Sangband Manifesto

[Bandobras]

For me the fact that I can't find a really psychologically compelling reason to stop picking up more and more skills is a real problem. This makes me lose focus and is an obstacle for even minimal role-playing at the stage of character generation for me. I try many character setups and decide in mid-game that I would really prefer some more skills, only to decide several levels later that a character with only a few skills would be more fun. I can't get a consistent background story for my character, because there are no limits in the game that would remind me of my decisions at birth and enforce and substantiate them, even in a token way. Score does not do that for me, especially if it's not balanced wrt different game-play modes and skills (and balancing it is not worth it IMHO).

I really can't get the nice feeling that my character setup is in some way unique, well-crafted, hacked in a clever way. All I get is the feeling that the decision to raise so many skills is totally arbitrary on my part and if I fail due to lack of some skills people will have all the right to laugh at me for not raising them at the first sign of trouble, with total disregard for role-playing, replayability, end-game trade-offs (there are none).

I remember generating wild ideas in emails to Leon long ago, with proposed solutions to this problem. IIRC, one of them was to lower the upper limit for all skills by 1% for each skill above, say, 5. I don't say this particular idea is good --- I've not played S for too long to say. But even with this method, if I play a Troll with the goal of making him totally the best character with blunt weapons ever, I will not be torn apart between going for all skills so that he is literally "the best" or choosing only one so that he is "the best in blunt weapons" (prompt YASD) or any arbitrary compromise in between. Instead I will make an educated guess about which skill is worth 1% decrease in blunt weapons and which is not, or just choose exactly 5 skills and, whichever setup I choose, I will have very strong opinions about it, both at birth and at the YASD. ;D

P.S. OTOH I'm a strong opponent of any harsh limits on skills. I even detest the current practice penalties (especially when I play all-skills characters). I find systems with "advance skills by doing" abominable, just as systems where skill advancement is determined by item/dungeon branch/NPC finds. Freedom for all --- but freedom with meaningful trade-offs instead of the chaos of arbitrary mildly meaningless decisions.

[Arendil]

Sigh...again, please no forced limits for everyone.

One simple idea is to introduce one additional option at birth, a.k.a type of "ironmode". Maximum number of skills that can be choosed by player, say "5", "10", "15", and "no limit". Or linear, from...hmm...say, "3" to "no maximum". Let's give this option a major role while counting score, add ingame warnings like "You have only 3 skill picks left!" and voila!

[Bandobras]

I don't propose limits --- I propose penalties, and slight penalties at that.

Thanks for your idea, but it doesn't help me much --- I still have no non-arbitrary method of designing the skill-set of my blunt weapon Troll. (BTW, both your and my proposals do not work well for people with several skills deliberately left at 70%, but it shouldn't be hard to overcome, e.g. sum the percentages of all skills and then divide by 100%; perhaps also factor in the cost of skills). Still, that would be better than nothing, but I don't think it's worth the price of infesting the game with another option in the menu...

[Arendil]

You...erm...propose penalties for having fun?? Strange...

BTW, both your and my proposals do not work well for people with several skills deliberately left at 70%

I don't understand. What's wrong with having several skills at 70%? As for my idea, you wanted something that forces you to choose only few skills and build unique characters, you got it. Well?

[Bandobras]

What's wrong with having several skills at 70%?

Nothing. But our proposals threat 70% (or 50%, or 30%) as 100%, which is unfair, IMHO.

As for my idea, you wanted something that forces you to choose only few skills and build unique characters, you got it. Well?

Whatever you may think, my pleasure is not in being forced , but in being encouraged --- in having interesting trade-offs and some nontrivial strategy in deciding which skills to choose and which to leave out. As for unique characters, the fun is in discovering new or strange or story-driven solutions to the strategic problems caused by penalties. Then you stick to them not because you are forced, but because you want to prove your solution works (or you modify it on the fly, so that it works, but retains the style/story/game-play of the original).

[Bandobras]

Some more random S ramblings:

I hate it when Wormtongue picks up my stuff and on death drops only some of what he picked up (confirmed many times).

I've hit Wormtongue (with throwing skill 40) three times with a potions of Slowness and he resisted every time. If the potions are useless against uniques, when are they supposed to be useful? Against ordinary crowds of monsters?

Could boulders be worn in the quiver? My Half-Troll Lobber would be glad...

Anyway, the game is a lot of fun.

Edit: BTW, a slight display bug: 'case S_THROWING:' is missing in line 2203 of skills.c.

