FAangband 0.3.6

[Nick]

The chief things that bother me are related to the issues that UnAndrew raise in his blog about a year ago (btw, pav - a link to the blog on the links page would be nice).

It turns out that the current best way to get a good turncount in FA is stairscum on the Anfauglith 56/58 border - I tried this a few times last night with thralls, and my characters included one which had found Crisdurian, the Glaive of Pain and Caspanion by 5000 turns.

I don't know about anyone else, but this seems unbalanced to me - not in a fairness sense, but in that it is an overemphasis on a small part of the game.

While I'm philosophising, I'll say that I dislike excessive focus on turncount. For me, focus is on winning, with the expectation of enjoying the journey - certainly with my comp game win, I could have gone faster at the end but was still enjoying killing off uniques, so didn't. Once one has won a variant once, I understand that one needs new challenges, and winning as fast as possible is certainly a valid one. But there are others - different race/class combinations, or the (self-regulated) equivalent of Nethack's conducts, for example.

I need to stop now before I start on instant gratification and the evils of modern society

[PowerDiver]

While I'm philosophising, I'll say that I dislike excessive focus on turncount.

I think you generally learn a lot by looking at the extreme cases. I'd say the lesson about scumming 56/58 is the same as everywhere else -- in a non-persistent world, disconnected level resets are the best solution. Force the player to pay a significant price in safety [as well as turncount] for a level reset. If that is too much for you, either allow floor objects only the first time a level is created, or not at all. If you want vaults, mark vault monsters with a flag that causes them to drop extra items and better items to make up for no items on the floor in a vault.

IMO, if things are bad when you minimize turncount, fixing those problems will result in a better game even for those who pay no attention to turncount.

[buzzkill]

... in a non-persistent world, disconnected level resets are the best solution. Force the player to pay a significant price in safety [as well as turncount] for a level reset. If that is too much for you, either allow floor objects only the first time a level is created..

Me likey. Me likey a lot (in theory, at least). It would actually give players an incentive to explore levels that would otherwise be passed over in hope of better/deeper items (and not flee any level at the first sign of danger). It would place a whole new emphasis on staying power and survival rather than escape (TL/WoR/Stairs).

I would really love to see and try this, if only as a beta/trial/hack version. Would it be very hard to implement?

[buzzkill]

... I don't think either myself or Buzzkill are qualified to make that call - we ought to be asking the all-stars at the top of the competition ladder....

I agree, at least partly. It's good to have you back Donald. I was a little worried about you .

[Nick]

in a non-persistent world, disconnected level resets are the best solution.

Disconnected level resets I think would be a bad idea for the advanced races in FA - venturing out into level 28 as a High-Elf can get you killed easily even if you are on the 'stairs'. Persistence (or semi-persistence a la Entroband) would be a possibility, but I would have to really be convinced it was the right thing to do (as adding multiple levels to the savefile would be non-trivial).

Force the player to pay a significant price in safety [as well as turncount] for a level reset. If that is too much for you, either allow floor objects only the first time a level is created, or not at all. If you want vaults, mark vault monsters with a flag that causes them to drop extra items and better items to make up for no items on the floor in a vault.

I rather like this too. It allows 'stairscumming' in wilderness for safety purposes, without the 'redo level until you detect Ringil' mechanic.

IMO, if things are bad when you minimize turncount, fixing those problems will result in a better game even for those who pay no attention to turncount.

This is, of course, true. I had to have some sort of shot at these guys who finished the comp in a fifth of the turns that I used, but I wasn't aware quite how transparent I'd been...

[PowerDiver]

I would really love to see and try this, if only as a beta/trial/hack version. Would it be very hard to implement?

[talking about floor generation only the first time on a level]

The problem is rebalancing the monster drops up a bit, but not too much. For a hack, you just ignore that. You would need to save an array of levels visited, so savefile compatibility would probably get mucked up a bit for live characters, and you would have to change or [more likely] disable the autoscummer. Implementing vaults would be the hard part. NPP has a solution I do not like, since I just cannot accept non-drop monsters like fleas with drops, but, for a hack to try this out, stealing that code is probably the simplest idea.

