Cooler weapon and armor names

In article <9eOdnZieve3y_y7anZ2dnUVZ8s6inZ2d.DeleteThis@bt.com>,
Andrew Kenning <a.kenning.DeleteThis@btinternet.com> wrote:

[Big Snip]

> How about making it so that if an item that gives telepathy is cursed,
> then the telepathy doesn't acurrately show monsters positions. Ie it
> could show them slightly closer or further away from the person. This
> would then make people a bit more careful about letting telepathic items
> get cursed.

> Andy

Or alternativly (or as well as) make the monster type wrong.

Peter

--
Peter Gillett : peter.gillett.DeleteThis@ukgateway.net
Totnes : South Devon
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On Feb 14, 12:07 am, Peter Gillett <peter.gill... DeleteThis @ukgateway.net>
wrote:
> In article <9eOdnZieve3y_y7anZ2dnUVZ8s6in... DeleteThis @bt.com>,
> Andrew Kenning <a.kenn... DeleteThis @btinternet.com> wrote:
>
> [Big Snip]
>
> > How about making it so that if an item that gives telepathy is cursed,
> > then the telepathy doesn't acurrately show monsters positions. Ie it
> > could show them slightly closer or further away from the person. This
> > would then make people a bit more careful about letting telepathic items
> > get cursed.
> > Andy
>
> Or alternativly (or as well as) make the monster type wrong.

Many of these tactical details sound suspiciously like Nethack. I
mostly want to decide which monsters to go hunting for, which to kill,
and which to avoid.
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Andrew Sidwell <takkaria DeleteThis @gmail.com> writes:

> Andrew Sidwell wrote:
> > Timo Pietilä wrote:
> >> Looks to me that we should increase items for cloak, hands and foot for at
> >> least two each.
>
> Suggestions welcome, BTW.

I'd like to suggest the opposite.

Suppose that you have 150 item types, and 1 artifact of each type.
Compare that to 50 item types and 3 artifacts of each type.

Most people get to a point in the midgame where pretty much all they care
about is finding artifacts. Due to the way artifacts are generated, the 150
item type situation is less likely to produce the 75th artifact than the 50
item type situation.

I'd prefer to see the number of swords reduced rather than increasing the
number of cloaks. If you want more variety, you can change the likelihood of
different damage dice. It wouldn't hurt to give footwear multiple A: values
if you want to increase the relative frequencey of footwear.


Eddie
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Eddie Grove wrote:
> Andrew Sidwell <takkaria RemoveThis @gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Andrew Sidwell wrote:
>>> Timo Pietilä wrote:
>>>> Looks to me that we should increase items for cloak, hands and foot for at
>>>> least two each.
>> Suggestions welcome, BTW.
>
> I'd like to suggest the opposite.

But you don't

> Suppose that you have 150 item types, and 1 artifact of each type.
> Compare that to 50 item types and 3 artifacts of each type.
>
> Most people get to a point in the midgame where pretty much all they care
> about is finding artifacts. Due to the way artifacts are generated, the 150
> item type situation is less likely to produce the 75th artifact than the 50
> item type situation.
>
> I'd prefer to see the number of swords reduced rather than increasing the
> number of cloaks.

If you did read my suggestion, I'd keep the item count same, just
increase those above by decreasing number of weapons. Just like you say.
Definitely item count should not go up, that makes things worse.

Timo Pietilä
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Timo Pietilä <timo.pietila RemoveThis @helsinki.fi> writes:

> Eddie Grove wrote:
> > Andrew Sidwell <takkaria RemoveThis @gmail.com> writes:
> >
> >> Andrew Sidwell wrote:
> >>> Timo Pietilä wrote:
> >>>> Looks to me that we should increase items for cloak, hands and foot for at
> >>>> least two each.
> >> Suggestions welcome, BTW.
> > I'd like to suggest the opposite.
>
> But you don't

But I meant to!

> > Suppose that you have 150 item types, and 1 artifact of each type.
> > Compare that to 50 item types and 3 artifacts of each type.
> > Most people get to a point in the midgame where pretty much all they care
> > about is finding artifacts. Due to the way artifacts are generated, the 150
> > item type situation is less likely to produce the 75th artifact than the 50
> > item type situation.
> > I'd prefer to see the number of swords reduced rather than increasing the
> > number of cloaks.
>
> If you did read my suggestion, I'd keep the item count same, just increase
> those above by decreasing number of weapons. Just like you say. Definitely
> item count should not go up, that makes things worse.

