Planning for FAangband 1.3

[Nick]

What do you mean expansive? Some hobbits walked from one end of it to the other in a few weeks!

"...the gates of Morgoth were but one hundred and fifty leagues from the bridge of Menegroth"

[Zikke]

I'm finding it a little hard to survive though. I've not yet settled on a race and class combination, but I've tried melee and hybrid classes so far (was never comfortable spellcasting) and forget about dungeons - I can't even survive the wilderness yet!

Don't feel bad about the wilderness being quite difficult after the first few levels. I found that many times the wilderness levels were much harder than dungeon levels of the some depth equivalent. The open spaces and obstructing obstacles can make it hard to see trouble coming.

[Soluzar]

Don't feel bad about the wilderness being quite difficult after the first few levels. I found that many times the wilderness levels were much harder than dungeon levels of the some depth equivalent. The open spaces and obstructing obstacles can make it hard to see trouble coming.

That is comforting to know, and over the last couple of days I actually managed to keep a character alive long enough to get somewhere. It's a bit harsh starting out with no gold, but I stayed near to town until I was able to scrape together enough money for some basic armour.

[buzzkill]

The race you choose dictates your starting location. Some locales are much more difficult than others. Also be aware that there is a *lot* of wilderness. Just making it to a dungeon is no small feat for a beginner.

[Nick]

It's a bit harsh starting out with no gold, but I stayed near to town until I was able to scrape together enough money for some basic armour.

Sorry - that's a bug. I probably will get to bugfixing 1.2 at some point, but at the moment I'm having too much fun with 1.3...

[joelsanda]

What do you mean expansive? Some hobbits walked from one end of it to the other in a few weeks!

Consider The Fellowship of the Ring, Chapter 12 - "Flight to the Ford". That's the trip from Weathertop to the Ford, where they ran into Bilbo's trolls and finally met Glorfindel. IIRC that journey took something like nine days - with multiple dead ends.

Expansive wilderness areas in FAangband 1.3 could replicate something like this, with dead ends so you have double-back because you can't scale the mountains. And that was with Strider :-)

[buzzkill]

150 Tolkien leagues = 450 miles (according to wiki something-or-other). Not huge in the context of the planet Earth, but Middle earth was probably quite a bit smaller, and in any case, it's still a hell of a long way to walk.

[joelsanda]

The Gondolin one is awesome. The Angband ones are cool too, but I imagine the gate of Angband to be at the end of a ravine - I suspect from something I read. I'll chase that up.

I think you're right about it being at the end of a ravine or perhaps steep canyon. Here's a passage from The Silmarillion that came to mind:

Black chasms opened beside the road, whence forms as of writhing serpents issued. On either hand the cliffs stood as embattled walls, and upon them sat carrion fowl crying with fell voices. (Of Beren and Luthien)

[buzzkill]

Here's a UI tweak that I suspect would be easy to implement.

Currently, [ brings up the monster list in the main window. If there are no monsters it just brings up a blank screen. Instead it could skip the screen and instead produce a message such as "You aren't aware of any monsters."

Here's something else I noticed, a bug??? with pack AI.

Standing in a corner of a room causes otherwise aggressive hounds to retreat. I was retreating from them until they started retreating from me.

******   *******
Z  @ *      Z @*
 Z   *     ZZ  *
ATTACK   RETREAT

[Derakon]

The pack retreated because there weren't enough open spaces around you. That's only a bug if you have a ranged attack and they don't, IMO.

[buzzkill]

These, in particular, were clear hounds so neither of us had a ranged attack. I was surprised to see them flee once they had me cornered as I was prepared to flee myself (teleport). I wouldn't have been able to withstand fighting three at a time. However, once I saw they were cowardly, I just began to step in and out of the corner, luring them to me one by one till most were dead. Sure seemed buggy to me. 3 on 1 odds aren't good enough? (esp. without a breath weapon).