[announce] Sangband 1.0.1 released

[The GP Fury]

Mirrored at FuryTech.

[camlost]

Bugfix update [1.0.1.107]

Now releasing 1.0.1.107, bugfixes to 1.0.1
Sangband 1.0.1.107 for Windows
Sangband 1.0.1.107 source

Changes include:
* Improved quiver interface.
* Improved trap interface.
* Shops no longer leak item flavors.
* Will no longer target past possible range. (for projectiles)
* Hopefully fixed the Asian fonts problem. (confirmation appreciated)
* Hopefully fixed the restarting from dead character crash. (confirmation appreciated)
* Hopefully added fireproof books (confirmation appreciated)

So, here's what I'm asking you guys: What do you want out of Sangband?

[Bostock]

It's Christmas!!

I must confess that I'm still playing 1.0.0 Unofficial, just plain out of laziness... well and I'm kind of scared of the 100% Power rule-change, I feel like it's a good idea but I'm not sure if I'm man enough for it. :-) What's a rough number for how many skills you can get to 100% now, assuming an average skill cost (10?) and an Aptitude of 10?

As for what I want, I'll write out a greedy answer later, but the absolute first thing that pops to mind is squashing of the various buglary burgs I described about a half-year ago... unless they were already quietly fixed in the meantime.

Bostock

[Bostock]

...OK, I couldn't resist. The below hasn't been post-edited, hopefully I don't come off like a raving lunatic. Formatting courtesy of Notepad, and ditto.


Balance

* Somewhat weaken wand/rod disarming and strengthen skill disarming. Disarming is very cheap, frees up a backpack slot, and partially pays for itself, true, but it still feels a big investment for something you can get from Devices without the skill points (especially with the 100% Power limit). Of course if a more comprehensive approach to toning down Devices skill is taken, as has been discussed before, then this becomes irrelevant. (I'm not directly advocating toning down Devices because that's a huge change, and because it's expensive and it's not a terrible challenge game to play, at least, deviceless spellcaster/burglar... so it's not QUITE a must-have skill... though it really does come dangerously close.)

* Somewhat increase trap difficulty and decrease chest difficulty - with the same Disarm level that enables me to literally always safely disarm traps, I find myself getting blasted repeatedly by chests. Of course it's more acceptable to leave a chest lie than to leave roadblocks around, but the risk difference just seems out of proportion.

* Reduce the strength of mind blasting while increasing "conventional" threat from monsters who use it - at present it's at the very least a challenge-game to play without Spell Resistance, even when taking every opportunity to boost WIS and wear gear that boosts spell resistance. Unique V whose name starts in T, I'm looking at you... you murderer. In short: I'm OK with Spell Resistance being extremely handy, but I think it/the threat assortment should be such that it's not a necessity.

* (Arguable) slightly strengthen trap-setting (maybe a one-turn reduction in time taken or, perhaps better, decrease in the incessant dodges, disarms, and smashes), perhaps at the cost of weakening the other Burglary benefits, such as the light-weapon bonus, which I know has been criticised for its power. My reason? It's SUCH a royal pain in the ass for non-Guild burglars to meet the practice requirement for the skill... mainly around skill 11-30.

* Make attacking non-hostile townspeople possible for everyone or no-one - I prefer the latter, as long as they don't stop the run command (and as long as veterans/mercenaries become non-hostile after you reach, say, a power of 20). The present situation where you can target them at range but you can't melee them until they're hostile leaves me buying a pile of stone pebbles in the opening with half my melee characters... arguably my own fault, but we shouldn't tempt the poor player. :-)


Interface

* Make non-hostile townspeople not stop the run command.

* Make pillars not stop the run command.


Radical suggestions

* 1.0.1 brought radical changes to max skills and to the default collect-and-shop game, so I'll dare make one more radical suggestion - to default to disconnected stairs (except maybe D:1, which fits the them of it being unusual, e.g. no uniques). That's really big, I know, but Sangband is already perhaps the Crawliest band I know, and this would be another step that way, for obvious reasons. :-) Take it or leave it, of course.

