4.2.1: First Impressions

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  • Egavactip
    Swordsman
    • Mar 2012
    • 442

    4.2.1: First Impressions

    So today I finished/won my first game of Angband 4.2.1, on my third try with the character. The first death was some stupid mistake, the second at the hands of a monster made harder in this version (my first clue that this was a thing in 4.2.1). The dump is here: http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=23799

    I deliberately chose a fighter, so that I could get used to the new environment without having to worry about the new classes and new spell systems. So these first impressions are about the environment and basic mechanics. Also, I decided to get a win before making these comments, but they are obviously based on a limited amount of play, so there could be some things I noticed that were not the product of actual changes but just extremes of chance or luck. So keep that in mind.

    However, some of the things I observed during the course of play seemed to me to be legitimate problems, while other things, I felt, decreased the role that strategy and tactics play in the game--which in my opinion is bad.

    So I hope that people will take the time to read through these comments, whether or not they agree with them.

    1. The best aspect of 4.2.1, from my experience, was the increased number of room types and dungeon layouts. More variety is always good. The only one I didn't like (of the ones I experienced) was the dungeon layout with huge irregular rooms. It didn't make much sense and was not aesthetically appealing. Other than that, everything was fine. Whatever algorithms are used to draw the dungeon levels seem to be less elegant than previous versions, resulting in some clunky arrangements of rooms, corridors, etc., but I can live with that.

    2. Nexus effects. I'm very glad the effects of stat switching are temporary now, not permanent. Fewer ruined games.

    3. New game option. I never understood why this feature hadn't been there all along, but I am glad it is there now.

    4. Traps. The first time I tried 4.2, the traps were so bad I stopped playing and waited a long time to play again. It was nice to see that they were made more reasonable in this version, even though I think the original trap and trap detection system is far better than this. At least this is playable.

    5. Food/Hunger. I recently started a thread on this issue, expressing my feelings, so I won't repeat the full thing here, but this definitely needs to be fixed. It is way too fiddly and the full/slow effect is very detrimental. The changes add more player pain with no player gain. Not good.

    6. Level Feelings. I also started a thread on this. The level feelings seem pretty messed up and unreliable (more so than before).

    7. Rune/Identifying system. I did not like this idea in theory and I find that I don't like it in practice, either. IMO it slows the game down and requires more trips up to the shops level, where players' homes get filled with unidentified items. There are too few identify rune scrolls in the early and mid-game. Later in the game, they can just be ignored, as players accumulating money can just sell items then buy them back (although this still requires trips to the shops level). I haven't taken so many items up to shops level since back in the days when I had to sell items found in the dungeon in order to get $$$.

    8. I would like "IGNORED" to flash in the message line when I step on an item that I have ignored, rather than have it just disappear without message.

    9. Monster changes. I have some specific comments about certain monsters later but here I'll just note some of the arbitrary changes, such as replacing all elves with dwarves, which makes no sense at all, and which graphically is awful, as Angband continues to use elf sprites for the new dwarven creatures. There are a bunch of arbitrary monster changes in the game that don't add anything. These need to be looked over again and some reverted.

    10. New monster sprites. Most of these graphics are in a different graphic style than the tileset I use when I play Angband (and I presume are also dissimilar with other tilesets). This is distracting. Some are kind of inexplicable. The huorn that can move through walls doesn't look like a tree, just like a pool of vomit or pea soup or something.

    11. No way to identify potions/scrolls/rods/wands/staffs other than using/selling. This is not a good idea, because it basically forces players (esp. in the early game, when they have no money) to use items in order to identify them, to their detriment. The game shouldn't force players to hurt themselves; there should always be other options. What is the point of making players do something 1) they don't want to do in the first place and 2) will hurt them in the process. It makes no sense.

    12. Willow trees/huorns, etc. I don't see why these are in Angband, a dungeon game. They are incongruous and make it difficult to suspend disbelief. In an outdoor game, fine, but they don't work in Angband, in my opinion.

