What's the most annoying thing in Angband (without dying)?

[DavidMedley]

Originally Posted by invisibletroll

Identifying runes. Takes a lot of effort and keypresses. There's simply too many runes and many of them won't add much to the gameplay.

You know you can "know all runes" in the birth options, right? I've done that for testing my changes to BG and, even though I like the ID mini-game, I have to admit it is quite freeing.

[whartung]

Originally Posted by DavidMedley

You know you can "know all runes" in the birth options, right? I've done that for testing my changes to BG and, even though I like the ID mini-game, I have to admit it is quite freeing.

I run this. I found when I was IDing myself that not knowing what the gear was wasn't really a hinderance, it was simply annoying.

It was very rare that I was stuck in the conundrum of simply not WoR back to have the thing identified. I simply wholesaled everything in to the shops.

If scrolls were available, then I'd use them, but I really didn't hesitate to dump things in the shops to identify them.

Simply because in the early game, the gear is "OK" but not game making, and long term, having the runes identified is greater than any one piece of gear. So it was pretty much a no-brainer for me to potentially "sacrifice" a piece of gear to the vendor (i.e. it turned out to be something I'd like, but is too expensive to buy back) in order to get it ID'd.

Because with the combination of the scrolls and the shops, ID is not necessarily free, but it's pretty cheap.

Dungeon levels are cheap, WoR is cheap, IDing is cheap, so why not throw an entire level away to pop back up and get some stuff ID'd.

Thus, I turned the option on and skip the ID mini-game completely.

[Estie]

Originally Posted by whartung

I run this. I found when I was IDing myself that not knowing what the gear was wasn't really a hinderance, it was simply annoying.

It was very rare that I was stuck in the conundrum of simply not WoR back to have the thing identified. I simply wholesaled everything in to the shops.

If scrolls were available, then I'd use them, but I really didn't hesitate to dump things in the shops to identify them.

Simply because in the early game, the gear is "OK" but not game making, and long term, having the runes identified is greater than any one piece of gear. So it was pretty much a no-brainer for me to potentially "sacrifice" a piece of gear to the vendor (i.e. it turned out to be something I'd like, but is too expensive to buy back) in order to get it ID'd.

Because with the combination of the scrolls and the shops, ID is not necessarily free, but it's pretty cheap.

Dungeon levels are cheap, WoR is cheap, IDing is cheap, so why not throw an entire level away to pop back up and get some stuff ID'd.

Thus, I turned the option on and skip the ID mini-game completely.

Isnt everyone (who plays with ID enabled) doing this ?

If a weapon of bad base type doesnt have ESP, it gets sold to learn the runes. One exception would be an early armor of elvenkind; it gets used regardless of what its high resist is. If it is poison, youll learn soon enough, if not, its not really important which one it is but you dont want to sacrifice a resist all armor with stealth to find out.

One way to look at it:

There is value in learning the rune now rather than later; there is value in preserving a potentially good item for later (i.e. you wont learn the rune now). Somewhere inbetween is the best strategy. If you play Angband for long enough and never end up in a situation where you want to buy back the sold item but cant afford it, your strategy is flawed.

[tg122]

One more thing that annoys me a lot. The fact that the stores in town don't always stock consumables that restore experience or staffs of teleport or whatever you desperately need at that time. This causes me to have to go down to dlvl 1 and sleep and go back to town to scum for certain consumables. I find it to just be annoying that shopkeepers don't always stock key items, but doesn't actually make the game more difficult or interesting.

[Selkie]

Originally Posted by tg122

One more thing that annoys me a lot. The fact that the stores in town don't always stock consumables that restore experience or staffs of teleport or whatever you desperately need at that time. This causes me to have to go down to dlvl 1 and sleep and go back to town to scum for certain consumables. I find it to just be annoying that shopkeepers don't always stock key items, but doesn't actually make the game more difficult or interesting.

I think not having unlimited potions of CSW, and CCW is fine. I think not having at least one potion of restore life levels in stock at any one time is sloppy shopkeeping.

[DavidMedley]

Originally Posted by Estie

Isnt everyone (who plays with ID enabled) doing this ?

I don't. I try to identify what I can with experimentation. I sell or donate some items for the ID, but not stuff that expect to regret. I generally pay more attention to minutiae than most people would or would enjoy.

[Pete Mack]

Invisible troll:
Hoo boy. RuneID has got nothing on the old-fashioned way, with ?ID and ?*ID*

It is dead easy, especially if you remember to pick up cursed stuff, useless ego items and jewelry early in the game. Sell the stuff for zero gold and get free I'd. If you want the non-obvious jewelry after all, buy it back for a few hundred gold. Actually useful objects are almost always obvious, with possibly a hidden power to ID at your leisure.

[Whelk]

I love rune ID, though a part of me will always be nostalgic for the old ID system for some reason.

To answer the thread title question: Playing any class other than rogue after having just played a rogue. The trouble you have to go to just to discover what's around you in the dungeon!

[archolewa]

I've recently started playing with Word of Recall turned off (though still with upstairs, not quite ready yet for the Iron Man plunge), and I find the Rune ID game *much* more interesting when you don't have easy access to the town. It's super exciting when you identify something. Curses are pretty scary (though not so scary that you just wait for an Identify Rune scroll). And you often have to decide which unidentified items to keep when your inventory filled up, and which you figure you already know, or are probably cursed that you can throw away.

In fact, in general I find the early game especially much more tense and engaging without easy access to the town. Especially when playing a Blackguard *man* do they rely on Maim Foe for early game survivability.

[Selkie]

Originally Posted by Whelk

To answer the thread title question: Playing any class other than rogue after having just played a rogue. The trouble you have to go to just to discover what's around you in the dungeon!

I mostly play rogues so I know exactly what you mean. Rangers have magic mapping in their first spell book which is also really useful, rods of treasure detection are very common so the combination is quite strong. Rods of magic mapping are less common. That said, I get so many randart light sources that map the entire level and detect all objects that both spells are often surpassed