I'd love to see more dwarven items, and ego-items. Actually I'd love to see more stuff in general. How about a Dwarven Mining Cap, or a Dwarven Hammer of Crushing, or a Troll's-Hide Armor, or Barbed Arrows (from PMoria), etc etc.
Perhaps orc skeletons should be added to the junk mix, since so many of them get killed regularly.
Or maybe I should just start my own variant with all this stuff. Nah, I'll just bug you guys for awhile until the player base exists to have a successful variant.
More item-kinds or egos!
More item-kinds or egos!
By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property. (Voltaire)
-
andrew wright
Re: More item-kinds or egos!
I'd be in favour of importing as many ego items as possible from all over the place. I firmly believe that variety is the spice of life! I would probably make all the new items extremely rare though, so that the game is not flooded by loads of over powered stuff.
The idea would be just to add that extra thrill that there is some tiny possibility of really wierd and wonderful kit. It is that idea that keeps me playing basically.
The idea would be just to add that extra thrill that there is some tiny possibility of really wierd and wonderful kit. It is that idea that keeps me playing basically.
Re: More item-kinds or egos!
I've recently discovered a small problem with adding new stuff to the game... a lot of things are hard-coded so there's a small chance that certain item kinds and ego types would require code to accompany their template information. Gah, Angband once had such short-sighted design! Well someday we will have a nice easily-extendable system. Not anytime soon though!
By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property. (Voltaire)
Re: More item-kinds or egos!
It would be great to have more varied equipment strategies among the players. I suggest that the 'worthless' dragon scale mails (blue, white, black, shining, and red) have random ego abilities such as permanent light, regeneration, or ESP - either naturally or as somewhat common ego items.
As for rare items, I would suggest ego lights, such as a lamp of Seeing (which gives see invisible and blindness resistance) or a lamp of Light and Darkness resistance.
As for rare items, I would suggest ego lights, such as a lamp of Seeing (which gives see invisible and blindness resistance) or a lamp of Light and Darkness resistance.
Re: More item-kinds or egos!
How about themed objects? We're off to a good start with the Istaris, Westies, Orcish shields, Feanorian Lamps, Teleris, Mirkwoods, Dwarven picks, Gnomish blah, etc etc, but we should complete the outfits. Each outfit should be carefully planned to have great strengths and weaknesses, and perhaps activations (or not, saving them for artifacts), so they create strategies. Oh, and Elvenkinds and Elven Gloves should be split into the various Elven peoples and removed.
As for dragon egos, we'd have to have junk egos to balance the good ones. I think we should make the DSMs more common to lower depths, where they would be useful - and still make them rare. That way low level players would get a taste of what finding good stuff for their levels is like, and want to play more. So, dragon egos. What would you call them?
Armor egos! We should have more. How about Armor of Preservation, which would preserve the owner's life and its own enchantments.. or Headgear of Protection, which sustains INT, WIS, and resists blindness, light, dark, and confusion. Yeah, we'd have to code resist confusion. Not too hard I'd imagine. Resist Time and Resist Gravity would be nifty to code, and they'd be an instant must-have if some new egos used them. Boots of Stability or an Amulet of Stability would be cool, and they'd make it impossible for their owner to be teleported around.
Artifacts are too rare to keep current equipment so much less useful in comparison. We need to make better equipment - although the game CAN be won without artifacts, most people couldn't do it and would have to get artifacts to learn how to do it, I think. Not to mention that a small few of the number people even close to being able to win have all of the artifacts the other would-be winners want. If we add some rare, powerful ego items, the demand for arts will decrease a little bit because people will be able to find enough to complete their suits. Artifacts will be a lot less special, but I really don't care so long as the game is more enjoyable for more people. That's what we want, isn't it?
Of course if you want to be evil about it... we could make winning even harder, since it will be within the grasp of more people when more powerful items are in the game. Yes, that sounds like a plan to me. Let's add some really nasty monsters below 5000' so that scumming the bottom for items would be more difficult, too. Heh heh heh... Everything needs to be rebalanced, and part of that is making some things worse!
