[V, NPP] Too many uniques.

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Hi all.

I have been suffering boredom in my recent games. Main reason for this
is that there are simply too many uniques, and Morgoth with S_UNIQUE is
too tought to fight without killing at least most of them. For that
reason game turns to unique hunt. Especially in NPP.

Way before you have killed all uniques you have got perfect or near
perfect gear to kill M no matter how fast you play. That means that
there are just many boring uniques to kill before attacking M. Only way
to avoid this boredom is to risk losing and attack M before you have
killed all uniques that can be deadly if met with M.

Suggestions:

1) Remove about 20% of all deep uniques.
- Vecna and Feagwath are basically same monster with different power
levels. One of them could go away.
- [V] Huan doesn't belong in angband. Remove it. Carcharoth and
Draugluin should be enough. Make Draugluin more dangerous.
- I don't like Atlas, Kronos etc. (out of theme) giant uniques. They
can be removed.

2) Make summon unique -scrolls very common at deep depths.

3) remove S_UNIQUE -flag from all monsters. S_KIN and S_WRAITH (summon
ringwraith) could stay.

4) change S_UNIQUE behavior so that summoned unique doesn't get his
escorts with him.

(I also think there are too many weak artifacts, but that is another
matter).

Timo Pietilä

 

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"Timo Pietilä" <timo.pietila@helsinki.fi> wrote in message
news:d5fh22$nvk$1@oravannahka.helsinki.fi...
> Hi all.
>
> I have been suffering boredom in my recent games. Main reason for this
> is that there are simply too many uniques, and Morgoth with S_UNIQUE is
> too tought to fight without killing at least most of them. For that
> reason game turns to unique hunt. Especially in NPP.

Jus curious. Why especially in NPP as opposed to Vanilla? I have been coding
so long I don't have a feel for the game balance issues anymore. I think after
we finish the 0.5.x series, I am going to take about 6 months to just play to
get it back.

FYI: In NPP, Morgoth only summons strong uniques. He won't summon the weaker
ones. Not that it helps out what you address above because people tend to
appreciate when he summons a weak unique orc or troll with a full escort to take
up all those summoning squares.

>
> Way before you have killed all uniques you have got perfect or near
> perfect gear to kill M no matter how fast you play. That means that
> there are just many boring uniques to kill before attacking M. Only way
> to avoid this boredom is to risk losing and attack M before you have
> killed all uniques that can be deadly if met with M.

Personally I think this means to make the deeper monsters more dangerous &
interesting (much greater variety in spells) & maybe make Morgoth tougher. Is
is the quest rewards? How much quicker do you get the perfect Morgoth killing
kit in NPP?

>
> Suggestions:
>
> 1) Remove about 20% of all deep uniques.
> - Vecna and Feagwath are basically same monster with different power
> levels. One of them could go away.
> - [V] Huan doesn't belong in angband. Remove it. Carcharoth and
> Draugluin should be enough. Make Draugluin more dangerous.
> - I don't like Atlas, Kronos etc. (out of theme) giant uniques. They
> can be removed.

What I want to do is add more non-unique monsters below 3000'. I think the game
would be much more interesting if it had at least 100 more new monsters below
that depth.

>
> 2) Make summon unique -scrolls very common at deep depths.

That's actually the reason I put them in there, to get rid of the wait for those
last dangerous uniques. They aren't common enough? This is the kind of thing I
have completely lost track of because I barely ever get a chance to play any
more.

>
> 3) remove S_UNIQUE -flag from all monsters. S_KIN and S_WRAITH (summon
> ringwraith) could stay.
>
> 4) change S_UNIQUE behavior so that summoned unique doesn't get his
> escorts with him.
>
> (I also think there are too many weak artifacts, but that is another
> matter).
>
Or, the artifacts are found too late to be useful. But I can't think of a way
to introduce them earlier without completely throwing off game balance. I like
having the full set of artifacts for game flavor reasons, but it is true that
many of them are almost always useless by the time they are found, and thus
never used.

