"Best" versions of Vanilla Angband?

[Nick]

Max depth of objects and ego types

What do you mean by this - the fact that they have a max depth at all, or the specific values?

increased pvals for certain artifacts (e.g. speed +5 Rings of Power.)

I'd be fine with nerfing the RoP speeds a bit - 2,3,4, maybe?

What other artifacts have been overpowered?

ego dragon armor

My understanding is that these were introduced to try and make DSMs a bit more usable. Looking at them, I would say that Resistance, Elvenkind and Speed are the only ones that look as if they might be overpowered, and they are pretty rare. How much of a problem is this?

stacks of utility potions/scrolls

Which ones here - !CCW, maybe? I do think that the greater access to healing for all classes has kind of made the game easier (or put another way, is a relative nerf to Priests).

I'd appreciate everyone's thoughts on this - apologies to the OP for kind of hijacking the thread

[Nick]

speaking of nightlies, what happened to the (s)earch command?


is there a changelog for the nightlies, or are you supposed to figure it out?

Search is no longer needed, because all traps and secret doors are noticed on walking next to them. No changelog, I'm afraid, aside from the commit list on Github.

[Derakon]

I'd be fine with nerfing the RoP speeds a bit - 2,3,4, maybe?

Why do they need speed at all? In fact I'd say that the relatively recent addition of speed to several items (and additional items that have speed, e.g. Trickery) is a lot of the source of easiness in the game. Adding speed to lots of items reduces a lot of equipment pressure. It does smooth out the difficulty curve considerably...but perhaps there's something to be said for a jagged difficulty curve.

Which ones here - !CCW, maybe? I do think that the greater access to healing for all classes has kind of made the game easier (or put another way, is a relative nerf to Priests).

Being able to spam CCW in most situations does make the game a lot easier, though this change mostly affects ironman characters. *shrug*

[Pete Mack]

Originally, Rings of Power had +1,+2,+3 speed corresponding to the pval for stats. This meant it wasn't feasible to wear two unless you had a big speed artifact (Ringil, Cubragol, Feanor.)

I don't recall if there are others that got a boost, except Carlammas--again, unnecessary.

What do you mean by this - the fact that they have a max depth at all, or the specific values?

I'd be fine with nerfing the RoP speeds a bit - 2,3,4, maybe?

What other artifacts have been overpowered?

The really overpowered ones are Dwarves and Speed. +2 CON/STR and a few high resists make it a no-brainer. Add that to PDSM or BaDSM, and you have something better than most any artifact armor in the game. Together with the big ego weapons being easy to find, they make artifactless play just about as easy as with artifacts.
I'd say keep stealth and craftsmanship, Nerf speed to +3 max, and maybe keep resistance.

My understanding is that these were introduced to try and make DSMs a bit more usable. Looking at them, I would say that Resistance, Elvenkind and Speed are the only ones that look as if they might be overpowered, and they are pretty rare. How much of a problem is this?

!CCW yes, in particular. But early in the game, same with !CSW and even !CLW at the start. Also ?Phase in ironman play. On further thought, this really only affects ironman, because in 3.0 I regularly bought out the alchemist to get !CCW when I was short on healing. It's now impossible to do.

Which ones here - !CCW, maybe? I do think that the greater access to healing for all classes has kind of made the game easier (or put another way, is a relative nerf to Priests).

I'd appreciate everyone's thoughts on this - apologies to the OP for kind of hijacking the thread

I thought of one more: Charisma. It only really mattered early in the game, but stingy shopkeepers made _Teleport and even really basic consumables a much more problematic purchase. Now you can afford a whole lot more. Make the prices dependent on max dungeon level as a proxy, perhaps.

[takkaria]

I thought of one more: Charisma. It only really mattered early in the game, but stingy shopkeepers made _Teleport and even really basic consumables a much more problematic purchase. Now you can afford a whole lot more. Make the prices dependent on max dungeon level as a proxy, perhaps.

I submitted this pull request for 4.1 which tweaks average gold supply downwards by 20% compared to 3.4, to more or less counter the effect of CHR disappearing. (In 3.5 it was only a 10% decrease vs previous versions, which didn't make up for the reduction in prices.) Obviously this doesn't affect starting gold, but should make things a bit harder after that even compared to pre-3.5 versions, since the effect doesn't go away with increasing player power.

[unic]

4.05 Nightlies

Is there a big difference between the nightlies and the released version of 4.05?

3.a (Powerdiver version of 3.0)

I'm not familiar with this one, where can I find out more information?

If you want to see the (many) changes from 3.0.9 to 3.5.1 go to the releases page at rephial - each release page has a description of the changes.

