4.2 design discussion

[Derakon]

Prompted by Hounded's post in another thread:

Originally Posted by Hounded

I confess I am weary of seeing this title at the top of the forum every day (There I go, adding to the popularity by responding to it). Perhaps I am too polite for Tangars taste but the title feels combative.

Is there any way the genuine feedback discussion(s) can be pulled into the development discussions thread rather than fueling this one?

Let's have this thread for general discussion of what specifically should change about Angband prior to the 4.2 main release. The main content changes are new classes and monsters; what is good about those? What needs to be looked at more closely/reworked/thrown out? What are we overlooking that needs to be addressed?

[PowerWyrm]

Single Combat has to go away. It's stupidly OP. Every character is able to outlive Morgoth by simply spamming heals to counter any spell or melee damage he could deal. Feels like cheating to win the game that way. This should be replaced by a penalty to any other mob in LOS when fighting an enemy one on one.

[Thraalbee]

For those who want an overview of the new monster distrubution and full info, my quick hack is quite convenient. It has a graph and a table feature, the latter also allows for export direct to excel if you need graphs and stuff too.

To use it you need a copy of monster_base.txt and monster.txt, you start by uploading these.

https://thraalbee.azurewebsites.net/monview/

[Thraalbee]

I've been playing the nightlies for a while now. My typical ironman style. Tried melee, then ranged as rogue and ranger. Normally these are not that hard to get going, but I have been struggling more than usual. Looking at it that feels reasonable, lot's of boosted monsters and several new nasty ones.

Then, sick of losing, just for the heck of it I rolled up a high elf mage. I tend to suck at mages but it couldn't very well go worse. But here comes the surprise, the mage is now the "easy mode". At least for in the early levels, it used to be the other way around. Spellpower is plenty, fail rates low, recharging is reliable and powerful, device skill boost is big, xp from some spells gives you another level ...

First character still lives (at 2450', level 34) and that is certainly not due to lucky drops, first decent drop for the mage was in 1300' when I got a decent but far from stellar stat boost resistance shield. Third book found at 2250'

Turn Depth Note
0 0' Began the quest to destroy Morgoth.
969 50' Reached level 2
1817 100' Killed Fang, Farmer Maggot's Dog
1817 100' Reached level 3
2022 100' Reached level 4
2370 100' Reached level 5
3835 200' Reached level 6
3981 200' Reached level 7
4484 200' Killed Grip, Farmer Maggot's Dog
5563 250' Reached level 8
7120 300' Killed Bullroarer the Hobbit
7120 300' Reached level 9
8895 450' Reached level 10
9535 800' Reached level 11
9536 800' Reached level 12
9986 800' Killed Ufthak of Cirith Ungol
9986 800' Reached level 13
10413 800' Reached level 14
11364 800' Reached level 15
13036 850' Reached level 16
15173 900' Reached level 17
15721 900' Reached level 18
16076 900' Reached level 19
16398 900' Reached level 20
17854 1000' Reached level 21
19767 1100' Reached level 22
21949 1200' Killed Angamaitë of Umbar
22305 1200' Reached level 23
24114 1200' Killed Gorbag, the Orc Captain
26050 1200' Reached level 24
27820 1300' Killed Khîm, Son of Mîm
27878 1300' Found the Small Metal Shield of Brinor
28225 1300' Reached level 25
30160 1350' Killed Orfax, Son of Boldor
30974 1400' Killed Wormtongue, Agent of Saruman
31670 1500' Reached level 26
... [cut]

[Nick]

Originally Posted by Thraalbee

I've been playing the nightlies for a while now. My typical ironman style. Tried melee, then ranged as rogue and ranger. Normally these are not that hard to get going, but I have been struggling more than usual. Looking at it that feels reasonable, lot's of boosted monsters and several new nasty ones.

Then, sick of losing, just for the heck of it I rolled up a high elf mage. I tend to suck at mages but it couldn't very well go worse. But here comes the surprise, the mage is now the "easy mode". At least for in the early levels, it used to be the other way around. Spellpower is plenty, fail rates low, recharging is reliable and powerful, device skill boost is big, xp from some spells gives you another level ...

That's interesting; it's great to get some data on how the game is currently playing. I am finding my main obstacle to playtesting is dying

Checking spell XP is one thing that needs doing - sounds like mages probably need it reduced a little. Also recharging may be OP.

[wobbly]

So haven't tried the latest, so maybe already changed, but last time I tried a paladin minor healing was scaling up too high on the paladin. It does x or a % of hps right? Well for end game paladins that ends up a lot for such a cheap spell, possibly gets as high as the heal spell.

[PowerWyrm]

Yes, if it didn't change since the comp 216 sprintthroughs Minor Healing is quite OP since it allows you to restore a lot of hps for nothing. Basically you don't need resting at all since you'll regen those lost sp in one turn.

[Nick]

Still working on artifacts, with vague input from this thread - again, any opinions welcome.

The one thing that is obvious to me from playing is that the 'thancs are way overpowered. After working out how they got to be this way (via this thread, and other places), I decided to deal with things as they are rather than trying to re-litigate past decisions. So the plan is to keep their current (+9, +12), but reduce them to 1d4.

Any comments on how randarts are playing now are also most welcome.

[Derakon]

I think the 'thancs are probably doomed to either have one subset of the playerbase consider them to be "not interesting", or another subset to consider them to be overpowered. Such is the fate of early artifacts.

[Gwarl]

Originally Posted by Nick

Still working on artifacts, with vague input from this thread - again, any opinions welcome.

The one thing that is obvious to me from playing is that the 'thancs are way overpowered. After working out how they got to be this way (via this thread, and other places), I decided to deal with things as they are rather than trying to re-litigate past decisions. So the plan is to keep their current (+9, +12), but reduce them to 1d4.

Any comments on how randarts are playing now are also most welcome.

We had thancs in the poslikes, the original 1d4 with (+3,+6) was underwhelming. Previous attempts to buff them included giving them +1 speed and a random higher resist. I copied the Vanilla values and they were indeed rather OP. I eventually settled on (+6,+9) and 2d5 (every weapon in composband got +1 or +2 ds when I forked from poscheng).

Personally I'd rather see a reduction in the to_h and to_d and keep the dd, because dice and brands are a more interesting mechanic than to_d, where in the latter case the weapon damage kind of pales into insignificance and the number of attacksto leverage the to_d is king. Which is IMO a problem in V combat generally. More emphasis on dd and ds makes more more varied combat and potentially more interesting weapon choices as it allows brands to shine and decreases emphasis on blows/round.

IMO