Tweet
What do you mean by 'exploitative'?
-
-
The line-of-sight rules are not symmetrical, so it's possible to see and/or hit-with-spells monsters when they can't do the same to you. The most common version of this is the "hockey stick", where you stand a knight's move away from an enemy with a clear tile in front of you. You can actually extend the hockey stick further out if you're willing to play games with targeting unoccupied tiles, to manipulate the path your spells take.
But this kind of shenanigans is not remotely necessary to win the game. It's important to know about the basic hockeystick if only so that you don't fall victim to it yourself, but the "advanced" versions are both tedious and scummy to use.Comment
-
Ah, I think I've been doing that to be honest. Didn't realise they couldn't do it back to me though.Comment
-
Damn, just got killed by a time vortex - and I'd just killed a ringwraith and Ariel too.
Stupid damn death too - got hit by something strange and had half my stats nerfed. Was taking some time to look at my potions to see if I had a restore one on me meaning to teleport out of there next move. Had pressed q for quaff - not i for inventory- doh.
And I'd just finally found something to resist nether too lol.
Dunno about anyone else, but it's these really annoying monsters worth naff all XP that seem to be the worst ones - I find acidic jellies a real pain in the arse and these vortexes and hounds that blast you with stuff from miles away just totally worth avoiding if you can.Last edited by Bimbul; October 1, 2015, 12:19.Comment
-
Like I said, I could have got out of there but quaffed a potion (wrong one too) instead of teleporting out of there. I thought I was inspecting my inventory not quaffing - pfft.
Low damage? It took me down to 50 HP (from about 170) with its first assault.
definitely a vortex.
I may have taken a turn to see what the hell it was too actually - it was not visible when it first blasted me - so 1 turn - detect monsters - turn 2 - quaff potion stupidly. Game over.
I killed the horseman ringwraith and Ariel by phase door/bolt from distance - using CCW and restore mana potions to assist. They took a while but didn't blast me with anything particularly threatening. I got nearly a whole experience level of XP from the ring wraith - damn it (12000ish XP). Time vortex worth about 300 XP - what a waste.Comment
-
Yeah it did knock my constitution down a lot - it was a gnomish mage - I think HP is the penalty you pay for all that powerful magic and innate free action.
The ringwraith was a bit of a punt and - thank you
. I didn't let it hit me except once when it managed a life drain - all it's other spells were trying to stop me moving or frighten me which I was all resistance too - I suspect I may have lucked out a bit there. Ariel was actually much tougher to kill, I had to teleport away a couple of times to recover and drink healing potions - I'd clearly run out when the time vortex appeared.
I expect the Witch-king of Angmar - I'm going to take another punt and suggest that is a creature that will exist in this game
- - is likely to be a much tougher prospect.
Comment
-
The first ringwraith, Uvatha, doesn't even have any spells. They get progressively nastier though, and you really don't want to take on most of them without a decent HP pool, even if you can avoid melee.Comment
-
Yeah Uvatha, that was him - could be there weren't spells - they don't stand out in my memory for sure.Comment
-
“We're more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school. Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive. But we can't give you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory. They're all blood, you see.”
― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are DeadComment
-
The unbalanced monsters are a deliberate feature of angband and playing well includes having a decent grasp on which monsters to engage and which ones to avoid. It starts with avoiding things that can kill you, but there are also various monsters that are more annoying than dangerous and give little reward in terms of xp or loot. A lot vortices and hounds fall into this category. Even if you can take them on, it is often not worthwhile.Comment
-
"Unbalanced" monster/item/feature that causes fun is not "unbalanced". Even if it isn't always in obvious way.
That is why I liked Topi Ylinen -era Z, but not the committee-maintained Z. Committee did "balancing" removing the fun part of the "unbalanced" and doing so created a dull game.Comment
Comment