[camlost]

case SV_POTION_SLOWNESS:
{
	typ = GF_DO_SLOW;
	if (who < 0) dam = get_skill(skill, 20, 75);
	else         dam = 20;
	break;
}
.
.
.
/* Cast the projection, notice effects, reset "allow_activate" */
notice = project((who < -1 ? -1 : who),
	rad, y, x, y, x, dam, typ, flg, 0, 0);

who is -1 for throwing, and it should be using the throwing skill.

		case SV_STAFF_SLOW_MONSTERS:
		{
			if (info) return ("");
			if (use)
			{
				if (slow_monsters(get_skill(S_DEVICE, 25, 95))) *ident = TRUE;
			}
			break;
		}
		case SV_WAND_SLOW_MONSTER:
		{
			if (info) return ("");
			if (use)
			{
				if ((need_dir) && (!get_aim_dir(&dir))) return ("");
				if (slow_monster(dir, get_skill(S_DEVICE, 25, 80)))
					*ident = TRUE;
			}
			break;
		}

For comparison, magic devices are a bit more powerful, but not unreasonably slow. I expect Wormy simply has a decent saving throw.

[Magnate]

I hate it when Wormtongue picks up my stuff and on death drops only some of what he picked up (confirmed many times).

No. If you kill him on the same level he will drop every item he has picked up or stolen (but not stolen gold). If you leave the level, he will have none of it with him next time you meet him.

I've hit Wormtongue (with throwing skill 40) three times with a potions of Slowness and he resisted every time. If the potions are useless against uniques, when are they supposed to be useful? Against ordinary crowds of monsters?

I don't think your skill affects his save at all, it just makes it easier for you to hit. I guess slowness is quite a weak potion and Wormy has quite a good save. Try using it on orc uniques, they may have lower saves even though they're tougher.

Could boulders be worn in the quiver? My Half-Troll Lobber would be glad...

Hey, that's quite a good idea. Nice one.

CC

[Bandobras]

No. If you kill him on the same level he will drop every item he has picked up or stolen (but not stolen gold).

Unfortunately, I'm quite sure this is untrue. I think I've enocountered this bug also in NPP (or was it V?) with some other monsters. I suspect they lose the first picked up object. If I encounter this problem again, I will post. Up to now I thought this is a feature...

[camlost]

I've never noticed monsters not dropping items that they've picked up, but negative confirmation doesn't prove anything.

The point of my post was that increasing your skill with throwing does make it harder to save, but not as hard as equivalent magical devices would.

[Satyr]

I don't think your skill affects his save at all, it just makes it easier for you to hit. I guess slowness is quite a weak potion and Wormy has quite a good save. Try using it on orc uniques, they may have lower saves even though they're tougher.
CC

I just had a look at the resitance code, and it seems to be only dependend of monster depth (there is no "resistance" number in "monster.txt"). It is calculated as 15 + 2/3 * depth for uniques (5 + 2/3 *depth for others), so with a native depth of 8, Wormtongue has a resistance of 20. This is compared to random(power), which is 20 + (40/100 * 55) = 44 for a potion of slowness and throwing skill of 40, according to the code camlost posted above. So you've got a chance of 20 in 44 or roughly 50% for Wormy resisting your potion with that throwing skill.

[Bandobras]

Lucky bastard --- resisted three times in a row!

[Magnate]

I've never noticed monsters not dropping items that they've picked up, but negative confirmation doesn't prove anything.

Hmm. Come to think of it I do remember a bug along these lines, but not for a loooong time (0.9.9beta6 or so) - so long that I can't clearly remember it, anyway. My current clumsy giant gets robbed *a lot*, and has so far never failed to get anything back.

The point of my post was that increasing your skill with throwing does make it harder to save, but not as hard as equivalent magical devices would.

Oops my bad - that's good to know though. I think throwing is underrated. Must try a thrower again one day. Throwing, Weaponsmithing, Spell Resistance. Maybe Stealth too.

CC

[Bandobras]

Hobbit necros with Bat Form are wonderful melee-less throwers. But necros are good enough even without throwing...

My problems with Wormy are not when he robs my equipment, but picks up my stashes of items (he seems even to stray to get them, damned 7GAI). Then he drops most of the picked up items, but not all.

[Magnate]

Hobbit necros with Bat Form are wonderful melee-less throwers. But necros are good enough even without throwing...

My problems with Wormy are not when he robs my equipment, but picks up my stashes of items (he seems even to stray to get them, damned 7GAI). Then he drops most of the picked up items, but not all.

Ah - maybe he's hitting some kind of limit, then. I only lose one or two items at a time. If there's a limit, and he picks up more items than that, it makes sense that you wouldn't get them all back. Solution here is to look at the source and increase the limit, if there is one.

CC