    13. Reusing Monster Sprites. There are now too many different monsters that use the same graphic sprite. New sprites need to be created for these new monsters. Sharing sprites is not a great idea ever, though rare examples intended to "trick" players who aren't careful are okay. Now, though, there are just too many different monsters that have the same visuals. This is especially a problem with the next item, below.

    14. The Maia problem. I was mildly irritated when Angels were switched over to Maia, but these new changes seem to impact actual game play for the worse. First, there are now many types of Maia, but they still use the same limited number of sprites, so there are many duplicates. You can't visually tell them apart--you have to look at their names. Which takes us to the next problem. Previously, you had Lesser Maia, Maia, Greater Maia, the odd Blue Wizard, and Istari. All of these had names that were easy to tell apart, which meant you could easily distinguish which were threats and which were less so. Now, however, there are Maia of Bob and Maia of Kristen and Maia of Jimbob and Maia of Steve and Maia of Susan and a million different maias, each with their own attributes, and many of them sharing sprites. Trying to keep track of all this is ridiculous. It's crazy. And most of them are ridiculously upgunned as well. This is just broken, in my opinion, and needsd a complete re-do.

    15. Moving Through Walls. This version of Angband has FAR TOO MANY creatures that can move through walls or tunnel through walls. The structure of the dungeon, and the player's ability to somewhat alter that structure, is the basis for many player tactics and strategies. The more creatures that can ignore the environment and move through anything, the less opportunity players have to engage in tactical thinking. Battles just become brute force, or players have to waste banishment, teleport, or destruction constantly. This is not subtle, it's just throwing bricks at the player. Even limiting some creatures to only being able to move through CERTAIN types of rock still allows a tactical element. But as it is now, especially in the deeper levels, players don't need this constant aggravation. And adding this ability to some creatures, such as Greater Balrogs, is just gilding the lily. Those were ALREADY creatures I almost always avoided because they were too powerful/nasty/irritating. So why make them even worse?

    16. Morgoth "double tunnelling." The increased tunneling effect for Morgoth is also a change that reduces the importance of tactics and increases reliance on brute force. I do not like changes that reduce the tactical elements of the game.

    17. Stat Draining. There is way too much unstoppable stat draining in this version of the game. Previously, only Time could do that, and there were very few monsters that could deliver Time attacks. Now those have been much expanded and other monsters given unstoppable stat draining abilities as well. Those move-through-walls time-damaging hounds are just ridiculous. Players have to go to great length to protect their stats as is, and these attacks just say "screw you" to all those efforts. Again, it is just applying brute force to players. This is especially irritating for random artifact games, where based on the gear one acquires, one may need to save mushrooms of vigor for the final battle with Morgoth.

    18. Upgunning. This version of Angband seems to have a ton of upgunning applied to it. Many monsters have their hit points significantly increased, while weapons dealing significant damage (with huge damage bonuses or frequent attack number bonuses) seem very common. Again, it could be a fluke of luck, but I don't remember any other playing of Angband where I found so many weapons that added additional attacks. I don't see the point of dealing more damage against creatures with more hit points. It is just gigantism.

    Well, that's about it for now. Again, I haven't experienced the magic system yet or the new character classes, so this is a limited perspective. But it seems to me that there is still some work to do--and some to undo--to make this as playable and as fun as it should be.
  • Adam
    Adept
    • Feb 2016
    • 194

    #2
    Just a few points from me.
    - Rune ID is the best change in my opinion since i started to play the game.
    - Since the player has a cheap way to remove walls, i don't find it a bad thing that strong monsters can also do that. In my opinion STM should be less common and more expensive because it allows to set up fighting ground too easily. Yes, greater balrogs are now a pain and i leave the level if i find one of those big caves with them. The game needed some more dangerous monsters because 4.1 was too easy.
    - Sharing tiles: yes, i also ran into this. A giant yellow snake didn't want to die after a number of rounds when i was over CL 40... surprising, but i guess it's not easy to have distinct tiles for all new monsters in all tilesets

    Comment

    • gglibertine
      Adept
      • Dec 2007
      • 234

      #3
      I think so far it's pretty good, albeit harder than 4.1.x. My chief complaints:

      * low danger levels have become much rarer
      * there are so many water vortices/water hounds that it's hard to keep your AC at a reasonable level
      * if you find a good piece of gear that has Slow Digestion, it's WAY too easy to find yourself full and slowed in combat. I've come to think of it as a curse.

