Balancing issues

Issues, news, and discussion specific to the Ironman variant.
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PowerWyrm
Balrog
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Balancing issues

Post by PowerWyrm » Tue 13.12.2005, 13:41

1) Starting gear:
* warrior: starts with 5 CSW + 10 tele scrolls - fine
* mage: starts with first 2 books + 5 tele scrolls - lacks 3rd book
* priest: starts with first 2 books + 5 tele scrolls - lacks 3rd book
* rogue: starts with first 2 books + 5 tele scrolls - fine
* ranger: starts with first book + 5 tele scrolls + a bow - lacks 2nd book
* paladin: first 2 books + 5 tele scrolls - fine
I'd say give more starting cash, especially for mages and priests (maybe rangers too). 500 base gold at start would be nice.

2) Supplies destroyed by elemental attacks:
It seems that in Mangband elemental attacks destroy supplies really quickly, even if you are protected by double resistance. This is really an issue in ironman, where the supplies are limited. I'd say give an extra save when a character resists the corresponding element and prevent the destroying when the character double resists or is immune (TomeNET works that way).

3) Burden:
Having a high strength doesn't help much when you have to carry all your findings through all levels of the dungeon. It's not unusual to walk at -3 or -4 speed. I'd say increase the carrying capacity of characters to allow them to pick more stuff.

Berendol
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Re: Balancing issues

Post by Berendol » Tue 13.12.2005, 16:26

By carrying capacity, do you mean weight or inventory space?

Inventory space cannot be changed without a complete rework of the inventory system.

Weight, however, can be changed.

It's easy enough to find books on the floor. You have to dive for them, which a lot of people seem to be afraid of - why is anyone still at 200' at level 9?

I think maybe your suggestions would put a little too much sugar on the game. Then again, I used to like seeing my players go "woe is me for I have angered the mighty U pit!"
By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property. (Voltaire)

PowerWyrm
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Re: Balancing issues

Post by PowerWyrm » Tue 13.12.2005, 16:30

Weight of course... should be easy by simply increasing the numbers in the table depending on str.

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Re: Balancing issues

Post by Warrior » Thu 15.12.2005, 07:15

Ok, I tried to reply to this a couple of days ago but it was lost unfortunately and I haven't had time to try again before now.

I agree with many of your points PowerWyrm, but I also agree with Berendol when he says this might be adding too much sugar on the game.

In Ironman starting equipment has been changed to make things more FAIR, now most classes will get roughly the same amount of gold for all their starting gear if they sell it. Starting gear wasn't meant to be balanced as far as the difficulty of each class goes, that'd take a while to get right.

However, after having seen most mages die terrible deaths to small kobolds and such and after having played a priest a few times now I think both classes should start with the third book.

I'm not sure though... Maybe this is unfair, in one way I think it's right that all classes start with roughly the same, if you play a mage or a priest, it's tough, but hey, it was YOUR choice to play one - don't complain!

We might considering giving the other classes some more starting equipment too. Bows and arrows spring to mind as one way to balance things.

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As far as supplies getting destroyed, I think this is a difficult thing to solve correctly, if it is handled differently in vanilla I think it could be implemented here, however I don't think it's right to bring in stuff from TomeNET. Allthough since immunity is such a rare thing, maybe it'd be ok if it really WAS immunity.

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Burden. I think maybe carrying capacity could be increased by say 25% without unbalancing anything. As long as we have decided to have towns in the dungeon, money becomes a very large part of the game and if you're unable to carry around stuff that you can sell, we could basically just as well remove the towns, or the game's focus becomes too much scumming for new levels all the time.

An alternative would of course be to remove the black market from the game, since that is the place that most the big money goes into. This way characters would most likely be happy with the 20000$ they have managed to pick up in hard cash from the dungeon floor on their way from 1000ft to 2000ft.
It'd however cripple the trade between players element, which is a nice feature.

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As is, I think Ironman MAngband is too easy. I'm currently sitting on 3000ft and I'm not gonna say that it's been easy getting there but...

Well, I've got a good depth and my current game plan is going to 4k and then 5k and then eventually reaching the bottom and fight Morgoth with my bare hands.


- Warrior
-- Mangband Project Team Member

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