Improvement Ideas:

[Tibarius]

Greetings Angband Community,

i played FATE from WildTangent Games lately once again and i think a couple of game mechanics could maybe be an improvement for Angband as well:

(1) resistances:
The player should have a clue about how high his resistance versus certain elements is.

Resistance shown on items in %,like 'Resistance Fire: 30%'.

Resistances are multiplicative... two items with 30% resistance will result in a total resistance of:
30% (from 100) = 70%, 30% (from the remaining 70%) = 49% total resistance

(2) uniques:
instead of uniques which are counted in a finite list it could be done that 'unique' monster which are remarkable harder than the standard monster are generated by random as well, I think also Diablo I had this kind of behavior.

(3) special rooms:
I think special rooms, like vaults should be totally removed. They add an repeatable, calculated non-random element to the game. I consider that negative.

Kind regards,
Tibarius

[Gwarl]

1) Many variants have different resistance schemes. I believe that the binary "resist-or-don't" plus stacking temp resists is a deliberate design choice at this point.

2) Just an opinion here but having fixed uniques not only enhances the thematic elements of the game, but even in variants where the theme is less central to the game's appeal, having particular named enemies lets you build up a sort of relationship with them with time. Kavlax the many headed for instance is a name burned into the memory of many players.

3) Moria lacked prefabricated rooms and it's bland monochrome hell. Prefabricated rooms are essential to the replay value of a roguelike, if anything the weaknesses of having them are best dealt with by having far more of them.

I think you could rather easily hack (3) into your copy of angband to give it a try. You'll probably agree that the dungeons get a lot more boring if you do.

[Philip]

Personally I find playing with the various resistance schemes rather fun, but yeah, considering what a long and specific history percentile resists have (O already had them, and FA already had arbitrary valued percentile resists), I suspect Nick is in fact aware of the possibility.

Randomly generated minibosses can be fun (Tome4 has them as well, for example), but they do require a rather different design sensibility than the one V has IMO, and they aren't necessary to the game. That said, bring back player ghosts (who aren't random I know it's just a tangent). The only way I can see this being an actually fun gameplay experience is if these monsters held some relation to the metanarrative, as Gwarl points out. I think this can be done, it would just require the monster that killed your previous character to become a unique until a descendant finally kills it. I think this would be fun, but it would be a lot of work.

Leaving aside that the presence or absence of special rooms, and their contents, are in fact randomly determined, there are plenty of other aspects of the game that are non-random. Monsters, objects and the player are all very non-random. This is necessary, otherwise the game becomes statistical noise.

[Voovus]

1) I'm very much in favour of the binary version of resistances. Having said that, it would indeed be good if the player knew how high the resistances are. Is there any good reason why they block different amounts depending on the element? I've always found this a bit annoying, but maybe I'm missing the point.

3) Moria is a very pleasant monochrome hell.
More seriously: Gwarl, is the hack you suggest actually easy to implement, and, if so, could you tell me how? I'd be interested to try. I suspect that Angband has now developed in a way that relies too much on special rooms, but it still could be an interesting test.

4) Player ghosts. I hitchhiked all the way to Angband from Moria, because I heard someone mention that it had player ghosts, which sounded really cool. It's been quite disappointing...

[Nick]

(1) resistances:
The player should have a clue about how high his resistance versus certain elements is.

Resistance shown on items in %,like 'Resistance Fire: 30%'.

Resistances are multiplicative... two items with 30% resistance will result in a total resistance of:
30% (from 100) = 70%, 30% (from the remaining 70%) = 49% total resistance

This is exactly how FAangband resistances work. IMHO it works well, but I think the V resistance scheme is good too. I do plan to make high resists in V a bit more straightforward.

[wobbly]

I like variable resistance though I think PCB-like progression is better then FAs. FA allows you to get far to close to a perfect resist set in my opinion. My last FA win I was near untouchable by the final fight

[wobbly]

I think you could rather easily hack (3) into your copy of angband to give it a try. You'll probably agree that the dungeons get a lot more boring if you do.

