Randarts and power

[luneya]

Well the activation for light already has gone with the Phial´s shift downwards. My warriors carry staves/rods of light as a matter of course and rarely find the Phial early enough to be useful for lighting up rooms.

A simple way to keep the Arkenstone´s behaviour in the game while freeing the artifact lights would be to introduce a rod of enlightenment with the level mapping effect. I would like that, but I´m not going to fret if it goes.

Odd. My reaction on finding the Phial is usually something along the lines of "Yay! Now I can dump that staff of light or rod of illumination and free an inventory slot for something better." The only early-to-midgame light that competes with the Phial is Lantern of True Sight, and as warrior I'll often take the Phial over the lantern as long as I have see invis covered elsewhere. Blindness is only an annoyance to non-casters. Besides, unless I'm unusually lucky, the best hat I'll have at that point in the game is a cap of seeing, making the lantern entirely redundant.

I've also been known to keep the Phial over the Star when playing warrior, because lighting up rooms without wasting an inventory slot is just that useful. The Arkenstone may prompt a switch, but by that point, there's no way of generalizing inventory choices even in standart games, just because there are so many possible variations of what you've found; randart games are in principle even more chaotic (though I've only played randart a few times).

[Estie]

Odd. My reaction on finding the Phial is usually something along the lines of "Yay! Now I can dump that staff of light or rod of illumination and free an inventory slot for something better." The only early-to-midgame light that competes with the Phial is Lantern of True Sight, and as warrior I'll often take the Phial over the lantern as long as I have see invis covered elsewhere. Blindness is only an annoyance to non-casters. Besides, unless I'm unusually lucky, the best hat I'll have at that point in the game is a cap of seeing, making the lantern entirely redundant.

I've also been known to keep the Phial over the Star when playing warrior, because lighting up rooms without wasting an inventory slot is just that useful. The Arkenstone may prompt a switch, but by that point, there's no way of generalizing inventory choices even in standart games, just because there are so many possible variations of what you've found; randart games are in principle even more chaotic (though I've only played randart a few times).

I guess its a matter of playing style. In half of my games I find Star or Arkenstone before the Phial, but maybe not everyone leaves early uniques alive for as long as I do.
Yes, for warriors the Phial activation is better than the Star´s mapping, but true sight lanterns are better than either. In randart games, see invisibility is not auto-coverd by midgame.
I always use the Arkenstone when I find it, even if its other properties are useless, because of the activation. By then I have ESP and can do without SI.

[Estie]

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=19882

I finally won on the newest test version. I had little time to play and a couple weird deaths, once in the lategame when I played on a strange computer and fumbled, and more interestingly, one in the early game when the level was crammed with orcs. No special rooms or anything, I just tried to escape forever but always ran into more orcs in every room.

When first I tested lava I was relieved to find that I got a confirmation check before walking into it. Somehow later though that was gone; did I miss anything or is lava just a finger-trap for fast players after all ?
Thankfully, there doesnt seem to be much lava outside of the town level. I am sorry, I still dont like lava.

With artifacts, I havent found anything amiss; there were an awful lot of crummy ones with +1 to something (e.g., +1 to wis and speed on gloves), but I checked and those were based on crummy standarts so that seems fine.
One game cannot be expected to be representative, of course.

Am I right in assuming that the formerly superb vault type with single cells got reduced to a 1-line treasure format ?
I really dont like that change. The fun was always to know when to stop when you got that vault type early; it was often possible to approach from either side and open a few cells, but eventually there would be some 1-shot blocker like Ancalagon, and with 300 hit points the wise thing was to not move past him. Of course, tempting treasures might cause the players to take a risk....

As it is, half the vault needs to be cleared before you see any items, which means you never bother before 600 hit points if at all. I definitely want the old type back.
The most horrible vault - the huge open rectangle with a few pillars on the left and treasures on the right - is still in the game. Thats the vault type I always ignore unless Huan is inside in which case it becomes trivial.

[Sky]

Thats the vault type I always ignore unless Huan is inside in which case it becomes trivial.

??
what is it abut having Huan in a vault that makes it any easier?

[Derakon]

??
what is it abut having Huan in a vault that makes it any easier?

He's a high-level unique monster that can trample other monsters, so he'll singlehandedly clear out most of the vault for you.

And yeah, I apologize for Hellpit. It was originally designed for ZAngband, and is probably still too extreme for that variant.

[Pete Mack]

@Derakon--
This vault type is "Shooting Gallery". It's been in V since forever. I will occasionally clear it as a priest caster, or if Huan/Horned Reaper is in there, or if there's a monster with SHATTER. It's the one place where the priest spell "Earthquake" actually helps, as it breaks up LOS just the right amount. Create Doors kinda works too.

