High element reform

[Estie]

I'm not really convinced we want to be moving towards a greater density of "it breathes, you die" monsters. Especially when we still haven't figured out a good way to warn the player about them. Telling them to cheat monster memory and then expecting them to carefully read the monster memory for every new monster is not a solution, just a patch job. I bet that if my first half-dozen characters to make it to 3000' had all gotten one-shotted, each by a different kind of monster, the lesson I would have learned is "Angband is stupid, with way too many powerful monsters, I quit", not "I need to avoid these monsters until I have the gear that lets me fight them."

Hmmm while I am still undecided about this, the argument you bring doesnt seem valid. I dont think anything changes at 3000 ft, the time when there is a notable change in gameplay is when people have achieved ~700 hit points. It wouldnt increase the number of one hitters so much as extend the period of them being one hitters.

[Raccoon]

Indeed. I want Angband to move more toward death, over a certain number of rounds, due to the player being unprepared to handle the circumstances, rather than just high damage numbers that will lead to more one-shot-kills. There's already enough of them and adding more would just turn me off to ever playing again.

There's a few conditions that are already known for making instant escapes impossible or at least difficult, such as confusion, hallucination, blindness. I say come up with more status effects that limit your tactical options and increase the risk of a slow death, rather than just raising the threshold of "It breathes. -more- You die."

[Estie]

Indeed. I want Angband to move more toward death, over a certain number of rounds, due to the player being unprepared to handle the circumstances, rather than just high damage numbers that will lead to more one-shot-kills. There's already enough of them and adding more would just turn me off to ever playing again.

There's a few conditions that are already known for making instant escapes impossible or at least difficult, such as confusion, hallucination, blindness. I say come up with more status effects that limit your tactical options and increase the risk of a slow death, rather than just raising the threshold of "It breathes. -more- You die."

Ummm no thanks. I prefer "it breathes - you die" over "you are confused(x5) - you die" any day. Taking control away from player for long periods of time doesnt make for good gameplay imo. Confusion as threat to be avoided - yes; as status you have to endure a lot - please no.

[Derakon]

Ummm no thanks. I prefer "it breathes - you die" over "you are confused(x5) - you die" any day. Taking control away from player for long periods of time doesnt make for good gameplay imo. Confusion as threat to be avoided - yes; as status you have to endure a lot - please no.

While I agree with this, on the grounds that confusion takes too much control over the player to be really meaningful (really, the only operations you can perform are a) move at random, and b) drink a potion?), the overall thesis that death ought to be the consequence of a gradually worsening scenario rather than a single unlucky event is one that I'd like to see explored more. It's just very hard to get from where we are right now to a game like that, because so much of the game is balanced around monsters [potentially] slinging huge amounts of damage around. We'd have to change so much that the resulting game would probably not play very much like Angband does now.

[Estie]

Yes I said confusion and meant more generally "disabling status effect", as Raccoon suggested. A monster casting confusion 1 in 10 is no problem at all; when the Nightmare manages to hit you, you better have a staff of teleportation handy. Making staves of teleportation rare enough so you dont normally have one while leaving Nightmares around would go in the direction I dont like.