"New" Angband: First Impressions

[Pete Mack]

I think the closed door mechanic adds a lot of complexity for little gain. It's not bad, just extra code. I feel the same about the object pickup code, especially since it is the #1 cause of crashes.

[Ramelandil]

Long-time off-and-on player, short-time lurker, first-time poster here. (Hi!)

1. I do prefer the new ID system to the old one, in large part because later in the game classes without an ID spell used to need stacks of ?ID / _Perception for any serious dungeon visit. Pseudo-ID helped a little, but it was limited to the number of things you could carry on your person while you waited for it to trigger. I do agree that it's a little weird instantly knowing the "pluses" of everything, so maybe that's where pseudo-ID could come back in -- after a while of wielding or wearing the item it would become clear just how much acc/dam/AC/etc. it's providing. Not being able to carry flavor / rune data across lives like you can monster memory is a little weird, too, but I don't know what can be done about that, because making them persist effectively forces birth_know_* on after your first decently deep dive. Maybe if there were hundreds and hundreds of flavors and runes...but TMJ is arguably still a problem as it is.

2. I like the more flavorful, and arguably even sometimes useful, curses, and I definitely don't miss the "sticky" curse. I may tire of seeing them more frequently, but I don't think it's weird that they're common. This stuff has been lying around in the stronghold of the Enemy for who knows how long -- Morgoth's malevolence has surely twisted some of it to his ends.

3. I never did like traps. Not having to bounce on the 's' key all the time everywhere until you get reliable means of detection is better ... but not having reliable means of detection is worse. And I think there might be a bug with them on DL1; I've noticed that my starting characters, no matter what class, invariably bumble into *all* of them on that floor, but as soon as I get down to DL2 I actually have a chance to see them before I trigger them. Or is this part of the "disincentivize farming DL1" package?

4. I think the "caverns" level type is new? My 3.x experience is years old, but I don't remember them. Anyway, they're a neat idea, but as a practical matter I just want to leave them immediately unless I have ESP, 'cause it's just too scary to be wandering around when enemies can see me from 300' away but I can't see them. If Light Area effects a) had a larger radius and b) didn't automatically wake up everything(?), that might improve things.

The rest I don't feel strongly about, but I do want to mention something from another recent thread. It seems to me that the shops, even the Black Market, never have anything interesting to buy anymore, just some basic supplies, a few unremarkable magic items, and maybe the occasional stat potion. This makes the birth_no_selling question largely moot and removes the one exciting possibility from the otherwise boring but necessary (unless you're good enough to play ironman) "recall and restock" phases. I'm not saying we need the days of megaAU Whatevers of Speed back, but at this point I'm relegating $ and diggers to the "stuff you grow out of in the early game" category. Maybe that's intended?

[luneya]

Long-time off-and-on player, short-time lurker, first-time poster here. (Hi!)

1. I do prefer the new ID system to the old one, in large part because later in the game classes without an ID spell used to need stacks of ?ID / _Perception for any serious dungeon visit. Pseudo-ID helped a little, but it was limited to the number of things you could carry on your person while you waited for it to trigger. I do agree that it's a little weird instantly knowing the "pluses" of everything, so maybe that's where pseudo-ID could come back in -- after a while of wielding or wearing the item it would become clear just how much acc/dam/AC/etc. it's providing. Not being able to carry flavor / rune data across lives like you can monster memory is a little weird, too, but I don't know what can be done about that, because making them persist effectively forces birth_know_* on after your first decently deep dive. Maybe if there were hundreds and hundreds of flavors and runes...but TMJ is arguably still a problem as it is.

A pseudo-id system for attack bonuses and ac would be utterly pointless. Even in pre-rune-id Angband, all you needed to do to test a weapon or armor for those properties was to walk up to some suitably contemptible monster, let it hit you to reveal AC, and then kill it to reveal the offensive stats--no id spell or even pseudo required. Eliminating pointless tests of that sort was one of the main motivations behind the switch to the new id system.

