[FA] FAangband development

[Psi]

This is one of the best specialties for every class, IMHO. E.g. the increased combat bonuses from potions are very useful for melee-users even in the end-game.

That's a very good point <quaffs !oEnlightenment>

Races: They're not all meant to be equal.

Maybe, but for the sake of variety it would be nice to have some of the less popular races more interesting. In V you are rewarded with quicker level gain for the weaker races, in FA it almost works the other way around as a High Elf, Adan, Druadan and Grey Elf actually start in such a position that you can be up to level 10-12 after just one kill and find some really nice gear just lying around!

I keep meaning to take a decent shot at playing a Dark Elf, but the low hit dice and melee put me off. The stealth is nice, but the non-aggravation seems a little trivial. The aggravating artifacts are mainly useful for warriors and Dark Elfs are not really suited to that discipline. Perhaps stick one up as a comp char and I'll give it a proper go!

Another idea is to enable the player to switch specialties on killing the 3rd and 4th guardians.

Now that is interesting. Not sure it makes sense from a realism point of view, but gameplay wise it could change tactics a lot. There are some specialities that make the early game easier but I'd avoid because there are ones I want more for the end game - things like clarity and athletics where the initial boost is great, but you could probably cover it with your equipment later.

[Nick]

Maybe, but for the sake of variety it would be nice to have some of the less popular races more interesting. In V you are rewarded with quicker level gain for the weaker races, in FA it almost works the other way around as a High Elf, Adan, Druadan and Grey Elf actually start in such a position that you can be up to level 10-12 after just one kill and find some really nice gear just lying around!

*Sigh* I guess you're right. All races need a bit of a reconsider; some of their innate specialties are pretty uninspiring.

I keep meaning to take a decent shot at playing a Dark Elf, but the low hit dice and melee put me off. The stealth is nice, but the non-aggravation seems a little trivial. The aggravating artifacts are mainly useful for warriors and Dark Elfs are not really suited to that discipline. Perhaps stick one up as a comp char and I'll give it a proper go!

They make really good rogues and assassins. I have been killing all my DE rogues, but only because I'm going most of the way to Amon Rudh without killing anything.

[HallucinationMushroom]

Some thoughts about specialties.

It seems more logical that specialty gain should be based on experience gain. How come only 5 uniques guard the secrets to player growth? Monsters should guard treasure or access, or something similar.

I agree with others' statements above that specialties could really break open FAangband's appeal/complexity/interestingness/whateveryoucallit.
This could be done several ways. More specialties is an obvious one. I think having some specialties that you can incrementally improve would be neat.
Skill trees?

Why do warriors get 2 out of the starting gate? I've seen this in D&D, and it sort of feels right but I can't explain it, just curious.

I guess my feelings are that the world feels tangible and is fun to traverse. The next step to feeling immersed in FAangband would be to have characters that felt unique to play because they could be grown in different ways. I know this feature already exists, but could be expanded on with wider variety.

p.s. my wife thinks flower patches in the wilderness would be really cute.

[Nick]

Some thoughts about specialties.

It seems more logical that specialty gain should be based on experience gain. How come only 5 uniques guard the secrets to player growth? Monsters should guard treasure or access, or something similar.

Grrr. Another person using logic and reason on me. Damn you all.

I agree with others' statements above that specialties could really break open FAangband's appeal/complexity/interestingness/whateveryoucallit.
This could be done several ways. More specialties is an obvious one. I think having some specialties that you can incrementally improve would be neat.
Skill trees?

Hmm. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Why do warriors get 2 out of the starting gate? I've seen this in D&D, and it sort of feels right but I can't explain it, just curious.

Because they did in O Maybe because they need something to balance their lack of magic and bad device skill.

I guess my feelings are that the world feels tangible and is fun to traverse. The next step to feeling immersed in FAangband would be to have characters that felt unique to play because they could be grown in different ways. I know this feature already exists, but could be expanded on with wider variety.

I guess the difficulty with this whole issue is allowing variety while keeping game balance. 0.2.3 is certainly easier than previous versions (not that that's a bad thing), and easier than O I think, so I'm getting into new territory. Probably I'll just make a whole raft of changes for 0.3.0 and then we'll see how it turns out.

p.s. my wife thinks flower patches in the wilderness would be really cute.

I'll see what I can do

[Seany C]

I don't see any need for a radical reworking but some tweaks would be intriguing...

I agree that Rangers aren't too difficult once you get started - I'm sure one will win soon.
Druids are a far harder challenge, though - the two main problems for Druids are not enough spell power (all elemental means that a lot of monsters have to be meleed) and not enough HPs - it seemed to me like mine had less HPs than Necros/Rangers, despite having less of a ranged attack.
Also, Druids on the 'difficult' starting points don't get a nice weapon - maybe compensate by giving them boots/gloves of FA or a nice armour?
Races: the main problem is that all the Elven races seem a bit similar (bar Dark Elves) - not sure how to differentiate, though...