I do not want the item count to be the same. I'd like it to be massively
reduced, perhaps by a factor of three. I want to see a big cutback in the
number of weapons, and body armor, so that footgear might be even more common
than you want without adding any new footgear items at all. Dagger, short
sword, long sword, great sword, and chaos blade seem like enough swords to me.

More than that is just adding names for the sake of adding names. I guess I
might not mind an add-on whereby each type could have 3 or 4 different names to
add personality, applied after item generation is done, but 5 SVALs is plenty.

This is not about realism or general gameplay. It is just another small step
along the path of reducing TMJ. And all of it is just IMO, of course.


Eddie
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Eddie Grove wrote:
> Timo Pietilä <timo.pietila.RemoveThis@helsinki.fi> writes:
>
>> Eddie Grove wrote:
>>> Andrew Sidwell <takkaria.RemoveThis@gmail.com> writes:
>>>
>>>> Andrew Sidwell wrote:
>>>>> Timo Pietilä wrote:
>>>>>> Looks to me that we should increase items for cloak, hands and foot for at
>>>>>> least two each.
>>>> Suggestions welcome, BTW.
>>> I'd like to suggest the opposite.
>> But you don't
>
> But I meant to!
>
>>> Suppose that you have 150 item types, and 1 artifact of each type.
>>> Compare that to 50 item types and 3 artifacts of each type.
>>> Most people get to a point in the midgame where pretty much all they care
>>> about is finding artifacts. Due to the way artifacts are generated, the 150
>>> item type situation is less likely to produce the 75th artifact than the 50
>>> item type situation.
>>> I'd prefer to see the number of swords reduced rather than increasing the
>>> number of cloaks.
>> If you did read my suggestion, I'd keep the item count same, just increase
>> those above by decreasing number of weapons. Just like you say. Definitely
>> item count should not go up, that makes things worse.
>
> I do not want the item count to be the same. I'd like it to be massively
> reduced, perhaps by a factor of three.

Ah, I see your point now. You just go to the extreme.

> I want to see a big cutback in the
> number of weapons, and body armor, so that footgear might be even more common
> than you want without adding any new footgear items at all. Dagger, short
> sword, long sword, great sword, and chaos blade seem like enough swords to me.

I generally agree with you, but too little is too little too. Not _that_
much reduction.

> More than that is just adding names for the sake of adding names. I guess I
> might not mind an add-on whereby each type could have 3 or 4 different names to
> add personality, applied after item generation is done, but 5 SVALs is plenty.

4 times 5 is 20. Currently there are 18 blades. So you are increasing
names, while decreasing objects. I like that suggestion.

> This is not about realism or general gameplay. It is just another small step
> along the path of reducing TMJ. And all of it is just IMO, of course.

I would also reduce number of artifacts. There are too much junk among
them. Make them rather rare, but also keep them powerful. Game should be
(rather easily) winnable without artifacts, and with artifacts easy to
win (to the veteran player that it).

I think goal end-game gear should not include all artifacts.

All of this is IMO too, of course.

(mental note to self. This could easy up TMJ problem for my variant).

Timo Pietilä
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Eddie Grove <eddiegrove.TakeThisOut@hotmail.com> wrote in
news:87myq3uvrs.fsf@hotmail.com:
> Timo Pietilä <timo.pietila.TakeThisOut@helsinki.fi> writes:
>> Eddie Grove wrote:

>> > Suppose that you have 150 item types, and 1 artifact of each type.
>> > Compare that to 50 item types and 3 artifacts of each type.
>> > Most people get to a point in the midgame where pretty much all
>> > they care about is finding artifacts. Due to the way artifacts are
>> > generated, the 150 item type situation is less likely to produce
>> > the 75th artifact than the 50 item type situation.
>> > I'd prefer to see the number of swords reduced rather than
>> > increasing the number of cloaks.
>>
>> If you did read my suggestion, I'd keep the item count same, just
>> increase those above by decreasing number of weapons. Just like you
>> say. Definitely item count should not go up, that makes things worse.
>
> I do not want the item count to be the same. I'd like it to be
> massively reduced, perhaps by a factor of three. I want to see a big
> cutback in the number of weapons, and body armor, so that footgear
> might be even more common than you want without adding any new
> footgear items at all. Dagger, short sword, long sword, great sword,
> and chaos blade seem like enough swords to me.
>
> More than that is just adding names for the sake of adding names. I
> guess I might not mind an add-on whereby each type could have 3 or 4
> different names to add personality, applied after item generation is
> done, but 5 SVALs is plenty.
>
> This is not about realism or general gameplay. It is just another
> small step along the path of reducing TMJ. And all of it is just IMO,
> of course.

