NOT a statement of intent

[AnonymousHero]

(Quoted only the stuff I found interesting, personally.)

Originally Posted by Nick

Every generated level has at least one "challenge" (vault, or OOD monster, or something).

Doesn't quite work -- reason was already mentioned by Magnate/Eddie. Let me just add that ToME tried something similar with the Iron Man mode where all levels have N(?) vaults. It's fun for the first few levels, but then just becomes tedious.

A good way to acheive this kind of thing would be to skew the OoD mechanics even further than in 3.5-git. Perhaps the OoD potential could be skewed furhter and further the longer you've lingered on a certain Dlvl? Leading to Morthoth showing up eventually?

You'd need some sort of reasonable falloff function and messages to the player every time the OoD "potential" increases, with increasingly alarming messages the closer you're getting to the big P showing up. If the player moves off the Dlvl for some reasonable amount of time (i.e. not absurd levels of scumming), halve the counter or something.

Messages could be along the lines of: "You sense the forces of Morgoth gathering their strength while you linger.", "You hear a loud dungeon collapse as if Morgoth himself was approaching!" (etc.)

Originally Posted by Nick

Certain behaviours (stairscumming, or taking the first available stair, for example) are rewarded or punished by affecting object/monster generation in some way.

Taken care of by above suggestion, I think.

Originally Posted by Nick

All of the above should be obtainable by birth options.

No. Perhaps one or two birth options covering various combinations of settings, but adding more birth options is NOT the solution to anything. Just choose a set of options for $DEITY's sake! That's a game designer's job!

OK, you might argue that you're not a game designer, but IMO that's what a maintainer is and should be.

(Sorry about any formatting SNAFUs, I've had a couple of strong beers )

[maboleth]

Originally Posted by Nick

1. At the start of each game, all objects get randomly (but according to their depth and rarity) allocated a minimum dungeon level they can start being generated.

Hm, interesting idea but that would kind of ruin the "randomness" of the whole game.

Originally Posted by Nick

[*]Every generated level has at least one "challenge" (vault, or OOD monster, or something).[/LIST]

I like it! Great idea, but AnonymousHero has a point.

Originally Posted by Nick

[*]Downstairs and/or recall from town go a random number of levels down, upstairs always up 1.[/LIST]

Downstairs should always give you 1-5 down (doesn't make sense to use stairs to reach 1-lvl15 instantly), but I agree for word of recall.

Originally Posted by Nick

[*]Difficulty level of monsters encountered depends on turncount not depth.[/LIST]

Turncount can be a factor, but not the main one, as the depth.

Originally Posted by Nick

[*]Morgoth may be on other levels apart from 100.[/LIST]

Partly agree. Having Morgoth wander on levels 90->100 would be great, but having him appear on 70 or lvl60 would make the game feeling pointless to continue if you happen to defeat him early.
There's a great sense of adventure knowing that Morgoth is dwelling somewhere in the deepest of the deep.

Originally Posted by Nick

[*]There is a "difficulty parameter" which can be set before starting any game.[/LIST]

Interesting idea. But that could also be a new source of bugs?

Originally Posted by Nick

[*]All races and classes earn experience at the same rate, and there is more variation between races.[/LIST]

Great idea!

Originally Posted by Nick

[*]Winning should be unusual.[/LIST]

Yep, but not frustrating.

Originally Posted by Nick

[*]Repeating levels gets you less monsters and gear every time.[/LIST]

Nice idea, but that would make early levels empty. The enemies should be set to respawn every once and then.

Originally Posted by Nick

[*]Winning should be guaranteed with ideal play.[/LIST]

Disagree, what is "ideal play"?

Originally Posted by Nick

[*]Recall is a command, not a scroll.[/LIST]

Totally agree. If you ever make the "difficulty" setting, "recall" should be enabled on easy-medium setting but disabled on hard-legendary.

And one more thing - please release a stable v3.5 and then add more stuff here and there, because Angband is currently in a "vaporware" state, 3.4.1 is over 1 year old. Better to have more frequent but stable releases in my opinion.

[Nick]

Just a couple of quick clarifications:

Originally Posted by maboleth

And one more thing - please release a stable v3.5 and then add more stuff here and there, because Angband is currently in a "vaporware" state, 3.4.1 is over 1 year old. Better to have more frequent but stable releases in my opinion.