Specialities: more would be nice but that's easy to say - I'll have a think about what to add. Maybe rebalancing the existing ones so that everyone doesn't take the usual suspects might be an interesting tweak...

Other ideas: how about expanding the world map westwards so that chars can get to the Bay of Balar/Vinyamar or Losgar (or even the Helcaraxe)? There's a risk that no-one would bother going more than once but it'd be a nice scenic diversion...

[Nick]

Other ideas: how about expanding the world map westwards so that chars can get to the Bay of Balar/Vinyamar or Losgar (or even the Helcaraxe)? There's a risk that no-one would bother going more than once but it'd be a nice scenic diversion...

I'd actually thought of having Arvernien and the Isle of Balar, and maybe starting a race there ... Maiar, perhaps. I don't know if I ever will, but having the sea would be kind of cool.

[Ghen]

This post is kinda a stream-of-consciousness from the evening's adventure.

I just started a few new characters in FA. Its a fun game. I tried ToME and Ey way back in 2003ish, but the only serious characters I've ever had have been in vanilla. (Ghen#'s on the ladder)

That being said, I was wondering about a few things..

What does rubble and trees do? Do they affect attack modifiers and movement speed?

I'm playing a Beorning Paladin now and I think they should get a Wis penalty when shifting into bear form. I see the int goes down.

I'm not one for normal race/class mixes... I played with a longbeard rogue for a while too, picking pockets is fun =)

The whole wilderness idea is very fun, expecially plains levels. I love the wide-open feel! Thing is, I haven't seen a dungeon yet besides 'undercroft' via a trap door.
Is that a real dungeon?
How can I find dungeon entrances? (or have I just not played long enough, highest character was level 11)

Everything seems to stack pre-ID as well as some non-ID'ed items stack with known stuff and gets a free ID. Is that a bug or a feature?

I uncursed a ring of teleportation, then I Identified it for squelching reasons.. the {uncursed} inscription disappeared. Not sure if the item was re-cursed or not.

When in the wilderness I noticed you use < to go to less danger and > to go to greater danger.. I can get used to it, but most of the time I just press them at random since they have the same graphic using graf tiles.

All the early monsters run at full speed which is kinda disappointing, I think the AI has improved pathing over vanilla too and won't get stuck in a corner. These lead to alot of long chases for that last * . I guess I'll have to invest in a bow or something, but this character has 'poor' shooting.

Thats it for tonight =)

[Nick]

What does rubble and trees do? Do they affect attack modifiers and movement speed?

You take two turns to move into trees or rubble; it's harder to hit stuff in them (monster or player); items disappear from view in them (but are still there). This is true for most races/classes, but elves and druids/rangers get advantages in trees (only one turn to move in, better combat stuff) and dwarves get similar in rubble.

I'm playing a Beorning Paladin now and I think they should get a Wis penalty when shifting into bear form. I see the int goes down.

I'm not one for normal race/class mixes... I played with a longbeard rogue for a while too, picking pockets is fun =)

Hmmm .... don't know about + to WIS for bears. Rogues are lots of fun

The whole wilderness idea is very fun, expecially plains levels. I love the wide-open feel! Thing is, I haven't seen a dungeon yet besides 'undercroft' via a trap door.
Is that a real dungeon?
How can I find dungeon entrances? (or have I just not played long enough, highest character was level 11)

First real dungeon is Amon Rudh, and it's a long walk for a Beorning. Look at the rough map in the help (?, 5, 5). Dungeon entrances are just down stairs.

Everything seems to stack pre-ID as well as some non-ID'ed items stack with known stuff and gets a free ID. Is that a bug or a feature?

Feature!

I uncursed a ring of teleportation, then I Identified it for squelching reasons.. the {uncursed} inscription disappeared. Not sure if the item was re-cursed or not.

No, there's no re-cursing.

When in the wilderness I noticed you use < to go to less danger and > to go to greater danger.. I can get used to it, but most of the time I just press them at random since they have the same graphic using graf tiles.

Yes, good point. I should try to find different tiles for > and <.

All the early monsters run at full speed which is kinda disappointing, I think the AI has improved pathing over vanilla too and won't get stuck in a corner. These lead to a lot of long chases for that last * . I guess I'll have to invest in a bow or something, but this character has 'poor' shooting.

You could try throwing - throwing weapons are more effective than in vanilla, and will go in your quiver. Paladins aren't the greatest throwers, but it may be enough to kill a fleeing monster.

[Psi]

They make really good rogues and assassins. I have been killing all my DE rogues, but only because I'm going most of the way to Amon Rudh without killing anything.