Just as a theory, would an alternate system of item generation
work for you? Where instead of generating an object from everything
available, pick a catagory and generate an appropriate quality item
to match?

Then it wouldn't really matter how many weapons there are relative
to other items, as it wouldn't affect how often the game actually
generated a weapon. As well, you could easily adjust the relative
rate of each catagory, if you felt the game was under or
over-producing something like armor.

Such a system would be work to code. You might even need to add
more items to the game, as you'd need to guarantee that every
catagory could generate a viable item at every possible requested
power/quality.

You'd also have to figure out how to deal with some of the smaller
item sets. Would potions be lumped into magical items, or would
they be separate? Would such a system lead to areas where one
item type is generated too often to remain balanced? And would
some potions and other magical items be rendered too rare at certain
levels, where many objects of different effects have similar ratings?

And what would be the effect of folding artifact creation into the
system? It would be best to do so, but it might make it harder to
"guarantee" artifacts. On the other hand, at any request where you
could get an artifact, failure to get one should at least give you
an object of similar worth to the artifact(s) that didn't make the
final cut.

And what would be the best way to catagorize armor? Have the
game request armor, then pick a random type and generate the best
match to that type? Or make the different slots their own catagory,
so the game would request boots or shield or whatever?
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Billy Bissette <baines.DeleteThis@coastalnet.com> writes:

> Just as a theory, would an alternate system of item generation
> work for you? Where instead of generating an object from everything
> available, pick a catagory and generate an appropriate quality item
> to match?

If I were in charge of item generation, there wouldn't be any egos, and there
wouldn't be any artifacts. There would just be items, and there would be
chances of adding additional flags to them based on how they are generated.

And I'd get rid of id entirely, going to a rune-based system where objects
with magical powers were recognizable immediately, and once you learn a rune
you recognize it on all further objects.


Oh -- and it wouldn't be angband.

That's why I am more useful as an irritation than as a maintainer.


Eddie
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Eddie Grove <eddiegrove.DeleteThis@hotmail.com> wrote in
news:877ih7jbn2.fsf@hotmail.com:

> Billy Bissette <baines.DeleteThis@coastalnet.com> writes:
>
>> Just as a theory, would an alternate system of item generation
>> work for you? Where instead of generating an object from everything
>> available, pick a catagory and generate an appropriate quality item
>> to match?
>
> If I were in charge of item generation, there wouldn't be any egos,
> and there wouldn't be any artifacts. There would just be items, and
> there would be chances of adding additional flags to them based on how
> they are generated.

My theoretical idea would be well suited for that behavior. I kept
artifacts in the description because it could also be implemented to
change the generation side without changing the item list itself.
Suggesting the dropping of artifacts might cause people to reject the
concept even before considering it.

I like the idea of adding flags during generation. I liked when an
Angband variant gave objects three pvals instead of one. My system
would be particularly suited for random artifacts, where being an
artifact could effectively be reduced to an expensive additional
item flag. And giving more freedom to what kinds of objects could
be generated (through available flags and values) would reduce the
need of normal artifacts anyway. (Egos do still have a benefit of
being classes of objects, which could help in balanced generation.
But even they could be replaced.)

> And I'd get rid of id entirely, going to a rune-based system where
> objects with magical powers were recognizable immediately, and once
> you learn a rune you recognize it on all further objects.
>
>
> Oh -- and it wouldn't be angband.

Yeah, if I were to go into my game wishlist of ideas, it probably
wouldn't be Angband either.


I've thought about playing with a variant, but the amount of work
to implement even the more Angband-acceptable ideas is enough that
I questioned whether I should just start over with a new game
entirely of my own design and code. (More so in that I would have
started with the concept of Posband's playable monsters, and would
have done it in a way that pretty much called for a complete
monster list overhaul.)

