Competition 104

[Nick]

It depends on how savefile names are formatted on your system. In Linux, the format is [UID].[Username] where UID is the user identity of the user account running the game, and Username is the name under which you are playing (which can be different from the character name; it defaults to your login name). In Windows, I think the name is just the user name, with a default of 'Player'. What you should do is start a new character, save+exit, then look in your save directory at the name of your savefile. Now, rename this game file similarly, substituting the username from your test character with the username you want to use (e.g., if the test savefile is named 1000.Bob and you want to play this game under the name Joe, rename it 1000.Joe and run the game with 'angband -uJoe').

Utterly correct. Mine tend to be 1000.<name> in Linux, and 501.<name> on OSX.

[Darin]

It depends on how savefile names are formatted on your system. In Linux, the format is [UID].[Username] where UID is the user identity of the user account running the game, and Username is the name under which you are playing (which can be different from the character name; it defaults to your login name). In Windows, I think the name is just the user name, with a default of 'Player'. What you should do is start a new character, save+exit, then look in your save directory at the name of your savefile. Now, rename this game file similarly, substituting the username from your test character with the username you want to use (e.g., if the test savefile is named 1000.Bob and you want to play this game under the name Joe, rename it 1000.Joe and run the game with 'angband -uJoe').

This works for me, renaming the savefile to 501.Test allows me to use it with command ./angband -uTest. Now I die as many times I like simultaneously. Oh happiness

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Did a little bit of codediving to better understand what's going on and help me in my future weapon choice...

Thanks for this! Your notes will help me balance the weapon list.

I've made a giant spreadsheet for myself with all the relevant weapon information in it (attached). Looks like Eytan has balanced the weapon list quite well for non-Warriors. Looks like I need to make some tweaks for Warriors and Shamans.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Hello competitors,

do you think ability draining should be toned down? For example, it could succeed only 50 % of the time. Keep in mind that most characters will be able to return to town much more often than Star.

I'm going to release a version 1.0.1 with lots of bugfixes, rebalancing and polishing once the competition is done. It will be savefile-compatible. 1.0.1 will make Star much better, especially in the early game, so it's not fair to release now.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Ah ha! Now I know how I'm going to solve the problem with too dangerous stat draining in Fay.

I'm going to replace the six Restore Stat potions and mushrooms with just two: Restore Mind (INT, WIS, CHR) and Restore Body (STR, DEX, CON). That way adventurers can carry them "just in case" much more easily.

[ewan]

That's a good fix.

The biggest issue I'm having is lack of ID. After an early Curse scroll nearly killed me, I'm trying to be very cautious - but for instance that means that the very few IDs I *do* get get used defensively rather than allowing better knowledge of my kit. A potion of Deformity I just encountered sounds horrible; and stat draining is a nightmare; but the lack of ID is by far the biggest annoyance: what are all these mushrooms? dare I eat them to find out? how about amulets? rings? etc.

Right now Star is wearing a cursed =Wis; no surprise, that's really hosing her, and three levels cleared plus two trips back to town have not unearthed a Remove Curse scroll - another basic essential that should (in my opinion) always be in stock.

[Matthias]

Instead of carrying restore potions, shouldn't you rather always carry !cure_disease, as that's where most of the early stat drains come from. Most of the reason star is so difficult to start is the bad starting kit and starting stats.

I agree that id is not common enough and id by use is way too dangerous. Star has a big advantage of course that all mushrooms are positiv

[buzzkill]

Instead of carrying restore potions, shouldn't you rather always carry !cure_disease, as that's where most of the early stat drains come from. Most of the reason star is so difficult to start is the bad starting kit and starting stats.

I've taken to carrying cure disease, and my stats are darn near perfect now. I don't think that carrying restore potions is in anyones playbook.

I agree that id is not common enough and id by use is way too dangerous. Star has a big advantage of course that all mushrooms are positive

ID by use is dangerous, but so should it be. I'd be wary of making ID too plentiful since weapons are already a given. Generally, I never have as much ID as I'd like, and I think that makes for a good game.

If you checked my adventures in Fay thread, you'll see that I ID'd by use about 90% of what I found. I think I only used 3 ID scrolls throughout DL15 or so.

I feel the game plays well, even with the less-than-stellar Star as the main character. I'd let it run for a while before upsetting the balance too much.

[ewan]

All mushrooms are positive? Should I have known this?

I do agree that ID-by-use should be dangerous; I just think that there's a different balance desirable in terms of how much ID is available.

The other thing that's increasingly annoying me is that items set to squelch don't just squelch - I still have to destroy them individually; so what is the point of squelch in this variant?

[Caveat again: I *like* the increased survival difficulty and game in general; I just think that there are some choices made in terms of gameplay that are suboptimal and figure unless I say so, noone will know .]

[Matthias]

well I don't know for sure all mushrooms are positiv, but since Star started with paranoia ones, and those were positiv I figured they all are. So far all I found were. The positiv ones seem to do what the description says, the negativ ones have related effects. Eat disease to breathe nether


I don't have a problem with id by use that has some risk, but potion of disease and scrolls of curse are too powerfull and come too early. 3 out of 4 of my early guys died because "oh now you've read the wrong scroll/potion, please die". It's worse than the 'e' paralyzers, at least those kill you right away instead of making you walk around with a 0d0 weapon. And it was just the same thing last competition and would be even worse for regular characters. Once you get past the early annoyances ey is really fun, but getting there feels like such a repetitive waste of time.



@re squelch: You need to set it to on in the squelch menu

[Mikko Lehtinen]

well I don't know for sure all mushrooms are positiv, but since Star started with paranoia ones, and those were positiv I figured they all are. So far all I found were. The positiv ones seem to do what the description says, the negativ ones have related effects. Eat disease to breathe nether

That's right. Positive mushrooms are unchanged, except for mushrooms that cure wounds: they are more powerful by one category. For example, Cure Light Wounds becomes Cure Medium Wounds.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Thanks to you all for comments. This competition has been really, really useful for me.

In the spirit of "don't change too much at once", I'm now going to do the following:

- Replace Potions of Restore Stat with Restore Vigor (STR & CON), Restore Mind (INT & WIS), and Restore Grace (DEX & CHR). To strengthen the flavour, I'm going to change the stat pairings and names for Sustain rings, too. This change should make Restore Potions more attractive to carry "just in case", especially for bad mappers.

- Add one instance of Identify to Book Store (33 % more common).

- Add one instance of Remove Curse to Temple (100 % more common).

Potions of Cure Disease are already quite common at the stores. You can buy them from both Temple and Alchemist.

[buzzkill]

Eat disease to breathe nether

Eat disease to breathe BIG nether (saved my life once).

I don't have a problem with id by use that has some risk, but potion of disease and scrolls of curse are too powerful and come too early.

I'd much rather get curse equip out of the way early, before I have good equipment. I've never found potions of disease to be a problem as much as the the enemies that cause disease, but cure disease takes care of both.

If the risk is negligible, then it's not really a risk (like a potion of poison). Having just a couple of items that can really screw you, that you have to look out for (or suffer) sounds about right... maybe it's just me. Add too much ID, and these become negligible too.

[ewan]

Matthias - thanks; squelch now on. I clearly need to spend a little time exploring the controls here!

[soyaki]

Matthias - thanks; squelch now on. I clearly need to spend a little time exploring the controls here!

That's kinda funny coming from the comp leader.