Sorry to disappoint here, but

1. I am only maintainer after 3.5 comes out. It is actually currently pretty stable, and available from the nightly build page, but takkaria and the devteam are aiming for a very high standard of bugfreeness. I'm sure it won't be too long
2. When I do start, it's going to be with a big code restructure, so no new releases for some time.

Originally Posted by AnonymousHero

Perhaps one or two birth options covering various combinations of settings, but adding more birth options is NOT the solution to anything. Just choose a set of options for $DEITY's sake! That's a game designer's job!

OK, you might argue that you're not a game designer, but IMO that's what a maintainer is and should be.

Angband has a tradition of allowing lots of different playing styles. I must say, I am putting a lot of thought in to this, and the thing I am struggling most with is the "make it tight/disallow grinding" vs "let people do what they want" dichotomy. I remain convinced that everyone can be kept happy, but it's going to require care and subtlety.

[yarps]

Originally Posted by TJS

I'm starting to come around to the way of thinking with permanent levels. It might work quite well if the best items are on the ground so grinding monsters isn't really that worth it.

Much like my previous comment, I half-agree half-disagree. Non-permanent levels are IMAO a source of a lot of the problems of Angband, since they make scumming so much easier.

And yet, it's another feature that seems iconic to me about this game. I play a number of Roguelikes, and most of the rest have permanent levels. So this is something that, to me, helps distinguish Angband from its competitors; part of its feel. I think this is also part of the problem I have with forced-descent; you lose that element of the game.

Ultimately, of course, you have to go with what's best for gameplay and balance. But I don't think we should abandon this yet. Hell, in the last couple of days there have been several good ideas put forwards (e.g. diminishing returns from re-running levels, or monster threats based on both turncount and depth) that I feel are worth at least experimenting with first.

[Antoine]

> the thing I am struggling most with is the "make it tight/disallow grinding" vs "let people do what they want" dichotomy.

What do you think is the problem with the status quo?

A.

[Nick]

Originally Posted by Antoine

What do you think is the problem with the status quo?

Hey, I'm asking the questions!

Seriously, I don't know. Maybe nothing. I haven't played 3.5-dev for about 6 months; I will certainly be waiting to see what people say about 3.5 proper when it comes out. I'm a bit reticent to say too much about what I'm planning because I'm not too sure and I might change my mind; suffice to say there will be cool stuff and everyone will be happy.

[Antoine]

Originally Posted by Nick

Hey, I'm asking the questions!

Seriously, I don't know. Maybe nothing. I haven't played 3.5-dev for about 6 months; I will certainly be waiting to see what people say about 3.5 proper when it comes out. I'm a bit reticent to say too much about what I'm planning because I'm not too sure and I might change my mind; suffice to say there will be cool stuff and everyone will be happy.

I suppose my view is that a slow grind should be the 'standard' way of playing V, and that forced diving should be an off-by-default option (or set of options). However, I think that relatively new players should be able to dive deep if they want to, and (with skill and luck) diving strategies should be rewarding.

I don't think this is very far from the status quo of V.

Some corollaries:

• if the Borg can't routinely win V, there's something wrong
• if players aren't posting spectacular speedruns, there's something wrong
• it should be reasonably easy to find some way of descending - stairs, shafts or e.g. Deep Descent scrolls
• the stealth minigame should be interesting

A.

[Nick]

Originally Posted by Antoine

I think that relatively new players should be able to...

This raises a point - are there any, and if so where are they coming from? Why are they choosing Angband over other games? Might have to explore that.

[LostTemplar]

This raises a point - are there any, and if so where are they coming from? Why are they choosing Angband over other games? Might have to explore that.

Maybe not so many new players theese days.

I have discovered Angband about 4 years ago, before that I mostly played Adom and Crawl, and won many (countless) times, and I never played either after the first time I played Angband. The main reason for this choice was freedom I have in Angband. More specifically the fact, that it is never too late to win. No matter what you do, if your character is alive you can still win with it (and it does not become harder to win, compared to a new character).

Second reason is that Adom in particular becomes super easy after a few wins, Andband does not, at least not so fast.

[wobbly]

Originally Posted by Antoine

• if the Borg can't routinely win V, there's something wrong

I'm curious why you think that. To me that means I should be able to win with mechanical play, which doesn't sound particular fun.