* Remove junk (skull, sticks, skeletons) from the dungeon. It doesn't provide much atmosphere and it does get in the way. I say if it ain't functional, ditch it.

* Lower the difficulty and the rewards for all three quest types - at present even easy quests make for a radically different game (which maybe should be reserved for medium and above), and hard are so dangerous that IMO they're pointless without scumming each last-before-quest level to build power, which is degenerate play.


Kvetching without a Proposed Solution

* Money is so frickin' useless in this game! (Investing doesn't really seem to do much... I can't much distinguish its effects from the natural improvement of store assortment as you dive deeper... or at least that's what I think I'm seeing.)

[Susramanian]

What do you want out of Sangband?

I hate to ask you to go undo something, but here it goes: I'd like to have the 100 power restriction removed or made optional. I was so excited to see a new version of Sangband, and then I was completely dismayed when I saw this. It kept me from upgrading.

I understand the reasons for adding it. Leon himself said the game was only balanced for characters maxing six or so skills, I believe. But all my Sangband characters go over the 100 power limit because the crafting is so much fun that I feel the need to max all the crafting skills. So this limit will, in effect, just keep my characters from doing all that fun crafting.

Of course, no power limit unbalances the endgame somewhat. Not terribly, since pouring points into skills that aren't your top six most important ones doesn't help all that much. A melee character who maxes wizardry, for example, just doesn't get that much out of it. But yes, the endgame is definitely easier if your skills aren't capped.

I solved this problem in my Sangband copy by simply making the endgame harder. I added a bunch of brutally difficult monsters with native depths going from 4500 to around 5200. I made Morgoth and Sauron much nastier. In short, I made it so I pretty much had to push past 100 power. Even with a bunch of crafted adamantite gear, I creep carefully around the deeper parts of the dungeon. And it's been great fun!

Balance aside, the restriction also makes it a lot more work to level a character. With no way to plan things out in advance, it's quite hard to tell where you can safely spend points without being caught short when you reach 100 power. Does maxing six skills put you exactly at 100 power? Or is it five and most of a sixth? What if you're a jack of all trades? How much should you spend on your ten skills to have them all around the same level at 100? Too much metagaming! I just want to explore, kill things, take their stuff, and max whichever skills I find I'm lacking. I don't want to be afraid of putting some points into magic device or disarming on my warrior because they might keep me from finishing my primary skills. I don't want to be afraid of putting some points into wrestling to make my early game mage playable. I suspect that this sort of thing was what led Leon to refrain from capping characters at 100 power in the first place.

So what I'd like out of Sangband is either the removal of this restriction, or some way to keep it while addressing the concerns above. If you're dead set on keeping it, I really think there needs to be some sort of way to plan out a character or unlearn skills to keep players from screwing themselves with skill-spending decisions.

Personally, I'm in favor of tossing it out and just rebalancing the endgame. Other ideas:

- Make the 100-power cap optional.
- Allow the player to reduce skills already learned
- Only count points over a certain amount towards determining character power. Then you could put a few points in wrestling or disarming or something without worries.
- Don't count crafting skills when determining player power, and rebalance with the assumption that characters will be rolling around with crafted weapons and armor.

Thanks for putting your time and effort into Sangband, camlost. I'm looking forward to see what all you do with it.

tl:dr version: Throw out the 100-power restriction and rebalance the endgame accordingly. Fearing monsters is much more fun than fearing skill-allocation.

[Susramanian]

Bostock: actually, donating to stores can have some dramatic results. My current character is a wizard around 1700 feet who already has the first two dungeon books and an amulet of intelligence (+5) thanks to investing in the spellbook shop and magic shop. My last two winners both bought power dragon scale mail in the armor shop after investing a couple million there.