I am kind of keeping a list of NPP suggestions right now instead of acting on
them, because I am in the middle of some very complicated changes for 050, but I
will save your e-mail for future changes.

Thanks,

-Jeff

 

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Timo Pietilä wrote:
> 4) change S_UNIQUE behavior so that summoned unique doesn't get his
> escorts with him.

What about making S_UNIQUE only summon 1 unique? Making a scroll of mass
teleport other might also be useful.

Deep uniques can be generated by autoscumming at 4900' -- lots of GVs
will get generated, usually with uniques unless there are none left
except the Big Two.

--
http://www.crisispapers.org/Editorials/germany-1933.htm
Reichstag fire -> 9/11
Communist "arsonist" -> Iraq "weapons of mass destruction"
Be afraid. Be very afraid.

 

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Can I just second the request to make summon unique scrolls more common
and more effective? They're a great addition, but they don't always
work and there aren't enough of them.

 

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Jeff Greene wrote:
> "Timo Pietilä" <timo.pietila@helsinki.fi> wrote in message
> news:d5fh22$nvk$1@oravannahka.helsinki.fi...
> > Hi all.
> >
> > I have been suffering boredom in my recent games. Main reason for
this
> > is that there are simply too many uniques, and Morgoth with
S_UNIQUE is
> > too tought to fight without killing at least most of them. For that
> > reason game turns to unique hunt. Especially in NPP.
>
> Jus curious. Why especially in NPP as opposed to Vanilla?

4GAI and tele toward. If you leave Vecna alive and face M you will end
up with both of them in sight way too many times to be tolerable.

> > Way before you have killed all uniques you have got perfect or near
> > perfect gear to kill M no matter how fast you play. That means that
> > there are just many boring uniques to kill before attacking M. Only
way
> > to avoid this boredom is to risk losing and attack M before you
have
> > killed all uniques that can be deadly if met with M.
>
> Personally I think this means to make the deeper monsters more
dangerous &
> interesting (much greater variety in spells) & maybe make Morgoth
tougher.

No thank you ;-). Time/power/aether Wyrms are nasty enough. Non-unique
monsters are already nasty enough, game just lasts too long. More
interesting is nice, deadlier is not.

> Is
> is the quest rewards? How much quicker do you get the perfect
Morgoth killing
> kit in NPP?

Last time I played with quests I had M killing gear ready at 2500'.
Without scumming or anything. In vanilla that happens around 3500'. In
vanilla you need to find life and *healing* potions in dungeon, so rest
of the game is hunting those and uniques. In NPP it is just uniques
(and money).

> What I want to do is add more non-unique monsters below 3000'. I
think the game
> would be much more interesting if it had at least 100 more new
monsters below
> that depth.

Acceptable. Particulary I would like to see nastier demons. Greater
Balrog is to weak IMO. Time/inertia breathing wyrms need tone down.
Code, not edit-files. Those elements have 1/3 HP with cap at 400 while
nether and others have 1/6 HP with cap ~500. 1/3 division means that
Inertia Wyrm stays dangerous _much_ longer than, for example,
Dracolich.

Timo Pietilä

 

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"Jeff Greene" <nppangband@spam.spam.spam.spam,> writes:

> "Timo Pietilä" <timo.pietila@helsinki.fi> wrote in message
> news:d5fh22$nvk$1@oravannahka.helsinki.fi...
>> Hi all.
>>
>> I have been suffering boredom in my recent games. Main reason for this
>> is that there are simply too many uniques, and Morgoth with S_UNIQUE is
>> too tought to fight without killing at least most of them. For that
>> reason game turns to unique hunt. Especially in NPP.
>
> Jus curious. Why especially in NPP as opposed to Vanilla? I have been coding
> so long I don't have a feel for the game balance issues anymore. I think after
> we finish the 0.5.x series, I am going to take about 6 months to just play to
> get it back.

Because NPP is harder. If it takes longer to kill Morgoth, there are
more turns when he will summon uniques. If it takes more effort to
deal with summonees, more chances for additional bad stuff. Because
the summoned uniques are much much better at getting back to you
after you teleport them away.

