4.2.1: First Impressions

[Sideways]

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 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.

Remembering which Maia does what is a little easier if you are familiar with the underlying lore; but if you keep forgetting it it's no biggy, since the appropriate tactics for dealing with a Maia - let them keep sleeping and/or TO them on sight - are the same for all of them That's the main problem with making enemies tougher; it doesn't matter how much you buff a monster if @ never fights them, and V both makes not fighting monsters very easy and gives few if any incentives to fight high-level things.

And yes, randarts were already absurdly overpowered in earlier versions and might be even more so now.

--

Egavactip: most of those changes happened well before 4.2.1; many date to early 4.x, and the rest existed in 4.2.0 (and for the most part existed in the nightlies for quite a while before 4.2.0 came out); so by this point they're all already pretty old and were often extensively debated at the time. While most of them are things Nick always wanted to do, he did listen to community input before making the final decisions. You might be interested in this thread Big changes are almost always controversial, but there were also plenty of players who approved of them.

I do think it's a pity that V's maintainers have been so down on options. Options allow players to configure and enjoy a game the way they want to configure and enjoy it, and if other people disagree with their views, well, that's why they are options.

[Egavactip]

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!

That there is a difference between red and green dragons is clear from the fact that one is red and one is green. That is not the case for the Maia, where the new maia have many different flavors but commonly share sprite colors with maias of other flavors.

The "names of the Valar" are irrelevant to the complaint I made. They could be Bob and Sue and David and Tom. The problems with them are 1) there are too many of them and they have too similar names, 2) they are all gratuitously upgunned, and 3) too many of them share the same sprites so that, combined with the similarity in names and their great number, distinguishing between them is difficult and one must constantly consult the monster memory.

As for being familiar with Tolkien's mythos: not that it matters, but just for the record, I have read the Lord of the Rings over 20 times, the Silmarillion over 10 times, and all of the Christopher Tolkien compendiums at least once each.

[Egavactip]

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.

Re moving through walls and tunnelling: there are now multiple demons that can do that (one upgunned greater balrog, one new one (fury), and the death quasit). There are huorns that can do it, more uniques that can do it, I think one of the new maiar can do it, the time-spitting hounds can do it, and more, in addition to all the creatures that already could do it.

Re stat drains: now all the Nazgul can do stat drain, and vortices of unmagic can do stat drain, and it is all unresistable.

Re upgunning: Of course I play with randarts (I don't see any point to play otherwise). The limited 4.2 games I've played so far were practically dripping with weapons that provided extra attacks, other gear that provided extra attacks, and a number of weapons with +25 or more damage. All of this was very rare beforehand. Now, as I said in my OP, this could have just been weird luck, but I've seen messages here with others posting examples of similarly hugely powered randarts.

[Egavactip]

Egavactip: most of those changes happened well before 4.2.1; many date to early 4.x, and the rest existed in 4.2.0 (and for the most part existed in the nightlies for quite a while before 4.2.0 came out); so by this point they're all already pretty old and were often extensively debated at the time. While most of them are things Nick always wanted to do, he did listen to community input before making the final decisions. You might be interested in this thread Big changes are almost always controversial, but there were also plenty of players who approved of them.

I do think it's a pity that V's maintainers have been so down on options. Options allow players to configure and enjoy a game the way they want to configure and enjoy it, and if other people disagree with their views, well, that's why they are options.

Exactly when they came out isn't really the issue; the problems that they present is what matters.

[Sideways]

Exactly when they came out isn't really the issue; the problems that they present is what matters.

The passage of time has no effect on the validity of your feedback, of course, but it does mean you can't expect any of those changes to be reverted while Nick is the maintainer. Nick asked for community input on this stuff long ago, views similar to yours were presented by others during that stage, Nick has already heard them, he implemented the changes anyway because enough other people figured they were good and solved rather than presented problems.

Nick will listen to your feedback at any time, of course, because he's a nice person; but he's not going to revert rune-ID or unsearchable traps or the Tolkienization of the lore at this point; nor are you likely to build a community consensus that he ought to.

[tangar]

I don't agree with some feedbacks above.. as my variant is based at PWMA which is based at V I always have fears that some feedbacks could turn the game wrong.. as it feels pretty good to me right now, it's hard to make stuff better, but easy to make it much worse.. so I just wanna say - it's great if new stuff will be added as game options - so people who wish to play differently - will be able to turn certain options in game settings, while others will be able to play the way it is now

[Nick]

Thank you for your frank opinions. I have not responded before now because I wanted some time to consider, and because I thought it better to let some discussion to develop first.

You raise some good points, and I will try to address what I see as the most salient; I'll also probably end up moralising a bit about the nature of Angband, game development, life, etc

Food - briefly, there has been a suggestion that cure potions should cost food rather than give it, which I think might fix most of the issues people have with it.

Level feelings - briefly again, it's possible these need recalibration to the new monster list, or even a rethink of the way they are calculated.