[Pete Mack]

The fake-persistent levels idea is OK, so long as the same un-IDed items have a good chance of reappearing on the level each time you come back--as Nick says. You can't force regeneration of Ringil, but level-scumming is pretty much a necessity in FA, not for items, but for simply staying alive.

You could do this by semi-persistently marking existing items for possible regeneration, but that's fairly complicated.

Simply being forced to transit between Angband(61) to Anfauglith(56) is sufficient to make stair-scumming Anfauglith(58) plenty scary. In fact, this alone may be enough to solve the problem. Just don't generate any objects unless the player has gone at least two levels away from the generated level, not counting town levels.

[tigen]

Force the player to pay a significant price in safety [as well as turncount] for a level reset. If that is too much for you, either allow floor objects only the first time a level is created, or not at all. If you want vaults, mark vault monsters with a flag that causes them to drop extra items and better items to make up for no items on the floor in a vault.

I like this post.

Another variation might be a sort of "weak persistence": remember which stair (if any) you entered the level by, so if you go back through that same stair you will not find floor items on that level. [edit: I guess if the problem is that there is a particular level which is unusually easy to scan for floor items, then that level should probably be special-cased]

I still find connected stairs a little cheesy with regard to safety from monsters. You could make there be some small chance of it becoming disconnected (have a message about the thing you just came through collapsing or a trapdoor slamming shut or whatever). Not sure what impact that would really have. Maybe it would kill a player now and then though

Maybe the more times you use the "same" stair, the chance of it collapsing could ramp up.

[Nick]

Simply being forced to transit between Angband(61) to Anfauglith(56) is sufficient to make stair-scumming Anfauglith(58) plenty scary. In fact, this alone may be enough to solve the problem. Just don't generate any objects unless the player has gone at least two levels away from the generated level, not counting town levels.

In fact, it's even easier than that. I already keep a record of the last level visited - it's just a matter of checking if that matches the one being generated. This then allows the same thing to happen in dungeons, without having to take shafts into account.

[Psi]

In fact, it's even easier than that. I already keep a record of the last level visited - it's just a matter of checking if that matches the one being generated. This then allows the same thing to happen in dungeons, without having to take shafts into account.

Please don't do that! What happens when you get to Ang99 but aren't ready for Morgoth? You don't want to force people to start diving back up the dungeon to make sure objects are still generated do you? It needs to be tested by repeated use of a staircase and not by depth.

[Nick]

Please don't do that! What happens when you get to Ang99 but aren't ready for Morgoth? You don't want to force people to start diving back up the dungeon to make sure objects are still generated do you? It needs to be tested by repeated use of a staircase and not by depth.

You just need to go up two staircases - from 99 to 97, then back down again if you like. I'm not sure if it's necessary in dungeons - all this requires a little thought. No need to panic

[Mr.Peanut]

Choosing the Optimal Weapon

How do I ever decide which weapon I should use. The weapon info gives an idea of speed and damage, but surely there must be other factors such as stealth and player race and class? Is there any way of working this out in game without copious note taking? If I am playing a halfling do I stay with racially preferred sling for a ranged weapon?

In truth this is something that bothers me about roguelikes in general.

[buzzkill]

Unfortunately, I can't answer your question as well as some others can, so I'll defer. But, I do like the concept of not only weapons, but also armours, affecting your stealth. Certainly metal armour should be less stealthy than leathers. In fact, a stealth modifier for armours, would be better than the current to-hit modifier. (I hope I have my facts right ).

[Nick]

Certainly metal armour should be less stealthy than leathers.

Here is precedent

[Nick]

How do I ever decide which weapon I should use. The weapon info gives an idea of speed and damage, but surely there must be other factors such as stealth and player race and class? Is there any way of working this out in game without copious note taking? If I am playing a halfling do I stay with racially preferred sling for a ranged weapon?

The info takes race and class into account as far as the damage, to hit and number of blows is concerned; inspecting some standard ammo will (effectively) do the same for your ranged weapon. The info is generated by pretending you are wielding the weapon (to take into account any race, class, specialty or gear bonuses) and then calculating the damage that an average hit will do - averaged across all levels of non-critical or critical, weighted for chance. I think this really covers your questions, but feel free to disagree