Class/magic feature branch

[Philip]

If you're not going to use devices, your mages are going to be much weaker. That's fine, it's perfectly playable now, and I bet it'll be playable once Nick gets through with his modifications. It'll just be harder. Which is sort of what you're asking for when you are unwilling to use the (second) best skill a class has, both by stats and by the help files. I would compare it to, say, playing a bowless warrior or something like that. Obviously weakens you, and extremely tedious and annoying, I bet, but technically playable.

As we have stated, there are devices for Stone to Mud and for Light. If those are too important and you refuse to use devices, play a Druid or a Priest. You'll only get one, of course, and you forfeit all the other great Mage stuff, but that is working as designed. Similar goes for Haste Self - you are a bit less likely to find a Staff of Speed at the appropriate area, but working without it for a while can't be that bad, and you could always dive a bit.

As you seem to notice in the last paragraph, it seems likely that the class with the most direct damage power from spells will be the necromancer. If you do design a version of it, I am quite certain it will not make it into the game, since Nick presumably already has quite a few ideas in mind, and from your aversion to using devices to supplement character power and the ideas you've outlined here, your version would include, say, more utility spells, or just plain more spells, than the current design philosophy allows.

I do not think there is room in the game for a class that relies exclusively on spells. Assuming that the plan is to give them spells for every occasion, for every possible use of devices (includes Healing and Magi), so that they never feel tempted to use them, the class is going to be overpowered, since each weakness (except some covered by equipment) is covered by a particular device, which means that the class is very short on possible weaknesses. The only one I can think of right now is nonzero % fail. Could be fun, I suppose. There is the final possibility of not worrying about balancing the class, calling them 'Istar', and then making them excellent at all other skills as well, as an introductory class, but I suspect that would just give new players the wrong instincts.

[Tibarius]

why?

I do not think there is room in the game for a class that relies exclusively on spells.

(1) Why is there no room when there are players (at minimum me) who likes playing this way?

I have read no argument yet that explained WHY the new concept is better than the old one, or what goal(s) are explicitely achieved with it.

Right now all that i read is basically: some people around the maintainer Nick including himself think that players should play this way.

(2) Suggestion for Arcane / Necromant Magi:
One of the major drawbacks of spellcaster is the tremendous amount of turns they sit and wait for mana regeneration. That is a vast drawback and most likeyl the 2nd most often death reason besides being hit from 1-hit overdamage nukes like high damage breathes.

Arcane Mages could get something like:
Tap Arcane Sphere .... cost 20 mana, returns 20+4d4 mana
So basically the threshhold is 20 mana which makes it usefull only from mid-game on. with +10 mana in the average it does take a couple of turns to refill the mana supply (which is still deadly) but decreases boring resting times remarkable.

The effect required is already existent and should be implementable by just adjusting the syntax.

For a Necromant it would be more fitting to have something like Bloodmagic.
Transforms 50hps into 25mana for a small starting cost of 2-3 mana. You can't realy use that in emergency situations, while it still would 1/2 (slightly more) the resting times because once casted you regenerate not only sps but also hps which in the end goes doubles as fast as before.

[Ighalli]

(1) Why is there no room when there are players (at minimum me) who likes playing this way?

I have read no argument yet that explained WHY the new concept is better than the old one, or what goal(s) are explicitely achieved with it.

Right now all that i read is basically: some people around the maintainer Nick including himself think that players should play this way.

I think you'll find the argument is laid out in the rest of the paragraph that you quoted the beginning of. Strategy in Angband revolves around choosing your battles (detection, stealth, teleports, depth decisions, etc.), equipment, managing consumable resources, and managing renewable resources (SP, but also charging items, !CCW and other buyable supplies, etc.). I think that making consumable resources redundant by giving spells to cover all of the desired abilities would make the game less fun rather than more.

If you don't like managing consumables, then you may enjoy Tales of Maj'Eyal, which does away with them and replaces them with swappable abilities (such as +1000% mana regeneration speed for a dozen turns) that each have an independent cool down timer.

