Increasing home size

[Timo Pietilä]

I find that I basically only use the space in the home just to put off making difficult equipment decisions until later. It's rare that I actually use something later that I don't want to use straight away.

I'm guessing randarts? With standard set you can plan ahead.

[fph]

I think the UI for the home would be better if there was a discard button, especially now there is no selling so there's no point picking up stuff you no longer want. At the moment you have to make room in your inventory (normally by dropping stuff outside) then picking up what you want to chuck then leaving the home and then dropping it outside.

This seems dangerous. When it comes to destroying permanently one of the precious artifacts I have decided to save for later, I really don't mind if I have to press a few more keys.

Misclicks and cats stepping on the keyoard happen.

[TJS]

I'm guessing randarts? With standard set you can plan ahead.

Normally yes, but I don't normally bother with standard sets either.

This seems dangerous. When it comes to destroying permanently one of the precious artifacts I have decided to save for later, I really don't mind if I have to press a few more keys.

Misclicks and cats stepping on the keyoard happen

Could squelch and drop them outside the home, or even just drop them without squelching. It's just annoying to have to rejig your inventory for ages just to get rid of that ring of resist fire that has been clogging up the place since level 10.

[Derakon]

I wouldn't object to having a "drop outside" button. Though personally, I find it a bit cathartic to walk out of the house and make use of the "throw" command (preferably against some hapless townsperson) when I'm getting rid of a previously-stashed item.

[mushroom patch]

If you want even less home space, I submit you should be playing ironman.

Sure, I'm just talking about default options.

[MattB]

I've been having a bit of an AngBreak recently, so missed this discussion. But I cannot let it pass without repeating my deep horror at the thought of an infinite home. After a few dives, I'D NEVER LEAVE THE TOWN!!! Surely I'm not alone?

I would really like a few more slots, maybe 4 or 6, because then I could collect the consumables I want for the end game, and also a few (maybe 8 or 10) swap pieces of equipment. That's enough for me. Any more and, firstly, equipment-optimization would render me catatonic with indecision and, secondly, the game really would be much easier. As well as losing the aspect of the storage minigame, although I can see that's not to everyone's taste.

Ideally, I would like to see a paginated home with two pages of 15 items, one for equipment and one for everything else (potions, scrolls, wands, slime molds etc.).

That's my tuppence-worth, for what it's worth.
Someone had to fly the flag for the nay-sayers!

[Tibarius]

home size

The Standard Option for selling stuff has changed into "no selling". I guess most People wanted to experience diving fast and deep. ( Personally i find that a rather fatal fault - because everyone wanting to Play the game this way could have done that before. Noone is forced to sell stuff to Shops if he does not like to. This Standard prevents People from selling early valuable Drops for Gold AND i think it confuses new Players a lot that Shops do not accept to buy stuff from Players.)

=> So i strongly vote for switching this birth Option back to "sell stuff" as Initial Standard.

Besides that, the Point i wanted to make is: Home should not be made larger, but smaller! Maybe even abolishing it totaly would perfectly fit to the idea of diving ...

[Timo Pietilä]

The Standard Option for selling stuff has changed into "no selling". I guess most People wanted to experience diving fast and deep.

No selling has nothing to do with diving. I don't dive and I prefer no selling over selling.

[Derakon]

no-selling doesn't encourage diving; it encourages not returning to town after every dungeon level you clear. And yes, it's confusing to newbies, which is unfortunate, but it's also usually considered to be better gameplay by those who get used to it (though there are obviously exceptions ).

[Tibarius]

re: no selling

After giving it a 2nd thought (and after reading the two replies of course) i am even more convinced that "no selling" is the wrong way to go as Standard.

If i read the various threads a couple of times Comes up the Point that Angband does not force the Player into a certain playing style.

I think no selling takes away an Option from the Player he might be interested in. And i realy cannot see any reason why this Option should stay this way.

If you can sell, the Player can decide if he likes to or not.
If you can not sell, the Player has no choice at all.

Would anyone disagree on the Statement that it is better to leave the Player the decision on how to Play?

[AnonymousHero]

If i read the various threads a couple of times Comes up the Point that Angband does not force the Player into a certain playing style.

I think no selling takes away an Option from the Player he might be interested in. And i realy cannot see any reason why this Option should stay this way.

If you can sell, the Player can decide if he likes to or not.
If you can not sell, the Player has no choice at all.

Would anyone disagree on the Statement that it is better to leave the Player the decision on how to Play?

Adding random capitalization to your post doesn't make it more convincing. (If this is a German thing, I apologize. I know there's a tradition for capitalizing nouns, though most of the world has grown out of it at this point )

The "oh, but you can just choose to not engage in behavior X" thing has been trotted out many times, but it doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Assuming "selling: on", many players observe that the "optimal" way to play is to go back to town as soon as your inventory is full and sell everything. Many (especially beginners!) cannot see that this is suboptimal play and so develop a habit of doing it. That is, they waste huge amounts of time amassing $1M+ gold when there's actually only one thing in the Black Market that could possibly cost that much (PDSM or BoS+10, if you care). This is not useful. On the flip side, players who know the game observe that the money drops (again, given "selling: on", are not quite sufficient to be able to afford the necessary consumables when delving into the depths -- and so are forced to stay at shallow levels until they can afford enough CCW+?PhaseDoor+...

EDIT: There's also the thing that some people (often including me) actually cannot resist any kind of possible micro-optimization and compulsively do the "optimal" thing -- even if it's reducing enjoyment of the game.

In short, there should be no option to allow selling. "Selling" should just be renamed to "Give" or "Donate"... or Identify?.

[Derakon]

AnonymousHero has the right of it -- players have to be protected from themselves. If you leave in "boring but optimal" options, then there's a significant fraction of the player base that will do those things, even though they're bored out of their skull, simply because they're optimal.

Consider this comparison: you're playing a more standard RPG game. Every time you get to a new town, they give you a sidequest that involves trekking back to the first town in the game, which has some minor reward (let's say you return to visit your childhood friend and tell them about the new place you've discovered). Are you going to make that trek back to the starting town for every new town you reach? Or are you going to wait until you amass a bunch of these sidequests, and then make a single trip and complete them all at once? Or are you just going to ignore the sidequests altogether? All of these are "different ways to play", but the first option is by far more boring than the others. And yet there would be a lot of players who would feel obligated to take that first choice just so they could get access to those minor rewards as soon as possible.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

....
Would anyone disagree on the Statement that it is better to leave the Player the decision on how to Play?

I believe the player does still have the option to decide how to play. Player can change the birth option. However, the default options should be what most players find desirable, which in this case is "no selling".

[Tibarius]

re: Derakon

How can you Quote from previous posts again?

Anyway - Derakon said:
'... players have to be protected from themselves.'

I strongly disagree to this point of view.

Edit: You are right Ingwe, players can choose to switch the birth options and thus decide how to play.

[Timo Pietilä]

How can you Quote from previous posts again?

Anyway - Derakon said:
'... players have to be protected from themselves.'

I strongly disagree to this point of view.

Normal person is shortsighted moron. You really do need to protect most people from themselves. Luckily angband community is quite a lot above average when it comes to intelligence.

[edit after reading the context of Derakon message] That said, person normally does play how he wants to play, what people find "boring" is quite different to different people. I find diving and living on the edge boring, and clearing up levels fun.