Replacing elves with dwarves - this has come up a bit, the idea is that Angband had "dark elves" from D&D, which are really quite incompatible with the Middle-Earth conception of elves. The elves also make a big deal of never having fought for Morgoth, whereas dwarves are explicitly said to have done so. In practice, this hasn't made a lot of gameplay difference.

Incongruity of trees - yes, maybe, but there are plenty of other monsters which are pretty incongruous in the dungeon setting (many of the animals, for example), and they make a distinctive and thematic class of monsters, in my opinion.

Monsters moving through walls - yes, there are a few more that can now, but there were already quite a lot that could (all G's, many of the higher undead, all X's, etc). I don't agree that this inhibits the player's tactical ability; I think it changes the balance of threats the player has to respond to, and so alters the tactics they will need to employ.

Stat draining - the changes here are

1. Ringwraiths can confer the black breath if you melee them (1 in 5 chance per melee round, minus the times they miss with that blow), which lasts a small number of turns, but can unresistably drain STR or CON while the player has it;
2. Storms of unmagic get a drain-all-stats melee attack, which is prevented by sustains (previously only Morgoth had this);
3. Some more monsters have time attacks.

The relevant monsters are all deep, and this is part of a deliberate strategy on my part tom make the deeper levels more dangerous. One of the problems I perceived with the monster list as it was was that it still had the hangover from Moria, where most of the monster power-up happened over the first fifty levels, and the remaining levels weren't that much harder but had better gear.

Maiar - I really don't see the difference between different types of these and different types of demons, or dragons.

Randarts - Yes, agreed, randarts are overpowered. Producing a set of randarts of similar power and distribution to the standard artifacts is a difficult problem, and the answer tends to be subjective, and I have to rely on player feedback. It turns out that people will complain more when they get too many crap randarts than when they get too many good ones, so that has undoubtedly influenced my thinking. Don't worry, you have been heard, and I will now nerf the hell out of them
Note here that the standard artifacts have actually been made a little less powerful in 4.2.

Tiles - OK, I saved this for last, I apologise (kind of) in advance for the rant. Tiles are the bane of my existence. When I first started playing, they were an optional add-on that had to be downloaded separately, and if I had my druthers they'd go back to that. Originally someone made a single tileset, which might have been manageable, but now there are five, one of which comes in two different flavors. Angband is fundamentally an ASCII game, I personally use ASCII, angband.live uses ASCII, and tiles are grafted on as something of an afterthought. And the consequence of this is that every time a new object or monster or terrain feature or spell type or whatever is introduced, someone (frequently muggins here) has to go through and work out what that means for all the different tilesets, or just let default ASCII show through, or most often some bastard combination of the two. So when you say "priority two tileset has a few monsters that look the same", you'll understand when I don't turn on the flashing lights and come speeding to the rescue. But I'll try and take a look.

Finally, I just want to say that I think roguelikes have the best, deepest gameplay of any games, and Angband and its variants are the best roguelikes. Being involved with developing Angband is an amazing ride, and in some ways I wish I could do it full-time. It also needs to be said, though, that this is not a AAA (or however many A's it is) game with a massive team of programmers, artists and game designers. Every line of the Angband source code (and there are many thousand) has been written by someone for no reward other than their satisfaction at contributing to a game they love, and volunteers like this usually have many outside demands on their time apart from the many demands of trying to make a coherent game that keeps a diverse (ish) Angband community satisfied. So all commentary on the game is welcome, but commentary that comes with practical, constructive suggestions and preferably code is particularly welcome

[Thraalbee]

After some games including two ironman wins with 4.2.1 (ranger and blackguard) I must say I am quite happy with the changes!

First, I definitely like the changes to classes as well as the boost of deeper monsters. This makes things more interesting and challenging as well.
Previously an Ainu pit was low risk high reward but now you will face a decent risk and require some consumables in such a fight. It is still doable (and I did it a lot in the last game to get more healing although the net effect was limited).

Randarts might be off but always were and remember, only the OP or crap stuff will be posted here. Usually that is not what you get. In my two wins I did find powerful weapons early but in both games, v.s. Morgoth, I was worse off for primary weapon than in any previous standart game (except one special case).
A nerf is not that simple but I have some ideas

#1 artifact melee weapons
These are quite common and most of them get too many slays and brand and features including immunities.
This makes the feeling of wonder when investigating a new weapon quickly turn into "... I can't read all that, what is the dpr?..." Clearly a fail!
Also, too often you end up with a "kill anything but Morgoth" weapon and tactical decisions on what weapons to carry and whom to fight becomes moot. Also clearly simplifying the ironman game too much.
I'd go for fewer brands and slays and effects and make artifact weapons more single purpose. Then powerful is ok.

