Stoping Alter Reality from becoming even more powerful

New ideas, features you wish were in the game.
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Domiano
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Stoping Alter Reality from becoming even more powerful

Post by Domiano » Sat 26.01.2013, 04:11

Next server, it will be impossible to go past 4950/5000 before sauron/morgoth, which I believe is a good thing. What is NOT a good thing though is the fact that this will make Alter Reality an even stronger spell.
Being able to dive at 5k or lower is important to many characters. Once you can't go past 5k till after morgoth, the only option will be to essentially 'forget' about trying to get PDSM/The One.
In my mind, their are two ways to make it so that non-priests can still dive at 5k without having to recall each time.
1: Remove hounds on <.
This will likely be an unpopular option, but I feel that it may become necessary.
2: MOOOOORE BULLETTIME. ALWAYS LET HOUNDS SPAWN.
On >, <, recall, and alter, slow down time with a factor of 100x or so until the player presses a key/inputs an action. Autoattack should not be called until player comes out of this superbullettime state, as it would defeat the purpose of this feature if a monster was next to you.

PowerWyrm
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Re: Stoping Alter Reality from becoming even more powerful

Post by PowerWyrm » Mon 28.01.2013, 12:27

My solution (PWMAngband): implement what V did

- player ALWAYS go first when using stairs/recall (this means player starts with 100 energy and monsters with 0)
- player is ALWAYS the last entity generated on a level, which means it won't ever be PUSHED from stairs

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Warrior
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Re: Stoping Alter Reality from becoming even more powerful

Post by Warrior » Fri 01.03.2013, 07:43

I think that the second suggestion from both the previous speakers, combined, would be nice, i.e.

The player is always on the stairs as he goes </> and the slowest possible bullet time will always be active.

However, for those (like me) who may not want bullet time (assuming it will be an option), perhaps PW's #1 should also be implemented.
-- Mangband Project Team Member

PowerWyrm
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Re: Stoping Alter Reality from becoming even more powerful

Post by PowerWyrm » Mon 04.03.2013, 12:42

#1 should be implemented. The biggest complaint about V code pre-V3 was that players would be instagibbed by awake monsters when using stairs, because they would get the first turn and nothign could prevent that. It was fixed during the V3.0.x era, and should be applied here.

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Re: Stoping Alter Reality from becoming even more powerful

Post by Avenger » Tue 19.11.2013, 15:22

Domiano wrote:Next server, it will be impossible to go past 4950/5000 before sauron/morgoth, which I believe is a good thing.

Sorry, what?

According to your post, next server it'll be impossible to go below 5k without killing Morgoth, and on the current server, killing Morgoth forces autoretirement. Unless the latter is removed when the former is implemented, why even have floors below 5k? Also, how is this a good thing? You may be exceptionally good at the game, but for most of us, that high end gear is pretty critical, and making it far rarer for us is really going to increase the grind time leading up to Morgoth attempts. As a player who has yet to defeat Morgoth, in any variant, I am not particularly pleased by that.

Also, how is slowing down time by a factor of 100 on alter reality cast stopping it from becoming more powerful?
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PowerWyrm
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Re: Stoping Alter Reality from becoming even more powerful

Post by PowerWyrm » Wed 20.11.2013, 12:50

Yes, autoretirement will have to go away.

Domiano
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Re: Stoping Alter Reality from becoming even more powerful

Post by Domiano » Tue 10.12.2013, 07:31

The focus of my '100x' comment was on taking <. It will not be practical to just take > every level next instance in the endgame, since you can't go past 5k. So, you will either have to recall after just a few levels, dive shallower, or be a priest with alter reality.
If their is the slowdown on <, you can just skum 4950/4900 as long as you want.

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Re: Stoping Alter Reality from becoming even more powerful

Post by Avenger » Tue 10.12.2013, 15:31

Well, what we could just do is apply the same safety mechanics that are currently applied to > and Alter to < as well.

I can't for the life of me imagine what (some of) the current devteam have against scumming for decent floors, since that's, at least to me, most of the fun of the game. No global ESP, punishment for going up a floor, removal of Clairvoyance from Paladins... yes, I get that a couple of those changes are there to bring MAng in line with modern Vanilla, but the downstair safety measures are MAngband specific, and the fact that they weren't enabled for going back up is rather telling.

Oh well, I guess I'll have to abuse the one scumming mechanic they left in, and learn to play a priest.

As far as the solutions proposed in the OP go, I'm far more in favor of making any change of level safe. I would prefer if teleporting was safe, too, but since you're not generating a new level, that's a bit more of a challenge. I don't really like super bullettime, personally.

And what I really don't like is the implication that the next server will block the good depths. Now, I play that way anyway - on my current character, I refused to go below critical depths until associated uniques were cleared, up to and including Sauron and 4950. But at that point, it's bottom time - dive to 6350 and look for good stuff to gear up for Morgoth. Even playing this way, diving the bottom with Morgoth alive, is a dangerous and unwelcome change for me, since in the past, I only played the bottom when someone else had him dead.

The idea that depths below 5k will be off limits until each player has individually killed Morgoth is even worse for me - and I hope it's just an idea, but the way OP stated it made it sound like this terrible idea was a given for the next instance.

Now, instead of being forced to play safely and look for good gear before I attempt dangerous things, as I used to, or even risk Morgoth to look for them, as I have to do now, I'd be barred from looking for them entirely, until after my only need for them was removed.

Why? What on earth is the reasoning behind this, if indeed such an awful concept is actually seriously planned for implementation?
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Re: Stoping Alter Reality from becoming even more powerful

Post by PowerWyrm » Wed 11.12.2013, 12:34

The problem is that current MAng has implemented the restrictions from V (3.0.6) without applying the following fixes (3.0.9 and onward). As I said in a previous post, it is essential to place the player last and give player 100 energy/monsters 0 energy when generating a new level, as it is done in V. In this case, all issues (Alter Reality, hounds...) become irrelevant.

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