Skipping the Start

[AnonymousHero]

Also, if the point is to speed up the early game, then taking a wad of money and running around to shops to see if they have these items is not going to be quite as nice a solution if it's possible to hit one key and get everything in inventory.

Exactly this. Current Angband has been going more and more in the direction of encouraging the player to stay more in the dungeon (no-selling, particularly) and personally I think it's an improvement.

[Nick]

OK, so originally the player rolled up a character, started with a bit of class-related gear and a bit of money, and played.

Then people kept re-rolling until they got better stats, so there was the auto-roller. Then buying stats with points.

Then the whole question of gear came up, and mages had it easier because they got a recall scroll, so lets give everyone one. Then more standardisation. Then what if you played no-selling and had gear you didn't want? That's not fair. So change that to gold only.

Then when there's any tiny variation in the optimality of starting gear, why not keep restarting until you get it just right?

The thing is that we have a player-base who by and large share the quality of being obsessive, but in random directions, so on fairly adjustable stuff like starting gear we end up coming to some sort of average position that nobody's really happy with.

So by all means keep having the discussion, so long as no-one has any expectation of ever being satisfied. I'm going to stop ranting and get another coffee

[HallucinationMushroom]

I'm going to stop ranting and get another coffee

Hey while you're up can you put lanterns back in the general store, that'd be sweet, kthx.

[fizzix]

Quote Fizzix:

"This works better for no-selling, by the way. Otherwise, it makes sense just to grab the most expensive option."

This sounds to me like he doesnt want players to sell their stuff.

Nah, the point is, the goal is to eliminate the "boring stuff" at the start of the game. The most boring thing for me is going to the shops and buying the basic gear. By all means, if you enjoy this aspect, then I'm not going to take it away from you. It just means that you'll choose the most expensive option, sell the stuff, and to the shopping. I'd find it boring, but if you don't, that's fine.

All players would probably start with the current standard gear, some food, some torches, a word of recall scroll, class related weapon and armor, and I would throw in some ?phase door as well.

[mushroom patch]

Current Angband has been going more and more in the direction of encouraging the player to stay more in the dungeon (no-selling, particularly) and personally I think it's an improvement.

In this connection, I would just like to say that moving stores into the dungeon would be awesome. Some kind of mini town every 10 levels or so would make me a force down/ironman convert. Maybe four shops modeled on the standard shops, but with level dependent inventories, no restocking, and a smattering of weird black market-style miscellany. (And for the hardcore crazy people, a no-town option should suffice.)

I think the idea of more interesting starting inventories is good. Of course, an interesting option might be point based inventory selection (which would of course be automatically repeatable the way stat allocation is). If you're talking new character classes (surprising suggestion, that), perhaps a point based character class creation system: points buy base stats, hit dice, a certain number to get mage spells like a rogue, like a ranger, like a mage, similar for priest spells, points for stealth progression curves, magic device, perception, saving throw, melee bonuses, blows per round, bow proficiency, yadda yadda yadda. Every dimension of character class distinctions broken down into points. Put that in a pref file and have it forever, share it with the interweb, class creation can be crowdsourced.

ha...

Anyway, re: letting the player do what he wants/play his own game, I think to a certain extent you have to protect the clueless new player from that until he knows what he's doing. You have to become a master painter before you become Picasso.

[buzzkill]

... so on fairly adjustable stuff like starting gear we end up coming to some sort of average position that nobody's really happy with.

It's this type of realization that may yet prevent ye from being a typical maintainer (and that's a good thing).

[Mark]

I like Fizzix's idea.

I also loved Mushroom Patch's paragraph about new players and drolem deaths.

[Nick]

It's this type of realization that may yet prevent ye from being a typical maintainer (and that's a good thing).

Hey, if you don't piss a few people off you're doing it wrong. It just isn't your turn today

[debo]

I don't understand where this idea is coming from that the early game is the problem. I've always found the midgame->lategame phase to be the grindiest and most annoying. At least in the early game you're gaining levels fairly quickly, unless you're something nuts like a mage.

[Derakon]

It's the very early game that's problematic -- practically every enemy is a barely-competent melee threat and nothing else. Thus there's not much variety to the gameplay. Once you get down to 300'-400' or so this is less of a problem.

[Estie]

I think I misunderstood the intentions somewhat; op and mushroom patch wanted to skip low level play, Fizzix/Derakon were instead trying to replace it with something more interesting. The thing is that improving starting gear is the minor part in that effort; sending the player out against small kobolds with more AC, damage and some wands hardly makes it more interesting.

So what are those empowered starting characters gonna fight ? My suggestion was descent scrolls to get them deeper, if not that then do they just start in dlvl 1 or does the monster population get modified or what ? If the latter, maybe only start worrying about starting gear once that is accomplished.