I like the new vanilla Angband amulets and rings a lot. We need more rings and amulets, because as it stands there are only a select few that are useful and half of them are artifacts.
Let's add some more stuff that grants speed along with something else, to reduce the need for artifacts some more. And get rid of those worthless Amulets of Speed. Maybe make Boots of Flight, and give them speed (maximum 15, or add the rings of speed code) perhaps some way to resist slowing, and feather falling.
Now I know that we're trying to stick to Vanilla according to someone I talked to, but it would be nice if some people took initiative and started a variant with this cool stuff.
As for dragon egos, we'd have to have junk egos to balance the good ones. I think we should make the DSMs more common to lower depths, where they would be useful - and still make them rare. That way low level players would get a taste of what finding good stuff for their levels is like, and want to play more. So, dragon egos. What would you call them?
Armor egos! We should have more. How about Armor of Preservation, which would preserve the owner's life and its own enchantments.. or Headgear of Protection, which sustains INT, WIS, and resists blindness, light, dark, and confusion. Yeah, we'd have to code resist confusion. Not too hard I'd imagine. Resist Time and Resist Gravity would be nifty to code, and they'd be an instant must-have if some new egos used them. Boots of Stability or an Amulet of Stability would be cool, and they'd make it impossible for their owner to be teleported around.
Artifacts are too rare to keep current equipment so much less useful in comparison. We need to make better equipment - although the game CAN be won without artifacts, most people couldn't do it and would have to get artifacts to learn how to do it, I think. Not to mention that a small few of the number people even close to being able to win have all of the artifacts the other would-be winners want. If we add some rare, powerful ego items, the demand for arts will decrease a little bit because people will be able to find enough to complete their suits. Artifacts will be a lot less special, but I really don't care so long as the game is more enjoyable for more people. That's what we want, isn't it?
Of course if you want to be evil about it... we could make winning even harder, since it will be within the grasp of more people when more powerful items are in the game. Yes, that sounds like a plan to me. Let's add some really nasty monsters below 5000' so that scumming the bottom for items would be more difficult, too. Heh heh heh... Everything needs to be rebalanced, and part of that is making some things worse!
I like the new vanilla Angband amulets and rings a lot. We need more rings and amulets, because as it stands there are only a select few that are useful and half of them are artifacts.
Let's add some more stuff that grants speed along with something else, to reduce the need for artifacts some more. And get rid of those worthless Amulets of Speed. Maybe make Boots of Flight, and give them speed (maximum 15, or add the rings of speed code) perhaps some way to resist slowing, and feather falling.
Now I know that we're trying to stick to Vanilla according to someone I talked to, but it would be nice if some people took initiative and started a variant with this cool stuff.
By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property. (Voltaire)
Re: More item-kinds or egos!
If we're talking about making >5k harder, I'd tend to move to stuff that doesn't do 500-600 damage in one move with an attack with the word "mana" to..
what is your worst nightmare? imagine chaos beetle/GMM... SUPERSIZED... more hp... perhaps no significant range attacks.. HUGE amounts of damage.. huge ac..
(Maybe i'm getting carried away, but I'd really like something that actually can FIGHT without use of breaths/magic!)
I actually like the Mangband usage of artifacts better than the Vanilla.
The Mangband use of a certain limited number of exceptionally powerful and renowned items seems to fit better the vanilla "own every unique item dreamed of" "(yeah, i know, a few are insanely really rare, but still..)
Anybody have ideas? Perhaps the more powerful artifacts could induce unnatural character "aging," from the power of the item..the better the art, faster the aging.. with bad effects after certain "tripwires"?
that could put limits on the use of artifacts, and prevent
gearsets that just go all out on the best arts.
I like the idea of Time/Gravity resists.
Also, one I see as very interesting would be a mana res..
It would be on very rare and expensive items.. THAT DIDN't DO JACK except for the res mana!