Yeah, I did have a quick look through the change logs, but that was a lot of information and hard to get an overview of what was minor changes and what was more significant.

... or ToME 2.3.5. That is to say the version before I, personally, completely ruined it.

Oh, I didn't know there was later ToME 2 versions than .3.5? Again, where can I find more information? (And windows binaries? I don't think I'd feel confident compiling my own.) Vanilla, Tome 2, (s)Cth and NPP are probably the variants I've sunk the most time into.

I'd appreciate everyone's thoughts on this - apologies to the OP for kind of hijacking the thread

No problem - I pretty much got my answer in the first few posts anyhow (2.8.3, 3.0, latest, maybe 3.0.a).

[Sky]

i'm playing the last nightly and its completely different. cursed items are back, but, you can easily unwield them.

speaking of which, are items of identify supposed to not spawn? i've been scumming the town for staves / scrolls of identify, and there's none in 20+ scums.
they were there when i started the character, but none have shown since.

Also, not sure why, but scrolls of identify do not work on wands, staves, etc. they only identify weapons.

the black market is now happy to spawn 12+ of items such as *heal, acquire, !dex, banish, etc each refresh.

[PowerDiver]

Regarding 3.a, it's just what I play personally, released in hopes stuff in it would at least spark a discussion of ideas people could actually see fully implemented.

I detest many of the changes that have been made since 3.0. I called 3.1 "unplayable" when it came out. I gave up trying to influence things around 3.3, and just left and played by myself. 3.a is the culmination of years of adding changes when I felt like it, with no real plan. Much of it was done while my wife was dying of cancer, and I didn't put much effort into worrying how other people would find it.

I designed it to keep as close to 3.0 sensibilities as possible, aiming at automating the annoying things about playing an ironman warrior. I also eliminated everything abusable I could. I made changes that truly differentiated the classes.

The biggest deal is symmetric LOS, which nobody who has commented on it has even mentioned. For people who didn't play ironman games using classes without identify spell, the biggest gameplay difference is forced id-by-use of consumables. There are easiness options I added late that don't fully work that should help mitigate your annoyance a bit if you need them.

I'm not familiar with this one, where can I find out more information?

Look at http://angband.oook.cz/forum/search....archid=2204018

The threads with 3.a and "What Eddie Plays" have most of what I have written about it. You should also look at comp 198 stuff.

[Nick]

speaking of which, are items of identify supposed to not spawn? i've been scumming the town for staves / scrolls of identify, and there's none in 20+ scums.
they were there when i started the character, but none have shown since.

Also, not sure why, but scrolls of identify do not work on wands, staves, etc. they only identify weapons.

ID is completely different in the nightlies. We have adopted "rune-based" ID, which basically means that once you know an object "rune" (a property like free action, or + to stealth, or resist fire, or slay demon, or whatever) you always recognise it.

Runes can be learned either by noticing it on your gear, or by reading a ?Identify (there are no staves any more) which will give you one new rune.

Consumables must be ID'd by use. All scrolls and potions and most devices are ID'd on a single use; the only exceptions are devices which act directly on monsters (Sleep Monster, etc), which are ID'd when used on a monster.

[Sky]

but, is it normal that ?identify does not spawn in the market? because i'm pretty sure i saw some when i started, but now can't find any, and i've scummed enough to know this is a fact.

[Nick]

but, is it normal that ?identify does not spawn in the market? because i'm pretty sure i saw some when i started, but now can't find any, and i've scummed enough to know this is a fact.

It doesn't appear in the Alchemy Shop or the Temple; like anything else, it can appear in the Black Market.

[Sky]

i *really* hope there's no potion of ruination anymore, since now potions are id by use only ...

[Derakon]

i *really* hope there's no potion of ruination anymore, since now potions are id by use only ...

Ruination, Detonations, and Death were all removed quite some time ago, specifically because they made it lethally foolhardy to drink un-ID'd potions.

[Carnivean]

Is there a big difference between the nightlies and the released version of 4.05?

The others all got answered, but not this one. 4.05 is a bugfix version of 4.0, which itself is a code only change to 3.5.1. No gameplay changes was the plan for 4.0, though a few minor ones made it in by 4.05. So 3.5 > 4.05 should be basically the same game.

The 4.05 nightlies are a test bed for features that Nick is planning for 4.1, such as Rune ID (where you learn a rune once, then any other items with that rune you can see without IDing more), conic breath attacks, and a reworking of traps and searching. They're basically stable at this point, though check the forums for bug threads.

[Sky]

i gotta say, i love the new dungeon design. i barely escaped alive, all my gear gone, from recalling down and finding myself in the middle of the huge-ass cave thing, with mobs awakening left and right and no charges in the staff of teleport.