there was a solid game setup opening screen so players could tune the game to their preference.

[Estie]

Thanks ill turn it on when i reroll my next character





I must say that i dont like the sound of that direction at all... removes the D&D culture from the game and replaces it with the modern-day console gaming mentality.

It took skill to manage the negative effects from items/potions/scrolls etc. Skill to manage your backpack, the stacks, the items, and decide what u carry to the surface to get checked out. Your rewards were worth the risks once u pulled out a superb bit of kit. <snip>

Only if for some reason you refuse to carry a stack of id scrolls or staff of id when recalling down. While removing the ability to id in the dungeon might have some potential for upping the player skill requirement, identifying things with device or spell has always been possible (in good D&D fashion), so I dont see what you mean here.

[Malak Darkhunter]

Its not an issue of money... it was the challenge i enjoyed... cherrypicking what to keep and what to throw away. Loads of items u didnt know if they r magical. The Wisdom stat was more relevant.




That sounds like a console gamer to me! lol

Well the realism of D&D gave the player the challenge of several possible ways to ID the item, all of them took effort and skill. Now it looks to me like u just stand still for a few turns till your 'wisdom' gives u the examination.

And to get the exact stats u just give the item to a shopkeeper.

All of this takes loads away from the games immersion. In the old game the shopkeepers were relevant and now theyve been reduced to examination locations.

Like i said above, forcing the player to just one linear way of playing loses some of what was great about Angband imo

Moria/Angband was never based off of D@D, it is D@D like but very different and was never intended to be the same..I started playing Moria 1988, and a buggy version at that, and then picked up Angband a little after Angband 2.4 frog-knows started..it's been a long time.

You might try one of my favorites Sangband 1.0.0...it is last version developed bt Leon Marrick, a great contributor who had a wonderful vision for the game..It is very hard, and based off of Angband 2.8.3. In that verion you have no immediate ID, storekeepers actually mean something as you can invest your money in the store to get them to stock better items, there is no birth-no-selling option, and there is no no preserve mode either I think. Perception is a skill that gives hints to what an un-Id item actually is and gets better the more skill points you put into it.

Anyway give that one a try it's 1 of the hardest variants around, with lots of Leons Wicked tricks to kill a character.
The only other Developer that likes ways to punish you is Nick MCconnel, author of FAangband, a very good variant. And Nick shows the player no mercy either, so give that one a try as well.

[Ende]

Only if for some reason you refuse to carry a stack of id scrolls or staff of id when recalling down. While removing the ability to id in the dungeon might have some potential for upping the player skill requirement, identifying things with device or spell has always been possible (in good D&D fashion), so I dont see what you mean here.

I used all of those methods too... now those methods dont seem very relevant.

Now u know within 30seconds of picking up an items if its magical or not. U know very quickly if its worth keeping or not. Thats where the skill and immersion has been dumbed down, and where the D&D feel has been removed.

The decision making the player made when an item could be cursed or mega-cool made Angband runs interesting and exciting. Now theres no risk to cursing and the properties r discovered so fast...

[Malak Darkhunter]

I used all of those methods too... now those methods dont seem very relevant.

Now u know within 30seconds of picking up an items if its magical or not. U know very quickly if its worth keeping or not. Thats where the skill and immersion has been dumbed down, and where the D&D feel has been removed.

The decision making the player made when an item could be cursed or mega-cool made Angband runs interesting and exciting. Now theres no risk to cursing and the properties r discovered so fast...

There are still some around in modern Angband.....But the beauty of Sangband is that there are hidden curses..check them out.

[Estie]

I used all of those methods too... now those methods dont seem very relevant.

Now u know within 30seconds of picking up an items if its magical or not. U know very quickly if its worth keeping or not. Thats where the skill and immersion has been dumbed down, and where the D&D feel has been removed.

The decision making the player made when an item could be cursed or mega-cool made Angband runs interesting and exciting. Now theres no risk to cursing and the properties r discovered so fast...

There is a simple, I´d even call it dumb, definitely not skill involving in any way, shape or form, algorithm for old Angband:

Id the first flavours by selling to a vendor. Once money is plenty, start identifying them.
With armor/weapon, carry everything till pseudo-id kicks in (yes, mage has bad pseudo id but gets the spell early). Once that has happened, id it if it has potential to be an upgrade, discard otherwise. This last step requires meta-game knowledge.

If you find a sophisticated, skillfull way to extract information by other means: congratulations, you just saved the cost of an id scroll.

edit: mistakenly called flavours flags.