      Comment

      • Hounded
        Adept
        • Jan 2019
        • 128

        #4
        Originally posted by Egavactip
        So I hope that people will take the time to read through these comments, whether or not they agree with them.
        While I personally disagree with points 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17 & 18 (largely for reasons gone over in other threads) I do appreciate the presentation of your perspective both here and in the other threads you've recently started. Appreciate your involvement an desire to keep this a great game.
        It Breathes. You die.

        Comment

        • Egavactip
          Swordsman
          • Mar 2012
          • 442

          #5
          Originally posted by Adam
          Just a few points from me.
          - Rune ID is the best change in my opinion since i started to play the game.
          - Since the player has a cheap way to remove walls, i don't find it a bad thing that strong monsters can also do that. In my opinion STM should be less common and more expensive because it allows to set up fighting ground too easily. Yes, greater balrogs are now a pain and i leave the level if i find one of those big caves with them. The game needed some more dangerous monsters because 4.1 was too easy.
          - Sharing tiles: yes, i also ran into this. A giant yellow snake didn't want to die after a number of rounds when i was over CL 40... surprising, but i guess it's not easy to have distinct tiles for all new monsters in all tilesets
          When players can manipulate the dungeon, it adds to tactical play. When too many monsters, who are not players, can ignore the dungeon, it subtracts from tactical play and makes combat in the game cruder and less interesting.

          Re "more dangerous monsters": if players' weapons have to be increased in power to deal with the more dangerous monsters, which was my impression, then you haven't solved any problem at all, just upgunned both sides.

          Re Monster Sprites: of course it is possible to have distinct tiles for all new monsters.

          Comment

          • Adam
            Adept
            • Feb 2016
            • 194

            #6
            Originally posted by Egavactip
            When players can manipulate the dungeon, it adds to tactical play. When too many monsters, who are not players, can ignore the dungeon, it subtracts from tactical play and makes combat in the game cruder and less interesting.

            Re "more dangerous monsters": if players' weapons have to be increased in power to deal with the more dangerous monsters, which was my impression, then you haven't solved any problem at all, just upgunned both sides.

            Re Monster Sprites: of course it is possible to have distinct tiles for all new monsters.
            My problem with STM is that an intelligent player has such a big advantage over the monsters which makes the game too easy. STM + assymetric LoS and you can kill anything without being hurt.

            When i mentioned more dangerous monsters i did not mean upgunning is OK. What i meant is adding new skills to monsters or create new dangerous ones was needed. Whether it's too much to give balrogs tunneling, matter of taste probably.

            Sprites/tiles: i know it's theoretically possible to have distinct one for each monster, i just had the feeling that supporting all new monsters in all tilesets is a boring task and maybe that lead to sharing tiles.

            Comment

            • wobbly
              Prophet
              • May 2012
              • 2627

              #7
              Which tileset? They are not all actively maintained. I know Tangar was working on a version of the Gervais set. Over here:

              Comment

              • Egavactip
                Swordsman
                • Mar 2012
                • 442

                #8
                Originally posted by wobbly
                Which tileset? They are not all actively maintained. I know Tangar was working on a version of the Gervais set. Over here:

                http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthr...hlight=tileset
                David Gervais tileset

                Comment

                • DavidMedley
                  Veteran
                  • Oct 2019
                  • 1004

                  #9
                  Not a very positive review. Thanks for taking the time to share it, though!
                  Please like my indie game company on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/RatherFunGames

                  Comment

                  • ster
                    Scout
                    • Jun 2019
                    • 44

                    #10
                    V became a variant the moment serpent of chaoses and hounds of tindalos got added, it's true.

