[Announce] FrogComposband 7.0.cloudberry released

[CyclopsSlayer]

Also, the unpopularity of virtues was a factor in Chris's departure

The opacity of the Virtues led to their lack of popularity.
It was like getting a new car with no manual. Sure you can drive it fine, but learning how to use the back-up camera and auto-parking features was left to random chance and trial and error.

[Derakon]

Not having played the game in ages, my impressions from conversation here are basically that:

* You have to follow some fairly convoluted conducts if you want to control your virtue scores.
* Virtues are almost all stick, no carrot. That is, you get penalties for having virtue scores out of line with your class, but no bonuses for adhering to them. Consequently anyone who turns virtues off is automatically stronger than a virtue-following player.
* They are as mentioned nearly entirely opaque; what affects virtues is not well-communicated to the player.

So you have a system that periodically thwacks you with a stick for making incorrect decisions, without giving you prompt or detailed enough feedback to know what you did wrong. It's certainly a very old-school approach to game design. Ultima 4 had a very similar virtue system (and is almost certainly the inspiration, directly or otherwise, for this virtue system). The main difference is that the virtue system was a core aspect of the game; you couldn't remove it without the game just not really making sense any more.

[Sideways]

Not having played the game in ages, my impressions from conversation here are basically that:

* You have to follow some fairly convoluted conducts if you want to control your virtue scores.
* Virtues are almost all stick, no carrot. That is, you get penalties for having virtue scores out of line with your class, but no bonuses for adhering to them. Consequently anyone who turns virtues off is automatically stronger than a virtue-following player.
* They are as mentioned nearly entirely opaque; what affects virtues is not well-communicated to the player.

So you have a system that periodically thwacks you with a stick for making incorrect decisions, without giving you prompt or detailed enough feedback to know what you did wrong.

All of which is why virtues are off by default and you have to actively turn them on if you want to play with them

(There is in fact a fair bit of carrot to virtues, though, it's just that people don't know where the carrot is.)

[CyclopsSlayer]

It's certainly a very old-school approach to game design. Ultima 4 had a very similar virtue system (and is almost certainly the inspiration, directly or otherwise, for this virtue system). The main difference is that the virtue system was a core aspect of the game; you couldn't remove it without the game just not really making sense any more.

I was thinking that they felt similar to Ultima IV. The Virtues were what made me give up on Ultima IV, one action would hurt you a lot, and you needed many countering moves to repair it. Again it wasn't clear at first why you wanted or needed one aspect. Only by hindsight was it even clear that you basically needed to know the game's endings in advance to play properly.

[MITZE]

virtue talk

I started thinking last night about code-diving to see what all's affected by virtues—I didn't know about the better loot quality until Mocht mentioning it prompted me to look, for instance.

Would people on here be interested in anything I find in regards to that?

[CyclopsSlayer]

I started thinking last night about code-diving to see what all's affected by virtues—I didn't know about the better loot quality until Mocht mentioning it prompted me to look, for instance.

Would people on here be interested in anything I find in regards to that?

I would. A Dummies Guide to Virtues could prompt me to turn them on once again.

[Mocht]

I started thinking last night about code-diving to see what all's affected by virtues ...Would people on here be interested in anything I find in regards to that?

I would
(10 character min)

[Mocht]

I started thinking last night about code-diving to see what all's affected by virtues ... Would people on here be interested in anything I find in regards to that?

In a helpfile on white auras Chris said that there is another effect, that some characters are luckier than others
I assume this means that at creation each character is given some kind of immutable luck modifier
I would be interested if your investigations shed light on that or on other obscure mechanics

[HugoVirtuoso]

MITZE - show us what you've found on oook and also on angband.live (some folks over there are not oook.cz regulars)

[wobbly]

In a helpfile on white auras Chris said that there is another effect, that some characters are luckier than others
I assume this means that at creation each character is given some kind of immutable luck modifier
I would be interested if your investigations shed light on that or on other obscure mechanics

If you look in object2.c there's a bonus for VIRTUE_CHANCE. Not sure if that was what he is talking about.

[CyclopsSlayer]

Luck, makes me wonder...

A few times I have chosen 'Lucky' personality and found the character to be anything but. Maybe RNG hate, maybe a hidden stat, maybe just confirmation bias.

[Mocht]

Luck, makes me wonder...

A few times I have chosen 'Lucky' personality and found the character to be anything but. Maybe RNG hate, maybe a hidden stat, maybe just confirmation bias.

The white aura, I'm not sure how much of a difference it makes with respect to drops, but I know the black aura makes a big difference