Also, the uniques are tougher, so you have to see them more times
before you are capable of killing them. This point is particularly
true for Timo, who chooses chars like artifactless hobbit rogues.

In the comp, I think I made a try at Sauron at about 75% of my final
turn count and gave up because of uniques. Then I spent the rest of
the game unique-hunting. If you take speed into account, I probably
spent 40% of the game at 4900' unique hunting. Oh - another point -
it is harder to avoid the other monsters when you go unique hunting,
so everything takes longer. Putting 2 doors on pits and improved AI
makes a huge difference.


Eddie

 

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(I apologize in advance if this post looks awful. For some reason my newsreader stopped formatting my replies this afternoon, so I manually typed all the ">" indents. I have no idea what this will look like when I hit send. -Jeff)


>"Timo Pietilä" <timo.pietila@helsinki.fi> wrote in message news:1115400776.786575.252970@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...

>>Jeff Greene wrote:
>
>> Jus curious. Why especially in NPP as opposed to Vanilla?

> 4GAI and tele toward. If you leave Vecna alive and face M you will end
> up with both of them in sight way too many times to be tolerable.

I had kind of intended that the player just not be able to ignore all the deeper uniques, but I wasn't going for a boring endgame.

>> Personally I think this means to make the deeper monsters more
>>dangerous &
>> interesting (much greater variety in spells) & maybe make Morgoth
>>tougher.

>No thank you ;-). Time/power/aether Wyrms are nasty enough. Non-unique
>monsters are already nasty enough, game just lasts too long. More
>interesting is nice, deadlier is not.

I see what you mean now. I thought you meant maybe Morgoth was too easy.
There will be much greater variety in the spells & attacks in 050, so I can do alot with the deeper monsters, which will hopefully make the end game more interesting.

>> Is
>> is the quest rewards? How much quicker do you get the perfect
>> Morgoth killing
>> kit in NPP?

>Last time I played with quests I had M killing gear ready at 2500'.
>Without scumming or anything. In vanilla that happens around 3500'. In
>vanilla you need to find life and *healing* potions in dungeon, so rest
>of the game is hunting those and uniques. In NPP it is just uniques
>(and money).

I think that was NPP 040 where the quest rewards were still too overpowered, right? 0.4.1 should be more balanced. That's also kind of why I made a create potion of life service. In the end of my last couple winners (in NPP 0.2.X and 0.3.X, I had a very long wait at the end fo the game, over 3 million turns, just to find enough potions of life to take on Morgoth. Unfortunately, my first NPP 0.4.x character died at stat gain (to a player ghost) and the second died at around 3100' on a quest for 13 headed hydras. After that I figured I had better get coding again to do a serious re-balance of 0.4.0, so I never got to the end game.


>> What I want to do is add more non-unique monsters below 3000'. I
>>think the game
>> would be much more interesting if it had at least 100 more new
>>monsters below
>> that depth.

>Acceptable. Particulary I would like to see nastier demons. Greater
>Balrog is to weak IMO. Time/inertia breathing wyrms need tone down.
>Code, not edit-files. Those elements have 1/3 HP with cap at 400 while
>nether and others have 1/6 HP with cap ~500. 1/3 division means that
>Inertia Wyrm stays dangerous _much_ longer than, for example,
>Dracolich.

I can see your point. I will change that. The real danger is the side effects rather than the actual breath, so I have no problems reducing the HP caps. I just didn't want it to be something like 150 like in vanilla, where it barely seems to be a life-threatning attack.

Thanks

-Jeff

 

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Timo Pietilä wrote:
> Suggestions:
>
> 1) Remove about 20% of all deep uniques.
> - Vecna and Feagwath are basically same monster with different power
> levels. One of them could go away.
> - [V] Huan doesn't belong in angband. Remove it. Carcharoth and
> Draugluin should be enough. Make Draugluin more dangerous.
> - I don't like Atlas, Kronos etc. (out of theme) giant uniques. They
> can be removed.

