Competition 117

[Nick]

Competition 117 is now available from the competition page; it is an UnAngband 0.6.4b Dwarf Priest.

Note that comp 116 still has an hour to go.

[Roch]

I just had a crash with some lost progress (windows xp), so be sure to save occasionally.

[andrewdoull]

I just had a crash with some lost progress (windows xp), so be sure to save occasionally.

It should IIRC save at the start of every level...

[Roch]

It should IIRC save at the start of every level...

I think that's right -- I think I went back to the end of the previous level. Not a big deal, but in the future if something good happens I'll save just in case.

[Satyr]

ranged combat broken?

Just killed Smaug with the competition char and noticed that he didn't breath a single time on me when I realized that I can't remember to have seen *any* breath or hostile spell casting or ranged attack from monsters the whole game. Is this just my imagination or is monster ranged attack broken in Un 2.6.4b ?

I'm using the pre-compiled windows binary, btw.

[Big Al]

Yeah, I've only seen monsters cast heal- or teleport-self, but haven't cast anything that targets the player.

[Satyr]

Well that makes the game a *lot* easier, but to be honest also quite boring at the end.

At least that bug allowed me to get further into Un than I ever did before; some random thoughts/observations:

- allies are fun, but seem to be a bit over the top, e.g. the Witch-King was mainly killed by a bunch of dwarven paladins.
- I really don't like the change, that learning from a spellbook costs a permanent inventory slot; IMO that makes more specialized books or song books quite useless, that otherwise could add to a more versatile character build.
- The same applies to bags costing two inventory slots: splitting up the bags into more specialized versions is nice, but that allready leads to more inventory space being used up by them. I don't see the need for penalizing them any further.
- Being cut off from shops/your home after the battle at Minas Tirith is quite harsh, though that might be intended. Maybe at least a "field tent" (= home) at the Army of the West might be added, so that you are not totally dependend on your limited inventory capacity in the end?

Overall Un is still a very nice variant and the sheer amount of things to explore and discovere will keep me coming back (at least as soon as the monsters get fixed)


BTW there seems to be something wrong with my entry in the competition ladder, is the "deepest unique" maybe capped at 50 so that the Witch-King (level 59) doesn't show up?

EDIT: the ladder quirk was just a line break between the Witch-Kings name and level in the dump, easily fixed.

[murphy]

guess I should have been reading the forum ... finally figured out the broken ranged attacks on my own! being unfamiliar with Un I've got a couple of my own comments/criticisms

very cool stuff:
- runes, i really like this idea! gives every player the power to build ego items, useful rods etc
- themed stuff that happens with the lonely mountain, map changes
- really stunning visual effects on the landscape maps, especially when depicting ruined terrain, like lake town, gates of moria
- the campaign battlefields
- the help notes seem great for a beginner, an excellent soft introduction to *banding, i think. and the farmer maggot notes about mushrooms etc, i found them amusing

not cool:
- crashes, i would get several an hour sometimes. never lost progress, but did cause some frustration, like word of recall failing, and still losing the scroll

stuff i never could figure out:
- the 'striking' spell could use some helpful messages, it rarely seemed to do anything, and with no guidance from messages, i just gave up trying to use it
- same for rod of drain life, no message when i used it, couldnt tell if it was having any effect of not
- rooms full of traps, with no line of sight to the trap symbols. are you supposed to just run in and suffer the trap effects, or is there a way to get past safely

minor quibbles:
- splash damage or reflected damage from own spells, its fair enough to add it to the game, but at least printing some message would be really nice, this cost me several characters because i didnt realize what was happening
- seemed like a lot of junk items, body parts etc, could sometimes hide valuable objects from view
- 'floor covered with dust' message ... gets printed like 100 times when you run
- the stairs at the top of erebor ... every other exit stairs led to safety, this one unexpectedly leads to great danger, just a little warning would be nice!
- the descriptions of floor spaces seem very complicated!

[Nick]

Well, comp 117 finished quite a while ago, but I've only just caught up...

Congratulations to murphy for winning the comp with a very hard character - no game wins this time.