Keep some cash handy (maybe 30k-200k, depending on how far into the game you are) and donate the rest to your favorite store every time you come to town. It's a remarkably good way to get early dragon scale mails, dungeon spell books, cloaks of aman, lanterns of phlogiston, stat rings and amulets, stat potions, and potions of healing.

[Susramanian]

Another thing I want out of Sangband: identification reform. I started this thread on the topic some months back. It felt like there was some enthusiasm for the ideas I posted, but it never went anywhere.

Oh, and let's do away with *ID* like vanilla.

Other things to steal from the modern vanilla:
-Streamlined shop interface.
-Automatic charge knowledge for wands and staffs.
-Squelching. (Sangband struck the TMJ problem a good blow, but it's not dead).

[RogerN]

Automatic charge knowledge for wands and staffs.

FYI, you can achieve automatic charge knowledge in Sangband with the right skillset. I can't remember if it's just Devices or if you also need Perception.

[Magnate]

So, here's what I'm asking you guys: What do you want out of Sangband?

First, congrats on a new release and on your continuing de facto maintainership of the oldest and most significant variant. I hope you get plenty of feedback and ideas.

My wish would be to see more focus on the skills. Since those are what makes Sangband what it is, I'd like to see more skill-based effects that reward skill investment and don't require items. Like talents, but I'm not just asking for more talents (though that would be cool) - I mean things like, for example, a "whirlwind attack" at very high swordsmanship skill, which means that you will occasionally hit adjacent monsters in addition to the one you attack. A chance of disarming an opponent with a really high polearm skill (perhaps this already exists?) etc. More skill-based content means more interesting and varied builds.

Like Susramanian, I too like the crafting skills, but I don't agree with removing the cap completely. My suggestion is to create four or five difficulty levels, which correspond to the maximum number of skills you're allowed to raise above 0: easy (16 skills), medium (12), hard (8) and insane (4) - or something along those lines. Then you solve the problem of metagaming, because having chosen your skills, you can raise them with impunity throughout the game.

Separately, it might be worth revisiting the crafting skills and distinguishing them more or conflating some. For example, I never ever raise Bowmaking & Fletching, because it's too niche. If it was combined with Weaponsmithing I would make my own bows. Alternatively, if it cross-trained with archery I would probably raise it for my archers. Either would do (though I have a preference for the cross-training as that allows for more build choices).

I do agree with the suggestion to rebalance things to make Spell Resistance slightly less vital. This doesn't have to mean tweaking monster attacks (it's Thuringwethil, btw) - it could also mean making +saving throw more common on items, and/or easier to get from forging.

I also agree with the request to make quests a bit less hard. By all means leave the hard ones, but maybe make the easy and medium a bit easier.

Please please *don't* implement squelching: it was anathema to Leon, and I think it would be a shame. I'm ambivalent about removing the junk items: this was done in V, and some people have complained about the lost atmosphere.

More on this anon. I love Sangband and look forward to its future direction.

[Arendil]

I'll cast another vote for removing 100 power cap. Sangband is fun because of all talents, skills, forging etc, not because of balance. If some players want to restrict themselves, may the force be with them, but I don't understand why that should be mandatory for everyone.

Magnate, difficulty levels would require some work, and I don't really see the point. Let's say I want to develop all and every skill. Why not? In Sangband more skills equals more fun for me. I don't really care about the challenge, at least not in this variant, and as someone stated before, it doesn't really make the game *that* much easier. What the restrictions are for? Oaths alone create enough replayability.

[Magnate]

I'll cast another vote for removing 100 power cap. Sangband is fun because of all talents, skills, forging etc, not because of balance. If some players want to restrict themselves, may the force be with them, but I don't understand why that should be mandatory for everyone.

Magnate, difficulty levels would require some work, and I don't really see the point. Let's say I want to develop all and every skill. Why not? In Sangband more skills equals more fun for me. I don't really care about the challenge, at least not in this variant, and as someone stated before, it doesn't really make the game *that* much easier. What the restrictions are for? Oaths alone create enough replayability.

