Class/magic feature branch

[Nick]

Iow don't bother; confuse is similarly useless

Man, you're going to hate druids

[Gwarl]

Conversely if they rely on slow and confuse I'd probably love them if we got old slow and confuse back.

I feel like we listened to everyone who didn't like using status effects for that change. Slow and confuse are my bread and butter.

Sorry I have nothing to contribute other than griping over that change (if it was reverted who would miss it?), I haven't been able to enjoy a game of vanilla since it went in.

[Estie]

Nick obviously has ideas and I was going to wait for them to show up before commenting, but since other people didnt wait, here are a few thoughts of mine:

The new mage, as of its first version, is a challenge compared to the old one or indeed any other class. He gets banishment later just like the old mage, but there is another option. He could get big spell damage instead - numbers comparable to ranger, just from casting his dungeon book spells. No banishment - that could be a necromancer thing ? - but in any case, I dont agree with Tibarius when he says that banishemnt breaks the game.

Instead of saying "a mage should play like X", I think the attraction of Angband doesnt come from picking the right way to play a class, but rather from the fact that there are transitions during a characters career.
By that I mean distinct phases which have a different way to solve the problems; the next phase always having the allure of being able to deal with previously hard problems more easily.
For old mage, the biggest (but not only) transition was gaining the ability to cast banishment. You have to get there first - it requires the book, enough hp and a low enough fail rate to do efficiently - and once there, the game becomes an easy (or boring - which is the same thing) farming of stat potions and items before winning the game.

Now you can argue that getting loot by banishing vault inhabitants is broken, and I wouldnt disagree. But that isnt a bad thing. Because it doesnt last long - with that efficent a way of getting loot, youre soon ready for the bossfights - and, and this is the main point, because the actual phases dont matter that much.
The interesting play happens during a transition, between phases, while you are trying to get to the next phase - please pause here and think about this. -----------------------------------------------------------------------
Banishment isnt good because it creates a great mage playstyle, but rather because it is a delicious carrot dangling in front of the mages nose in his earlier levels. With such a carrot ahead, you can justify all the suffering from low hit points and low damage and whatever else you dont want to give the early mage.

Balancae in Angband has always been utility + killing power = constant, and I dont see why that should change. With that given, we have the old classes:

Warrior: highest average damage, lowest utility
Ranger: highest peak damage, medium utility
Mage: lowest damage, best utility

Other classes differ in some way, but the sum remains more or less constant.

With 4 casters to fit in there, how can they be made different without breaking the balance ?

One combination not existing in previous angband has been high spell damage, low utility. Mage gets banishment, which is the ultimate utility spell, but no big damage. So I see the possibility with the new mage, who has been denied some utility compared to his old self, to continue on that path, and instead of giving him banishment to make up for the early suffering, give him high damage spells. Again, a nuking mage maybe isnt the greatest concept, but the point is to make him suffer earlier to eventually achieve demigod status.

So maybe arcane mage could be nuker in the endgame, while necromancer could be king of utility - like old mage, with banishment and mass version. Or the other way round - awaiting Nick´s input.

As for crowd control/debuffs, or druid, or whatever is planned:
In angaband, cc effects havent been competitive since players learned how to win win the game. You always take a speed potion over a slow monster wand.

A druid who has a very efficteve way of cc and picks that over self buffs is an option. The old saying that if you can do it once, you have to do it all the time applies, but that is ok if the cc playstyle is a phase and eventually gets replaced (or is preceded ba a phase of different playstyle).

In this sense, I liked Nick´s starting concept of the new mage: start with utility and make do without killing spells, to get to a stage where you have powerful damage spells. One might argue that sneaking around and collecting loot is more of a rogue thing, and I would agree, but that is only a means to get to the state of being a mage and fireballing enemies. This is 2 distinct stages, the second stage superior to the first, and work to be done to achieve it.

Since Nick obviously has ideas of his own, i´ll keep waiting for more caster classes to test (:

[Gwarl]

You always take a speed potion over a slow monster wand.