                    If you're complaining about the tiles being bad for an ASCII roguelike, that isn't the variant maintainer's fault, that's your fault for using tiles.
                    gwarl 09/19/2019
                    I can't ban ster from my roguelikes site though like all other roguelike admins have because it lets him win

                    Comment

                    • archolewa
                      Swordsman
                      • Feb 2019
                      • 400

                      #11
                      Having played a few variants with the old pseudo ID system, I cannot at all comprehend how runes could possibly be slower. Maybe vanilla's old pseudo ID was different, but at least for the various old variants I've tried, I've found the pseudo ID system to be the single most tedious, slow, fiddly identification system I've ever encountered in a roguelike. I straight up turn it off when I play Frogcomposband, and refuse to play any other variants except Sil because they don't have that option.

                      Maybe it's just a matter of taste though. I don't mind jumping up to town to hand off non-artifact gear to the town every now and then, and I dont ever feel the need to buy it back. Even in the early game I almost always find it obvious when something's so good I want to save my Identify Rune scrolls for it, and when it's just something I can give to the vendor for identification.

                      Can't really comment on the rest of your criticisms though. I started playing with 4.1 and only got one win (with a priest) before 4.2 came out, so I don't really have any basis for comparing to previous versions.

                      I think the purpose of many of the monster changes was flavor more than anything else, an attempt to make Angband more Tolkien and less "grab bag of fantasy pop culture." Personally, I appreciate the more coherent lore, and I enjoy the trees. They scare the crap out of me, and frankly they make as much sense as Angels working together with Demons to murder you even though you're trying to kill the Ultimate Evil, and they're, you know, demons.

                      Comment

                      • Egavactip
                        Swordsman
                        • Mar 2012
                        • 442

                        #12
                        Originally posted by archolewa
                        Having played a few variants with the old pseudo ID system, I cannot at all comprehend how runes could possibly be slower.
                        It is slower because there is no way to identify many items and only the seemingly relatively rare identify rune to identify the others. As opposed to the previous version of Angband where after a short period, one always had staffs and/or spells of identification and could fully identify any item while on the move. That's much faster and much more pain-free.


                        I think the purpose of many of the monster changes was flavor more than anything else, an attempt to make Angband more Tolkien and less "grab bag of fantasy pop culture." Personally, I appreciate the more coherent lore, and I enjoy the trees. They scare the crap out of me, and frankly they make as much sense as Angels working together with Demons to murder you even though you're trying to kill the Ultimate Evil, and they're, you know, demons.
                        Unfortunately, the monster changes don't do that. They introduce many things not found in Tolkien, while they still have stuff in it that never ever was in Tolkien.

                        Moreover, Angband is not a Middle Earth simulator. It is based on Moria which itself was inspired by, but not a true attempt to duplicate or simulate, Tolkien's Middle Earth. So having Atlas in there was fine.

                        Comment

                        • archolewa
                          Swordsman
                          • Feb 2019
                          • 400

                          #13
                          Originally posted by Egavactip
                          It is slower because there is no way to identify many items and only the seemingly relatively rare identify rune to identify the others. As opposed to the previous version of Angband where after a short period, one always had staffs and/or spells of identification and could fully identify any item while on the move. That's much faster and much more pain-free.
                          Except that's only true past the early game right? In the early game you have to pick things up and carry them around a while. The same time at which runes are their most painful. Sure, past the early game you've got staves of identification, but past the early game you've got almost all the runes identified too. And once you know them, you know them. So you don't have to spam Staves of Identify on piles of treasure over and over again. And I'll take slightly more pain early, if it means I have almost zero pain mid, and zero pain late.

                          Comment

                          • drquicksilver
                            Scout
                            • Jul 2020
                            • 45

                            #14
                            Really interesting to hear your views. I have responded to the ones which don't match my experience. I really agree about level feelings - I love level feelings, for me they add a lot to the game, I would like them to be more reliable / more consistent.

                            Quite a few of your remarks are really down to the tileset. I've never used tiles myself - always ASCII, except in TOME4 after DarkGod made tiles the default and I grudgingly got used to them. Since just ASCII character plus colour have never been a reliable judge (well some combinations are unique but many are not and in the old days, with fewer colours, fewer were unique), I have always made heavy use of the look command ('x' in rogue like keyset), or just using the targetting system to check out enemies. In fact I think the look command was one of the things which attracted me to Angband over Nethack (the only other rogue like, except from Moria and Larn, I knew of in the early 90s).

