![]() |
#41 |
Knight
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Berkeley, CA
Posts: 545
![]() |
Re: Sil abilities: when I first played Sil one of things I really enjoyed was that whenever I picked an ability, I could immediately see how it impacted the game. Transparency and balance are key. I never felt cheated when I picked an ability. Skill trees can be noob-friendly (also, see Diablo 2).
That said, I don't think Vanilla needs skill trees. Edit: ... for the reasons Mikko just mentioned. If anything, it needs to figure out what the heck is the deal with Charisma. |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
#42 |
Prophet
Join Date: Dec 2009
Posts: 9,024
![]() |
One interesting take on crafting is what Dungeon of Dredmor does. There, crafting essentially is a hedge against getting screwed by the RNG equipment-wise. Crafting ingredients are plentiful enough that you should always be able to make the items you need to fill in the gaps in your equipment. A strong investment in crafting skills will also let you access high-level gear earlier than you "should" be able to get it -- but you've attained that skill in crafting at the cost of skill in other areas, and eventually that high-level gear will drop for non-crafting players anyway. In short, crafting smooths out the difficulty curve.
Diablo 2 is a bit problematic in my view mostly because there are many skills that don't scale well to the endgame. Most characters will tend to invest their skillpoints as soon as they level up, which results in a Sorceress with 3 points sunk into Firebolt, for example -- functionally useless as that spell is almost entirely ineffective after the first chapter. They did eventually mitigate this issue by making every skill give passive bonuses to related skills, so your points in Firebolt weren't completely wasted so long as you stuck with fire skills, but it's still disappointing to get to level 30 (or whatever), look at your skill tree, and wish you had done things completely differently. |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
#43 | ||
Angband Devteam member
|
Quote:
Quote:
JFTR, I am actually quite interested in v4 (not V) one day having some sort of forging or crafting mechanism. But again, it's done very well in S (where it is inextricably tied to the skill system), and I haven't yet thought of any improvement on that. I was hoping that Craftband would mature and then we could just nick the best ideas from that ...
__________________
"3.4 is much better than 3.1, 3.2 or 3.3. It still is easier than 3.0.9, but it is more convenient to play without being ridiculously easy, so it is my new favorite of the versions." - Timo Pietila |
||
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
#44 | |
Angband Devteam member
|
Quote:
Now that's not to say that the choices should be in any way obscured or misleading - they weren't in D2, it's just that you needed the experience of playing the higher levels to understand what your optimum choices would have been (if you could have survived without spending all your points early - another feature which rewarded experience and better play). To me, "new player friendly" is something different. It's about the choices being clear and easy to understand what they're about, not necessarily easy to see what the best choice is.
__________________
"3.4 is much better than 3.1, 3.2 or 3.3. It still is easier than 3.0.9, but it is more convenient to play without being ridiculously easy, so it is my new favorite of the versions." - Timo Pietila |
|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
#45 | |
Knight
|
Quote:
__________________
You read the scroll labeled NOBIMUS UPSCOTI... You are surrounded by a stasis field! The tengu tries to teleport, but fails! |
|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
#46 | |
Prophet
Join Date: Dec 2009
Posts: 9,024
![]() |
Quote:
Part of this, in D2's case, is that many skills are just out-and-out terrible (Magic Arrow, anyone?), and/or get completely outclassed a few levels after you get access to them (c.f. Firebolt). Better-designed skill systems ensure that no skill is useless, even if some skills are better than others. Respecs are a common answer to this problem, and they do solve it in a way, but they're kind of an obvious rules patch. "Whoops! We did a crap job of designing the skill system, so let's let players fix their characters after we let them break them!" The better solution is to keep the problem from happening in the first place. |
|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
#47 | |
Veteran
Join Date: Sep 2010
Posts: 1,246
![]() |
Quote:
You can call the Sangband system "elegant". It really is a masterwork. But it is elegant in an extremely baroque way that reminds me of RPG systems of yesteryear. The way that it works is non-transparent and requires lots of effort to understand. Thankfully the manual does a really, really good work at explaining it all. I don't think anyone else except Leon could have pulled it off. I have a really hard time communicating what I think of Sangband. ![]() *** Angband's main strengths are resource management and interesting equipment choices. IMO Angband's stat/skill system should play to these strengths as much as possible. I see the way that your equipment interact with your primal statistics as the key to the system. There is lots of untapped potential here. If every stat was important to every class, and the system was transparent to the player, how much more interesting would equipment choices become! I'm afraid that any kind of skill tree system just hinders this interaction or makes it more opaque. In Angband, stats should be king. |
|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
#48 | |
Angband Devteam member
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Philadelphia, PA, USA
Age: 40
Posts: 1,516
![]() |
Quote:
Respecs do have this property but have another important one--they reassure the player that skill choices, etc. can be reconsidered. Apart from whether e.g. summon golem is "good enough" to justify being a skill, is whether I enjoy casting it. If it turns out I don't enjoy summoning (which I couldn't have known until I tried it) it's a drag if I'm committed and can't reconsider. |
|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
#49 |
Angband Devteam member
|
Very well said on both counts - "baroque" is an excellent description of Sangband - especially impressive if English isn't your first language. As with music, some like baroque and some don't, but it's undeniably elegant.
I also agree with you about V - the 'skills' are really just ways of summarising the interaction between your race/class/equipment and your stats. We certainly need to do more with all three of races, classes and stats (including re-working or removing Charisma) - hopefully someone will leap in and try some stuff in v4 - it's an as-yet unclaimed area.
__________________
"3.4 is much better than 3.1, 3.2 or 3.3. It still is easier than 3.0.9, but it is more convenient to play without being ridiculously easy, so it is my new favorite of the versions." - Timo Pietila |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
#50 | |
Angband Devteam member
|
Quote:
I really hate the re-spec concept. I agree with Derakon that it's a horrible kludge which breaks the fourth wall. To the limited extent that these games are RPGs (and I know they're not really) it really ruins it for me that you can just 'unlearn' stuff. That said, I don't think you can make every skill useful to every build either. I agree that every skill ought to be useful to *some* builds, but there's no point aspiring to proof every possible choice against redundancy. Sometimes players will make bad choices (e.g. a ranger keeping Cubragol and chucking Bard) - as long as the game allows them to learn and understand which choices were wrong and why, and that that process is fun, I don't see a problem. In case anyone is wondering, I think this is relevant to angband development, e.g. for spell choices if you can't learn all spells. It doesn't only apply to skills.
__________________
"3.4 is much better than 3.1, 3.2 or 3.3. It still is easier than 3.0.9, but it is more convenient to play without being ridiculously easy, so it is my new favorite of the versions." - Timo Pietila |
|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests) | |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
![]() |
||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Escape key bug in Angband dev version 21 Dec 2011 revision 700d8c8 | Shockbolt | Development | 2 | January 7, 2012 11:12 |
New dev version | Magnate | Development | 38 | November 8, 2011 16:17 |
Looks like a new Angband Dev Blog is up. (17.8.2011) | CJNyfalt | Vanilla | 23 | August 20, 2011 17:46 |
angband-dev@oook.cz down? | d_m | Development | 2 | August 4, 2010 17:47 |
New to Angband Dev | shinobibear | Development | 10 | June 10, 2010 19:11 |