Personally I would like there to be a lot more uniques but have a low
chance of encountering many of them in a typical (if such a thing
exists) winning game.

Actually if I were to design a variant (unlikely since I would have to
learn how to code first and find a lot more spare time) I'd want to look
at making uniques more like artifacts i.e. a special version of a
monster so the test would be something like this. Each unique is a
associated with a normal monster type (for instance Ugluk would be a
type of Uruk). Whenever a monster is generated of a type the game would
check to see if there are any unique versions of that monster unkilled.
If there are then there should be some chance based on the unique's
rarity and how out of depth it is. Certain uniques, those that are rare
themselves and based on rare monsters would therfore crop up only in
unusual circumstances so even a relatively experienced player would
still occasionally encounter something they have not see before.

As I said the chances of me ever learning to code well enough to do this
are vanishing so if anyone thinks it is a good idea and wants to run
with it in their own variant they should feel free.

>
> 2) Make summon unique -scrolls very common at deep depths.
>
> 3) remove S_UNIQUE -flag from all monsters. S_KIN and S_WRAITH (summon
> ringwraith) could stay.

S_UNIQUE does seem an odd thing to me. Perhaps some generic S_POWERFUL
which summons things many levels out of depth would be useful as well.
In my putative (and likely to be always imaginary) variant I might
consider allowing a S_POWERFUL to give an increased chance (perhaps
doubling) of passing the unique test.

> (I also think there are too many weak artifacts, but that is another
> matter).

I somewhat agree but at low levels you might actually use some of these
and the variety is nice.



--
To contact me take a davidhowdon and add a @yahoo.co.uk to the end.

 

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On Fri, 6 May 2005 19:06:05 -0400, "Jeff Greene"
<nppangband@spam.spam.spam.spam,> wrote:


>>Acceptable. Particulary I would like to see nastier demons. Greater
>>Balrog is to weak IMO. Time/inertia breathing wyrms need tone down.
>>Code, not edit-files. Those elements have 1/3 HP with cap at 400 while
>>nether and others have 1/6 HP with cap ~500. 1/3 division means that
>>Inertia Wyrm stays dangerous _much_ longer than, for example,
>>Dracolich.
>
>I can see your point. I will change that. The real danger is the side
> effects rather than the actual breath, so I have no problems reducing the
>HP caps. I just didn't want it to be something like 150 like in vanilla,
> where it barely seems to be a life-threatning attack.

Time, at least, isn't meant to be life-threatening. It's meant to be
incredibly annoying, but not life-threatening under most circumstances
-- that's why it can be unresistable.

R. Dan Henry
danhenry@inreach.com

 

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Jeff Greene wrote:
> (I apologize in advance if this post looks awful. For some reason my
newsreader stopped formatting my replies this afternoon, so I manually
typed all the ">" indents. I have no idea what this will look like
when I hit send. -Jeff)

I have to use google. That's awful compared to proper newsreader that I
can use in university. SSH-tunnel to unix-machine and tin/slrn could be
better.

> >"Timo Pietilä" <timo.pietila@helsinki.fi> wrote in message
news:1115400776.786575.252970@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...

> >Balrog is to weak IMO. Time/inertia breathing wyrms need tone down.
> >Code, not edit-files. Those elements have 1/3 HP with cap at 400
while
> >nether and others have 1/6 HP with cap ~500. 1/3 division means that
> >Inertia Wyrm stays dangerous _much_ longer than, for example,
> >Dracolich.
>
> I can see your point. I will change that. The real danger is the
side effects rather than the actual breath, so I have no problems
reducing the HP caps. I just didn't want it to be something like 150
like in vanilla, where it barely seems to be a life-threatning attack.

Damage cap is not the problem. Problem is that with "powerful" breath
monster HP is not divided as much as it is with other (vanilla like)
high elements.

Chaos gets monster HP divided by 6 which means that if you can cause
damage fast enough that monster starts to lose breath power almost
immediately. Division by 4, like in case of powerful inertia, causes
that you have to damage monster much before it starts to lose breath
power. (melee1.c) That makes inertia wyrm (in addition to very nasty
side-effect) much harder that equally big dracolich/sk, law wyrm etc.