You'd have to make some serious sacrifices to get it.
How about this?
Cloak of the Elder (shadow cloak only) (or thievery maybe a better name?)
+1-5 Dexterity&Speed
maybe stealth if you really wanted
Shadow cloak only would really make these rare, and would give shadow cloaks a purpose.
Maybe this'd put an end to the rule of kollas, amans, and kolla's of amans as THE cloaks. (every class except warrior gets temp spell res for at least fire/cold, so lordly res isn't really that useful)
what is your worst nightmare? imagine chaos beetle/GMM... SUPERSIZED... more hp... perhaps no significant range attacks.. HUGE amounts of damage.. huge ac..
(Maybe i'm getting carried away, but I'd really like something that actually can FIGHT without use of breaths/magic!)
I actually like the Mangband usage of artifacts better than the Vanilla.
The Mangband use of a certain limited number of exceptionally powerful and renowned items seems to fit better the vanilla "own every unique item dreamed of" "(yeah, i know, a few are insanely really rare, but still..)
Anybody have ideas? Perhaps the more powerful artifacts could induce unnatural character "aging," from the power of the item..the better the art, faster the aging.. with bad effects after certain "tripwires"?
that could put limits on the use of artifacts, and prevent
gearsets that just go all out on the best arts.
I like the idea of Time/Gravity resists.
Also, one I see as very interesting would be a mana res..
It would be on very rare and expensive items.. THAT DIDN't DO JACK except for the res mana!
You'd have to make some serious sacrifices to get it.
How about this?
Cloak of the Elder (shadow cloak only) (or thievery maybe a better name?)
+1-5 Dexterity&Speed
maybe stealth if you really wanted
Shadow cloak only would really make these rare, and would give shadow cloaks a purpose.
Maybe this'd put an end to the rule of kollas, amans, and kolla's of amans as THE cloaks. (every class except warrior gets temp spell res for at least fire/cold, so lordly res isn't really that useful)
Version 3.12
GAT d- s++:- a14 C++++ UL+ P L+ E? W+ N+ o? K---- w--- O-- M-- V? PS--- PE++ Y+ PGP- t+ 5? X- R+ !tv b+++ DI+++ D+ G+ e- h! !r !z
GAT d- s++:- a14 C++++ UL+ P L+ E? W+ N+ o? K---- w--- O-- M-- V? PS--- PE++ Y+ PGP- t+ 5? X- R+ !tv b+++ DI+++ D+ G+ e- h! !r !z
Re: More item-kinds or egos!
Well the problem with artifacts is that there's only one of each. A lot of players have grabbed good artifacts, then not played ever again. So that keeps them from being useful to anyone. I'm saying if we implement some almost as powerful egos, the problem will be alleviated. Maybe even make some viable alternatives. Your solution would make players want other things besides artifacts too.
What would happen if you had Resist Time and equipment was supposed to age you? It would be a horrible mess.
If mana resists were to exist, they would have to hamper your own magic ability just as badly as they would resist mana attacks. Basically you'd lose all ability to cast spells, or use magic items like rods, staves, scrolls, and wands. I would rather not put that in the game. Besides, mana is pure energy, and you really shouldn't be able to resist it. No resist mana for me please.
Now, coding something that boosts two things by a random value.. that's a rough trick to implement, since the game doesn't support multiple PVals. If we were to have that cloak, it should be 1-5 DEX and a speedie algorithm to determine the bonus speed, except we can't have multiple PVals. So, here we are with a problem that can't be solved with the current code base... it would have to grant X amount of DEX no matter what if there was to be variable speed, and vice-versa. The only way to create that sort of item would be to make an artifact, and then both values would be set in a file, not at generation time.
Nasty monsters.. hmm.. I agree with the fighting part, but they'd be monsters you wouldn't want to melee
They would have to be tough enough to take a beating from a level 50 mage's spells, so you can imagine how powerful they'd be hand to hand. Just think.. a GT on steroids, or a new kind of Draco or drolem, or a really souped-up Colossus, or some new kind of worm mass, or some new angelic being, or more demons (as you previously suggested) or Trolls or Wyrms? Well that's a topic for another post, but yeah.
