New items

Discussions about the proposed new items in MAngband.
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Warrior
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New items

Post by Warrior » Thu 30.04.2009, 22:31

As some of you already know, I've been working on some new base/ego items for a while. This time I've focused on weapons and body armor, since thats where I feel our players are currently noticing the lack of artifacts the most.
MAngband has always been a game where we've sort of kept the artifacts "holy" - they're supposed to be something really special and when the entire population on a server shares the artifacts among themselves everyone becomes aware that they are indeed special. Some artifacts are, to be honest rather dull but others are fantastic, (Try telling any Angband player that you got to level 50 without any artifacts and they will look at you as if you are crazy and probably think you are some weird masochistic roguelike freak. Then tell them that you did it in Realtime and they ... well, I don't know what they'll say, but they SHOULD say something pretty funny (for us, that is :) ).

But, I digress. The point of this thread - We currently have a few custom MAngband items that were made many many years ago. They've been tried and tested and most of them work quite well, others maybe not all that well.
Some of the items are definite artifact replacements such as Orcish shield of the Avari and Kolla of Lordly Resistance or maybe Elven gloves of the Istari.

Like I said, this time around I've focused mostly on weapons and body armor. Why?

Currently, 95% of the high level users (and any user really if they could chose) end up with either a Balance DSM or Power DSM (Or the artifact versions of these). This may be according to Angband design but I'm thinking it's more of an accident actually, at least for a multiplayer version where there should be some more options, if someone was to count the hours people have spent thinking about, searching for, experimenting with, shopping for, discussing and just generally everything that goes into the process of getting the right equipment I think they'd end up with a crazy number of hours. Thousands, during the last 10 years.

So, in order to provide the players with some more real options I've created some new items, I will present some of them briefly in this thread to get opinions or questions about them.
Type Dam Wght Level Rarity Price
Black Mace H 6d6 60.0 95 10 22000
+1d2 to Strength, Constitution, Dexterity; Sustain Strength, Constitution, Dexterity;
Fire Brand; Resist Dark, Fire; Ignore Elements.

Rating To-Hit To-Dam To AC Lvl Rar Price
Melee Weapon of the Laiquendi +30 +1d5 +1d5 +10 80 40 +250000
+1d3 to Intelligence, Dexterity, Charisma; Sustain Intelligence, Dexterity, Charisma;
Slay Evil, Undead, Demon, Orc, Troll, Giant; Resist Fear, Light, Confusion;
Permanent Light; Free Action; See Invisible; Hold Life; Regeneration;
Ignore Elements.

To-Hit Base-AC Dam Wght Level Rarity Price
Ithildin Plate Mail 0 50 4d4 40.0 70 4 20000
+ 1d3 to Wisdom, Charisma; Sustain All Stats;
Permanent Light, Free Action, Hold Life, Regeneration;
Resist Light, Confusion; Ignore Elements.

Rating To-Hit To-Dam To AC Lvl Rar Price
Armour of Menegroth +30 +0 +0 +1d20 30 8 +120000
*** Applies only to light armor (14 lbs or less), filthy rags excluded! ***
+ 1d2 to Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, Stealth;
Sustain Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma;
Permanent Light, Free Action, Hold Life, Regeneration;
Resist Light, Confusion, Poison; Ignore Elements.
So far I've made 5 new base item types and 5 new ego types, some of them can be combined with anything, others, like for example the Armour of Menegroth can only be combined with a specific type of items such as light armor.

Either way, I guess I might post all the spoilers for these items eventually.
-- Mangband Project Team Member

Emulord
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Re: New items

Post by Emulord » Fri 01.05.2009, 03:06

I think one major problem with the item set right now is that it is HARD to get nether resistance. Pretty much only artifacts and items with a special ability can have it, and that makes finding the right kit very difficult without one of those uber dragon scale mails. Maybe this is intended, but it does make endgame kits more restricted.

Michailski
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Re: New items

Post by Michailski » Fri 01.05.2009, 07:08

Pretty nice Items. A very good job. Gratulations to and thanks for the work.
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Ashi
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Re: New items

Post by Ashi » Fri 01.05.2009, 16:37

I would prefer to have random artifacts in the game, since out of all the variants out there MAngband is the one where they make the MOST sense.