That might be side effect of the fact that there just were no monsters
with high HP before you added new wyrms/hydras, and smaller division
made zephyr hounds more dangerous.

Timo Pietilä

 

[Guest]

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Twisted One writes:
[snip]
>http://www.crisispapers.org/Editorials/germany-1933.htm
>Reichstag fire -> 9/11
>Communist "arsonist" -> Iraq "weapons of mass destruction"
>Be afraid. Be very afraid.

What's with all the paranoid .sig lines? First microsoft = sauron, no
this? The more natural analogy for Iraq is "Remember the Spain", which
led to a long and bloody occupation of the Philipines. The Reichstag
fire was for beating up on internal enemies, not picking the external
enemy du jour. This kind of thing has a long and unhallowed history.
Even Pearl Harbor makes the list, to an extent.

The Spanish American war was a blot on American honor. But it did not
lead to an outcome like the Reichstag fire. And it was an act taken by
Karl Rove's hero, William Mckinley.

 

[Guest]

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Timo Pietilä wrote:
> That might be side effect of the fact that there just were no monsters
> with high HP before you added new wyrms/hydras, and smaller division
> made zephyr hounds more dangerous.

Suggested solutions:
Option 1 -- add a flag to distinguish low-HP breathers (e.g. hounds) and
high-HP ones. Low-HP ones get 1/3 hp based breaths; high-HP ones get 1/6.
Option 2 -- change the way the breath caps work. Instead of calculating
the breath damage and clamping it above at the damage cap, instead
calculate the breath damage the monster would have at max HP, clamp that
at the damage cap, and then multiply by monster cur HP/max HP. The
effect this has on a breath that's 1/3 monster HP capped at 400:

(the percentages indicate the monster's health as fraction of its max
hp; the numbers below are corresponding breath damage)
monster max HP old system proposed system
25% 50% 75% 100% 25% 50% 75% 100%
300 25 50 75 100 25 50 75 100
1200 100 200 300 400 100 200 300 400
3600 300 400 400 400 100 200 300 400

The difference is clear: hurting a monster under the proposed system
always weakens its breath. The max damage remains the same, e.g. 400,
but it starts decreasing even for high-HP monsters as soon as you start
damaging them. It just decreases more slowly for higher-HP monsters, the
same as the monster's % health decreases more slowly, for a given player
damage output.

--
http://www.crisispapers.org/Editorials/germany-1933.htm
Reichstag fire -> 9/11
Communist "arsonist" -> Iraq "weapons of mass destruction"
Be afraid. Be very afraid.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.angband (More info?)

Huh? but hunting uniques is the coolest thingie about *bands.
That´s why i play Heng, with its ~736 uniques ... probably
more uniques than [V] has normal monsters heh.

Like Trinity said, "Its the question that drives us, Neo!". If you
reach the answer (morgoth) too quick, you´ll not get bored of
hunting uniques, but bored of angband. I bet that with
the changes you proposed, you´d be able to beat it once
a day or so... and the game would be less fun for you and
for everybody else.

About S_UNIQUE... runing away from a guy that called its
buddies is a fact of life...
I agree that scrolls of summon unique ? should be
much easier to get... maybe a spell and staff too...

And even not being a player as good as you, the fluxogram of
"killing uniques before going to morgoth" is very cool... is what
makes angband cool imho, because he will call his buds if
they´re alive and then proceed to wipe the floor with you...

Cheers
--
I will hold the candle till it burns up my arm.
I'll keep taking punches until their will grows tired.
I will stare the sun down until my eyes go blind.
I won't change direction and I won't change my mind...
How much difference does it make?

 

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Atriel wrote:
> Huh? but hunting uniques is the coolest thingie about *bands.
> That´s why i play Heng, with its ~736 uniques ... probably
> more uniques than [V] has normal monsters heh.

Heng must have done something very different for uniques. What do you
do with Morgoth there?

