What Eddie Plays

[Estie]

Angband has always had an issue of being too long: the original devs decided "let's just double the number of levels there are in Moria!" but they failed to come up with enough meaningful content to fill those levels.

They probably thought 50 levels was too easy.

[Derakon]

Is there not a contradiction between wanting to teach the player not to hang around at the same depth too long and also having an infinite number of levels of that depth that you can play?

Force descent is supposed to be very difficult and I'm sure that some people could beat it even with just 50 levels. The game is too easy at the moment.

Forced descent is and always has been the weaker of the two components of ironman; being cut off from town (and particularly from your home) is the stronger component. I'm not saying that forced descent is meant to be easy necessarily, but I'm sure that when people were winning ironman games back in the 2.9x days they felt the loss of town more acutely than the shortage of dungeon levels.

Angband has always had an issue of being too long: the original devs decided "let's just double the number of levels there are in Moria!" but they failed to come up with enough meaningful content to fill those levels.

[TJS]

Putting quotes around half the words in your post serves more to disparage your point than your opponent's.



Infinite non-persistent levels have the advantage of being infinite and non-persistent. What do I mean by this blatantly obvious statement?

You get to choose the levels you play, Angband gives you that power, and that is really cool in its own way. Angband primarily fails here because sometimes the level you want to play is 10 levels deeper than the level you are on, and unless you are stashing ?Deep Descent or can cast Stair Creation, getting down there is a pain.

If you want to play a roguelike game where more levels are interesting, Brogue and Infra Arcana do this excellently. Limiting Angband to 127 persistent floors per character is making it into pseudo-IronmanBand and doesn't solve any of the issues you have with it. You can still get a bunch of uninteresting floors, you're just more likely to have to play them.
Making Angband a 50 non-persistent floor game is a much more approachable topic though. I wouldn't be adverse to trying that out. But I could also see how it would heavily disrupt the balance of force_descent (by which I mean probably destroy it).

Is there not a contradiction between wanting to teach the player not to hang around at the same depth too long and also having an infinite number of levels of that depth that you can play?

Force descent is supposed to be very difficult and I'm sure that some people could beat it even with just 50 levels. The game is too easy at the moment.

[AnonymousHero]

Putting quotes around half the words in your post serves more to disparage your point than your opponent's.

They weren't actually meant to convey sarcasm, merely to clearly distinguish them. Guess I should have used something else .

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Making Angband a 50 non-persistent floor game is a much more approachable topic though. I wouldn't be adverse to trying that out. But I could also see how it would heavily disrupt the balance of force_descent (by which I mean probably destroy it).

Check out Comp 181, won by PowerWyrm. An experiment with a reduced size game - with forced descent, 50 dungeon levels, and smaller dungeon dimensions, view range, and missile ranges.

[nikheizen]

Please don't play the "not-a-roguelike" card again. The "definition" is highly contentious (at best) and IMO... almost entirely vacuous unless you're going for really generic elements like "random monsters", "random fights", "random maps", "permadeath". Games exist for pleasure, fun, challenge, etc. but not to fit some definition of "Genre-X". If you're missing "challenge" (as I suspect you are), you say so instead of "not roguelike".

Putting quotes around half the words in your post serves more to disparage your point than your opponent's.

Well I could agree with that, but surely there is a better way than packing half the levels with annoying monsters. Maybe make those levels that are currently best off skipped interesting in their own way. Or we could reduce the number of levels to say 50 and only have one each level generated once.

I just have trouble with the idea that the game has boring levels and so the solution is to fill them with even more boring monsters to tell the player not to play them.

Infinite non-persistent levels have the advantage of being infinite and non-persistent. What do I mean by this blatantly obvious statement?

You get to choose the levels you play, Angband gives you that power, and that is really cool in its own way. Angband primarily fails here because sometimes the level you want to play is 10 levels deeper than the level you are on, and unless you are stashing ?Deep Descent or can cast Stair Creation, getting down there is a pain.

