Improving Z+Angband

[Magnate]

Right, well, then we do agree, but then I think you don't agree with the "anti-grinding" leg of the Crawl philosophy. The DCSS guys explicitly seek to make grindign impossible.

Which good on them, but I don't think it's right for Angband.

A.

P.S. I think the Crawl crew were explicitly motivated by the desire to make Crawl "less like Angband". Fine and dandy, but I don't think the correct response is to seek to make Angband less like Angband.

Agreed again. I think the hierarchy of angband's development needs looks like a bit like this:

1. Ensure that grinding is not necessary or required
2. Everything else I want to do
3. Ensure that grinding is impossible

So I am not totally at odds with the Crawl guys, but I don't assign it a high priority.

Incidentally, there is another, unstated element of the Crawl philosophy, which is the reason I stopped playing it: opacity. Crawl doesn't want you to know what the to-hit formula is, or how weapon skill affects damage output, or have any quantitative knowledge at all. Remember how Angand used to have the categories like "Legendary", "Heroic", "Good" etc. for all the abilities, and now some of them have been replaced with actual numbers? Well Crawl is the opposite - everything in the game is opaque (except +hit,+dam,+ac, last time I looked). I hate that.

[Antoine]

Change, on its own, is good, even if it is the wrong change. If you don't want things to change, you can play a previous version of the game. It's not going anywhere. Even change that everyone agrees was a bad idea is still good, because a) it's easily reverted in 99% of cases, and b) it gets people to think about why it was a bad idea and help them understand what changes will be good ideas.

You're going to have a lot of trouble finding a maintainer willing to just implement UI improvements while leaving the base gameplay alone. Maintainers take the job so they can tinker with the game, and that includes gameplay.

That said, of course changes get a lot of review before becoming official versions. That's what the nightlies are for. I don't expect every change in the nightlies to make it to an official release -- though at the same time, the vast majority of the changes I've seen so far are good ones, albeit occasionally unpolished.

This is well trodden ground and I understand your position, and I'm sure you understand mine (well, you must do after fielding all the annoyed comments from players who don't like changes that have been made).

I still think that if there was a written list of V design principles, which there isn't and probably shouldn't be, then "first do no harm" should be on it.

A.

[Magnate]

I never find the darn thing so I wouldn't know whether it was a shield or a bar of soap.

> IMO those are both prices worth paying

My value judgement is the opposite. I don't have a problem with a few no-brainer kit choices, I'd much rather that than (strawman) making all arts more common.

I don't understand the strawman: removing no-brainers does not require making all arts more common. I accept that you have no problem with a few no-brainer kit choices, but I don't understand what you fear would happen if they went away.

Looking at the other post now.

[Antoine]

I don't understand the strawman: removing no-brainers does not require making all arts more common. I accept that you have no problem with a few no-brainer kit choices, but I don't understand what you fear would happen if they went away.

I am not suggesting a causal connection, I am attempting to indicate a hierarchy of badness.

I rank "making all arts too common" much higher on my hierarchy than "creating a no-brainer kit decision".

A.

[Magnate]

This is well trodden ground and I understand your position, and I'm sure you understand mine (well, you must do after fielding all the annoyed comments from players who don't like changes that have been made).

I still think that if there was a written list of V design principles, which there isn't and probably shouldn't be, then "first do no harm" should be on it.

Well what I think of your list is easy, 'cos my good twin wrote it out for both of us.

IMO the key issue is the use of the term "official version". Takkaria was very careful to label the entire 3.1.x series as "beta" releases. He decided that 3.1.3 should actually be 3.2.0, and I have wondered whether this is in some way caused some problems, but I think most people here are pretty comfortable with the development model: lots of change, a little bit haphazard, with the occasional backward step among the forward progress. And all much more pronounced if you play nightlies.

The alternative is little change, but much more carefully thought out and without any hiccups. That's what angband was like for years, while maintainers sought first to do no harm ...

[Magnate]

I am not suggesting a causal connection, I am attempting to indicate a hierarchy of badness.

I rank "making all arts too common" much higher on my hierarchy than "creating a no-brainer kit decision".

Oh right, happy to agree with that too. I accept that I have in the past made mistakes in attempts to remove no-brainers which have actually been worse than the no-brainers themselves. I will probably continue to do so occasionally, but hope that it will happen less often and be more swiftly fixed.

[Antoine]

Well what I think of your list is easy, 'cos my good twin wrote it out for both of us.

Very good.

I now exit this debate (with apologies for the threadjacking), confident that that I have made my point, yet not having an unrealistic expectation that I have changed other people's minds in the process.

A.