> Like Trinity said, "Its the question that drives us, Neo!". If you
> reach the answer (morgoth) too quick, you´ll not get bored of
> hunting uniques, but bored of angband. I bet that with
> the changes you proposed, you´d be able to beat it once
> a day or so... and the game would be less fun for you and
> for everybody else.

Not quite. I'm already able to beat vanilla in less than a day playing
time (many weeks RL currently). NPP even faster, if I just skip uniques
and go for Morgoth. Uniques are just boring obstacle if I can reach
bottom before I have even _seen_ them all. Game is fun for first 3000'.
Then your development pretty much stops and game turns to boring unique
hunt.

> About S_UNIQUE... runing away from a guy that called its
> buddies is a fact of life...

Facts of life have very little to do in angband.

> And even not being a player as good as you, the fluxogram of
> "killing uniques before going to morgoth" is very cool...

If seeing uniques would be an "unique" experience then that would be
true. But if you can get gear that can kill Morgoth you wouldn't much
care about some wimpy Itangast or Balrog of Moria.

is what
> makes angband cool imho, because he will call his buds if
> they´re alive and then proceed to wipe the floor with you...

It's the combination of getting M killing gear ready before you have
seen all uniques and problem with powerful uniques (with escorts)
combined with Morgoth. After 3000' game is pretty much over. To me at
least. I'm very tempted to just quit my current artifactless questless
hobbit rogue, because I know I can kill M, but I have to kill around 20
uniques before trying.

If S_UNIQUE gets removed then you can skip killing uniques and go
straight to the goal.

Timo Pietilä

 

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On Sat, 7 May 2005 13:54:10 +0000 (UTC), Atriel
<atriel666@hotmail.com> wrote:

>Huh? but hunting uniques is the coolest thingie about *bands.

Once you could otherwise just dive and win, it is severely tedious to
have many uniques that still need hunting down. [1] I think more low-
and middle- level uniques can enhance a variant, but more deep uniques
is just obnoxious. (Unless you, say, place them deeper than the win
monster so you can't really hunt them.)

[1] Standard Angband doesn't hit the tedium level, IMO, but the
version of Zangband I won sure did.

R. Dan Henry
danhenry@inreach.com

 

[Andrew]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.angband (More info?)

On 2005-05-07 15:54:10, Atriel <atriel666@hotmail.com> wrote:

> Huh? but hunting uniques is the coolest thingie about *bands.
> That�s why i play Heng, with its ~736 uniques ... probably
> more uniques than [V] has normal monsters heh.
lol... hunting uniques is fun as long as every one of them is interesting and
different. in Heng there are lots of crazy monsters and that is fun. But I
think Timo has a fair point about the dog uniques, lich uniques, and giant
uniques (and IMHO orc uniques) ... 2 or 3 similar uniques makes each one less
special. What if...

Uniques like Morgoth didnt summon other uniques *but* uniques carried better
stuff? And conversely good stuff would be found *mostly* in the company of
powerful monsters/uniques. It would be worthwile to fight uniques until you had
a good kit, and them you could just take on M. In my one winning game, only
Saruman and Cantoras carried anything...

Similar uniques appeared together? Grip and Fang and Wolf appear together
(adjusted power level or dlvl of course), orc uniques had joint command of the
same group of orcs etc. (As in LoTR where it would be possible to find Ugluk
and Grishnakh together, or Shagrat and Gorbag - not that either lasted long
Ringwraiths could be encountered in numbers from 1 to 9...,

?



--
Andrew

 

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On 2005-05-06 12:31:31, =?ISO-8859-15?Q?Timo_Pietilä?=
<timo.pietila@helsinki.fi> wrote:

> Way before you have killed all uniques you have got perfect or near
> perfect gear to kill M no matter how fast you play. That means that
> there are just many boring uniques to kill before attacking M. Only way
> to avoid this boredom is to risk losing and attack M before you have
> killed all uniques that can be deadly if met with M.

I was playing an ironman half troll warrior, out of boredom with standard
playing ;-). Got to level 67 with decent kit, almost ready for morgoth, but low
on consumables. May he rest in peace. See dump,
http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=4287.