What would happen if you had Resist Time and equipment was supposed to age you? It would be a horrible mess.
If mana resists were to exist, they would have to hamper your own magic ability just as badly as they would resist mana attacks. Basically you'd lose all ability to cast spells, or use magic items like rods, staves, scrolls, and wands. I would rather not put that in the game. Besides, mana is pure energy, and you really shouldn't be able to resist it. No resist mana for me please.
Now, coding something that boosts two things by a random value.. that's a rough trick to implement, since the game doesn't support multiple PVals. If we were to have that cloak, it should be 1-5 DEX and a speedie algorithm to determine the bonus speed, except we can't have multiple PVals. So, here we are with a problem that can't be solved with the current code base... it would have to grant X amount of DEX no matter what if there was to be variable speed, and vice-versa. The only way to create that sort of item would be to make an artifact, and then both values would be set in a file, not at generation time.
Nasty monsters.. hmm.. I agree with the fighting part, but they'd be monsters you wouldn't want to melee
They would have to be tough enough to take a beating from a level 50 mage's spells, so you can imagine how powerful they'd be hand to hand. Just think.. a GT on steroids, or a new kind of Draco or drolem, or a really souped-up Colossus, or some new kind of worm mass, or some new angelic being, or more demons (as you previously suggested) or Trolls or Wyrms? Well that's a topic for another post, but yeah.By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property. (Voltaire)
Re: More item-kinds or egos!
Welp with the move a couple of my posts went away. Anyway here's the general gist of one of them.
On a name for DSM Egos. Since these babies would be hideously powerful I believe a suitable name would be:
[center]of the Valar[/center]
(the valar are the gods of the tolkinian universe for you non-tolkien nerds).
For the rest of my DSM ideas I need to give partial credit to Varguar since we have tossed around ideas about a LOT of stuff.
On a name for DSM Egos. Since these babies would be hideously powerful I believe a suitable name would be:
[center]of the Valar[/center]
(the valar are the gods of the tolkinian universe for you non-tolkien nerds).
For the rest of my DSM ideas I need to give partial credit to Varguar since we have tossed around ideas about a LOT of stuff.
- Black, Blue, White, Red DSMs need to have thier rarity lowered and more importantly thier level set to something useful...Red DSMs are so rare that the average player never sees one and for those that DO find one generally already have something far more useful.
- Possibly change these so that there is a random chance that instead of resistance, they grant immunity to thier type.
- Multihued DSM needs to have it's level and rarity adjusted (according to the source they're more rare than Balance).
- Dsms that grant multiple highs: Chaos, Balance, Power need to have thier value increased dramatically. Currently there are enough high level players who sell them at base price that no-one bothers with elvenkinds or the 'low' dsms.
- Shining DSM needs to be rethought. I've never known anyone to actually use it. Either Light and Dark need to become more prevalent as attack forms, far more powerful, or this DSM needs to have additional properties.
- Dsms should cause aggravation for dragonkind, after all you're wearing some relatives' skin. (see my post on extra curses)
King of the Hill Baby!
Re: More item-kinds or egos!
More item ideas
- Istari gloves should have random stat bonuses, not just int and wis.
- Same for Orcish shields.
- Crowns of Might and Lordliness need to get random abilities ala Magi crowns.
- All crowns/hats should have a chance to be any ego type.
- Elvenkinds should have a chance to give a random stat or two in addition to stealth.. Might make them competative with higher order DSMs.
- Thror and Dal-i-Thalion should be beefed up to reflect thier Artifact status and other boot ego types should be introduced to include random stat increases.
- Boots of Thievery... Would give bonuses to stealth and speed.
- Boots of levitation.. Would ignore traps, perhaps half encumberance effects on speed.