[Ramelandil]

A pseudo-id system for attack bonuses and ac would be utterly pointless. Even in pre-rune-id Angband, all you needed to do to test a weapon or armor for those properties was to walk up to some suitably contemptible monster, let it hit you to reveal AC, and then kill it to reveal the offensive stats--no id spell or even pseudo required. Eliminating pointless tests of that sort was one of the main motivations behind the switch to the new id system.

My apologies, then. As I said, it's been a while since I played pre-rune-id, so I didn't recall that it was automatic -- for some reason, I had a memory of having to do the calculation myself!

[Grotug]

With all due respect to Egavactip, there is a common experience that people have when a beloved thing is changed and when they feel it is just not the same as it used to be and so is less fun. I wonder how much the changes are really, actually bad that they are causing less fun, and how much the real issue is that Angband feels that it is no longer what it was?

Level design: Since the 3.4.1 days (which I believe is the first version I played), the levels are soo soo soo much improved. There are so many interesting, atmospheric rooms now. It's very impressive. I can't say I've really noticed levels are harder to navigate than any other versions; the small maze levels are still annoying, but they always were, and I'd probably complain if they were removed because I'm so used to them being part of Angband, but if they were to show up less often I would not complain.

There is a level archetype I would like to see added based on the design of a single room that I stumbled upon once upon an adventure:







So basically the whole level would be laid out just like this single room (so think of this room as a miniature of what the level would look like) with some specific details added/changed: The level would be roughly circular just like the image of the room here, with the outside rim of the 'circle' being made up of a corridor (just like in the image, but 5 to 9 dots in width instead of one dot).

Connected to the outer walls of this main, circular corridor would be small passageways connected at various intervals. Some of these small passageways might be connected by small caverns, some would be connected by just a single-width corridor and some would be dead ends. Maybe one of them would be a small vault (shaped just like other passageways/small caverns). I imagine there'd be between 7 and 11 of these passageways/caverns connected to the outside of the outer main corridor.

Connected to the inside wall of the main outer circular corridor would be short passageways that would open up to a very large cavern with various compartmentalized rooms/caverns inside, around which a main corridor/cavern would interweave (just like in the image). Maybe inside somewhere there'd be a pool of lava or a lake of fire (there could be a large area of the inner cavern where there would be no compartmentalized rooms but instead a lake of fire).

Overall the goal of the level would be for it to have a very distinct feel and sense of place (as many of the new ones do) and be easy to navigate. I've long wanted to see something like this added to Angband's level archetypes but had trouble pinning down the details of how it should be, and stumbling upon this miniature version of it in a room was pretty much spot on to what had been banging around in my head, wanting to get out. I'd be happy to try to build it if someone can point me to how it is done.

On being wise: I complain about Angband, A LOT, but I'm not sure removing the things I complain about would make the game better. If acid and disenchantment were nullified would the game really be better overall? Sure, I'd be screaming at my laptop screen a lot less, but the game would probably be a fair bit more boring and less dynamic and I'd probably get bored with it faster than I do presently (have I mentioned the endgame is boring? Might that be because nothing can kill me, I always am sure to have rDisenchant and often have pFire/pCold?).

I used to complain about hellhounds, now I sort of wish they were as terrible as they used to be, as I sort of miss the terror they would instill in me when I'd blunder into a hallway full of them. People's opinions are not always wise (ie. their ability to objectively see all the pros and cons irrespective of their fond experiences of their first-version-of-angband-they-played-bias and the cosmic balance that the good things and the bad things keep in the ordering of the overall Angband experience) and us fickle folk need to be heeded with great care.

Frodo tells Gandalf he wished Gollum had been killed (so the ring wouldn't have found its way to The Shire) and Gandalf reminds him that even the very wise cannot see all ends. Basically, it is the fate of us all that we hate and love Angband, and will never be rid of our need for it. But the 'hate' is an integral part of the Angband experience! We look fondly back on the good ol' days, but we hated things about Angband more then, than we do today; yet some of us seem to think that they loved Angband more back then. Hmm....