I was enjoying hunting uniques, as only those placed really danger to my char
(do I drink a potion of healing or use a teleport charge?), but I would have
enjoyed it so much more if some of them, instead of dropping the 1000th chain
mail of resist fire, would have bother to drop a potion of speed/berserk
strength/healing/*healing*/live. Or a scroll of
identify/*identify*/teleportation/*destruction*/mass banishment. Or a staff of
perception/teleport/speed. Or a wand of teleport other/stone to mud. Or a rod
of ..., (didn't see any useful rod until death). Could we get in a future
version a "drop useful item" attached to some of the nasty uniques, which gives
a chance of dropping one of those nice things I just mentioned (and only those,
no regular thrash, like potions of cure light wounds or restore charisma or
whatnot). This will bring a whole new excitement to hunting uniques, and
potentially make the game too easy (!).

> 3) remove S_UNIQUE -flag from all monsters. S_KIN and S_WRAITH (summon
> ringwraith) could stay.
> 4) change S_UNIQUE behavior so that summoned unique doesn't get his
> escorts with him.

Fighting the Emperor Q is so much fun because of that S_UNIQUE thingie
Especially when it gets you unprepared (can't see it through by teleport or
detection).

> (I also think there are too many weak artifacts, but that is another
> matter).

Ironman fans might disagree. Finding a "weak" artifact in the early game (until
1500) may make all the difference. And you will find a handful, if very lucky.

 

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Except that
-1 Artifacts cannot be destroyed ( backup weapon will not catch fire )
-2 Artifacts dont care about acid breathers

T.

 

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bluetrolls wrote:
> On 2005-05-06 12:31:31, =?ISO-8859-15?Q?Timo_Pietilä?=
> <timo.pietila@helsinki.fi> wrote:

>>(I also think there are too many weak artifacts, but that is another
>>matter).
>
> Ironman fans might disagree. Finding a "weak" artifact in the early game (until
> 1500) may make all the difference. And you will find a handful, if very lucky.

Feels funny that you say this to me. Weak artifacts are just weak
artifacts. It doesn't mean much which level you get them.

Timo Pietilä

 

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Timo Pietilä wrote:
> bluetrolls wrote:
>
>> On 2005-05-06 12:31:31, =?ISO-8859-15?Q?Timo_Pietilä?=
>> <timo.pietila@helsinki.fi> wrote:
>
>>> (I also think there are too many weak artifacts, but that is another
>>> matter).
>>
>> Ironman fans might disagree. Finding a "weak" artifact in the early
>> game (until
>> 1500) may make all the difference. And you will find a handful, if
>> very lucky.
>
> Feels funny that you say this to me. Weak artifacts are just weak
> artifacts. It doesn't mean much which level you get them.

To make this point somewhat more clear: When game tries to create great
item and there is a choise between rare artifact and more common but
better ego, then artifact is too weak. It all goes to depth, rarity and
usability.

Someone should calculate depth and rarity for artifacts and then same
calculation to approximately same power level ego. If ego turns out to
be more common at that depth, then that artifact is either too weak or
too rare.

Timo Pietilä

 

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bluetrolls wrote:
> On 2005-05-06 12:31:31, =?ISO-8859-15?Q?Timo_Pietilä?=
> <timo.pietila@helsinki.fi> wrote:
> I was enjoying hunting uniques, as only those placed really danger to
my char
> (do I drink a potion of healing or use a teleport charge?), but I
would have
> enjoyed it so much more if some of them, instead of dropping the
1000th chain
> mail of resist fire, would have bother to drop a potion of
speed/berserk
> strength/healing/*healing*/live. Or a scroll of
> identify/*identify*/teleportation/*destruction*/mass banishment. Or a
staff of
> perception/teleport/speed. Or a wand of teleport other/stone to mud.
Or a rod
> of ..., (didn't see any useful rod until death). Could we get in a
future
> version a "drop useful item" attached to some of the nasty uniques,
which gives
> a chance of dropping one of those nice things I just mentioned (and
only those,
> no regular thrash, like potions of cure light wounds or restore
charisma or
> whatnot). This will bring a whole new excitement to hunting uniques,
and
> potentially make the game too easy (!).

