A minimal band

[Antoine]

what do you think mage needs? more dps ? more mana? have you got any dungeonbooks?

[emulord]

Right now rogue is the best class because of insane stealth. You could seriously tone it down to +1 stl every 2 levels at least. I found so many +stealth cloaks and boots being stealthy was no problem even at midlevels.

I had a tough time with mages too. I had to townscum for statpots and SI and FA. on the other hand, all of the townies drop $, so it doesnt take that many TV shows to scum 10-100K.

[thapper]

what do you think mage needs? more dps ? more mana? have you got any dungeonbooks?

A bit more mana perhaps to be able to hold up for longer in fights. Due to a combination of densely populated levels and crappy stealth my mage tends to get into fights with many monsters at the same time (or just after each other). I haven't got dungeon books 'cause I'm afraid to dive down to where they could be found... But really, I'm not so used to play mages, perhaps I'm not using the best strategy...

[emulord]

Small levels nerf teleport / teleport other.
for my mage I used a robe of resistance, sheild of resist light/dark, boots of stealth, cloak of stealth, FA amulet, 2 rings of magic.

That seemed to be the best combo. I had enough mana to whittle down uruk packs, and enough stealth to only aggro a few at a time. I stairscummed for larger levels and ones where I could kill the stuff near me.

[Antoine]

hmmm.

im thinking a balance release in the next week or so...

thapper any thoughts on kit?

a.

[thapper]

Small levels nerf teleport / teleport other.
for my mage I used a robe of resistance, sheild of resist light/dark, boots of stealth, cloak of stealth, FA amulet, 2 rings of magic.

That seemed to be the best combo. I had enough mana to whittle down uruk packs, and enough stealth to only aggro a few at a time. I stairscummed for larger levels and ones where I could kill the stuff near me.

See, my problem is that I can't get far enough down to find rings of magic, boots of stealth, etc. But honestly, I think it is because I'm not good at playing mages.

[thapper]

Kit/artifacts

This is now based mainly on my one, successful (apart from that he died) rogue so naturally the RNG can have play whatever kind of tricks on me. It is a lengthy post but I hope you can get something out of it.

As I was playing along I realised that I often had very few choices to make about my kit. For most of my game there seemed to be one thing I wanted from each slot. Perhaps this was caused by not being swamped in artifacts, I don't know.

Let me go through the equipment and explain.

Weapon: Well, here my view is a bit skewed. I was using a defender before I found Ringil. Kind of a no-brainer to switch and later very hard to find anything better (although I did beat Gilim with a big slay giant axe). So, the only kit related choice I did was to change to Ringil and switch to a armour that covered rBase if I remember correctly.

Shooter: Never found any artifact so I gradually upgraded my longbows and heavy crossbows until I had "of Might +2" of both. I used the crossbow for a long while but never found any good ego bolts (the only stack I found all game was poisoned) so in the end I had switched to the long bow to use my ego arrows.

Rings: For a long while I used one =might and one =youth. Gradually updating until I had +6. Easy choice considering that the alternatives only are =SI, =slaying and =magic. I was considering =slaying but switching out one of the other rings always made me lose a blow. Then I came to =speed depth and I switched out =youth. In the very end I did find one of the rings of power and that was part of my death, thinking that immFire would make me much more powerful...

Amulets: Here I was starting with "FA, when that was covered elsewhere I was switching between "poison and "confusion. I then found Elessar and kept "confusion as a swap.

Light: lantern->phial->star of elendil

Armour: I think bronze DSM first, then robe of resistance (for rBase), then later the multi-hued DSM (to have rPoison even with "conf). Only artifact armour was Rohirrim, but that didn't add anything.

Cloak: stealth->thingol. At that point I didn't need stealth any more and recharging was useful.

Shield: light and dark->Thorin, gave rChaos which made me less stressed. I still kept the other shield as a switch for rDark but never had to use it.

Head gear: Can't remember where I started but I never really considered giving up telepathy after I found it. I had celebrimbor as a swap for rShards and rDisenchant in the end.

Gloves: Power->Cambeleg (which is updated power)

Boots: Found Dal-i-thalion and kept it forever for rNether. Never found a speed boot that would even make me think about switching.


So the one feature needed per slot boiled down to:

Weapon: Perhaps one of FA and SI, otherwise just power to kill stuff (FA and SI appear on enough artifacts that it is not a problem after a while).