Although... "random egos" might be more appropriate considering the legendary status that artifacts have achieved in MAngband.

We'd have similarly cool results in that endgame players would have a wide variety of equipment setups. And maybe mages would even start wearing light armour instead of DSMs.

Plus there would be no real debate over "spoilers" since every item found will be a surprise!

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Re: New items

Post by Warrior » Fri 01.05.2009, 16:55

Yes, random artifacts may seem like a better, and definitely far easier solution that would probably satisfy many players but at the same time we lose some of the control and we definitely lose the current "status" of artifacts. Plus, considering that we are Multiplayer Angband and not really as much a "variant" (in my personal opinion at least) I think using random artifacts would take us too far away from vanilla.
A few custom items is one thing, throwing Angband's legendary artifact tradition overboard is something very different.

The entire development team is very strongly against random artifacts so I'm fairly sure it will never be implemented. One thing that is more likely, (though it hasn't been discussed much within the team) is the idea of giving winners the ability to be "rewarded" a custom artifact, (permanently entering the list of artifacts), without the ability to design them in great detail, probably based on a point system (also under construction, the general idea being that each ability/property in the game has a certain price). "Winner artifacts" would only be one artifact pr unique player though. This is just something I've been thinking about, nothing big planned here.

Random egos, I sort of consider our custom set of items as a random artifact alternative, with certain combinations being definite artifact replacements, the tuning of them is a complex matter, originally the custom items were meant to be altered slightly after a reasonable testing time, now that testing time has been 7-8-9 years or so, I hope to not have to wait this long to fine-tune our new ego's this time :)
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Flambard
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Re: New items

Post by Flambard » Fri 01.05.2009, 19:28

Warrior wrote:The entire development team is very strongly against random artifacts so I'm fairly sure it will never be implemented.
A sligth addition here - never implemented on flagship server, not code-wise :)

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Re: New items

Post by Emulord » Sat 02.05.2009, 02:54

Oh, random thought. I think Mormegil should be a possible weapon despite its huge minus to speed. Like 4d6 +20 +35, with all of the rest of its abilities. That way, it becomes an interesting choice for crazy fast characters. If a character lucks out with speed items but doesnt have a good weapon, Mormegil should be a choice. After all, Turin slayed Glaurung with it.

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Re: New items

Post by Warrior » Sat 02.05.2009, 08:47

I've been putting a lotof time into reading and understanding the Tolkien lore, all the people and objects of middle earth and there's so many artifacts that are incredibly underpowered compared to what you'd expect based on their role in the books, it really makes me kinda sad and there's nothing I'd like more than to update and rebalance the artifacts, but thats not gonna happen :) The artifacts are the lore, the ego items are the extras, the things you may or may not have heard about.
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Ace
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Re: New items

Post by Ace » Sat 02.05.2009, 10:31

ohhhh can we make some item suggestions as well or is the list fixed?

Btw warrior where should those custom vaults go again? Sent an email but never got a response should i resend? :)

THough its only 2 vaults anyway ;D

Cya all soon

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Re: New items

Post by schroeder » Sat 02.05.2009, 10:53

I definitely like the looks of the new items so far. Can't wait till they are implemented!
I would be even more excited though if player arts were implemented...I would spend all the time I spent on Domiano on a brave character in order to get him brave max exp, just in order to create a pimpsause artifact.
Anything worth being done, is worth being overdone.
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Re: New items

Post by Warrior » Sat 02.05.2009, 14:45

Send the vaults to my address, warrior at mangband.org and please also send to mangband at gmail please :)

It is not a fixed list, not at all, I am constantly changing small things and it would be great to have suggestions from the community, however the "problem" is that it has to fill a function or a hole in the current set of items (from having only one set of artifacts), we're not adding anything just to get some m ore variation, I've targeted weapons and armor this time and I think I've covered it reasonably well but still would love suggestions. When I made the avari's and istari's etc I wasn't part of any dev team, I just put in some hours and made some fairly well designed items that did the job and some that honestly didn't work as well as I had planned (amulets of the moon for example...) -- Well, at that time I didn't focus solely on function, variation/spice was important as well.

