Zangband revival?

[Mangojuice]

Hey all -- I'm new on the forums but a long time roguelike fan, but Zangband has always had a special place in my heart because it has rich and interesting gameplay. Unfortunately there were a bunch of things that bugged me about the game too. So, since I do have experience programming in C, I decided to try my hand at hacking it and I've gotten to the point where I understand the code pretty well. So I'm working on a new version, which I suppose I might have to give a new name to since I'm not an "official" developer. But anyway, I have a lot of ideas of my own but I wanted to get feedback from other people. What do you like about Z? What do you hate? What would be on your wishlist for a great variant?

To give you a brief list of things I'm working on:
- Try to balance random artifacts so they don't accidentally get too powerful
- Fix monster summoning so it's worthwhile
- Squelch command
- A wider range of play options, for a more flexible game
- Avoid those huge annoying "lake" levels
- Balance towns and stores more

I'd love to hear and debate your thoughts!

[Bandobras]

I presume you hack 2.7.5pre1? I liked 2.2.*, but it was not replayable enough and too unbalanced, so I was very excited about the approach of 2.6 and 2.7 and very sorry it died (repeatedly). Apart of finishing the new features in 2.6--2.7 and apart of balancing the outcome, there is also lots of goodies to be stolen from other variants (e.g. UI stuff) and of course your personal vision. Good luck!

P.S. I wonder if it would be possible for you to just create a branch at the Z SourceForge project SVN and hack there?

[Mangojuice]

Yes, hacking 2.7.5pre1. I'll look into the SVN thing... this started as hacking for personal use so I haven't really thought much about things like distribution and my variant's official status. Any particular UI things I should look for? I must admit, I haven't explored variants much beyond Z and vanilla.

[Citybob]

I loved the old TK version but I haven't played later Z- but ,yes, lake levels...and 'rubble' levels, very annoying.

[Nick]

Yes, hacking 2.7.5pre1. I'll look into the SVN thing... this started as hacking for personal use so I haven't really thought much about things like distribution and my variant's official status.

It might be worth trying to contact the existing devs (I think they should be listed at SourceForge) - maybe your changes should be going into regular Z.

[AR_chie]

[...] but Zangband has always had a special place in my heart because it has rich and interesting gameplay.
[...]
To give you a brief list of things I'm working on:
- Try to balance random artifacts so they don't accidentally get too powerful
- Fix monster summoning so it's worthwhile
- Squelch command
- A wider range of play options, for a more flexible game
- Avoid those huge annoying "lake" levels
- Balance towns and stores more

I'd love to hear and debate your thoughts!

There are more Z-fans, than you think (sic!) and that message pleased me
Unfortunatelly Z gets so many variants which dissolve fans beetween them.

I.e. I prefer 2.7.2 with branding patch, and no wilderness with boring quest.

[uberbacon]

Sounds interesting! I play 2.2.8 myself, so I'd have to download the newest version and have a look at what can be changed.

Just a note: Occasionally getting too powerful artifacts sounds random, just how random artifacts are supposed to be. Why else would you wish for them through the game? As long as they are really really rare, it just adds spice to the replay value!

[Mangojuice]

Just a note: Occasionally getting too powerful artifacts sounds random, just how random artifacts are supposed to be. Why else would you wish for them through the game? As long as they are really really rare, it just adds spice to the replay value!

Well, part of it has to do with a feeling that the rare resists should be a little ... rarer. Another part of it is that I think the game should be more deliberate about giving out the power, and not do it by mistake. Also, really powerful artifacts sometimes come with negative abilities to balance things, and I wanted to see that more consistently applied to artifacts that have extreme levels of power.

Also, I want to see ego items be a bit more competitive with artifacts. I'm powering some of them up; the idea is that artifacts should be more stranger than vastly better.

[Lebannen]

Would be awesome to see zAngband get balanced

The wilderness is still a little... untuned. In a way it's far too easy to townscum by running in between different towns to find overpowered randarts*, and in a ways it's all far too susceptible to sudden death. A radius of risk and reward running out from the starting town would be good...

The initial dungeon can also be quite frustrating with the current themes (is it sewer? It's been a while...), but finding a slightly-tougher one can also be very risky.

Rings of fate are wonderful, but oh so overpowered

It would be interesting to contact the previous Z developers (if you can!) and try to find out the intended direction of the changes. There were so many of them, there must have been a large goal

* I do think randarts can be far too powerful at the moment - they're often better than the preset artifacts. There's a fine balance between allowing variation in the endgame - it's a *wonderful* thing if the final equipment can vary significantly from game to game - and having randarts rendering Artifacts useless.