                            In this version though I heavily use the excellent known monster and known object windows (partly because the version I downloaded has it configured that way by default, and I saw how useful they were!). With that display in place you immediately know when you are dealing with a Maia of Mandos or a Maia of Yavanna. So I haven't suffered from this confusion at all. The way you phrase it about the Maia suggests to me that you aren't that familiar with Tolkein's mythos and so the names of the Valar are indistinct to you: someone unfamiliar with the D&D-inspired dragon colours might find it similarly bizarre remembering the difference between red and green dragons. I am quite familiar with the names of the Valar but in the end it's the monster memory, of course, that I turn to to remember the Maiar's abilities!

                            7 - rune ID? I'm really surprised about your feelings here because the system causes me to make many *fewer* trips to the town - just think of all those weapons and armour you don't need to Identify. This links to point 11 - I find the downsides to use-ID to be absolutely minimal now and I happily use-ID all potions, scrolls, rods, wands, staves. There are some obvious precautionary tactics: don't try new potions with monsters around; read scrolls on stairs just in case it summons something you don't want to deal with; use un-IDed wands on monsters you could cope with if cloned or hasted. The only "negative" effect that seems substantial is Deep Descent but I just view that as a challenge! I will quite often identify quite a few runes by wearing rings, amulets, armour and weapons around for a while, and only end up using scrolls on the non-obvious ones. Curses are one part of the system which I don't find that engaging - they just don't seem very interesting since 90% of the time they ruin the item - and I often identify the curse runes by selling. I wouldn't make a trip to town just for that reason but if I'm going back to town anyway, I take a couple of cursed items back to sell-ID. Overall the fact that in mid-late game when sorting through piles of loot becomes really time consuming, the fact that you don't need to identify it (because you know all the runes) is a huge convenience.

                            15 - move through walls and tunnel - I didn't find this to be a big problem at all. The only creatures I remember moving through the walls are all the Gs, the earth Es and most of the Xs (which has always been true, and makes sense), plus the toughest L and V, one D, one U, and one annoying 'u'. The annoying 'u' (death quasit) is the only one to really annoy me, since it comes relatively shallow in the dungeon. Tunnelling it's just the umber hulk, the ent, the Xs and a couple of powerful Us? I actually agree with you entirely that if these two attributes became too common it would spoil part of the game but I contrarily I think if there were *no* enemies with these attributes the tactics would be too reliable.

                            17 - stat drains - are you sure? I only remember time breath as unresistable (from hounds and vortices). Powerful elemental attacks drain stats sometimes but that's not new, and as far as I can remember sustains work fine on that.

                            18 - up gunning - not my experience at all? Extra blows is very rare. Were you playing with randarts? I have the impression (based on ladder posts and forum posts) that with randarts on occasional lucky characters get amazing combinations of off-weapon brands and off-weapon blows but I don't know how common it really is.

                            Comment

                            • Sphara
                              Knight
                              • Oct 2016
                              • 504

                              #15
                              I mostly do like the new content and I've started playing in the 90's (if that is relevant piece of info).

                              I do however agree OP on Maia point. I do not remember which maia does this and that. They are mostly omniresistant, tough, have inventory-destructing spells and they tend to summon each other. Cherry to the top, their shapeshifting can be really deadly. Late game Maia with sudden breath attack is no joke but the worst thing is them to shapeshift into an unique. Sometimes into someone who is already dead. It's easy to avoid them because they are generated in deep, deep sleep. So, I just don't fight them at all.

                              Player upgunning is weird too.. when it comes to randarts. Randarts are already wacky powerful. As for me, I stopped playing with randarts when I got an early item that had Movement Speed +3 (was on 4.2.0). Things like that should not exist. I don't think Attack Speed +2 on non-weapon-slot-item should exist either.
                              Last edited by Sphara; August 13, 2020, 16:33.

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