Your favorite and least favorite parts of Angband gameplay

[Therem Harth]

My favorite part: level-wrecking summonfests. Especially dragon summonfests, because LOOOOOOOT. Usually my characters end up dead, but until then every moment is awesome.

My least favorite part: the early game. Puny variety of enemies, uninteresting items, frequent death by boredom. I usually wish I could just jump ahead into midgame.

Yours?

[emulord]

Favorite parts: Early game identify/money game (Boo! hiss! nosell sucks!)

Least favorite: End game nervewracking unique hunting. Damn I feel like Im gonna have a aneurism.

[Raajaton]

Favorite part : For me, definitely mid game stat-gain levels. Those depths tend to be very dangerous compared to the player's average power at that level, and drops start to get very exciting. I love that feeling of seeing that un-id'd potion and FINALLY finding a .... potion of dragon's breath

Least favorite : Not really a gameplay complaint, but the limited storage space in your home. It's pretty unfortunate to throw away a piece of gear because it doesn't fit into your loadout currently, and can't seem to make room to stash it at home. I've always chalked it up to inventory management strategy, but I feel like dealing with the players inventory is enough. Especially after playing a lot of poschengband lately, I really appreciate having the extra storage.

[debo]

Least favorite parts: Pointless life drain, billion acid monsters in the first 20 dungeon levels, hounds
Most favorite parts: There is no Ponzo

[Mark]

Favourite Part: midgame. The number of things that rapidly expand - options available to your player makes this part of the game exponentially more interesting:

• stat gain means even secondary casters can viably rely on spells (to a point)
• monsters / vaults means you have more meaningful decisions re where to go / what to attempt
• monster attacks get more varied - more challenges requiring more/different strategies
• loot drops open up more capabilities - speed, activations (DSM), resistances etc - both in terms of what you can now withstand but also interesting 'what to wear' choices start emerging
• You can start to 'major' on damage, stealth, mana, melee, range, etc.
• Interesting spell books open up new opportunities.

All those things stacked together means you have variety and oppotunity like you only ever dreamed of in the first 1000' of the game.

Little of this seems to happen between 0 - 1000' or 3000' - 5000' imho

[fizzix]

Originally Posted by Mark

Little of this seems to happen between 0 - 1000' or 3000' - 5000' imho

I find the early game is a "use these wands and staves that I found. Stuff like Confuse monster, slow monster, sleep monster are only really useful in the first 15 levels or so. Making use of them, can help you descend faster than you otherwise would.

[Timo Pietilä]

Originally Posted by Mark

Little of this seems to happen between 0 - 1000' or 3000' - 5000' imho

I find 2500-4000 "skipping levels". You get yourself tough enough to deal with monsters at 2500, and very little happens in danger between those levels, so next goal is to get to speed ring depths. Then I slow down to make the next 20 levels a bit less cramped with uniques I skipped during that crash-dive period.

Basic survival (50' to 1000') , improve your char (1500'-2500') and improve your gear (4000-5000') are interesting. 1000'-1500 and 2500'-4000' I basically skip unless I get exceptional level feeling. Then I investigate the possible cause.

[Magnate]

Originally Posted by Timo Pietilä

Basic survival (50' to 1000') , improve your char (1500'-2500') and improve your gear (4000-5000') are interesting. 1000'-1500 and 2500'-4000' I basically skip unless I get exceptional level feeling. Then I investigate the possible cause.

This. Great minds think alike.

There are basically two breakpoints left in the game worth remembering: stat potion depth (1500') and speed ring depth (4000'). Hence skipping the levels before.

[Derakon]

I once tried to telescope the dungeon down to 10 levels, which, if I recall correctly, I mapped something like:

Town
100'
400'
800'
1100'
1500'
2000'
2800'
3600'
4400'
5000'

If I recall correctly, all I did was change the logic for when the player moves between levels so that it'd be done in giant predefined jumps, instead of 50' at a time. It was maybe a bit too aggressive, but I think the basic concept was sound. Maybe 20 levels would have been a better goal.

It certainly made the difference between "adjacent" levels a hell of a lot more noticeable!

[Estie]

I agree with Derakon, some compression would do the game good.

For me the most boring part is the "kill important uniques" shortly before endfights. What I would like to try:
Shifting the loot gain away from vault/floor/monster drops towards unique drops. In particular, I could see artifact rarity increase greatly, but be plentifull off uniques. Also, only unique level should be considered for quality, not dungeon level you happen to kill the unique on.
This would reward the tough unique fights and the early kill (which is harder than the late kill).
While speed ring depth would still be an important marker, a new scale would be introduced - when and how to kill particular uniques. Currently, its always "delay the kill till its no risk" and "the later the deeper and better".