But anyway, yes, please add suggestions for new items or modifications to the current items, I plan to be posting the full spoiler list for the new items later today or possibly not until tomorrow, but I'm probably gonna be picky about the names and "feel" of the items, the items I have on my list so far are clearly "themed". I've been looking at the resistances and abilities and so on.

I've been focusing on having items that at least partially make sense, for example the Melee Weapon of Cardolan comes from the Dunadan, these are all basically swords (edged weapons) with typical dunadan properties, while there's a Melee Weapon of the Laiquendi which is more an elvish weapon with typical elvish properties. These items are meant to take the place of the top few artifacts aimed at the different classes, such as weapon combinations giving as much as a +5 int bonus for example. This to give the player more freedom in the remaining equipment choices.

The problem is that we have a set of abilities and resistances where some I can't really seem to place anywhere in the tolkien lore, so like has been mentioned, for example nether is sort of hard to fit in. I have been playing with the concept of a non-cursed ghost'ish weapon or armor with all those "evil" properties but I sort of feel that it's the domain of the nazgul blades. So...
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schroeder
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Re: New items

Post by schroeder » Sat 02.05.2009, 19:12

I thought of 2 posabilities for the nether stuff. First, you could have something of the Dunharrow (the oathbreakers). 2ndly, you could have some things of Mandos (iirc, that is the Tolkien equivalent of Hades). The Noldor could also potentially have a nether ego, simply because of the oath they all took I couldn't think of something cool to call it though.
Something I'd personally like to see, is stuff of Balrogs. We have stuff of the istari, balrog things should exist to balance them out! Hehe, just kicking around some crudy ideas for you, to see if i can be of any help :)
Anything worth being done, is worth being overdone.
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Emulord
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Re: New items

Post by Emulord » Sat 02.05.2009, 19:36

You could have a "ghostly" ego type that just starts with negative to hit or dam or AC, but gives all the innate resists of a ghost. That way, it starts out bad, but if you really needed to fill that resistance hole, you could enchant it up.

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Re: New items

Post by Warrior » Sat 02.05.2009, 20:00

Good stuff Schroeder! I definitely like the Dunharrow idea, thats spot on, just perfect :)
Though, perhaps maybe rather named Dimholt instead?

Personally I'd fancy this (for the right character):
g) a Filthy rag of Dunharrow/Dimholt 1,+29 (+3).
Base depth 1500, rarity 30 (less rare deeper in the dungeon).

Rating To-Hit To-Dam To AC Lvl Rar Price
Armour of Dunharrow +20 +0 +0 +1d20 30 30 +100000
*** Applies only to filthy rags! ***
+ 1d3 to Intelligence, Wisdom, Stealth;
Sustain Intelligence, Wisdom;
Free Action; Hold Life;
Resist Acid, Cold, Dark, Nether; Ignore Elements.
It's harder to use character names in ego names I think, so Mandos is not gonna happen. BUT! This got me thinking...

I've been looking for a really good name for a new light source, the feanorians lamps are nice but honestly, they are not artifact lamp alternatives.

A few names:

Lamp from the Halls of Waiting
Lamp from the Halls
Timeless Lamp

The Timeless Lamp is my personal favorite among them, and the name opens up for a very sought after possibility... I'm sure you can tell what :)

Information about the name can be found here: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/h/hallsofwaiting.html

AND!

We already have balrogs!

"They carried whips of flame and induced great terror in friends and foes alike. "
"...all were commanded by Melkor's demon disciples, the deep Maiar spirits called the Balrogs, with their whips of flame and their black maces."
Type Dam Wght Level Rarity Price
Black Mace H 6d6 60.0 95 10 22000
+1d2 to Strength, Constitution; Sustain Strength, Constitution;
Fire Brand; Resist Dark, Fire; Ignore Elements.

Type Dam Wght Level Rarity Price
Fiery Whip H 4d4 20.0 95 8 14000
+1d2 to Intelligence, Wisdom; Sustain Intelligence, Wisdom;
Fire Brand; Resist Dark, Fire; Ignore Elements.
-- Mangband Project Team Member

Agor
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Re: New items

Post by Agor » Sat 02.05.2009, 22:34

Warrior, I think I'm in looove <3

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