Angband Philosophy II: Magic

[AnonymousHero]

Personally, I'm really not convinced that this is true.

Truth. I've played a single character in (no-reload) Baldur's Gate Trology for about 1-2 years at this point. (I acknowledge that I'm an edge case simply because I actually do this kind of thing... but we do exist!)

[topazg]

I first played Frog Knows .. so to some extent, that's still analogous to "Angband" to me. Having said that, and having repeatedly sort of revisited it on and off for the last 20 years, I would never want to go back. I like the addition of colour to a number of places in the game, I like the fact speed is handled much better, I like the way macros have been built in nicely, I like the additional info on "things seen" and whatnot, I love the new vaults, rooms, and level feeling descriptions.

I somewhat miss haggling (I know, a bit weird, and even on ones I can turn it on, I quickly get bored of it, but it was the flavour of it somehow), I somewhat miss needing to kill lots of mobs of the same type before unlocking a decent amount of info on them ... but overall, each iteration feels improved, and I enjoy jumping into the new one. That's part of the Angband experience for me to be honest.

[MattB]

There are many more games around which appeal to the sort of people who like Angband, so people are less likely to spend massive swathes of time playing a single character, and we need to work a bit harder to keep people's attention.

Personally, I'm really not convinced that this is true.

[Nick]

I'm still confused why Angband keeps changing. At what point is the game... 'finished'? Or, is it that it will never be finished? If I want to play what I consider to be Angband, I play 3.0.6. This is not meant to be an offense to anybody, but just what version I'm comfortable with. I always assumed 'maintainership' was some kind of awful thankless job of just making sure the game could be played on new versions of OS's as they came out.

That's a really good question, which doesn't really have a neat answer. Here are a few reasons I want to change stuff:

1. Angband is an old game. Many of its design decisions are excellent and have been made for excellent reasons, but there are some which were enforced by constraints which no longer apply. Having a rethink of these can be a good idea.
2. Angband gets a fair bit of critical comment from the rest of the roguelike community, usually for being "too grindy", because you can just keep regenerating level 1 until you get all the gear you need. While such criticisms neglect changes to the game, and the fact that the heat-death of the universe would come first, they are not completely invalid. I would like to do more to discourage boring play, without forbidding it.
3. Another criticism Angband gets is that it's thematically confused - mostly it's a Tolkien-themed game, but there are still bits of other mythologies in there too, and it's definitely full of anachronism. The second of those I'm basically deeming fixed by the new splashscreen, and I'd like to do some work on the first too.
4. Change is an Angband tradition. It's been around about 22 years, and the longest time between versions is less than two years. So in that way it's never going to be finished, until it's dead.
5. The world has changed in those 22 years. There are many more games around which appeal to the sort of people who like Angband, so people are less likely to spend massive swathes of time playing a single character, and we need to work a bit harder to keep people's attention. The move (both from the game and from the community's perception of it) to a faster play style has helped with this, but there's more to do.
6. As Derakon says, maintainers need some fun in their lives

[AnonymousHero]

Maybe we should keep them where they are, but e-mail out a cut-out-and-keep badge that people can wear, once they've earned it, that says:

"I've been instakilled
by the first Drolem
I came across!"

"My name is AnonymousHero, and I approve[1] this message."

[1] Never understood why they didn't say "approve of" or "approved", but this is what they actually said.

[MattB]

I'm thinking about dungeon level 60 - they're still a nasty surprise, but it's a bit deeper than things like Dracolisks and Dracoliches.

Maybe we should keep them where they are, but e-mail out a cut-out-and-keep badge that people can wear, once they've earned it, that says:

"I've been instakilled
by the first Drolem
I came across!"

[Nick]

I don't think any of this is necessary. The ideal solution would be to have an earlier heavy poison breather with lower damage that is *easy* to avoid. Evil and moves slowly. Drolems should be moved later. They should be the counterpart to bronze golems and bone golems.

I'm thinking about dungeon level 60 - they're still a nasty surprise, but it's a bit deeper than things like Dracolisks and Dracoliches.

[MattB]

The ideal solution would be to have an earlier heavy poison breather with lower damage that is *easy* to avoid. Evil and moves slowly.

Well, there are (greater) basilisks... we could use them?

