The case for simplicity

[Magnate]

Originally Posted by buzzkill

No, it wasn't aimed at you, or anyone in particular. I couldn't tell you where the rings came form either. It's just the 'no it's not great, but we'll somehow fix it later' or 'players like early speed, so we'll force it to work and hope for the best' rather than 'this is causing other problems, we'll get rid of it until we sort it out' attitude that seemed to permeate V development in recent years.

You guys accomplished did a lot of good work on V, I just wish v4 happened earlier. I wonder where we would be now if v4 didn't happen?

FWIW I too wish v4 had happened earlier. It was suggested about six or eight months earlier by d_m & Gabe Cunningham, and I very much regret arguing against it then. Still, better late than never. It is now possible to 'fix' V and still experiment with riskier 'improvements' in v4, and hopefully we'll get the best of both worlds. We are in a fallow period at the moment though - fewer active devs than at any time in the past three years. I'm guessing things will pick up around or after xmas.

And yes, I accept the charge of being too reluctant to remove things - I did most of the arguing against doing so, which exacerbated the problem.

[Djabanete]

Originally Posted by Magnate

Neat - I always wondered where shadows/delving/light came from (though the edit files say the lantern of shadows is from NPP ...).

Doesn't really sound as if it was a dev's pet project then. More like an idea that was implemented which some consider overpowered. I don't remember any loud consensus to change this though.

Btw, I can't find "Djabanete" in the thanks file - are you in there under your real name? And if not, would you like to be?

Are you saying that other stuff made it into the game? I didn't even know that! If that is the sort of thing that makes people be in the thanks file, then I would be happy to be there as Djabanete.

The darkness idea could easily be from NPP --- I didn't invent it or anything, it already existed in Heng. Light is obviously the inverse of that and the other two are original.

And we can all be glad that Takkaria changed "Cowardliness" (???) to "Escaping."

[/sorry for the off-topic]

I agree with the OP about emergent gameplay in general, but I'm not really up to speed on current V/V4 development so I don't know the concrete examples. I love the idea of getting Dreads to bring you artifacts though. Artifacts need to remain indestructible IMO, but I don't see why they can't be picked up.

One kind of special-casing I find a bit silly is monsters not dropping weapons that hurt them. And yes, Magnate, I am only saying this because you don't receive enough complaints.

[TJS]

Originally Posted by Magnate

That sounds like a swipe at me but I honestly don't remember having anything to do with rings of Escaping. IIRC they were already in the game when I joined the devteam in Jan '09, and haven't been touched since. FWIW I don't think they're particularly unbalanced if you play with no_selling, though the fear penalties for shooting/casting could always be a bit tougher, and/or the speed bonus could be lower.

Or have I lost track of this thread and we're not talking about rings of escaping any more??

My point wasn't that rings of escaping were overpowered, it's that it made fear more complicated than it was before.

ie. going from being curable and resistable with the right gear to sometimes curable and resistable depending on which type of fear it is.

Anyway what I'm trying to get at is do people want Angband to be a game with a consistent set of core rules which the gameplay is derived from or more fuzzy set of rules that change depending on the situation.

I personally prefer the former and think games that have better core rules tend to need a lot less special cases.

There's talk in another thread of stop making potions 100% reliable (ie. you can fumble them). And then to fix the problem that you can't always cure confusion because of this there's a proposal to make rods of curing a special case to be 100% reliable when confused!

[Djabanete]

I'd vote for "consistent set of core rules," but I think basically everyone would. It's just that there will always be some special cases, so each one has to be judged on its own merits.

One area that would probably benefit most from the culling of needless complication is resistances. But I think there has already been recent discussion on that.

[Magnate]

Originally Posted by Djabanete

Are you saying that other stuff made it into the game? I didn't even know that! If that is the sort of thing that makes people be in the thanks file, then I would be happy to be there as Djabanete.

The darkness idea could easily be from NPP --- I didn't invent it or anything, it already existed in Heng. Light is obviously the inverse of that and the other two are original.

And we can all be glad that Takkaria changed "Cowardliness" (???) to "Escaping."

[/sorry for the off-topic]

I agree with the OP about emergent gameplay in general, but I'm not really up to speed on current V/V4 development so I don't know the concrete examples. I love the idea of getting Dreads to bring you artifacts though. Artifacts need to remain indestructible IMO, but I don't see why they can't be picked up.

One kind of special-casing I find a bit silly is monsters not dropping weapons that hurt them. And yes, Magnate, I am only saying this because you don't receive enough complaints.

Well you're out of luck here, I reverted that yesterday ;-)

... oh wait, dammit, no I didn't. I didn't get round to it (I did the min-level-feeling-for-artifacts instead). Tonight! EDIT: done! (b2915f2)

I'll add you to the thanks file too - yes, rings of delving and light are in the game.

[Magnate]

Originally Posted by Djabanete

I'd vote for "consistent set of core rules," but I think basically everyone would. It's just that there will always be some special cases, so each one has to be judged on its own merits.

Sure. One of the consistent core rules I'd go for is "the identity of objects is not obvious from a distance", but we've already agreed that it's fine for the Phial, Star and Arkenstone to be special cases.

So this tells us that people's mileage varies, and one person's consistency is another person's dullness.

But I think we're all agreed that a consistent set of core rules is a good baseline to have, and we should work towards eliminating special cases rather than creating them ...

One area that would probably benefit most from the culling of needless complication is resistances. But I think there has already been recent discussion on that.

... which is interesting, because some people went nuclear when I suggested a consistent linear approach to resistances not long ago. But yes, culling needless complication here is on the agenda, as a later part of the combat rebalancing. And yes, it's going to break a lot of other things which will then require rebalancing, but that's all part of moving towards a consistent set of core rules.

[Derakon]

Originally Posted by Magnate

... which is interesting, because some people went nuclear when I suggested a consistent linear approach to resistances not long ago.

I believe Djabanete was referring to the high resists having random damage mitigation while the low resists and poison just reduce damage to 1/3rd normal. Not the weird "resists don't stack except for temporary + permanent" thing.

[TJS]

Originally Posted by Magnate

Sure. One of the consistent core rules I'd go for is "the identity of objects is not obvious from a distance", but we've already agreed that it's fine for the Phial, Star and Arkenstone to be special cases.

So this tells us that people's mileage varies, and one person's consistency is another person's dullness.

The rule (as I understand it) is that the symbol is visible, but you can't mouse over it. The fact that you can identify some items because they are the only ones of that type is a product of the consistency of that rule.
It would be exactly the same for any other item or monster that is the only one of it's type with that symbol.

[Djabanete]

Originally Posted by Derakon

I believe Djabanete was referring to the high resists having random damage mitigation while the low resists and poison just reduce damage to 1/3rd normal. Not the weird "resists don't stack except for temporary + permanent" thing.

Precisely.

@Magnate: See, I'm one of those looneys that actually thought it was cool when you could spot Ringil a mile away. I think there are various interpretations of "consistency" in this case and in the case of the Phial etc, since different rules could describe different behaviors in self-consistent ways. For example you could say, "An item's type is always visible, including damage dice and/or base AC."

Anyway, there are several possible approaches, and it's not a big deal which one is taken --- most can be justified in a self-consistent way.

And yes: people's mileage will definitely vary, so it's not something I stress out about too much.

[Max Stats]

Originally Posted by Derakon

now that we have fuzzy object detection.

Wow, we have a spell that detects teddy bears and peaches?