FrogComposband 7.0.peppermint

[jupiter999]

Originally Posted by OmniNegro

Nope. You can read the changelogs of each variant, and in most cases, of each release of each variant. But compiling a list of easy to understand differences between hundreds of different variants each having up to a few dozen releases is impossible to manage in a Human lifetime. (The amount of time required would be enough time for a thousand more releases to come out and the work would continue to grow with time.)

If this sounds like an exaggeration, click "Ladder" at the top.

No no no, that would be tedious. I'm asking about the "design philosophy" of each from author's perspective, or player's perspective, or player's experiences regarding this topic. Sorry, I just curious

[OmniNegro]

Originally Posted by jupiter999

No no no, that would be tedious. I'm asking about the "design philosophy" of each from author's perspective, or player's perspective, or player's experiences regarding this topic. Sorry, I just curious

That is a complex question too. All three are basically the same game to some extent. As for philosophy, each author has a different idea that they alone can best explain.

I am sorry that I have no better explanation. All three games are great games well worthy of playing.

[ShadowTechnology]

Originally Posted by Sideways

There's more than one way to look at that difference. The change logs here and in the 7.0.strawberry release thread show one kind of difference, though not all the changes listed are differences since there's been a fair bit of cross-pollination between Composband and FrogComposband.

That's the small, detailed picture - "this variant has this thing and this thing that the other one doesn't, at least yet" - but in the bigger picture, too, there are certainly differences in design philosophy between me and Gwarl. We both add new content that's inspired by all kinds of things - mythology, other games, popular culture, unpopular culture etc. - but Gwarl is usually more faithful to the original content, whereas I like to give things my own angle, use parodies, mash-ups, hidden references and added jokes, and only seldom and grudgingly go for the straightforward copy.

I'm much bigger on adding new options than Gwarl is. We also have very different views on game balance; Gwarl likes to make big changes that tilt game balance - almost invariably in the direction of making the game easier - which is a direction I try to avoid. Almost all of my balance tweaks have been (and will be) attempts to stop either players or their items from being too powerful; I think overpowered things make the game both unbalanced and less interesting. (I also buff monsters a lot more than nerf them, whereas Gwarl now actually feels some of his own creations are too tough and wants them nerfed.) Very few of my changes have been in the direction of making the game easier; even the options I've added that let players avoid some types of negative effects (like never_forget, no_scrambling or no_chris) are quality-of-life options rather than difficulty options.

Gwarl's much bigger on adding new dungeons than I am; I've tweaked existing dungeons and added dungeon guardians, but I haven't added any completely new dungeons and don't have any immediate plans to (right now, of course, both variants have the same number of dungeons anyway). Gwarl is also more interested in things like vault and room templates, and more likely to change them or add new ones going forward.

Gwarl, I'm sure, would give a different account of the differences

First, a big thanks to Sideways and Gwarl for their new and complimentary variants. Your efforts are much appreciated.

I was a big fan of the "Quickband Mode" option (Make the game much shorter and easier) that first appeared in PCB 6.0.3 and disappeared after 7.0.1. My gaming time is limited, so having an opportunity to try to take a new class/race combo to the endgame in a few weeks (instead of a few months) of real time is a big plus for me. Any plans to reintroduce the Quickband mode option into future releases of Composband (Gwarl) or FrogComposband (Sideways)? Or something similar?

Ideally this option would make the game quicker (more rapid character development) without making it easier (to win). Of course the trade off between quick and easy depends on your game play style. If you squander away all the hours you saved developing your character by scumming level 99 for super powerful artifacts and consumables, your battle with the big S becomes relatively easier at the expense of a quicker game.

[Sideways]

Originally Posted by ShadowTechnology

First, a big thanks to Sideways and Gwarl for their new and complimentary variants. Your efforts are much appreciated.

I was a big fan of the "Quickband Mode" option (Make the game much shorter and easier) that first appeared in PCB 6.0.3 and disappeared after 7.0.1. My gaming time is limited, so having an opportunity to try to take a new class/race combo to the endgame in a few weeks (instead of a few months) of real time is a big plus for me. Any plans to reintroduce the Quickband mode option into future releases of Composband (Gwarl) or FrogComposband (Sideways)? Or something similar?

Ideally this option would make the game quicker (more rapid character development) without making it easier (to win). Of course the trade off between quick and easy depends on your game play style. If you squander away all the hours you saved developing your character by scumming level 99 for super powerful artifacts and consumables, your battle with the big S becomes relatively easier at the expense of a quicker game.