What I miss: The only real change I miss was the removal of {ego} {splendid} {special} from unID'd objects, because when I first played Angband those tags were always super exciting to find because it meant an object wasn't just magical, it had further special powers. Is it bad for the game that they were removed? Of course a new player wouldn't miss them, and there isn't really anthing intrinsically good about those tags, but because that's how I first played Angband, for me losing them is something I miss. I also sort of miss finding vaults on DL13 and I'm not terribly fond of artifacts being so rare for the first 28 dungeon levels (or the nerfing of Smeagol and Wormtongue drops).

Traps: It's been a long road, but I've slowly adapted to the annoyingness of traps and I now can see that they make my dungeon crawling experience a richer, fuller, and more dynamic one (Hey, it's hard adding dynamism to a turn based ascii run and gun game!). Now I'm nearly as experienced at handling traps as Indiana Jones is at the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark (even if the @ I'm controlling is as bad at them as Indy's guides were), and I think they make the game more interesting and dynamic since as a H/T Warrior I am stumbling upon them regularly. It's kind of fun to learn that I don't always have to cure a malady of a trap, and that I can sometimes blunder my way through whatever they did to me. And I like that I detect them sometimes, but sometimes I don't; and I like the problem that they present to me: do I risk the acid trap to get at the red * down yonder hallway? Mend my life! My precious AC!

I am glad that trap detection was removed. It was tedious and uninteresting detecting all the time and a bit silly to know where the traps are. Kinda removes the purpose of traps, which is to surprise the player and put them into a spot of trouble. While I used to think the frequency of them could be toned down, I have gotten quite used to the number of traps there are now. They make navigating the dungeon more interesting and challenging and dynamic since you can't always get where you want to go if you don't want to risk a trap, and I like that a precious inventory slot needs to be weighed as to whether I carry disable traps or not.

I also find I often manually disable them even when I have a rod since the activation of the rod/wand is annoying. A suggestion: if there is not a monster in view, then objects of mapping/detection/disabling etc should retry automatically until they succeed unless a monster comes into awareness of @ The lack of a {more} message when the rod fails means I always manually attempt whenever the rod fails.

Another point I'd like to make is pointless {more} messages. I love the activation on Cammithrim but I don't use it because I have to get through two {more} messages each time I activate it. This is absurd. I just want it to zap zap zap seamlessly without any information about what it did (it zapped!).

Traps always visible seems silly. The element of surprise is what makes traps, well, traps, though I am willing to admit that perhaps expecting traps in Raiders of the Lost Ark to translate well to a turn based ascii game may be a little bit unrealistic. but I think Angband handles them pretty well given the formfactor of the game.

I'd like to see some new, more dangerous traps for the late game, like earthquake trap; or a whirling blade one that actually does an amount of damage that is scary when you have 832hp. I definitely feel peoples' pain about traps when playing weaker classes; traps are another reason why I like HT Warrior; he has the hitpoints to basically never get dead by them (though I die often enough from summoning traps).

New Curses: I don't really miss the sticky curses. I like the new curses. I especially like that some of them are actually really useful and a cursed item can be better than the same item without the curse: namely the conduct electricity +20AC curse. This is great to find for the first 27 levels (at least for a warrior type it is). I do not think the curses are too mean. If you don't want to risk teleban, then don't wear a cursed item, no one's forcing you to take the risk! Taking such a risk should have the chance of dire circumstances. I have been quite amused a few times when getting nabbed by the anti-teleportation curse. I quite like curses how they are, and think some of them should be more detrimental (I can't say I notice much penalty from the air-swing curse, for example).

Shops: I'd like to see a move back to where shops didn't reliably have unlimited of certain items. I think this is not in the right spirit of the game. It's fine if certain things have a lot, but 40 all the time? The only thing that I can see this is reasonable is average ammunition. I'd also like to see book 4 be something that is only sometimes in the shop or somehting like: book 1 90% of the time there are four or more in the shop. Book 2, 85% of the time there are 3 or more, book 3, 80% there are two or more, book 4 60% of the time there are one or more.