If you have tons of both. But early on speed potions are something you're rationing out for emergencies or killing uniques - unless you have plenty, then you can use them for every encounter. But slow monster can be used for almost every encounter, it's a bit more fiddly than a potion of speed but it can often be just as effective. And it's cumulative with a potion of speed. With the full-los area effect version it becomes a good option in more varieties of situation, and confusion is even better.

(All that applies to classic confuse/slow)

[Estie]

If you have tons of both. But early on speed potions are something you're rationing out for emergencies or killing uniques - unless you have plenty, then you can use them for every encounter. But slow monster can be used for almost every encounter, it's a bit more fiddly than a potion of speed but it can often be just as effective. And it's cumulative with a potion of speed. With the full-los area effect version it becomes a good option in more varieties of situation, and confusion is even better.

(All that applies to classic confuse/slow)

Sure, but if inventors is limited and you want to pick one of speed/slow, which do you pick ?

[kaypy]

A few more points:

What is the use case for Thrust Away? It seemed to me redundant with Explosion

In the early books, I would tend to swap detect monsters and detect stair/door/trap. The "who do I want to avoid" is a more important initial consideration for a fragile mage. But its a minor niggle (now that I can sacrifice my entire starting inventory to that all-important magic missile).

I would be tending towards dumping Identify as a spell (having just gone through a game without). I suppose its useful for ironman?...

For those of us who still tend toward a siegeing playstyle the book allocation depths are a big difference from Keleks dropping right at the bottom of the dungeon.

[Nick]

Conversely if they rely on slow and confuse I'd probably love them if we got old slow and confuse back.

I feel like we listened to everyone who didn't like using status effects for that change. Slow and confuse are my bread and butter.

Sorry I have nothing to contribute other than griping over that change (if it was reverted who would miss it?), I haven't been able to enjoy a game of vanilla since it went in.

All right, let's have a serious think about this. I am currently planning the new Druid class, with monster status effects to have a prominent part (especially in the early-mid game). So here are some questions (be specific):

• What is good about the new status effects?
• What is bad about them?
• What actual before-and-after played experience can anyone relate to indicate whether changes should be made?

[Nick]

The interesting play happens during a transition, between phases, while you are trying to get to the next phase

Yes, interesting - I hadn't thought of that explicitly, although in hindsight it's kind of implicit in some of my choices of when spells are learned (as you said later).

So maybe arcane mage could be nuker in the endgame, while necromancer could be king of utility - like old mage, with banishment and mass version. Or the other way round - awaiting Nick´s input.

I'm inclined to think mages keep the banishment spells, which are more about dungeon control (these creatures are no longer there) than mass killing. Necromancers will be more about actually killing stuff, which will involve greater personal risk but also give experience and loot.

A druid who has a very efficteve way of cc and picks that over self buffs is an option. The old saying that if you can do it once, you have to do it all the time applies, but that is ok if the cc playstyle is a phase and eventually gets replaced (or is preceded ba a phase of different playstyle).

Yes, I'm seeing them as having crowd control, environment shaping, self-reliance (satisfy hunger, etc) and then some decent damage/status spells ("weather" effects like ice storm) late game.

[Nick]

A few more points:

What is the use case for Thrust Away? It seemed to me redundant with Explosion

OK, I hadn't actually thought of those as similar, but I see your point. The idea of Thrust Away is that you can keep damaging a single enemy while keeping it out of melee (and dangerous breath) range, whereas Explosion is more targeted at hitting multiple enemies. Possibly damage/mana need tweaking.

For those of us who still tend toward a siegeing playstyle the book allocation depths are a big difference from Keleks dropping right at the bottom of the dungeon.

With only three dungeon books it's not as clear where they should drop - that's also up for discussion.