[quarague]

As I understood it, part of the reason for better starting gear was to make the start of the game a little easier for a beginner. This means it makes sense to give the player specific items because some advanced players determined what a good starting kit would be. The new player can then learn, what items are useful to have for what play style and learn how to use them most effectively. It also means that it is somewhat irrelevant if you have the option to sell the gear instead. So essentially at the start you get three options:
a) play beginner mode, you get a collection of character appropriate good starting gear, if someone is willing to implement that, maybe even some random tutorial style info
b) play normal mode, get the gear as now
c) play hardcore mode, start broke and naked
These modes only change the starting equipment and have no influence on later game. If you are an advanced player and want to play beginner mode, sell all the stuff and buy something else instead, feel free, but I don't think there is any reason the game should prevent that.

[debo]

It's the very early game that's problematic -- practically every enemy is a barely-competent melee threat and nothing else. Thus there's not much variety to the gameplay. Once you get down to 300'-400' or so this is less of a problem.

Right, that's the depth where literally everything gains an acid attack.

There has already been talk about increasing enemy diversity in the early game, as well as changing how weapons work (so that light weapons aren't heavily favored at low levels, the way v4 was trying to change some things) -- I think those would be more general solutions to the issues raised here?

"After the restructure" of course.

[Estie]

As I understood it, part of the reason for better starting gear was to make the start of the game a little easier for a beginner. This means it makes sense to give the player specific items because some advanced players determined what a good starting kit would be. The new player can then learn, what items are useful to have for what play style and learn how to use them most effectively. It also means that it is somewhat irrelevant if you have the option to sell the gear instead. So essentially at the start you get three options:
a) play beginner mode, you get a collection of character appropriate good starting gear, if someone is willing to implement that, maybe even some random tutorial style info
b) play normal mode, get the gear as now
c) play hardcore mode, start broke and naked
These modes only change the starting equipment and have no influence on later game. If you are an advanced player and want to play beginner mode, sell all the stuff and buy something else instead, feel free, but I don't think there is any reason the game should prevent that.

Now I am really getting confused. I thought the early game was too boring, not too easy. It has already been made much easier by various measures like nerfing breeders, reducing amount of stat drainers, lessening impact of stat drain by restoring on levelup, .... . In olden days the early game was harder, now it is easy and people say its pointless and want to skip it to get to the harder parts.

Also, if the intent is to give more variation at the start, why restrict this to the easy start ? That makes no sense.

[fizzix]

Now I am really getting confused. I thought the early game was too boring, not too easy. It has already been made much easier by various measures like nerfing breeders, reducing amount of stat drainers, lessening impact of stat drain by restoring on levelup, .... . In olden days the early game was harder, now it is easy and people say its pointless and want to skip it to get to the harder parts.

Also, if the intent is to give more variation at the start, why restrict this to the easy start ? That makes no sense.

Yeah, I think there are multiple issues here. Here are some of the things we should be thinking about.

1) Between games latency period. This is essentially how long it takes to be doing "interesting things" again after you die. Generally you want this to be as short as possible. It can be long, but only if the time spent doing interesting things is much longer. In other words, you don't want to force the player to spend ages on the character creation screen for a character that lasts 5 seconds. (I consider initial town shopping to be an extension of the character creation screen.) Angband intelligently uses a hybrid approach in which you can fully customize your character, or you can use the previous one. But you can't use a previous one with the same initial shopping gear. Having an initial set of starting gear would allow the first action of the player to be in the dungeon rather than in the town. Latency is lower, and you're level one character that got splatted by an OoD mob, can just immediately restart on level one.

2) Interestingness of levels 1-5. One of the things that hampers making level 1-5 interesting is that we need to make it nice for new players. That limits what we can place on dlevel 1. If you solve the latency problem, then you can introduce more varied threats right from the beginning. Threats with no solutions are unfair, so that means ensuring that the character also has more than one way of dealing with the threat. A level 1 mage with a dagger and magic missile only can't do squat against Maggot's hounds. A level 1 mage with a dagger, and a wand of magic missiles, and a couple of phase door scrolls, might be able to survive. Obviously, as the game goes on the threats will increase, and so will the player options. The goal here is to have 2 options at the beginning of the game instead of 1. Then you can make level 1 more interesting as far as monsters are concerned.

3) Boringness of monsters. DJAngband used to have a 'multi-hued centipede' which was 'just like all the other centipedes' as a sort of joke that angband has a bunch of centipedes that all are exactly the same. There are currently a bunch of useless mobs on dlevel 1, let's combine them all. The beginning of the game is where status effects on the player are not immediately deadly, and are therefore interesting. Mobs like novice mages are great. More stuff like that. Angband is all about choosing your fights. Why not have a super slow moving mob, who always is deeply asleep, with gobs of HP and an extremely dangerous attack. Better even would be one that doesn't do anything until provoked, if we introduce that capability into the code.