I'd like to see a larger variation of useful items in the shops, but with less reliability you'll find what you need (_TS is often in the shop, which is good, but Angband would be more interesting for a seasoned player like myself who maybe wants it to be a bit more challenging, if I have to make do with some less reliable escapes like earthquakes or what have you. Overall, I do not think the power level of the shops needs to be increased, just perhaps the reliability/variability of certain things. I'd like word of recall to be a resource I have to manage, rather than just buy as many as like as often as I like. It's a very powerful spell, it shouldn't be infinitely available in the shops! This is just symptomatic of people getting soft.

@Ramelandil Caverns was in 3.4.1 I believe when I started playing Angband. I like the danger of trawling these levels for the reasons you don't like them. If we continue the trend of ever so slowly removing the danger from Angband we will wind up with a neutered thing like a fiery dragon declawed and tempered to be made into someone's pet. The fundamental spirit and backbone of what Angband is meant to be will be neutered and lost. Dying is a fundamental part of the Angband experience. Let's not forget it! The more I die, the more I get used to it and the more I embrace it. I thought removing trap detection was a move in the right direction.

Or, here's an idea: Mages get near or 100% accuracy with their detection spell; everyone else gets severely less accuracy and more mana cost to detect; and leveling up improves the accuracy of the detection.

@Sky: in the '=' menu set the base delay factor to 5 (the default is 40). This will greatly improve the problem of breath animations taking too long. (Why the default is 40 and not 5 is beyond me).

Disclaimer: it is impossible for me to make a long post without going back and ninja-editing it a half dozen times for clarity and grammar, I apologize in advance.

[Ramelandil]

I'll certainly grant that "dying is a fundamental part of the Angband experience", but I think "learning not to take unnecessary risks" is also, at least when the player is still trying to win for the first time, as I am. By the time you're experienced enough to be able to win Ironman-style, I do imagine you're looking for more risk in @'s life, because the base level of risk in the game has become boring to you. :-)

[Philip]

Your assessment that caverns add unnecessary risk to an @'s life is correct, at least as they are now. They can be fun for precisely this reason, but I find it undesirable that most players avoid them from a utilitarian perspective. I feel like different forms of level organization should benefit different characters - short vs long range, persistent vs burst damage - in much the same way as different dungeons do in other variants. Long corridors and sparse rooms benefit burst damage (most useful for single opponents, as you can expect to face), long range (corridors) characters, since fights are easy to organize for them. The kobold pseudo-vault Grotug suggested basing an entire level on would benefit close range persistent damage characters (such as warriors) who do not need the advantages of far sight and a regular dungeon design. Caverns might be expected to benefit AoE attackers (by biasing groups of monsters over individuals) who favor long range (by making light area spells actually work in caverns). I will admit, this is an idea taken mostly from O, with mini-moria levels full of orcs, ogres, and trolls, though I find the room and level design itself in those somewhat lacking, and would prefer using the V one. Also, bring in themed levels, they're great. Horrible, but great.

[mrfy]

I agree with most of what Grotug said. I've gotten used to the traps, they can be annoying early on, but they're supposed to be. Don't nerf them. This is an evolving game, without changes it will die. At first I was very skeptical of the new ID system, but now I'm used to it.

I'm a completist and I like exploring all kinds of levels, normal, maze and cavern.

Looking forward to more changes, finished updates to the class and race system, updated monster list, and artifacts.

[Nick]

Thanks everyone for an extremely helpful discussion

I now have several things to do for 4.1.3; here's my plan:

1. ID - this is remaining unchanged (I get the +to-hit etc issue, but I think the current system is probably still best). I know this was a big one for you, Egavactip, but weight of opinion over a long time is in favour of the new system
2. Curses - look at making them a bit rarer, and possibly more rarer earlier
3. Traps - Reduce frequency a lot, especially early
4. Level generation - no change for now; I think there's a reasonable acceptance of the new algorithm. I really like Grotug's idea, and I actually think some more variety would be good. Do note that you can change the frequency of the algorithms by editing dungeon_profile.txt
5. Rubble - yeah, different tile for passable rubble. That was an oversight on my part
6. Breath animation - I'll reduce the default base delay factor
7. Doors opening out of sight, etc - I think this is probably still an improvement, but I have some sympathy with Pete's point of view (and in fact, Pete, it is really this code (or its intersection with the object code) that is causing most problems). No change for now

Any more comment on any of these is of course welcome.