If you want to play a roguelike game where more levels are interesting, Brogue and Infra Arcana do this excellently. Limiting Angband to 127 persistent floors per character is making it into pseudo-IronmanBand and doesn't solve any of the issues you have with it. You can still get a bunch of uninteresting floors, you're just more likely to have to play them.
Making Angband a 50 non-persistent floor game is a much more approachable topic though. I wouldn't be adverse to trying that out. But I could also see how it would heavily disrupt the balance of force_descent (by which I mean probably destroy it).

[TJS]

Running around deep when instakill lurks at every corner (and every straightaway too) IS exciting.

Well I could agree with that, but surely there is a better way than packing half the levels with annoying monsters. Maybe make those levels that are currently best off skipped interesting in their own way. Or we could reduce the number of levels to say 50 and only have one each level generated once.

I just have trouble with the idea that the game has boring levels and so the solution is to fill them with even more boring monsters to tell the player not to play them.

[Pete Mack]

I would kinda hoping to have some fun on the way to the final battles.

Running around deep when instakill lurks at every corner (and every straightaway too) IS exciting.

[Estie]

In all seriousness, the way I'd implement "achievements" is just a notice board in town that you could check if you so chose. It could also be displayed as a dump option on character death, and something you could check on the info screen (where you can see the other town stuff).

That would be, of course, perfectly acceptable. However, it would be the first game that I know of to not shove achievements up your a***. You know, psychology: if they can be avoided, maybe players actually ignore them.

[AnonymousHero]

TJS:
It depends on how you play the game. The only challenges you need face are Sauron and Morgoth. Anything else is either a risk, a distraction or an opportunity.

If you approach the game only from a win-or-bust ideology. I can assure you these games can be enjoyed in many other ways.

The more the game diverges from that, the less it feels like a roguelike

Please don't play the "not-a-roguelike" card again. The "definition" is highly contentious (at best) and IMO... almost entirely vacuous unless you're going for really generic elements like "random monsters", "random fights", "random maps", "permadeath". Games exist for pleasure, fun, challenge, etc. but not to fit some definition of "Genre-X". If you're missing "challenge" (as I suspect you are), you say so instead of "not roguelike".

[debo]

Giant hound packs do a great job of teaching players to leave the level; unfortunately they do this by convincing them to leave the game and move onto one that is not quite so silly.

[TJS]

TJS:
It depends on how you play the game. The only challenges you need face are Sauron and Morgoth. Anything else is either a risk, a distraction or an opportunity. The more the game diverges from that, the less it feels like a roguelike

I would kinda hoping to have some fun on the way to the final battles.

[Mudd]

I believe what you're looking for is the Berlin Interpretation.

(the whole "what is a roguelike" discussion is basically a can of worms the size of New Jersey)

Don't I know it!

In my mind the only thing that matters is the players enjoyment!

Are we having fun yet?

[Derakon]

I guess what I am saying is I don't think RL's can be pigeonholed into any particular style. Very few rules are universal. Permadeath might even be debateable....but I think I'd agree with that one<grin>. I used to think random non permanent levels was a defining characteristic...but there are examples that go against this(ADOM).

I believe what you're looking for is the Berlin Interpretation.

(the whole "what is a roguelike" discussion is basically a can of worms the size of New Jersey)

[Mudd]

TJS:
It depends on how you play the game. The only challenges you need face are Sauron and Morgoth. Anything else is either a risk, a distraction or an opportunity. The more the game diverges from that, the less it feels like a roguelike

Interesting. I would change that to say the less it feels like THIS roguelike.

Other classic RL's seem to actually encourage the distractions. I'm thinking Nethack here. I'll never forget being chased around a level by a bunch of Keystone cops back in the day.

Both have their pluses and minuses but I don't think you can pigeonhole RL's this way.

I've often thought of Angband and Moria as more of a wargaming style of RL, whereas Nethack feels like more of a roleplaying style.

And then there's Dwarf Fortress, which from what I can tell is more of a civ sim.

I guess what I am saying is I don't think RL's can be pigeonholed into any particular style. Very few rules are universal. Permadeath might even be debateable....but I think I'd agree with that one<grin>. I used to think random non permanent levels was a defining characteristic...but there are examples that go against this(ADOM).

I actually prefer a game that can be played many different ways...with no preordained "best" solution.

Don't crucify me...I know I'm new and opinions are probably deep seated around here!