#2 off-weapon slays and attacks
I like these. A lot! But when you find multiple items you may end up with silly amounts of attacks and slays which kind of ruins the game (for some but not all).
Again, if you had only one of these active instead of all, you would bring back tactical elements to the game.
Ideally you would only be able to use a single off-weapon effect at any time but be able to choose which one. Coding this might not be feasible though.
Perhaps if any off-weapon effect also had a rating you could just choose the highest rated to be in effect. To change that the player would have to stop wielding the item with the higher rating to get the effect of a lower rated piece. But... sounds less simple than desired.

#3 the rings of power
Randart rings are interesting but rarely come which high speed boni so are not that great. In my last win I ditched all of them for the Morgoth fight and just used speed. Sure, sometimes these are OP but also quite often crap.
Actually I'd prefer the original rings of power to be there in randart games as well instead of random versions.
It is not likely that randmizing these will turn out balanced and interesting and quite differently between games anyways. Also, I think randart games suffer a bit from having no standard lore at all (except Grond and ...). And the rings of power would be my #1 to bring in for a hybrid artifact set.

#4 +Moves
This was a fun and inventive addition, but I want this out of standarts as well as randarts! It quickly ruins a competition when someone gets this but not the others. Also it is too powerful.
And the tactics of juggling with =escape and ,sprinting or "do I use !speed here?" becomes moot. Not an improvement to the game play unfortunately.
I'd be tempted to keep the effect but only as a progressive spell for a single class.

[fph]

#4 +Moves
This was a fun and inventive addition, but I want this out of standarts as well as randarts! It quickly ruins a competition when someone gets this but not the others. Also it is too powerful.
And the tactics of juggling with =escape and ,sprinting or "do I use !speed here?" becomes moot. Not an improvement to the game play unfortunately.
I'd be tempted to keep the effect but only as a progressive spell for a single class.

Many players disliked the selling minigame and the id minigame; those have been changed, and we are generally very happy with the results. The food minigame is in the process of being changed, too, and I am confident that our great dev team will find a good solution for it.
My hot take is: I don't like the turncount minigame. This minigame is largely optional, since it matters only in ladders and competitions, but maybe in the future it would be better to find a form of scoring and an additional challenge that do not require me to juggle rings of escape and other similar abominations.

[Sphara]

#3 the rings of power
Randart rings are interesting but rarely come which high speed boni so are not that great. In my last win I ditched all of them for the Morgoth fight and just used speed. Sure, sometimes these are OP but also quite often crap.
Actually I'd prefer the original rings of power to be there in randart games as well instead of random versions.
It is not likely that randmizing these will turn out balanced and interesting and quite differently between games anyways. Also, I think randart games suffer a bit from having no standard lore at all (except Grond and ...). And the rings of power would be my #1 to bring in for a hybrid artifact set.

It's been quite a while I played with 4.2.x or earlier game with randarts, but I do remember that artifact rings appear much, much earlier than Rings of Power. Those are not even that rare and they often possess stat boosts and powers that make Ring of Barahir for example, look like a beerleaguer trophy. I'd prefer if randart rings were much rarer and Narya, Nenya and Vilya were included even in randart artifact jewelery set.

Randarts are absolutely a cool addition to the game. I personally just lost interest after getting so ridiculous gear every time. And by ridiculous, I mean compared to standarts.

[Cuboideb]

For me, the no-selling and rune systems are really good improvements. I play bands since 2003 and I remember having to rest a lot to get the pseudo-id feeling. Perhaps the only thing I miss from the old system was the satisfaction of getting the 'special' flag

I think that some amount of OP makes the game more fun. I played NPP a lot too (first versions were very OP) and sometimes nerfing things gives you a harder and uniform game, but less fun. If we have harder monsters after dlvl 70 we need a bit of OP to fight them, if the reward is good enough. Giving a good reward at that depth is difficult for the developer...

What I try to do when I play V is to avoid using asymmetric ranged combat, specially against bosses. I need a strong char to do that. I'm not saying that we should get rid of asymmetric los. It's sometimes useful for new players. Just don't nerf too much.

[Pete Mack]

I just don't understand the claim that rune ID is either tedious or slow.

There is no reason to ID things that aren't obvious, or easily determined through experimentation. (Brands, most slays, and basic resistances are trivial to determine.) Good items are usually obviously good, with stealth or a stat bonus or the like. The only non-obvious good egos are either deep or easily determined.

And if you find a cursed object, either ignore it or sell it to ID the curses.

[Thraalbee]

+1 to the above

[Pete Mack]

To be clear: if an item has a high resist and you don't know it, you will eventually find it out if you wear it. If you aren't wearing it, it means you almost certainly have something better for the slot. Yeah, there are a few high resists that really matter, but only one of them is rare in the early-to-mid game. For all except nether, you will quickly see a monster to try it out on.

[meganium_ menagerie]

Created an account just to say that rune-identification is the only ID system I have ever actively enjoyed in any game that isn't centered around it. If it was a birth option and all items were identified by default, I would go out of my way to turn it on. It owns.