new player - what turned me off to this game

[jdestef]

Going down a set of stairs, then going back up and ending up somewhere totally different really breaks the continuity.

With the high res graphics, this game really reminds me of Castle of the Winds, an old win 3.1 game. This game appears much, much deeper which is what attracted me to it, but the discontinuity from what I mentioned just really shuts this down for me.

So close...

[Tibarius]

cu and good luck

Thanks for your Input ... kinda odd that a new Player takes the effort to post here in the Forum why the game ticks him off.

Thanks for that and good luck for you in the future.

You miss maybe the best game available - if you happen to give it a 2nd try Play longer than 30 seconds

[Derakon]

Yep, the game randomly-generates new levels every time you visit a given depth. It's a defining feature of Angband and sets it apart from basically all other roguelikes.

Look at it this way: since there's literally an unlimited amount of dungeon, you always have the freedom to leave a dungeon level without worrying about missing out on something: it can always be re-generated (with the exceptions of killed unique monsters or artifacts whose names you've learned).

If there were a limited amount of dungeon, then a not-insubstantial amount of the player base would feel obligated to "clear" every single dungeon level -- and that can get tedious. It's much more fun, for most players, to rapidly dive through the dungeon until they reach a depth that's as challenging as they can possibly handle, and then to hang out there until they get strong enough to dive again.

EDIT: Tibarius, no need to get defensive. We should be thanking the original poster for stopping by and giving their feedback.

[Runaway1956]

Going down a set of stairs, then going back up and ending up somewhere totally different really breaks the continuity.

With the high res graphics, this game really reminds me of Castle of the Winds, an old win 3.1 game. This game appears much, much deeper which is what attracted me to it, but the discontinuity from what I mentioned just really shuts this down for me.

So close...

Sorry that you don't like the game. But, you're a little off-target with the Windows 3.1 business. This game has history that predates Windows 3.1 by - ohhhh - a decade anyway.

I think this game appeals to almost everyone who has ever played D&D with a couple dozen dice, scraps of paper, and mass chaos all around. Ahhhh - those were the days. I was introduced to the chaos after I joined the Navy. Five to ten of us would set up in after steering, for an all night binge with the dice, some books, and our imaginations.

With a good imagination, there is no disconnect here. There are 100 levels below the town. I dive down, and explore some parts of some levels, then I come back up to resupply. Eventually, I'll find my way down to the the 100th level - or die trying.

I hope you can find something you DO like!

Have you tried Runescape?

[jdestef]

Thanks for your Input ... kinda odd that a new Player takes the effort to post here in the Forum why the game ticks him off.

Thanks for that and good luck for you in the future.

You miss maybe the best game available - if you happen to give it a 2nd try Play longer than 30 seconds

Don't get me wrong, I can really appreciate the depth and complexity of this game, I guess I just expected it to behave differently. COTW (https://youtu.be/EQO2KhJVrnQ) may have been a ripoff of this, but it hooked me nonetheless. Having 100 levels of continuous maps would clearly cause issues if one had to climb up every floor to get back to town so I can see the reasoning for why it's like what it is.

Re: Playing for 30 seconds - Oh, I spent an hour here and an hour there playing. After dying 4 times to fungus patches because I couldn't get away from it (*rolls eyes*) I usually quit then come back later and try again. The good games are the ones that piss you off, but you still keep coming back to them, like this one.

Re: Runescape.. lol no thanks. I'm an EQ1 fanatic. I'll be playing that in the nursing home when I'm 95.

[Nick]

It's entirely possible that there will be a birth option for persistent levels at some stage. It would be like forced descent where you're not forced to descend

[Estie]

Why not just play ironman then ?

The thing is that inconsistent levels really are the (imo) best and defining feature of Angband. With a little suspension of disbelief, you get freedom to pick your preferred danger level. Most other games force you into an "appropriate" danger level, deemed such by the designer.

This completely changes the playing experience, like going from a competitive race against people in a stadium to a lone marathon in the forest where you only fight yourself.

[debo]

Castle of the Winds <3

[Roch]

[QUOTE=jdestef;99533 the discontinuity from what I mentioned just really shuts this down for me.[/QUOTE]

You might try poschengband. The default setting has connected stairs and persistent levels, at least per dungeon visit.

[wobbly]

I always figure you're getting lost wandering around in a maze. It's probably more realistic then having a perfect map of Angband.

[Timo Pietilä]

It's entirely possible that there will be a birth option for persistent levels at some stage. It would be like forced descent where you're not forced to descend

How about having at least two upstairs and two downstairs in each level (except town). If you select the stairs you previously used it gets you to level you have visited before, but new set of stairs gets you somewhere else.

Infinite persistent levels. I bet you get lost at some point if you try to backtrack your steps from dlvl 90 or so.

Maybe recall could create random level so you only need to save the levels you spent in the dungeon, and not every level you ever visited (recall back to level that was a death-trap perhaps is not something you want anyway).

Big questions: do we want to keep the monsters and items as well? Imagine a situation where you find GCV full of too hard monsters. Go back up and then immediately down to check if the vault is still inhabited with too hard to handle monsters. What about items? Should they disappear in that scenario as well? If you randomize them then you create an level-scum dream come true -situation. If you keep them, then what if one of them is "Plain Gold Ring". Should that be able to be created later in the dungeon, or is that fixed there?

Or maybe we should just simply rename "stairs" to "portals". Portal down or portal up. That could also explain how there is town on top of Angband. It isn't actually on top of it, it just happens to have portal to it.

[werepacman]

How about having at least two upstairs and two downstairs in each level (except town). If you select the stairs you previously used it gets you to level you have visited before, but new set of stairs gets you somewhere else.

Or you can leave or pick up a teleportation mark to return to this level later.

[mushroom patch]

Infinite persistent levels as described above sounds like a nightmare. Even with auto-travel, which current angband doesn't have or need, it would be nuts. Imagine diagramming the typical path of an angband character in this sort of setting. You'd have some massive tree of levels. Even trying to draw a meaningful, navigable schematic of it on screen would be a technical challenge. On top of which, you bring with it all the baggage of persistent levels: Stashing, backtracking, etc. none of which angband was really designed for.

A generalized word of recall would help here, but it still strikes me as not a good idea. The problem with persistent levels in a game like vanilla angband is that there's no real difference between levels. In games like nethack and dcss the persistence of levels creates a sense of place and allows the dungeon to have structure. No such structure exists in angband. Without some kind of underlying geography, persistent levels don't offer any added value.

[Timo Pietilä]

The problem with persistent levels in a game like vanilla angband is that there's no real difference between levels.
...
persistent levels don't offer any added value.

Agreed with all that. I made my post just to play with an idea and to point out the potential problems with that idea.

Angband can't really have persistent levels, it loses a lot more than it gains with it.

So the solution would be to rename stairs to portals. You teleport to random level, up or down.

[Tibarius]

I like the portal vs stairs idea

It does not have any gameplay significance - but i find it easier for my mind to imagine stepping into a Portal and end somewhere else than to take a stair and be unable to re-trace the climbing up/down the stairs.