One of my main plans for the next release is to look into importing content from PosChengband-R, including coffee-break mode (lite-town, ironman stairs, accelerated exp gain and loot) or my own take on it.

I will also bring the Munchkin personality back, which makes the game quicker without making it easier to win, because Munchkin wins don't really count

[Gwarl]

Okay here's one philosophy difference then;

I don't like the superfluity of options because how can you be sure if your win counts.

I think PCB's ID system is flawed, and implemented easy_id as a patch while I worked out something better. Now easy_id in frog gives you automatic *ID* from level 1 and it feels like too much.

I'm much more into the idea of fixing things so they aren't a problem rather than letting people have it both ways.

I would argue that there are lots of things I've changed that haven't made the game any easier - ologs throwing rocks, shadow fairies, orc warlords/bersekers/warlocks, meticulously buffed melee damage of all dragons. Gertrude was quite difficult to get right and the version of her copied into frog is absoloutely not worth the effort during the point of the game where you might want the reward. I do plan to tame rock throwing T's a bit because that is also too much, but I'll likely hand out smaller rocks to earlier T's.

Things like the riding changes don't IMO make the game any easier, they just cut out grind and offer variety in choice of tactics. Letting cure x wounds potions heal more damage gives you access to reasonable amounts of healing for the early game, but splitting out status effect relief into their own potions makes one think more about inventory slots and priorities in battle.

I don't agree with some of the details of the new distribution of quests and rewards in frog, I think ultimately there is less progression and more busywork in doing quests now, which you could easily have said about CPB compared to PCB.

There is a working alpha for CPB 7.1 based on strawberry frog but I have a fair bit of work to do rearranging and expanding on the rearranged expanded quest list.

[Antoine]

Speaking as Quickband originator, if you bring back Quickband mode to Pos, can you please call it something else, just to avoid confusion? What's wrong with simply 'quick mode'?

A.

[ShadowTechnology]

Originally Posted by Sideways

One of my main plans for the next release is to look into importing content from PosChengband-R, including coffee-break mode (lite-town, ironman stairs, accelerated exp gain and loot) or my own take on it.

I will also bring the Munchkin personality back, which makes the game quicker without making it easier to win, because Munchkin wins don't really count

I think coffee-break mode might be an interesting alternative to "Quick mode", although I'm not sure I like the forced ironman stairs. I would certainly try it. What both of these have in common is you still start with normal stats and speed and limited gold, and have to earn your way through the dangerous early levels (but with fewer keystrokes). Munchkin personality, on the other hand, is just silly. I went back and started a Munchkin ordinary human warrior in PCB 6.0.2 just now. In 10 minutes @ was at DL 30 and CL15 with over 400 HP and AC 76. The +3 stats and +5 speed helped, but the virtually unlimited gold (10,000,000 GP) allowed @ to buy the best of everything in town, enchant stuff, and then use the store service to buy teleport directly to DL 30 (or whatever level I wanted to start at) where @ kicked butt until he ran into Sir Lancelot. It's nothing like a normal game, and rightly should not be counted as a real win.
Again, I'm not looking for an easier game. I'm wondering is there a way to reduce the number of hours and keystrokes in the mid-game grind. The first and last 5 hours of a normal game are most challenging and rewarding. The many tens of hours in the middle are relatively tedious, in my opinion, and could benefit from acceleration (either as an option, or as a tweak to baseline performance). Instead of killing 6000 enemies and sorting through 12,000 items, could one get to CL 50 with an equivalent kit by killing 3000 enemies and sorting through 6000 items (in half the time)? The difficulty of the game would not necessarily change.

[caruso]

Originally Posted by Sideways

Dungeon teleport is quite a mouthful I don't mean any disrespect to Chris, but his name takes a lot less time to say. (The option does already describe itself as "Nexus attacks never teleport to another dungeon.")

I see

About stat scrambling: In Quickband, the scrambling is permanent, but only a few points at a time. That could be an alternative to deactivating it entirely.

[Destro]

Thanks for this variant.

Minor bug report (? maybe): Decreasing tile width gives me a blank screen. Is there any way to reduce the default tile width so that my game world doesn't take up my whole monitor? I don't have this issue in chengband, poschengband or composband. And, here is what I see for reference: https://imgur.com/a/wF1kB

[Sideways]

I'm not sure exactly what is happening there, but I'm seeing the same behavior in Pos and ComPos too. What you can do is make the game window smaller and select a smaller font size (and a font that supports the smaller font size) so you still get the rows and columns you need.