- Add fur cloaks as a base type with resist cold.
- Weapons of extra attacks should be removed and instead added as an extra ego bonus: currently ego weapons have a slim chance of gaining extra dice.. I think they should also have a slim chance of getting 1d2 blows as well, only problem I see with this right now is Defenders, blessed weapons and Holy Avengers which have a pval that can exceed 2..
- Bow of the DragonMasters. Would be a new base type bow (need one short, long, light xbow, heavy xbow), yes base type: could be Longbow of the DragonMasters of Numenor. (10d4xMultiplier) (+x,+x) (XX) Uses Charges instead of arrows. Charges random per bow 10d4. Charges regenerate at a rate of 1 every 7-10 rounds. Reason for such high dice: They don't get to add arrow bonuses to thier multiplier. Charge energy would do magic missile type damage..
King of the Hill Baby!
Re: More item-kinds or egos!
Ahh, darn it! I lost the message I originally had here because some stupid link someone sent me decided to launch in this window. So I'm gonna try to reconstruct it here.
--------------------------
Cool, I never expected such a great response to my original post!
Extra blows would get really tricky if they were changed that way. There isn't a place to store the number of blows other than the PVal field.. so that would have to be the only thing modified by the weapon.
Fur cloaks with resist cold! I had the same idea a few years back, and emailed it to RR9. He didn't seem to like it as much as I did.
Those bows would be a real bear to code. Sure, they could work, but I think it would be better to code them as regular bows that fire ammo, and create a new type of ammo to be fired from them - the Charge, or the Shock, or the Dragon Shot? They would basically be long, thin splinters. That's the best way to pierce armor anyways, concentrate force in a small point. They'd be 1d1 and very light (0.1 lbs), so the bow would really be the determining factor still and you could carry huge loads of them around without a problem. Then you could have Dragon Shots of Slay Dragon
--------------------------
Cool, I never expected such a great response to my original post!
Extra blows would get really tricky if they were changed that way. There isn't a place to store the number of blows other than the PVal field.. so that would have to be the only thing modified by the weapon.
Fur cloaks with resist cold! I had the same idea a few years back, and emailed it to RR9. He didn't seem to like it as much as I did.
Those bows would be a real bear to code. Sure, they could work, but I think it would be better to code them as regular bows that fire ammo, and create a new type of ammo to be fired from them - the Charge, or the Shock, or the Dragon Shot? They would basically be long, thin splinters. That's the best way to pierce armor anyways, concentrate force in a small point. They'd be 1d1 and very light (0.1 lbs), so the bow would really be the determining factor still and you could carry huge loads of them around without a problem. Then you could have Dragon Shots of Slay Dragon
By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property. (Voltaire)
Re: More item-kinds or egos!
I think that the improvement I would like most is to make Boots of Speed have unlimited speed bonuses. Then I could walk up to people and say, "I just sold the boots of Feanor. :P"
Also, if weapons of extra attacks are so worthless, they should be able to go up to +3. Then they would be really nice.
Also, if weapons of extra attacks are so worthless, they should be able to go up to +3. Then they would be really nice.
Re: More item-kinds or egos!
EA worthless?
I really like EA. Think of it this way:
Character gets 4-6 blows.
4 blows would be 50% more damage for an EA +2
6 blows, 1/3 more damage. That's pretty considerable!
Each of these xtra blows gets all weapon stats, ALL damage bonuses...
I have a Mace of Disruption 5d8 +16 +16 +1 of Extra Attacks. I'm not sure whether it is better than the glaive... but I tend to think so.
After running the damage calculations in Angband Damage Calculator,
I got about 400 average for glaive w/out speed bonuses, 348 or so for the MoD.
However, I seem to get MANY more and MUCH better critical hits with the mace due to heaviness and all the blows.. also, the greater to hit.
To me, an ego type that is arguably as good or better
than the Glaive of Pain with the LOWEST POSSIBLE PVAL !!!! isn't worthless by any count.
