Balance and pacing (long)

[Mondkalb]

I think the game can already become tedious in early stages, especially with mages. If you start to move good gear further down, it would become even more dragging. (I'm not really fond of mages anyway, but tried out some lately.)
Part of the fun (at least in my view) is to get a really lucky finding every now and then.

[Derakon]

Originally Posted by Mondkalb

I think the game can already become tedious in early stages, especially with mages. If you start to move good gear further down, it would become even more dragging. (I'm not really fond of mages anyway, but tried out some lately.)
Part of the fun (at least in my view) is to get a really lucky finding every now and then.

Really lucky finds should be possible, but they should also be really lucky, i.e. not happen in every game.

Part of the problem we run into with pacing is the fact that there's nothing forcing the player to go into deeper levels before they're comfortable doing so. They can just scum at $safe_depth until they make a dumb mistake and die, and they'll end up blaming the game for being boring. And they're not wrong, is the thing. But no matter what we do, the game's pacing is going to be off for some percentage of players, so long as we hold fast to the idea that players are allowed to play an infinite number of equivalent levels if they so desire.

Maybe one simple thing we could do is just have a play clock that tells the player what kind of "pace" they're setting, based on game turns and max depth. It'd show up on the character screen, but it wouldn't have any game impact; it'd just tell them "your playstyle is average/leisurely/fast/sluglike/powerdiver/etc." So players that are playing slowly will at least know that they're playing slowly. Beating the game at various paces could be a conduct that the game would measure for you.

[fizzix]

The early game mage problem can be ameliorated by allowing SP to regenerate faster at low values.

[Pete Mack]

@Derakon--or you can make a gameclock like Sil's that enforces advancing. But your idea is good.
So what qualifies as powerdiving? 100-turn win? and 50K for epic?

[Derakon]

Originally Posted by Pete Mack

@Derakon--or you can make a gameclock like Sil's that enforces advancing. But your idea is good.
So what qualifies as powerdiving? 100-turn win? and 50K for epic?

Yeah, this is intended to be a weaker form of Sil's hard clock. At the moment I think we all still agree that players should be allowed to play at their own pace; we just want them to know that their pace can be improved.

Someone with more experience with the ladder (and more recent play experience in general) could probably give better numbers for what different paces are, but at a guess I'd say 125k for average, 100k for powerdiver, 65k for lightspeed.

[fizzix]

Originally Posted by Derakon

Yeah, this is intended to be a weaker form of Sil's hard clock. At the moment I think we all still agree that players should be allowed to play at their own pace; we just want them to know that their pace can be improved.

Someone with more experience with the ladder (and more recent play experience in general) could probably give better numbers for what different paces are, but at a guess I'd say 125k for average, 100k for powerdiver, 65k for lightspeed.

The only reason I dislike these metrics is a lot of your pace depends on how lucky you get. (In addition to class choice, a mage is going to go a lot slower than a warrior.)

Anyway, the problem is entirely in the domain of the balancers. Your turncount suggestions presume an "average" turncount which I guess is what you plan to balance around? I've always prefered a balance based on levels, the idea being you get enough gear to win in 100 levels (right now it's probably closer to 50, especially if you focus on clearing vaults and high reward monsters). I like this metric because it's easy to balance through stats, and it doesn't depend on class. My current thinking is we need to either greatly reduce the frequency of good items, or reduce the number of levels significantly.

[Derakon]

Originally Posted by fizzix

The only reason I dislike these metrics is a lot of your pace depends on how lucky you get. (In addition to class choice, a mage is going to go a lot slower than a warrior.)

Anyway, the problem is entirely in the domain of the balancers. Your turncount suggestions presume an "average" turncount which I guess is what you plan to balance around? I've always prefered a balance based on levels, the idea being you get enough gear to win in 100 levels (right now it's probably closer to 50, especially if you focus on clearing vaults and high reward monsters). I like this metric because it's easy to balance through stats, and it doesn't depend on class. My current thinking is we need to either greatly reduce the frequency of good items, or reduce the number of levels significantly.

We might need different metrics for different classes, yeah. Or at least some kind of modifier to the base numbers.

And I didn't intend necessarily to use game pace as a metric for balancing, so much as for guiding user expectations. If the game tells an inexperienced player "hey, you're playing super slowly", then they'll have a better idea of why they feel bored.

I definitely favor the use of statistics for guiding game balance decisions, so long as we have a reasonable expectation that the stats are relevant to how easy the game is. And it seems intuitively reasonable that the measured frequency of various items at different depths would be useful information when balancing the game.

[Grotug]

Would it be reasonable to have @ ID stat rings immediately upon walk over once he knows what they are from previous experience of trying them on, once he reaches a certain CL level, 30 or 40? Might this also apply to {ego} items he's already identified, like caps of telepathy and Katanas of extra attacks for example? He still doesn't know the stats on the {ego} item, but he knows that it has telepathy because he's ID'd caps of telepathy before, or he knows it has extra attacks because he's id'd katanas with extra attacks before.

[Sky]

i agree that some items need to be rebalanced; some egos and artis appear when they are already useless, and are immediately squelched. however, i do not think a massive rebuild is in order. the reason why angband seems too easy with certain modifications, is because you have deep, complex experience in the game, not because it's "too easy".

[fizzix]

Originally Posted by Sky

i agree that some items need to be rebalanced; some egos and artis appear when they are already useless, and are immediately squelched. however, i do not think a massive rebuild is in order. the reason why angband seems too easy with certain modifications, is because you have deep, complex experience in the game, not because it's "too easy".

Some egos and artifacts will always have to appear when they are useless. Not every item you find can be useful. Provided you can instantly squelch the items, and all others of their type, then I don't see the big problem here.

While it is true I am experienced in the game. The game is objectively easier than it was in 3.0.x for many reasons. Just the fact that breaths now reduce with distance means the game is easier. We've also removed many sources of tedium (having to ID every item, having to wade through seas of orcs and hounds to get anywhere, having to spam trap detection because hitting a summon trap often will instantly kill you, etc.) While getting rid of these makes a better game it's also an easier game.