In NPP at least, a flag could be added to certain uniques that gives a
slight chance to drop a chest/chests [instead of | as well as] other
loot. Better variety in drops, though I suppose you might still get
one that's full of useless cash down beyond 4k'

 

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konijn_ wrote:
> Except that
> -1 Artifacts cannot be destroyed ( backup weapon will not catch fire )
> -2 Artifacts dont care about acid breathers

Just count ignore_acid and the like into the power, when comparing with
similar depth/rarity egos that may lack those qualities.

That's the same reason if I have base resists elsewhere I'll prefer a
shield of res_acid to one of res_fire -- the res_acid one won't lose pluses.

--
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Palladium? Trusted Computing? DRM? Microsoft? Sauron.
"One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them
One ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them."

 

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konijn_ wrote:
> Except that
> -1 Artifacts cannot be destroyed ( backup weapon will not catch fire )
> -2 Artifacts dont care about acid breathers

Those are very small minuses. You can take them in consideration when
choosing which artifact is too weak.

One example of weak artifact:

# The Battle Axe 'Lotharang'

N:104:'Lotharang'
I:22:22:1
W:30:15:170:21000
P:0:2d8:4:3:0
F:STR | DEX | HIDE_TYPE |
F:SLAY_TROLL | SLAY_ORC | ACTIVATE | SHOW_MODS
A:CURE_WOUNDS:3:3

That's basically slay orc/troll Battle Axe with +1 to STR and DEX. Depth
is 30 (1500') and rarity 15. Get westernesse (pretty much any
westernesse) and it will be better. And it is pretty surprising if you
haven't found _any_ by 1500'.

Another example:

# The Morning Star 'Firestar'

N:115:'Firestar'
I:21:12:0
W:20:15:150:35000
P:0:2d6:5:7:2
F:BRAND_FIRE | RES_FIRE | ACTIVATE | SHOW_MODS
A:FIRE2:20:0

Timo Pietilä

 

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Timo Pietilä wrote:
> One example of weak artifact:
>
> # The Battle Axe 'Lotharang'
>
> N:104:'Lotharang'
> I:22:22:1
> W:30:15:170:21000
> P:0:2d8:4:3:0
> F:STR | DEX | HIDE_TYPE |
> F:SLAY_TROLL | SLAY_ORC | ACTIVATE | SHOW_MODS
> A:CURE_WOUNDS:3:3
>
> That's basically slay orc/troll Battle Axe with +1 to STR and DEX. Depth
> is 30 (1500') and rarity 15. Get westernesse (pretty much any
> westernesse) and it will be better. And it is pretty surprising if you
> haven't found _any_ by 1500'.

And of course that artifact is actually much more likely to turn up in a
GV at 3000' than on your first trip to 1500'.

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"One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them
One ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them."

 

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"Timo Pietilä" <timo.pietila@helsinki.fi> schrieb...

> To make this point somewhat more clear: When game tries to create great item and there is a choise between rare artifact and more
> common but better ego, then artifact is too weak. It all goes to depth, rarity and usability.

One problem is that 'better' is modified by your current equipement.

If i have elemental resists, see invisible, and free action elsewhere,
a *thanc dagger is a great item until late statgain (2d4 base,
very light, and a brand).
But in many games, i have problem aquiring these basic abilities.

So in most games, a light Westernesse or even a heavy Defender is better
than most artifact weapon. Now should we remove most artifact weapons
before 2000'?

My current half-troll warrior hasn't found any ego gloves yet
at 2200'. But he is happy to have that paur* gauntlets with slow
digestion and some AC. It even filled a resistance hole until ~1700'.
And that is one of the items generally considered as very weak.

(a strange game. quite early had amulet of the magi, weaponmastery
and thievery, but no useful armor items, and very few ego weapons)

Werner.