[Derakon]

I'd like to get your opinion on what purpose traps should serve in the game, and why having them be unreliably detectable is desirable.

[fizzix]

Nick, I was thinking I'd spend some time this weekend implementing a bunch of balance tweaks. I'd still like to do that. I'll make all the commits atomic. I think a lot of what you wrote in your list is stuff that I want to do, but a few other tweaks as well.

I might take a look at the curse generation code and see if I can make any suggestions there. I haven't even glanced at it.

[Sky]

delay factor 5 is suicidal. 20 is better.

[Nick]

Nick, I was thinking I'd spend some time this weekend implementing a bunch of balance tweaks. I'd still like to do that. I'll make all the commits atomic. I think a lot of what you wrote in your list is stuff that I want to do, but a few other tweaks as well.

I might take a look at the curse generation code and see if I can make any suggestions there. I haven't even glanced at it.

That would be excellent.

I'd like to get your opinion on what purpose traps should serve in the game, and why having them be unreliably detectable is desirable.

Rather than repeating myself, I will point at the original thread for the traps/door feature branch, and a follow-up thread where the current system finally emerged. In those you will find a great many opinions from me, pretty much pairwise incompatible.

If that is inadequate, I then refer you to this post.

If you read all this closely enough, you will understand that the current situation is a result of rejecting pretty much every other system imaginable (including traps always being visible), many of them more than once. So we're going to try keeping it with the frequency adjusted.

I guess this hasn't really answered the first part of your question, and it's actually kind of difficult to answer. What purpose do monsters serve, or doors, or weapons? They make the dungeon feel more dungeony.

I've had a long day and need to stop this post before I tadpole banana ewrf * wefn iuhoih

[Derakon]

I guess this hasn't really answered the first part of your question, and it's actually kind of difficult to answer. What purpose do monsters serve, or doors, or weapons? They make the dungeon feel more dungeony.

I've had a long day and need to stop this post before I tadpole banana ewrf * wefn iuhoih

Oh dear, take care of yourself Nick!

But yeah, I think what really needs to be done with traps is make them feel like an integral part of the experience of the game. IMO that means they need to tie into the other core components of the game -- stuff like monsters, items, spells, and the dungeon terrain itself. I don't know what that looks like, I just know that right now traps don't really feel cohesive, which is why my first question is "what purpose are they intended to serve?" I hope that if we can get that nailed down, then the form they should take in-game, and the specific ways in which they tie to other core components, should be more readily apparent.

My agitating for "make traps always visible" is sort of operating with the baseline assumption that the form traps take doesn't change much, and is more of a patch job of "if we must have traps, let's at least make them not interfere with the main gameplay flow." The key problem there being that I don't see current traps as being in the main gameplay flow; they're intrusive, a distraction and an annoyance. In a hypothetical future version they wouldn't necessarily be so, and thus they wouldn't have to be guaranteed to be visible.

[Voovus]

Having rummaged in my memory for a while, I've managed to remember one dungeon crawl where traps were fun (a variant of Rogue, that never made it to the light of day). The key features of traps were:

1) Traps were never generated in passages or at the entrance to a room. If you knew where the traps were you could always walk around them: they never stopped you from getting from A to B. Disarming didn't exist.

2) Traps affected monsters. (Except for the flying and ethereal ones, I think.) It meant that you could lure a troll onto an arrow trap (minor damage), a trapdoor (the troll would fall to the next level, where you could say hello to him/her/it again), a sleeping gas trap (to help you run away), a paralysing trap (to help you beat the troll up), an immobilisation trap (can't walk but can punch; would make the troll vulnerable to being shot), a teleportation trap etc. You get the picture.

There were very few ways to detect traps without triggering them (a rare scroll or a rare ring), but knowing where they were was really valuable.

Just a suggestion. This would obviously need some modifications to be compatible with Angband (e.g. vaults?), not to mention a possibly unpleasant amount of coding...