Well, two reasons, really. One - Sangband is one of the variants with the most rational scoring system, so difficulty levels would correlate very well with score. At the moment there is no score boost for using fewer skills.

Second, and this is a Marmite point (you either love it or hate it), it's something that was very close to Leon's heart. He really didn't want people to raise lots of skills (see posts from him on r.g.r.a about this) - but yes, he didn't put an absolute cap on them. I think difficulty levels are a halfway house that he would appreciate.

[Arendil]

One - Sangband is one of the variants with the most rational scoring system, so difficulty levels would correlate very well with score. At the moment there is no score boost for using fewer skills.

Huh? Are we talking about the same Sangband? As far as I remember, scoring system was always broken. Not to mention totally incompatible with the ladder.

Second, and this is a Marmite point (you either love it or hate it), it's something that was very close to Leon's heart. He really didn't want people to raise lots of skills (see posts from him on r.g.r.a about this) - but yes, he didn't put an absolute cap on them. I think difficulty levels are a halfway house that he would appreciate.

I'm sorry, but for me that argument is completely irrelevant. Introducing various caps and restrictions will move Sangband from the top of my favorite variants list, to the bottom. It is that drastic change in gameplay.

[camlost]

- Only count points over a certain amount towards determining character power. Then you could put a few points in wrestling or disarming or something without worries.

I think you're under a misapprehension as to how power is calculated. Power is very non-linear. A few points in wrestling or disarming won't meaningfully affect a character's total power. A character could have around 10-11 skills at level 90 or 27 skills at level 80 instead of 6 at level 100.



Check out this character as an example.

- Allow the player to reduce skills already learned

I could consider this option, but there are very few skills with hard cutoffs near 100 skill (where you're most likely to run into a problem). The prime example I can think of is spellcasting.

I hate to ask you to go undo something, but here it goes: I'd like to have the 100 power restriction removed or made optional.

Well, there's always removing the restriction and compiling the source yourself.



The restriction is in place in order for the game to have replayability. If you can max (almost) all the skills, the game is less replayable and more homogenous. My understanding is that Leon prevented users from upgrading skills after killing Morgoth for this reason.



As for making the end-game more difficult, I find it difficult enough, if you play a faster game.

-Squealching

This suggests that TMJ isn't dead enough. Leon was sufficiently against squelching that this is unlikely. I am hoping to reduce the wargear drop rate at deep depths in order to mitigate this problem.



Also, I am going to investigate improving ID.

[camlost]

FYI, you can achieve automatic charge knowledge in Sangband with the right skillset. I can't remember if it's just Devices or if you also need Perception.

Perception will help in IDing charges upon pickup. Devices gives a talent that will give charges for a device.

* Reduce the strength of mind blasting while increasing "conventional" threat from monsters who use it - at present it's at the very least a challenge-game to play without Spell Resistance, even when taking every opportunity to boost WIS and wear gear that boosts spell resistance. Unique V whose name starts in T, I'm looking at you... you murderer. In short: I'm OK with Spell Resistance being extremely handy, but I think it/the threat assortment should be such that it's not a necessity.

I'm pretty sure that you're not supposed to play the game without spell resistance. I could reduce the cost and make it do less and roll some automatic spell resistance into levelling, but that seems antithetical to Sangband philosophy. Or it could be remove altogether and bundled with levelling, much like HP already works, which also seems antithetical.



Mind blasting is indeed evil, and I hate it as a player, but it's seems evil in the appropriate way as a maintainer.

* Somewhat weaken wand/rod disarming and strengthen skill disarming. Disarming is very cheap, frees up a backpack slot, and partially pays for itself, true, but it still feels a big investment for something you can get from Devices without the skill points (especially with the 100% Power limit). Of course if a more comprehensive approach to toning down Devices skill is taken, as has been discussed before, then this becomes irrelevant. (I'm not directly advocating toning down Devices because that's a huge change, and because it's expensive and it's not a terrible challenge game to play, at least, deviceless spellcaster/burglar... so it's not QUITE a must-have skill... though it really does come dangerously close.)