Well I've bitten the bullet with the death of my End Druid and Weaklin the Dark Elf Assassin has begun his quest. I'll be able to comment better on DEs once I've played one properly.

It seems more logical that specialty gain should be based on experience gain. How come only 5 uniques guard the secrets to player growth? Monsters should guard treasure or access, or something similar.

Alternatively you could describe the Guardians as quest monsters and Eru (or whoever) grants you a speciality for completing your quest. Again you would need a reward for each guardian though.

p.s. my wife thinks flower patches in the wilderness would be really cute.

The FA Wilderness is fantastic and is what really sets FA apart from many variants. What it needs now are more 'interesting rooms' to use dungeon speak (which could include flower patches...). I'd also like to see the river weave around in the Sirion Vale rather than being straight up the middle each time. Also I think it would be great to have water monsters that don't stray from water terrain.

Also, Druids on the 'difficult' starting points don't get a nice weapon - maybe compensate by giving them boots/gloves of FA or a nice armour?

Perhaps Druids could be given a sling to start out with and then give the harder races a Sling of Extra Might perhaps?

More thoughts on specialities...

Since Bandobras' comment on Enhance Magic I have realised that this is only available to Paladins outside of the Strong Casters. I reckon this speciality would probably be more beneficial to melee types with the enhancements to the combat buffing spells. Perhaps open this one up to every class?

Perhaps some of the weapon specialities could be opened up to be selectable? For example Druids have a reasonable shooting skill - I reckon a Grey Elf Druid taking a BOW_SPEED_GREAT speciality would make a very interesting character.

Thoughts on egos...

There are already specialities which raise the casting level of spells. Perhaps there could be items that do this too. ToME already has a similar concept with raising spell power. Borrowing an idea from there would be to have magestaff egos that increase your casting level - A Magestaff of Power (+16) perhaps? Similarly you could do the same on hats or rings/amulets if you wanted to.

Wild suggestions to make races more interesting:

Easterling - not sure why he has 9HD instead of 10?
Green-Elf - give them +1 or +2 to speed
Grey-Elf - BOW_SKILL and WIS make them better than High Elves for some classes. They are better than Green-Elves in most departments already. Probably leave them as they are.
Hobbit - I think this is a real challenge character. As I've said before give them SUST_CON and HOLD_LIFE. To make them a real contender give them REGEN (the amount of meals they have per day suggests they might have this... )
Petty-Dwarf - another challenge race. Give them rBlind like the other dwarves and they are suddenly an interesting choice for an INT based spellcaster.
Dwarf - there is no reason to take a dwarf over a longbeard. Perhaps Dwarves could be more stealthy (well less noisy) than Longbeards and/or have more HD.
Druadan - no need to change.
Longbeard - Maybe make them even less stealthy and swap their HD with dwarves.
Adan - no need to change
High-Elf - I'm always surprised that High-Elves don't have a thn boost per level, but then again the whole package is strong enough already.
Maia - never tried one, but somehow I don't think they need changing (except maybe not allowing them on the ladder...)
Dark-Elf - give them rDark (c'mon they're _Dark_ elves!) and maybe rBlind.
Ent - another great race. However I do think they should have their stealth bonuses whilst stood on any forest *terrain* rather than on any forest level. I would get suspicious seeing a tree walking across a glade for example or attacking a warrior settlement wilderness vault! It also doesn't make sense that an ent can't hide in all the trees on a river level. There may need to be a slight AI change for monsters to make them head for tree squares when they lose sight of an ent (eg if there is only one tree terrain grid then its pretty obvious where the ent is...).
Beorning - another race that is already sufficiently different.

Si

[Ghen]

Ahh, so I've noticed I can put daggers and such in my quiver. To throw them I use 'v' right?

[Psi]

Ahh, so I've noticed I can put daggers and such in my quiver. To throw them I use 'v' right?

Yes and then / to select from equipment rather than inventory.

[Nick]

What it needs now are more 'interesting rooms' to use dungeon speak (which could include flower patches...). I'd also like to see the river weave around in the Sirion Vale rather than being straight up the middle each time. Also I think it would be great to have water monsters that don't stray from water terrain.

Yes and yes. And yes.

Perhaps Druids could be given a sling to start out with and then give the harder races a Sling of Extra Might perhaps?

Interesting thought. My main thought on druids is to give them a shards attack - maybe replace poison bolt or fire bolt.

Since Bandobras' comment on Enhance Magic I have realised that this is only available to Paladins outside of the Strong Casters. I reckon this speciality would probably be more beneficial to melee types with the enhancements to the combat buffing spells. Perhaps open this one up to every class?

