Balance and pacing (long)

[Grotug]

Literally the only fun thing in Angband is finding cool stuff. [snip]

Which is why it's really important to not have too many artifacts and {egos} drop. Someone else said you shouldn't be able to have all slots filled with a good artifact until the endgame. All my games in 4.0.5 have found good artifacts for each slot before DL70.

EDIT: Rather than reduce the number of levels in the game, what if there was a birth option to set > down stairs take you 3 levels deeper and < up stairs one or two levels higher?

[debo]

EDIT: Rather than reduce the number of levels in the game, what if there was a birth option to set > down stairs take you 3 levels deeper and < up stairs one or two levels higher?

Halls of Mist does something similar, and I like it.

Re: artefacts drop rates -- go play oangband and tell me how long you were able to stay awake. As long as things aren't quite as dull as that, I think we're in business.

[Pete Mack]

That's why I like to play rogues.

Mage is surprisingly good at sneaking around too. Even without ESP. But I agree: rogue is the best for it. Nothing beats full detection and ridiculous stealth for sneaking around. But 0-fail Tele Other is pretty good too.

[fizzix]

You can always try to avoid the Zs. In addition, staves of destruction litter the dungeon.

These are definitely not common now. You're unlikely to get one by dlevel 60 with average gameplay.

And for the rest of your post, orcs are/were a problem, as were giant groups of trolls and any other monster that spawned in groups of 25-30 and forced you to wade through them.

One of the changes I implemented was to reduce group sizes overall, and instead create smaller and varied groups, and bump up the number of total monsters to compensate. So you don't see 25 gallants on dlevel 8, but you might see 3 gallants, 2 acolytes and an apprentice. Most giants come in packs of 2 or 3 and have with them hounds of the appropriate type. You probably hate this change.

I have no problems with item destruction. It's certainly necessary right now.

[Will]

I read this thread with a healthy dose of irony as my clvl 27 dlvl 29 mage has only found one Defender and one armor of Resistance as "major drops" so far. And that includes killing Smeagol, Bullroarer, maybe Wormtongue (can't remember) and all of the orc uniques. A scroll of Acquirement that he was really excited to read yielded a weapon of Slay Animal. And because the RNG truly hates that guy, he's found only one book: Ethereal Openings.

Thank god for the black market and its ring of intelligence (+5) and (+2) and the armor shop with a helm of Intelligence (+2). Otherwise I might already have died of boredom.

[Nick]

Rather than reduce the number of levels in the game, what if there was a birth option to set > down stairs take you 3 levels deeper and < up stairs one or two levels higher?

Go to lib/gamedata/constants.txt and change the stair-skip value, and stairs will take you that number of levels. That was introduced by fizzix in 4.0.3.

This is a special case which illustrates my philosophy on balance (short, slightly OT rant to follow). The game is never going to be balanced for everyone. My aim is

• have the default options at a point where some will say the game's too hard and some will say it's too easy;
• have sufficient race/class variability that that amounts to more difficulty options;
• have a set of birth options for further choice of difficulty level;
• make many other aspects easily modifiable for those that want to.

Angband is a single player game for adults. I'm not going to tell you how you should play.

And Eddie - I don't think you've lost your mind, you seem exactly as I remember you

[Grotug]

Go to lib/gamedata/constants.txt and change the stair-skip value, and stairs will take you that number of levels. That was introduced by fizzix in 4.0.3.

I am playing on a Mac (Yosemite) and when I try to edit this file I get a message that it is read only. Any way to get around this? Because it's a mac, the file is located in the program's 'package contents'. (right click -> show package contents).

[Derakon]

I am playing on a Mac (Yosemite) and when I try to edit this file I get a message that it is read only. Any way to get around this? Because it's a mac, the file is located in the program's 'package contents'. (right click -> show package contents).

It's probably read-only because you installed it in /Applications or a similar "global" space that your user doesn't normally have permissions to access. Try copying Angband.app to your desktop and then editing the file.

[Grotug]

It's probably read-only because you installed it in /Applications or a similar "global" space that your user doesn't normally have permissions to access. Try copying Angband.app to your desktop and then editing the file.

Yes, I just figured this out after posting. Thanks!

[Nick]

I am playing on a Mac (Yosemite) and when I try to edit this file I get a message that it is read only. Any way to get around this? Because it's a mac, the file is located in the program's 'package contents'. (right click -> show package contents).

There is actually another option if you don't want to change the standard file. If you make a copy of the file, edit it and put it in your Documents/Angband directory, it will use that one instead - that works for any of the lib/gamedata files. On Windows that's the lib/user directory, and on Linux it's .angband/Angband.

[Grotug]

I just edited the original file. No biggie. Is there a way for me to edit the starting gold? Taking the stairs down from the town has me starting on DL3.

EDIT: You have no more potions of Sleep. Agent of Saruman does something. You die.

[Nick]

I just edited the original file. No biggie. Is there a way for me to edit the starting gold? Taking the stairs down from the town has me starting on DL3.

Same file, start-gold

[Grotug]

Thanks! I went with 900 instead of 600.

[Pete Mack]

Cool. Sounds like quicksand.

I just edited the original file. No biggie. Is there a way for me to edit the starting gold? Taking the stairs down from the town has me starting on DL3.

EDIT: You have no more potions of Sleep. Agent of Saruman does something. You die.

[Grotug]

I'm on DL39 and 22,500 turns. Still alive, but this death knight will give me problems. I had a chance to TO him, but I only have 4 charges left. Trying to think of some way I can kill him. I suppose I could use a potion of speed. I could also take those up stairs that are a few tiles away from me..

!Speed it is. DK ended up being surprisingly easy. Then Greater Maia shows up and concentrates on its body; now it's really moving fast! Oop, there appears a big blue D. TO'd the Maia, struggled with the Ancient Blue Dragon but defeated him. Didn't find anything good in the area of two special rooms (feeling 5). Oh well, time to leave. But let me just see if I can get away with exploring the hallways nearby before I ?Recall. Cleared one of the piles of rubble that kept the special rooms secure from returning TO targets. (I used _Tele to enter the special rooms to escape a red h [native to DL41] earlier). Doors bashing open. Read ?Recall. Greater Maia casts a bolt of fire from afar, your staff of mapping burns up! Ring of escaping only helps a little. Back in the special rooms. ?Phase and run until yanked upwards.

It's interesting playing this way. Part of why I did this is because I have a tendency to explore completely every level I play; and by the time I reach DL60s I'm becoming bored of searching for good gear because I've been sifting through every pile of junk and every room of every level. Well now that I am diving so fast, I don't have that luxury and I have no attachment to the levels as I did before. It's much more exciting and doesn't feel as punishing if something goes bad since it's a shorter game.