It's changing 1 number in dungeon profile.txt. As Gwarl says, it's... basically just 11x11 squares with them all the way off

[wobbly]

More seriously: Gwarl, is the hack you suggest actually easy to implement, and, if so, could you tell me how? I'd be interested to try. I suspect that Angband has now developed in a way that relies too much on special rooms, but it still could be an interesting test.

4) Player ghosts. I hitchhiked all the way to Angband from Moria, because I heard someone mention that it had player ghosts, which sounded really cool. It's been quite disappointing...

I missed this before. In dungeon profile.txt, firstly there is a key. Read that and you can change what you like. What you are looking for is rarity. Ordinary rooms are rarity 0. Setting classic and modified to rarity 0 will stop it generating anything else. Greater vaults may be harder to switch off, I haven't looked at the code there. Maybe you need to recompile, maybe you don't.

My understanding of player ghosts are they are like the O/FA ones. It's just a unique undead with a player character name tacked on.

[Tibarius]

replay value

1) Many variants have different resistance schemes. I believe that the binary "resist-or-don't" plus stacking temp resists is a deliberate design choice at this point.

2) Just an opinion here but having fixed uniques not only enhances the thematic elements of the game, but even in variants where the theme is less central to the game's appeal, having particular named enemies lets you build up a sort of relationship with them with time. Kavlax the many headed for instance is a name burned into the memory of many players.

3) Moria lacked prefabricated rooms and it's bland monochrome hell. Prefabricated rooms are essential to the replay value of a roguelike, if anything the weaknesses of having them are best dealt with by having far more of them.

I think you could rather easily hack (3) into your copy of angband to give it a try. You'll probably agree that the dungeons get a lot more boring if you do.

If i understand you right you say repeatingly encountering the same rooms increases fun in playing the game? It is just the opposite for me. I consider the development going into a total wrong direction at all.

Nick might be a good coder, but he is obviously no good game developer.

[Pete Mack]

And what exactly do you recommend instead? Potshots at 5he maintainer seem particularly without value.

[Derakon]

If i understand you right you say repeatingly encountering the same rooms increases fun in playing the game? It is just the opposite for me. I consider the development going into a total wrong direction at all.

Nick might be a good coder, but he is obviously no good game developer.

Good lord dude, you're being an asshole. Dial it down by, like, an order of magnitude. I was going to give a thoughtful response to the actual substance of your argument, but I decided against it because frankly I'd rather not engage with someone who can't be polite.

[Philip]

I have some (largely stolen) thoughts about where replayability and fun comes from in a roguelike if we want to start a new thread with a less vague title and a more productive agenda.

[Nick]

If i understand you right you say repeatingly encountering the same rooms increases fun in playing the game? It is just the opposite for me. I consider the development going into a total wrong direction at all.

Nick might be a good coder, but he is obviously no good game developer.

Remember, the option is available to anyone at any time to fork Angband (at any point in its development) and create their own variant. They can even claim it's the "official" version if they like - there is no higher body which tells us which version is official. I believe I'm the current maintainer because of support from previous maintainers and the community as a whole, but when it comes down to it, that's really just my opinion. In fact, I'm just a random enthusiast with the belief that I can serve a useful purpose to the Angband community.

Similarly, anyone can make any criticism of me, or past maintainers, that they like. They should remember, though, that actions have consequences. Specific, well-argued criticisms may well lead to changes in game development. Non-specific criticism or generalised abuse are less likely to have a productive outcome.

I should add that while I think "good game developer" is not an easy thing to measure, describing me as a good coder is a massive exaggeration

[Pete Mack]

How about an "immensely improved coder?" You took the early engineering improvements to Angband and ran with them. The game is much more solid as a piece of software than it was in 3.0

[Derakon]

Good lord dude, you're being an asshole. Dial it down by, like, an order of magnitude. I was going to give a thoughtful response to the actual substance of your argument, but I decided against it because frankly I'd rather not engage with someone who can't be polite.

I'm going to explain this a bit more. When I say "you're being an asshole", the message I want you to take away is "the way you are phrasing your arguments is an active detriment to people being willing to listen to you." You will be more persuasive if you argue in a way that makes people think about the substance of your statements. As it stands we're looking at the "flavor" of the statements and discounting them based solely on that.

Put another way, even a skillfully-cooked meal will be refused if it tastes bad.