Perhaps some of the weapon specialities could be opened up to be selectable? For example Druids have a reasonable shooting skill - I reckon a Grey Elf Druid taking a BOW_SPEED_GREAT speciality would make a very interesting character.

Interesting ideas. I don't have any strong opinions about specialties yet, so I'm still able to be influenced

There are already specialities which raise the casting level of spells. Perhaps there could be items that do this too. ToME already has a similar concept with raising spell power. Borrowing an idea from there would be to have magestaff egos that increase your casting level - A Magestaff of Power (+16) perhaps? Similarly you could do the same on hats or rings/amulets if you wanted to.

I'll have to think about the implications of this one.

Easterling - not sure why he has 9HD instead of 10?

Me neither. I'll probably increase that, and may tweak some other stuff too. They're still D&D humans, really.

Green-Elf - give them +1 or +2 to speed

They'll probably get more stealth, and maybe better hit die.

Grey-Elf - BOW_SKILL and WIS make them better than High Elves for some classes. They are better than Green-Elves in most departments already. Probably leave them as they are.

Agreed.

Hobbit - I think this is a real challenge character. As I've said before give them SUST_CON and HOLD_LIFE. To make them a real contender give them REGEN (the amount of meals they have per day suggests they might have this... )

Agree on the approach - low hit die, but bonuses.

Petty-Dwarf - another challenge race. Give them rBlind like the other dwarves and they are suddenly an interesting choice for an INT based spellcaster.

Gnomes in all but name. Need work.

Dwarf - there is no reason to take a dwarf over a longbeard. Perhaps Dwarves could be more stealthy (well less noisy) than Longbeards and/or have more HD.

They get a starting weapon with +1 speed. I could make that +2; thematically I want them basically inferior to longbeards, though.

Adan - no need to change

Actually, I probably will change them a bit. I don't like their racial specialty, and may tweak everything else a bit too.

High-Elf - I'm always surprised that High-Elves don't have a thn boost per level, but then again the whole package is strong enough already.

Yes.

Maia - never tried one, but somehow I don't think they need changing (except maybe not allowing them on the ladder...)

Dark-Elf - give them rDark (c'mon they're _Dark_ elves!) and maybe rBlind.

They should be very similar to Green Elves, really. Probably weaker and stealthier.

Ent - another great race. However I do think they should have their stealth bonuses whilst stood on any forest *terrain* rather than on any forest level. I would get suspicious seeing a tree walking across a glade for example or attacking a warrior settlement wilderness vault! It also doesn't make sense that an ent can't hide in all the trees on a river level. There may need to be a slight AI change for monsters to make them head for tree squares when they lose sight of an ent (eg if there is only one tree terrain grid then its pretty obvious where the ent is...).

Yeah, I want to tweak that a bit.

[Psi]

Another advantage the "more difficult" starting positions have got are the weapon upgrades (apart from the poor druid of course). These provide many intrinsics or a potential windfall of cash if you sell up. Especially now that the wilderness is less populated, these weapons probably give too big a headstart. I can see the merit of having SeeInvis (would be very unfair otherwise) so perhaps give out a (+3,+3) (Blessed) (+1) weapon with the power forced to SeeInvis instead? It might also be worth upping the starting gold, so suitable survival consumables can be purchased too.

[Psi]

Interesting thought. My main thought on druids is to give them a shards attack - maybe replace poison bolt or fire bolt.

Now spell changes is another discussion entirely! Druids lack Teleport, TL, WoR, Banishment, Destruction, Genocide... etc Their only useful spell of that ilk is Teleport Monster. A Shards attack would definitely be nice (as any non-elemental attacks are for spell casters), but a destruction or banishment spell ought to be on the list too.

Interesting ideas. I don't have any strong opinions about specialties yet, so I'm still able to be influenced

I'll keep thinking then!

I'll have to think about the implications of this one.

For reference, this was regarding a possible Magestaff of Power. My thinking behind this is something to stop strong casters wandering around with standard warrior weapons purely for the stats/powers/resists. Chances are, most characters would still take Ringil given the choice, but it would make the decision more interesting on other artifact weapons.

[Psi]

New speciality idea:

Taming - Your grasp of nature magics grants you an authority over the animal kingdom. Available to Druids and Rangers

This would work similarly to superstealth, but just for monsters that are flagged ANIMAL and not EMPTY_MIND (maybe half effective for WEIRD_MIND?) or UNIQUE.

New artifact: (since there aren't any art robes it would be nice to have something with lowish AC, but pluses for full casters - and a tempter for those going for evasion)

The Robe of Someone or Something [2,+13] (+4)

INT | WIS | SPEED | SUST_INT | SUST_WIS |
RES_ACID | RES_ELEC | RES_FIRE | RES_COLD |
RES_DISEN | RES_CONFU