Plans for 4.1 - 4.3

[fizzix]

Nick, I think your list looks great, I have a few suggestions.

When designing themed levels/rooms it's easy to run into issues (which we've seen with cavern/labyrinth levels). Namely, the way Angband is played, you either need to ensure that all the levels have nearly equivalent risk/reward levels, or you need to prevent the player from skipping "bad" levels. I'm less worried about scumming for "good" levels.

Just one example, DJA introduced themed levels in one its later releases, but I never got to play with them. That is because the threat was greater than for normal levels, so I always was forced to leave them very quickly. We don't want the same thing to happen to themed levels.

There is another option, which I'm thinking of trying for my inevitable fork of V in which themed levels are blocked into 5 level blocks. So that when you start the game, it decides that levels 20-25 are caverns, or whatever themed level type you have. You can still "skip" the bad levels, but there's a difference between regenerating a bad level into a good one, or going up/down one flight of stairs, and having to travel 5 levels deeper to get past a "bad" section of the dungeon. You still want risk/reward balance, but now you have a lot more leeway.

I wholeheartedly approve of smaller level size. But I'm also someone who thinks that vaults are too large currently. I hit "vault fatigue" on almost every large vault I come across. I know that most people love the huge vaults though... Regardless, figuring out how huge vaults fit with smaller levels is a bit of a difficulty. It's already tough to fit some of them in our current level size.

[wobbly]

Originally Posted by Cold_Heart

Rogues need to be able to set traps and backstab things.

I think if Rogues are gaining backstab they need to be a little weaker to start with or how stealth works should be reworked, as currently Rogues are already pretty powerful to begin with. I'd be in favour of those things anyway though.

[Nick]

fizzix - good points, especially on the vaults. I'm expecting quite a lot of chopping and changing on level generation until it works effectively, so we should be able to iron out the issues as we go.

And making rogues more roguey is certainly on the agenda.

[maboleth]

While you all seem to be concerned on the core side, as it should be, I'm concerned about the visuals. We have Shockbolt here, the guy is doing magnificent 64x64 tiles and is about to complete the entire set for Angband.

You should utilize his power and use it. Rarely anyone posts anything in his 64x64 thread in Dev forum except him and that's a shame. He put a massive work and had lots of ideas. Ideas for ponds, water and lava are just some of those. And his new tiles for dungeon walls, doors and lights look amazing. He could transform Angband into the 21st century game. That should be on the agenda for Angband 4.x as well.

[MattB]

Originally Posted by maboleth

While you all seem to be concerned on the core side, as it should be, I'm concerned about the visuals. We have Shockbolt here, the guy is doing magnificent 64x64 tiles and is about to complete the entire set for Angband.

You should utilize his power and use it. Rarely anyone posts anything in his 64x64 thread in Dev forum and that's a shame. He put a massive work and had lots of ideas. Ideas for ponds, water and lava are just some of those. And his new tiles for dungeon walls, doors and lights look amazing. He could transform Angband into the 21st century game. That should be on the agenda for Angband 4.x as well.

A big +1 from me!

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Originally Posted by maboleth

While you all seem to be concerned on the core side, as it should be, I'm concerned about the visuals. We have Shockbolt here, the guy is doing magnificent 64x64 tiles and is about to complete the entire set for Angband.

You should utilize his power and use it. Rarely anyone posts anything in his 64x64 thread in Dev forum except him and that's a shame. He put a massive work and had lots of ideas. Ideas for ponds, water and lava are just some of those. And his new tiles for dungeon walls, doors and lights look amazing. He could transform Angband into the 21st century game. That should be on the agenda for Angband 4.x as well.

I just need to figure out how to play with them on my little laptop screen. Well, pretty big as far as laptops go. But I switched to ASCII because tiles were so hard to see. They do look beautiful in the posts, though.

[Timo Pietilä]

Originally Posted by Nick

And making rogues more roguey is certainly on the agenda.

I have always pictured rogues a more spellcaster-like than rangers. Give them most mage utility spells, and remove almost all mage spells from Rangers arsenal. Or introduce a new class: archer, which is basically a 5-blow warrior with rangers ability to use bow. Reduce ranger shots to one extra at clvl 25.

What to do with paladins....I find paladins boring. They need something that exclusive to them.

I also think that warrior extra blow should be like rangers extra blow, not dependent to weapon weight and STR/DEX calcs. Just start with one extra blow and use rangers/rogues calc for rest. Make them prefer heavier weapons from start.

[fizzix]

Originally Posted by Timo Pietilä

I have always pictured rogues a more spellcaster-like than rangers. Give them most mage utility spells, and remove almost all mage spells from Rangers arsenal. Or introduce a new class: archer, which is basically a 5-blow warrior with rangers ability to use bow. Reduce ranger shots to one extra at clvl 25.

What to do with paladins....I find paladins boring. They need something that exclusive to them.

I also think that warrior extra blow should be like rangers extra blow, not dependent to weapon weight and STR/DEX calcs. Just start with one extra blow and use rangers/rogues calc for rest. Make them prefer heavier weapons from start.

Personally, I'm a big fan of symmetry, and would propose the following nine classes.

Holy school (tanky)
Priest (pure caster)
Paladin (hybrid)
Warrior (no spells)

Arcane school (offense)
Mage (pure caster)
Rogue (hybrid)
Assassin (no spells)

Nature school (summoning/buff)
Druid (pure caster)
Ranger (hybrid)
Archer (no spells)

Rogue would play similar to current rogue. Good utility, decent offense, very good device skill. Assassin would have high stealth and get incredible critical bonuses on unaware monsters. It would be similar to DCSS stabbing.

The nature school would take the most work. We don't have friendly monsters in the game yet, and those would probably needed to be added to make this work.

[Nomad]

Level feelings could also use a rework to make them more flavourful/appropriate. Initially I think it would help just to do a straight replacement of the existing messages with ones that seem more like observations than psychic powers. (i.e., instead of "You feel anxious about this place", maybe "You hear marching patrols in the distance"; instead of "there are very good treasures here", maybe, "the monsters seem well-equipped and alert". And as I said elsewhere, I kinda want to see "Omens of death haunt this place" replaced by "Drums! Drums in the deep!")

But once the kinks are worked out of dungeon generation we should probably contemplate other, better ways to communicate risk/reward balance for a given level. As fizzix notes, if it's too immediately obvious whether a level is 'good' or 'bad', people are just going to skip the bad ones, but I don't think it's ideal to leave the player with no indication of possible rewards, either, because then they've got no motivation to ever risk sticking around to face dangerous situations. The current level feeling mechanic at least encourages the player to stay on the level and explore for a bit before they get a feel for whether it's worth clearing the whole thing or not, but maybe there are better, more organic ways to do that.

[Zireael]

Let's keep rogues rogues (meaning stealth, traps, backstab) and make the fighter/mage arcane cross something else. Warmage, spellblade, bladesinger, whatever...

That said, the nine classes idea is GREAT!

EDIT: Also +1 to utilizing new Shockbolt tiles and to changing level feelings.