[fizzix]

One other semi-solution that occurred to me might be to make drolems actually start out with lower damage, but to increase damage (up to some max) every time it breathes... or maybe for every successive breath without moving. You could still get really unlucky with several successive breaths, but usually you'd just get a "warning".

However, this not really something the game engine is prepared for (AFAIK, unless monster mana is implemented and breaths cost mana, I guess) and I'm not sure it's very Angband-y. It's probably a more *hackish thing.

I don't think any of this is necessary. The ideal solution would be to have an earlier heavy poison breather with lower damage that is *easy* to avoid. Evil and moves slowly. Drolems should be moved later. They should be the counterpart to bronze golems and bone golems.

[AnonymousHero]

Well that all goes into game design. So all I'm saying is that by drolem depth (level 45) a player should have access to at least one of the following.

Method of detection of neutral/visible monsters (detect monsters/reveal monsters/detection)
200+ HP and resist poison (whatever the drolem breath value is) + a mechanism of escape (teleport/teleport other/teleport level/destruction)
600+ HP without resist poison, plus escape option.

the 3rd option is out of reach for most players. The first is available to the arcane classes. So in this case, drolems should appear when the majority of non-arcane players have over 200 HP and poison resist.

This is really close to being satisfied, but it does require more "grinding" than I prefer for priests. Maybe it's just my preference.

Anyway, these are the kind of things we need to be cognizant of if we redesign spell classes. We don't want impossible situations cropping up.

One other semi-solution that occurred to me might be to make drolems actually start out with lower damage, but to increase damage (up to some max) every time it breathes... or maybe for every successive breath without moving. You could still get really unlucky with several successive breaths, but usually you'd just get a "warning".

However, this not really something the game engine is prepared for (AFAIK, unless monster mana is implemented and breaths cost mana, I guess) and I'm not sure it's very Angband-y. It's probably a more *hackish thing.

[fizzix]

I usually do have over 200+ HP by Drolem depth. OTOH the best races to play priest are the ones with bonus to CON, so that is not a difficult thing to get. You just need to use RoCON or two. If you play mage or even a rogue and play elves of some sort I suspect that you have will less HP than dwarf/half-troll/hobbit/dunadan Priest when reaching stat-gain depths.

Well that all goes into game design. So all I'm saying is that by drolem depth (level 45) a player should have access to at least one of the following.

Method of detection of neutral/visible monsters (detect monsters/reveal monsters/detection)
200+ HP and resist poison (whatever the drolem breath value is) + a mechanism of escape (teleport/teleport other/teleport level/destruction)
600+ HP without resist poison, plus escape option.

the 3rd option is out of reach for most players. The first is available to the arcane classes. So in this case, drolems should appear when the majority of non-arcane players have over 200 HP and poison resist.

This is really close to being satisfied, but it does require more "grinding" than I prefer for priests. Maybe it's just my preference.

Anyway, these are the kind of things we need to be cognizant of if we redesign spell classes. We don't want impossible situations cropping up.

[Timo Pietilä]

Both are fairly late drops, and you aren't expected to find either by the time you hit drolem depths. You are likely to find a ring of resist poison by then, so that can be expected. Warriors are better off because they're more likely to have 200+ HP, and can survive a resisted breath.

I usually do have over 200+ HP by Drolem depth. OTOH the best races to play priest are the ones with bonus to CON, so that is not a difficult thing to get. You just need to use RoCON or two. If you play mage or even a rogue and play elves of some sort I suspect that you have will less HP than dwarf/half-troll/hobbit/dunadan Priest when reaching stat-gain depths.

[fizzix]

Rods of detection, detection spell (in godly insights). Warriors have bigger problem there, they don't get the spell.

Both are fairly late drops, and you aren't expected to find either by the time you hit drolem depths. You are likely to find a ring of resist poison by then, so that can be expected. Warriors are better off because they're more likely to have 200+ HP, and can survive a resisted breath.

[Carnivean]

But maybe there should be a Rod of Stinking Cloud?

Aerosol? It's mostly used for killing bugs isn't it?

[Nick]

Hello Nick!

Thank you for your continued support on one of my fave variants

Hey Daniel

I think you've missed one small thing - I'm Angband maintainer now, and this whole discussion is about Vanilla