Returning Player's initial thoughts on 4.1

[tprice]

I'm a cyclic player of Angband since the mid 90's (and pc Moria before that). I'll play it a bunch for a few months then fall away for a couple of years then return. I was last playing in the early 4.0.x series and had poked at the forums a few times as the changes for 4.1 were discussed. late last week I got the jonesing for Angband again and poked at the forums to see how progress had gone and was happy to see 4.1 had come out a while ago.

I decided to dive into things with an "uncomplicated" character and rolled up a Half-Troll Warrior for my first play though over the weekend. http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=21172

I think the RNG was liking me. a HA Whip within the 1st 5 DLevels, and a Rod of Treasure Location before DL10 made the early game easier than expected. A few Deep Descents dropped me quickly and then I got lucky with Lotharang and Thranduil on DL30 which carried me for a good while until i found the Trident of Wrath on DL48! I'm now dropping toward the end game and looking for something to swap in for pConf without loosing something else important. I am having to get used to TO things though after being able to just power through things for so long :-)

I wasn't sure if I was going to like RuneID really but found it is working well even for the dumb warrior like ThogII. Carrying around random weapons and armor to swap in for fights to figure out unknown runes was fun for a while but once you figure out the runes you can quickly sort out the junk and keep from clogging up your inventory to much.

The new traps are interesting but not to much of a problem for a high HP warrior though i lost one bigger vault to a trap door he missed seeing...

Thomas Price
aka The Bookworm

[tprice]

OK, who came up with the weird shaped room full of lava tiles and U's!?!?! My ESP showed at least a dozen Greater Balrogs in there along with who knows what else...

I was already running from 3 unique i couldn't face all at once and then teleported into the edge of that Hell! Another emergency teleport and then a WoR while I kept running! ThogII made it back to town though and even managed to pick up a !*healing* just before he recalled :-)

Things have gotten Exciting as he gets deeper!

Thomas

[Pete Mack]

Those rooms are bad news. Monsters in them are awake, and there's no progression from weak to strong like there is in a demon pit, so there's a higher fraction of high level demons.

[Mondkalb]

OK, who came up with the weird shaped room full of lava tiles and U's!?!?! My ESP showed at least a dozen Greater Balrogs in there along with who knows what else...

I'm pretty sure it was Nick. In FAangband there are things like that.

[tprice]

I'm pretty sure it was Nick. In FAangband there are things like that.

When I first saw it on the map via Arkenstone I thought it looked interesting. "Oh a new room type using the lava tiles! I bet it has fire elemental, dragons, etc Cool!" Then I teleported near enough for ESP to give me the bad news...

Nick, you are an evil evil genius

Thomas

[Pete Mack]

Ah. But not all of those rooms have demons. Some have humans instead--like GMMs and sorceresses. Others have Giants. And Everyone likes high level Giants...

[Gwarl]

I'm pretty sure it was Nick. In FAangband there are things like that.

I can't help but point out that many of the rooms that you recognise from FA which have made it into V were already present in O.

[Mondkalb]

I can't help but point out that many of the rooms that you recognise from FA which have made it into V were already present in O.

Oh, well, but it was probablay still Nick who ported them to Vanilla. ^^

[Nick]

Oh, well, but it was probablay still Nick who ported them to Vanilla. ^^

One of the first things I did as V maintainer was to make sure the vault code, the room template code and the FA/O vault code all played nicely with each other.

[HallucinationMushroom]

I don't see what's so wrong with a vault full of mushrooms, personally.

[Nick]

I don't see what's so wrong with a vault full of mushrooms, personally.

Seems appropriate for an abandoned variant

[tprice]

Well DL78 was good to ThogII. RoS+9 and Narya bumped up his speed a good bit and allowed a swap to Celebrimbor since he didnt need Thranduil for Telepathy. Combined with the Gloves of Thievery that got my dex high enough for more blows. I just realized it also means i can dump the ?Recall and use the Rods instead to save weight since i can't get stolen from now.

My "sheet" damage per round went down a bit loosing the Ring of Dam+13 and Gauntlets of Combat (i had missed the Aggravate on them) but I think the extra actions and blows is probably a net gain.

I also just did a bunch of house cleaning dumping rods i will never use along with some ammo not worth saving.

Time to keep moving down picking up what looks interesting.

Thomas Price
aka The Bookworm

[tprice]

PS, I updated the ladder entry for ThogII

[PowerWyrm]

Gloves of Combat need to be improved. I'm sure you'll get Cambeleg, Fingolfin, or any randart gloves with melee bonuses before you find a pair of them. Having aggravation for a couple CON points isn't worth it at all, unless you're doing an artifactless monk challenge.

[Sky]

Depends, i found some Combat (+10,+11) [+2] which are better than Fingolfin, as DEX is easier to max.
If you really want to upgrade them, add A:berserk, although this makes them stronger than the artifacts ..