[PowerWyrm]

All right, let's have a serious think about this. I am currently planning the new Druid class, with monster status effects to have a prominent part (especially in the early-mid game). So here are some questions (be specific):

• What is good about the new status effects?
• What is bad about them?
• What actual before-and-after played experience can anyone relate to indicate whether changes should be made?

Good: they're finally useful, as you can stun/confuse/slow almost everything (including Morgoth)
Bad: once you have a sling of buckland or heavy xbow of extra shots, you won't care much about status effects (or anything else for that matter), so yeah they're basically early/midgame stuff
Changes: add a mass effect version of those for the endgame (see mages with Bedlam for example)

[Gwarl]

I honestly don't think it's a positive change at all. You could recreate the effect on gameplay by giving all monsters slightly erratic movement, reducing their speed by 2, reducing their damage and to hit, and removing inventory slots from the player. This would be preferable as there would be fewer keystrokes.

Standard confuse/slow can be used creatively in a variety of situations, i.e. hampering the lead monster in a group to be able to escape down a corridor.

I appreciate I am sort of a lone crusader for the old status effects, but I also think they were underused and underappreciated and the change caters to people who don't like using status effects. I don't think status effects should cater to them - the rest of the game does. The unpredictability of status effects as well as the sensitivity to context of their usefulness catered toward a different kind of playstyle which I haven't been able to pursue in a game since. It feels hollow and pushes me toward other variants which is a shame because I like everything else that was going on with V.

[Nick]

I honestly don't think it's a positive change at all. You could recreate the effect on gameplay by giving all monsters slightly erratic movement, reducing their speed by 2, reducing their damage and to hit, and removing inventory slots from the player. This would be preferable as there would be fewer keystrokes.

Standard confuse/slow can be used creatively in a variety of situations, i.e. hampering the lead monster in a group to be able to escape down a corridor.

OK, so here's an idea - I assume it's slow and confuse that you have the problem with, and this works for both of them.

Keep the new mechanics, except magnify the effects the more slowed/confused the monster is. So, using slow as an example, slowing something once reduces its speed by 2, but you can keep doing that and it will keep getting slower - and then gradually speed up as the effect wears off.

Now imagine using a staff of Confuse Monsters multiple times on a mixed group of hounds

[Gwarl]

I think it would be preferable simply giving the monster a save.

If the effect is effective on everything it will trivialise the entire game, as when no-save was first introduced before the effects themselves were nerfed to compensate. Confuse shouldn't work on everything, it should be great when it does but let you down if you're leaning on it as a crutch. Saving throws vs status effects are a good mechanic, it just needed a little tweaking, not to throw the entire system away.

[Nick]

Well, we have plenty of time to experiment before 4.2, and the druid class (which I'm hoping to get a testing version out for before too long) should be good for that.

[Tibarius]

testplay experience

Hmm, i played a few new mages to around CL 25 DL 30. Without taking numbers it seemed to me that it even got harder than before. Now i took a look at the coming books #4 / #5 which i never found so far.

light / spear of light were very much used before from me, didn't expect them to be such good to keep early dungeon control up

i miss stone to mud a lot in the mid game, making new shortcuts or the like, or creating new tunnnels for the bolt spells

now i see #4 and #5 start dropping from DL50 on. That totally breaks with the exponential power curve to my understanding. And there is no in-between power level between #2 and #5. That is a major design fault in my eyes.

And there is no haste self anymore. That was a major compensator to negate the very weak physical abilites, because you were quicker than most monsters. And only a little number of monsters could double-move you.

I still think banishment / mass banishment are no good from game mechanics point of view.

So i sadly classify the new mage as badly designed. I cannot realy understand the changes. To make mage class more interesting it is required to increase the relevant number of drops, not to reduce them. The spell power does not grow exponential anymore.

If that is the way the game will develop i encourage to take out banishment / mass banishment, add haste self to book 4, move mana bolt from #5 to #4 and almost double damage of mana bolt. Mana bolt and mana storm damage should be based on CL so that early dropds to not destroy game balance too hard. 1/4 damage fix 3/4 of it CL based.