Borrowing from TOME, does anyone else think that fox form (and presumably the higher forms I havn't personally tested) would be more interesting as a sustained spell? As in, when you cast it, it reduces your maximum mana by the casting cost, and when you end the spell you'd get the empty mana points back? Casting it and then waiting for the mana to come back make using it extremely cheap and basically a non-choice that the druid should always be in animal form while exploring.

I think this could be an interesting mechanic for many other spells. Detect Foo spells could detect the closest N Foos (1+clvl/10, for example), so that Detect Evil would give you a limited form of Evil ESP. Or perhaps they detect the N strongest evil monsters within range. Sense Invisible for the Priests could give See Invisible status as long as the caster commits however many spell points. Protective spells such as Bless and Resist Poison could also function this way. I think deciding to commit spell points this way would allow for some interesting choices about leaving spell points available to cast your combat spells versus being able to keep an eye on distant monsters and so forth.

[Philip]

I am glad to hear that you think necromancers should be able to regain SP somehow - to me it seems like a great way to differentiate them and compensate them for their utility, which I expect to be poor to provide a contrast to mages. Also, necromancers should have some form of SP regeneration because if they're going to do damage with spells, so they need either really cheap spells or SP regen. Eating your hitpoints seems fine (though simply cutting down on resting times seems a bit weak, since you still need to take breaks) but I feel like a late-game spell that eats monster hitpoints and gives mana wouldn't necessarily be too bad either, so long as the necromancer has other weaknesses to compensate. (If monster mana were introduced, it would be fun to give some class a way to hurt that, though it would likely be too powerful).

Mages technically already do have a spell to regain spellpoints, by taking them off of devices (basically making your devices not only a potential extension of mana, but a reservoir). This spell seems to fit quite well with the other spells mages have, to me.

If you frequently die because you sit around waiting for mana regen (this is in fact an extremely good way to die, since stuff spawns and finds you), then perhaps sitting around waiting for mana regen is not a great strategy. I don't want to beat a dead horse here, but devices have perfectly adequate damage/turn, and a stack of rods can kill small fry effectively, while a stack of wands will last long enough that you're not worried about running out of charges so much as HP. With good use of devices, and careful selection of targets, you can remain sufficiently close to full mana even right after a fight.

Now, devices are currently a bit annoying to use, mostly due to the way recharging works. Recharging currently rewards some rather odd behavior, mostly due to how recharging stacks works, but I imagine that will be tweaked at some point.

The reason I do not want a class that exclusively uses spells is that I can't think of a good way to balance it. If you can, then I would like to hear your proposal. If the game is too easy (because you have 0% fail everything) it becomes boring. If the game is too tedious (because you run out of SP the moment you try to kill something and are magically prevented from using bows/devices or whatever) then it also becomes boring. If you keep dying because you have bad hitdice or whatever else is chosen to balance the class, the game is also boring because you never see any of it.

I believe the new concept is better than the old one because it differentiates classes, and adds new ones. If you have 9 classes, each with one or more different playstyles (admittedly, I don't know how much half-casters will be differentiated, but still), you have a lot more variety, and more people are likely to find a class that fits their style of play, than the current system of 6 classes, with a total of about 4 different styles (melee, melee + heal spell, ranged with utility arcane magic, blaster caster).

[Derakon]

(1) Why is there no room when there are players (at minimum me) who likes playing this way?

I have read no argument yet that explained WHY the new concept is better than the old one, or what goal(s) are explicitely achieved with it.

Classes need to have limitations, things they do not do well that impact how they play the game. If they can do everything well, or if everything they're bad at can easily be covered for by something they're good at, then the class does not require difficult decisions, which tend (for most players) to be where the most fun is in the game.

For example, current Vanilla mages are bad at physical damage (melee and archery). They have plenty of attack spells, which are an OK substitute, but they tend to have either poor peak damage, or high mana costs; either way they aren't suitable for use for the entirety of a battle. You have to decide how to make up the damage deficit. Do you try to finish the enemy off in melee? Bring a bow? Use devices? Drink a Potion of Restore Mana? The best answer to this question requires judgement, and that makes the game more interesting. If you could just spam your best attack spell until the enemy fell over, that wouldn't be nearly so interesting.