[Nick]

Am I right in assuming that the formerly superb vault type with single cells got reduced to a 1-line treasure format ?

No vaults have been removed, but many new ones have been introduced. You probably saw a new one which was similar to an existing one.

[Derakon]

@Derakon--
This vault type is "Shooting Gallery". It's been in V since forever. I will occasionally clear it as a priest caster, or if Huan/Horned Reaper is in there, or if there's a monster with SHATTER. It's the one place where the priest spell "Earthquake" actually helps, as it breaks up LOS just the right amount. Create Doors kinda works too.

I don't see any vaults named "shooting gallery" in Vanilla. But there is a vault that's shaped like a gigantic pit, completely open except for scattered columns on the left side, sets of 3-wide columns in the middle, and two lines of doors on the right.

I made that vault. And I sincerely apologize for it. In my defense this was like 15 years ago.

[PowerWyrm]

No vaults have been removed, but many new ones have been introduced. You probably saw a new one which was similar to an existing one.

He means the GCV. Before 3.x, all spots were marked "8", now it's only the case for half of them.

[PowerWyrm]

Am I right in assuming that the formerly superb vault type with single cells got reduced to a 1-line treasure format ?

Nope, half of the cells still have superb treasures. See the "Huge" vaults in vault.txt.

[Estie]

I suppose I got a similar vault. I never got the original, and the new one 3 times, which made me think it might have been a replacement.

It looks exactly like the S version of the snaking 1-cell GV with the connected middle bar, except the upper and lower row are removed, and treasure is only in the middle bar.

[Werbaer]

He means the GCV. Before 3.x, all spots were marked "8", now it's only the case for half of them.

Always (at least since 2.7.9v6), only half of the cells in the original "Huge" vault were '8'. The other half only had a '&' for a slightly out of depth monster and no treasure.

In 2.9.1, many new vaults were added. Since this reduces the chance to encounter a GCV, another similar vault "Huge (modified)" was added, which had an "8" in every cell (and a spiraling path instead of a serpentine).

And that "modified" copy was tuned back somewhere between 3.0.5 and 3.5, so that it's now like the original with a treasure only in every second room.

[Estie]

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=19910

I played a bit more with the nightly, in particular I wanted to clear all the different vault types at least once. I am not sure if I caught all.
The city layouts are fun, but really make me miss door detection. Not knowing which path a monster will take after waking up is scary. The old vaults I know by heart, I guess I will learn the new ones if they stay in the game.
The brown rubble is interesting - I noticed you cant teleport away monsters standing in it. Does this apply to @, too ? I didnt get a chance to try.

Sorry, I still dont like lava. I forced myself to explore lava rooms after I landed a fire immunity weapon, but I found nothing of interest. And no, thinking of it as runoff from a smithy doesnt make more sense.

It seems that the question is no longer "is there a vault on this level ?", but rather "how many vaults are there on this level ?"
Between caves, special rooms with and without lava, old and new vault types, down at 90+ the game looks nothing like it used to. I kind of miss the old room layout.

As for artifacts:

There are an awful lot of them with +1 to this, +2 to that and +1 to the other. It feels a bit like putting on a uniform "layer of power" when you get an upgrade. I would like it better if it was fewer modifiers, but higher pvals that actually matter, so that decisions become relevant.

There is no weapon better than my ego MoD +2 attacks; the only one in the same league is Bladeturner turned blade. A warrior might or might not prefer it over an extra attack MoD, but a 4 blows caster (who melees) will take the MoD.

the Executioner's Sword 'Elcalcale' (8d5) (+23,+29) [+26] <+1, +3, +2>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
+1 strength.
+3 intelligence.
+2 wisdom.
+2 dexterity.
+1 speed.
+2 light.
Slays dragons (powerfully), demons (powerfully), undead (powerfully), evil
creatures, animals, orcs, giants, trolls.
Branded with acid.
Provides resistance to fire, frost, poison gas, dark, shards, chaos,
disenchantment.
Provides protection from fear.
Cannot be harmed by acid.
Sustains intelligence.
Blessed by the gods. Prevents paralysis. Sustains your life force. Grants
the ability to see invisible things.
Radius 2 light.


Min Level 100, Max Level 127, Generation chance 1, Power 777, 26.0 lbs
Based on Bladeturner.

Edit: For the record, I found 3 PDSMs, 2 dwarven and 1 basic. Though this game lasted longer, thats still many PDSMs.

[Nick]

I played a bit more with the nightly, in particular I wanted to clear all the different vault types at least once. I am not sure if I caught all.

Thanks - I'll take all that into consideration.