> That's why I am more useful as an irritation than as a maintainer.

*laugh*
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On Feb 22, 11:57 pm, Andrew Sidwell <takka....TakeThisOut@gmail.com> wrote:
> Billy Bissette wrote:
> > Though the change I'd rather see to cursed items is to remove the
> > negative requirement. A cursed item simply cannot be removed without
> > using some form of remove curse. It doesn't mean it is a ring that
> > lowers your stat or a sword that is (-5,-5). It *might* mean that,
> > but it doesn't require it.
>
> > You still get a negative effect in that you cannot swap the item
> > for a better one when you find one. You still wouldn't want to
> > wear a cursed amulet of charisma (+1) if you have anything better
> > to wear. If your cursed cloak (1,+3) is eaten by acid until it
> > becomes (1,-1), then you'd be wasting a spot as well. And you
> > can't even try out your new weapon find if you are still wielding
> > an otherwise useful cursed mace.
>
> > You could even make removing a curse a bit more difficult, and
> > possibly even detecting one, since it doesn't mean you've become
> > an ineffective fighter if you grab a cursed sword.
>
> That is one possibility. Eddie has also suggested that you just can't
> drop cursed items, e.g. they always take up a slot. There may be room
> for three kinds of curses here. I'd like to replace heavy curses with
> something better, too. Heavy curses are just a typical lazy Angbandism.
> We have curse, so let's have *curses* too!


ToME has this, and it can be a real pain. But ToME also has very good
cursed objects. (Randart Rings of the Nazgul.)
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Billy Bissette wrote:
> Though the change I'd rather see to cursed items is to remove the
> negative requirement. A cursed item simply cannot be removed without
> using some form of remove curse. It doesn't mean it is a ring that
> lowers your stat or a sword that is (-5,-5). It *might* mean that,
> but it doesn't require it.
>
> You still get a negative effect in that you cannot swap the item
> for a better one when you find one. You still wouldn't want to
> wear a cursed amulet of charisma (+1) if you have anything better
> to wear. If your cursed cloak (1,+3) is eaten by acid until it
> becomes (1,-1), then you'd be wasting a spot as well. And you
> can't even try out your new weapon find if you are still wielding
> an otherwise useful cursed mace.
>
> You could even make removing a curse a bit more difficult, and
> possibly even detecting one, since it doesn't mean you've become
> an ineffective fighter if you grab a cursed sword.

That is one possibility. Eddie has also suggested that you just can't
drop cursed items, e.g. they always take up a slot. There may be room
for three kinds of curses here. I'd like to replace heavy curses with
something better, too. Heavy curses are just a typical lazy Angbandism.
We have curse, so let's have *curses* too!

--
Andrew Sidwell
http://rephial.org/
 >> Stay informed about: Cooler weapon and armor names 

Billy Bissette wrote:
> Just as a theory, would an alternate system of item generation
> work for you? Where instead of generating an object from everything
> available, pick a catagory and generate an appropriate quality item
> to match?
>
> Then it wouldn't really matter how many weapons there are relative
> to other items, as it wouldn't affect how often the game actually
> generated a weapon. As well, you could easily adjust the relative
> rate of each catagory, if you felt the game was under or
> over-producing something like armor.
>
> Such a system would be work to code. You might even need to add
> more items to the game, as you'd need to guarantee that every
> catagory could generate a viable item at every possible requested
> power/quality.

That there idea is worth some thinking over. It's one I've considered
many a time, but you expressed it and the problems it would entail very
clearly. The current code needs reworking, so I think yours is the
right direction to go in.

--
Andrew Sidwell
http://rephial.org/
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> I always felt some of the V object types were named a bit lamely and
> with too much D&D influence - like Metal Lamellar Armour, Lucerne
> Hammer, Large Wooden Shield.
>
> Any other designers have done this? Good ideas...?

The only two that really bugged me were the Main Gauche and the Tulwar. For me,
they were a bit too obscure and they just didnt "fit". So I renamed them as:
Main Gauche = Knife
Tulwar = Orcish Blade
It's kind of cool to see an Orc weapon drop sometimes too. In a few cases you
get some weird drops (Orcish Blade (Blessed) and Orcish Blade (Holy Avenger)
come to mind), but I suppose that could be fixed by renaming it Elvish Blade.
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