Rings: Some stat and eventually speed (If I didn't have Ringil perhaps I would have been tempted to use two =speed).

Amulet: rPoison and/or rConfusion

Armour: rBase

Cloak: Stealth (artifact will override)

Shield: Bonus resists: rLight and rDark or something from an artifact

Head: telepathy

Gloves: +hit, + dam

Boots: Stealth? or Speed? (artifact will override)


After I had put together that type of kit it was just an endless looking through unID'd stuff seeing if there was a small improvement to be found. Since I had not played the endgame of Minimal before I didn't know if there was anything better to be found so I kept on looking. I don't say that this "standard kit thing" is bad, just that it is different from the "normal" juggling of equipment. I still wonder if I was powerful enough to take on the final two. Maybe I should just have gone for it when I had my kit put together? If I wasn't strong enough then I wonder what I could have found that would have made a difference? I guess only another stealthy rogue will tell!


When it comes to covering resists: rBase was not a problem after the mid game or so. Poison and Confusion have their amulets if nothing else. Light and Dark are kind of unimportant (some heavy dark attacks exist I guess) but if no artifact shield have been found then the light and dark one is the only option for a shield anyway. The rest are also not easy to find but artifacts gave me some (actually all in the end) and the rest I just had to avoid.

Does there exist anything with a nexus attack? I never had rNexus.

[Antoine]

excellent feedback.

it was certainly intended that there should not be complex kit decisions in minimal. more a feeling of despondency as you look at your inadequate kit and wonder how to kill monsters.

i might add one more ego shield type and perhaps an artifact providing mass id.

no i dont think there are any nexus attacks left from memory.

by the way, in the absence of big heals, do you think the cap on the damage of some high end attacks like chaos and nether should come down a bit?

thanx
a.

[thapper]

Good to hear that it was all a design feature. It works as intended.

I'm afraid that the feeling of despair was a part of my rogue getting killed, I had the feeling that my kit wouldn't get better but still it felt like I was far from able to handle the high end Uniques. So I got sloppy and started attacking things I should leave alone... Anyway, I think you could take down the cap on some big attacks. When I made an attempt to kill Saruman he would repeatedly attack me with things that took more than one !heal to restore so it was kind of futile (this could have been some attack I didn't resist, I'm not sure).

[Antoine]

So my to-do for the balance update is:

- Rogues gain stealth every second level (rather than every level)
- 50% more SP for mages and priests
- OOD weaker at low CL
- Slightly bigger levels
- !Resistance about 50% more common
- !Restoration less common on deeper levels
- Add a new shield ego (I'm tentatively thinking 'of protection', providing AC only)
- Remove -StinkingCloud
- Remove all sources of sleep monster, flight and nativity
- No DSM sold in the armor store
- "FA a bit more expensive
- At least one deep artifact should have a Mass ID activation
- Townspeople carry less gold
- Orcs a little less common relative to other monsters
- Rename rattlesnake to Black Mamba (and change color)
- Both liches and vampires may be a bit too strong
- Balrogs summon too much
- Troll pits should be removed (perhaps trolls could be in orc pits)
- Graveyards are too tough
- Some high-end damage types should have a lower cap
- Bugfixes: "Wands of confusion sometime, on the first attempt at confusing a (sleeping?) monster, give a positive message (foo looks confused) but the foo is not confused. Later attempts usually work and make the monster confused for several turns. ... Scrolls of identify offer to identify some of my inventory that I don't think are needed, like spell books and my (average) lantern... Trolls and war trolls are the same brown colour to my eyes/screen.. so are iron and mercury golems... Slay Evil ammo exists but it doesn't seem to be able to be generated on mithril arrows/bolts "

[emulord]

Ilthillia Dark elf sorceress is the same color as a thief.

They're far away in level, but still, I wouldve hasted myself before the fight had I known.

[Antoine]

Ilthillia Dark elf sorceress is the same color as a thief.

They're far away in level, but still, I wouldve hasted myself before the fight had I known.

OK got that

[Antoine]

ALso need to fix description of Elessar activation, perhaps other healing activations - and multi-hued' DSM should be 'chromatic'.

[Antoine]

Uh, I guess I should get on and make these changes.

Gonna need to download Microsoft Visual Studio, hopefully it's still available freeware...

A.

[Nick]

Uh, I guess I should get on and make these changes.

Gonna need to download Microsoft Visual Studio, hopefully it's still available freeware...

A.

This post makes me feel better about my current inactivity