Sorry for the "longness" of my post)
CU on Mangband when da server comes up again!
(I hope I don't lose the +15 speedie I found last night
due to server save reload
( )
Think of what my mace would be if it was +3.
5d8 +16 +16 +3, so 8 attacks, over 50% more damage from EA.
What would westernesse give me?
2 to 3 stats. Not really that useful to me.
Holy Avenger? Wisdom, admittedly cool, and slay evil. Both good, but as good as 50% more damage?
And HA is custom made for my class.
Defender? don't make me laugh..
I really like EA. Think of it this way:
Character gets 4-6 blows.
4 blows would be 50% more damage for an EA +2
6 blows, 1/3 more damage. That's pretty considerable!
Each of these xtra blows gets all weapon stats, ALL damage bonuses...
I have a Mace of Disruption 5d8 +16 +16 +1 of Extra Attacks. I'm not sure whether it is better than the glaive... but I tend to think so.
After running the damage calculations in Angband Damage Calculator,
I got about 400 average for glaive w/out speed bonuses, 348 or so for the MoD.
However, I seem to get MANY more and MUCH better critical hits with the mace due to heaviness and all the blows.. also, the greater to hit.
To me, an ego type that is arguably as good or better
than the Glaive of Pain with the LOWEST POSSIBLE PVAL !!!! isn't worthless by any count.
Sorry for the "longness" of my post
)CU on Mangband when da server comes up again!
(I hope I don't lose the +15 speedie I found last night
due to server save reload
( )Think of what my mace would be if it was +3.
5d8 +16 +16 +3, so 8 attacks, over 50% more damage from EA.
What would westernesse give me?
2 to 3 stats. Not really that useful to me.
Holy Avenger? Wisdom, admittedly cool, and slay evil. Both good, but as good as 50% more damage?
And HA is custom made for my class.
Defender? don't make me laugh..
Version 3.12
GAT d- s++:- a14 C++++ UL+ P L+ E? W+ N+ o? K---- w--- O-- M-- V? PS--- PE++ Y+ PGP- t+ 5? X- R+ !tv b+++ DI+++ D+ G+ e- h! !r !z
GAT d- s++:- a14 C++++ UL+ P L+ E? W+ N+ o? K---- w--- O-- M-- V? PS--- PE++ Y+ PGP- t+ 5? X- R+ !tv b+++ DI+++ D+ G+ e- h! !r !z
Re: More item-kinds or egos!
Maegdae, I'd appreciate it if you'd broaden your scope beyond yourself... we need to take into account all the different race/class/skill/strategy combinations. I'm trying to make the game better for everyone. We've got to keep new players happy so they'll learn to love the game just as you and I did, and to do that there will have to be some low-level goodies they can actually find. Since all the big ego boosters (low level artifacts) are taken we need to create something exciting for them. A lot of people play mages too, and many types of items that you consider worthless are actually helpful to them. Don't forget the warriors, rogues, and rangers that I'm trying to make viable alternatives. There are other areas on the forums for tooting your own horn. Please keep discussion on this topic brief and relevant. Now, I'm not discouraging replies, but I would appreciate seeing replies that only make readable, clear point(s) and don't wander into bragging about personal gear, or casual conversations about whatever. Thanks! No offense taken.. none intended.. just think about this, and please don't forget to use the Preview function on the posting form.
For those of you just joining us now, there have been plenty of conversations in-game that are not logged here, so this wasn't me being a jerk over just one post.
For those of you just joining us now, there have been plenty of conversations in-game that are not logged here, so this wasn't me being a jerk over just one post.
By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property. (Voltaire)
-
Avenger
- Skeleton 2-Headed Troll
- Posts: 191
- Joined: Wed 04.12.2002, 21:42
- Location: Wisconsin
- Contact:
Re: More item-kinds or egos!
What about Wyrm Scale Mails? The low elements would provide their respective immunity, and the high elements would provide a random ability. Also, they would have more AC, normal WSMs with 40, power with 50.