I've been thinking about making utility devices easier to use, so that high device use skill won't be necessary for nearly all characters.

* (Arguable) slightly strengthen trap-setting (maybe a one-turn reduction in time taken or, perhaps better, decrease in the incessant dodges, disarms, and smashes), perhaps at the cost of weakening the other Burglary benefits, such as the light-weapon bonus, which I know has been criticised for its power. My reason? It's SUCH a royal pain in the ass for non-Guild burglars to meet the practice requirement for the skill... mainly around skill 11-30.

You can practice with theft also. I've found that practicing burglary isn't too hard. Also, you need 20 skill to become guild. I'll look into improving traps, but traps seem mainly aimed at handling large weak swarms, and stealth helps.

[camlost]

First, congrats on a new release and on your continuing de facto maintainership of the oldest and most significant variant. I hope you get plenty of feedback and ideas.

My wish would be to see more focus on the skills. Since those are what makes Sangband what it is, I'd like to see more skill-based effects that reward skill investment and don't require items. Like talents, but I'm not just asking for more talents (though that would be cool) - I mean things like, for example, a "whirlwind attack" at very high swordsmanship skill, which means that you will occasionally hit adjacent monsters in addition to the one you attack. A chance of disarming an opponent with a really high polearm skill (perhaps this already exists?) etc. More skill-based content means more interesting and varied builds.

Like Susramanian, I too like the crafting skills, but I don't agree with removing the cap completely. My suggestion is to create four or five difficulty levels, which correspond to the maximum number of skills you're allowed to raise above 0: easy (16 skills), medium (12), hard (8) and insane (4) - or something along those lines. Then you solve the problem of metagaming, because having chosen your skills, you can raise them with impunity throughout the game.

Separately, it might be worth revisiting the crafting skills and distinguishing them more or conflating some. For example, I never ever raise Bowmaking & Fletching, because it's too niche. If it was combined with Weaponsmithing I would make my own bows. Alternatively, if it cross-trained with archery I would probably raise it for my archers. Either would do (though I have a preference for the cross-training as that allows for more build choices).

I do agree with the suggestion to rebalance things to make Spell Resistance slightly less vital. This doesn't have to mean tweaking monster attacks (it's Thuringwethil, btw) - it could also mean making +saving throw more common on items, and/or easier to get from forging.

I also agree with the request to make quests a bit less hard. By all means leave the hard ones, but maybe make the easy and medium a bit easier.

Please please *don't* implement squelching: it was anathema to Leon, and I think it would be a shame. I'm ambivalent about removing the junk items: this was done in V, and some people have complained about the lost atmosphere.

More on this anon. I love Sangband and look forward to its future direction.

I agree with basing more off of skills, including creating more talents. I think new development here should increase the range of options available rather that just tweaking the numbers.

I've been of the opinion that warriors need more to do. I was thinking of skill-based talents (whirlwind attack is the only one I'd thought of thusfar). The nature lore, holy lore, and blood dominion skills were supposed to have stuff worthwhile for warriors, but I think they also need more. Ideallly warriors can be less reliant on devices somehow.

The latest release spaces out quests a little more (2-5 levels deeper than recall depth rather than 2-3). This will help alleviate quest-levelling that causes a player to be too shallow, and give players a little more time to prepare.

Squelching will not be implemented. I'll continue to try to rebalance drops, gold drops, and wargear drops to improve things.

Do you have any suggestions to make SR less vital. I've laid out the ideas I have, but none seem suitable. I don't really see the point of making it easier for challenge characters.

Combining weaponsmithing and bowmaking/fletchery might be an idea. Those two skills have always seemed overcosted to me, and quite niche. They just don't provide enough slots to do a whole lot with.

---

Scoring actually rewards using fewer skills by a lot. It's more rational than vanilla to some degree, but it's not perfect by any stretch.