[uberbacon]

Hehe, seems like way too much changed over the years.. feels like completely different variants (old Z vs new Z)

Personally I disagree about boosting ego items, some of them are stronger than many artifacts already. There's a lot of crap artifacts out there... Regardless, getting that {special} feeling about an item feels sooo much better than the {excellent} you just throw away after a while anyways. Do you want to take away the feeling over the {special} like that? Just like stealing candy from kids!

I say: Let artifacts be artifacts (best stuff you can get!) and ego-items be ego-items (not as good as artifacts)! Perhaps it's just as wise to make both fixed artifacts and random artifacts much more rare for a little balance gain?

[Jude]

I'm a Zangband player and I'm all for this.

Definitely take out those stupid lake levels and all the other awful types that appear in the newer versions.

Also...I LIKE more randomness in items. Sure sometimes you'll get an overpowered item...but sometimes you get breathe-killed too. It's all up to the RNG. I think having the chance of finding something uber makes the game more interesting, as long as it doesn't happen very often.

One of my favorite things about Z is the Chaos Warrior, which I've almost always played as. I really like the high risk high reward aspect of it. You get a bunch of sweet items and stat boosts, but you also run the risk of bad mutations (and you often erase good ones trying to get rid of them, or just put up with them) or getting a weapon blasted or just straight up getting murdered. This class works pretty well as it is, but I think the introduction of a bit more of that type of thing into the game as a whole would be good (with less extremity obviously - a player choosing Chaos Warrior is voluntarily taking those higher risks, but another player shouldn't have them forced...but a bit more "chaos" in the game would be fun I think.)

[Mangojuice]

Here's my philosophy on random artifacts and ego items.

An artifact's power is approximated by adding up points for its various powers. Different powers are worth different amounts of points. The old system involved choosing a certain number of powers at random after possibly applying a "theme" (e.g. Westernesse). My system involves choosing a number of points for the artifact and then trying to attain it.

You can still get powerful artifacts, definitely. But I think the usefulness of an artifact will be more accurately predicted by that up-front choice of the number of points you get. (There's a flip side here -- I think my algorithm also prevents random artifacts from being weaker than they should be also).

As for Ego items, my philosphy is that there's no reason Ego items should be so weak as to have only one or two flags. But they should be sensible combinations of powers that balance the game, and thus much more mundane-seeming and predictable than artifacts. For instance, I am introducing weapons of *Flame* which are not only fire-branded but also grant resist fire and activate for fire bolts (fairly infrequently) and give permanent light. This is probably better than some very weak artifacts if you had no other abilities on your other equipment. On the other hand, if you're trying to cover all your resistances or you want to slay both demons and animals, or if you want a utility spell activation, you're going to have to go with an artifact.

The changes I'm working on now are about quests. Quests were fun in the older versions (2.2.x) but they got nerfed badly in recent ones. My version will feature more types of quests, and many different quest-granting buildings, including guilds, couriers, keeps, and castles. Quests will also be realistically doable, as opposed to the current system where they are practically impossible (except message quests).

[ThunderToads]

I've been a Zangband fan for many years. It's one of my favourite variants, maybe THE favourite. I'd love to see more work done on it. Try to keep it crazy though. That's part of its charm.

One thing I've always wanted to see are 'high' brands on weapons - Nether, Nexus, Chaos, etc. Could make for some interesting new Ego items. Might need careful weighting for randarts to stop them getting too powerful too easily, but still workable I think. If there's a variant where these'd most fittingly crop up, it's Zangband.

On 'lake' levels - I think a toning down of these would be best, so that rather than great rivers of water, acid or lava, the level would be dotted with smaller pools of the stuff instead. No bigger than 30 cells across and averaging half that, maybe. Similar deal for the rubble levels perhaps.

Maybe just for a bit of consistency add in some monsters corresponding to each of the playable races that aren't already there. We meet Dark Elves and Nibelungs in the dungeons - how about Klackons, Sprites, etc?

[Jude]

There already are Chaos-branded weapons, although I don't usually use them because they seem to cause earthquakes more often than not and I hate those. (However, as a chaos warrior, I get given them all the time as gifts so they're a big cash cow). Nexus and Nether brands would be interesting.

[AR_chie]

Nexus and Nether brands would be interesting.

nexus ? - I don't think so... I suppose hit with that weapon could blink/teleport/banish from level monsters... I hate that effect.

New ideas:
- potion of curing - it's to similiar to !of cure critical wounds - maybe it should only remove confusion, poison, blind etc... without raising HP
- high priest class - new class that is similiar to high mage - there is such one in branding patch (I hate carrying bag with libraries of 2 kind of magic)