On the flipside, Vanilla warriors are bad at utility and knowledge in general. In combat, they will presumably just hack away at the enemy until it falls over, but leading up to combat they have a lot of decisions to make! For them, a lot of the interesting decisions are in how to obtain as much knowledge as possible given their limited resources, how to deal with situations with lots of unknowns, and when to spend their consumables.

In short, I would encourage you to think carefully about what your proposed class is bad at, in addition to what they're good at. And make certain that the things they're bad at are actually relevant, without being so terrible that the class becomes unplayable. It can be a tricky balance.

[Nick]

do a druid's shapeshifted melee attacks cause confusion?????

No, not at the moment.

[Sky]

i'm asking because mobs that otherwise would just melee you until they flee, now seem to move sideways, and i'm pretty sure i've seen an orc shoot an arrow into thin air.

[Sky]

ok, i JUST SEEN a colbran shoot a bolt of lightning in the wrong direction.

i have no doubt now that druid's melee cause confusion. factual observation trumps your knowledge of the code.

[Derakon]

Could it be a bug generally with monster ranged attacks? Find another enemy with ranged abilities and don't hit them with transformed melee, and see if they still can't aim.

[Tibarius]

restrictions ...

Classes need to have limitations, things they do not do well that impact how they play the game.

The mage class limitations are:
(1) extreme weak melee combat, that is true for maximum damage because of 'only' 4 attacks, because of low str that prevents early multiple hits and because of low tohit modifiers which make mages miss basically anything
(2) they are limited to their mana, once out of mana they can't use any class power anymore
(3) they are very fragile and are extreme vulnerable to one shot deaths as well as melee damage because of low AC usually

I still state that the latest changes lack game understanding. I can't see how hybrid classes can be made from the magic classes (thief without haste?). I can't see that the classes are suitable for different playing styles, like standard game, ironman, selling option toggled on.

And i still did not read from anyone what the AIM / GOAL of the changes is, besides the very general statement that the magic realms should be more consistent than before.

Nick did a great job with moving game infos into separate files which makes it easier to understand and modify the game. But being a good (excellent) coder does not necessarily mean that you are also a good game designer.

How many playing hours with the mage class got everyone here that is working on the changes?

[Nick]

ok, i JUST SEEN a colbran shoot a bolt of lightning in the wrong direction.

i have no doubt now that druid's melee cause confusion. factual observation trumps your knowledge of the code.

Was it confused? You can tell by its health bar turning brown.

[Sky]

ok, this is really weird and worrying me.

this never-hit-before master rogue just shot in the wrong direction. Also, it's moving erratically. looks like most mobs are just randomly moving to the side and shooting in weird directions. angband-4.1.2-38-g4920786

[Derakon]

Sounds like it's an AI bug then, not a confusion status ailment. The AI may think the player is somewhere that they aren't?

[Sky]

the health bar was not brown. or at least, i dont think so.

also, it comes and goes. you know thieves will go straight for you (and steal and blink), this one tried to move towards me, then next round it moved sideways. then again it tried to go for me, then again sideways.
i've seen weird movement behaviour from otherwise "stupid" monsters that should just get next to you and pound you until you die or until they panic.

[olivertheorem]

And i still did not read from anyone what the AIM / GOAL of the changes is, besides the very general statement that the magic realms should be more consistent than before.

I'm sure someone else will correct me in the details, but if memory serves the aim of these changes is to [in no particular order] (1) introduce formal magic realms to the game, making it easier to add additional realms going forward (and to variants) and (2) take the two generally similar pure casters currently in existence (mage/priest) and make four dissimilar pure casters utilizing one of the four themed realms (arcane/nature/holy/death). I believe Nick said earlier in the thread that there isn't necessarily an intention to make a hybrid caster for each realm just for the sake of having one.

Note: "Dissimilar" above meaning the play styles differ in significant ways, unlike the mage/priest distinction.