Competition 130

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Congrats from me too!

Like always, the comp was really useful for future development. Ewan's triple-triumph was a good test for the scoring system -- it works just as planned, with fast divers getting more points for the win. (Of course the game should be more difficult for spellswords. )

[Nick]

Competition 130 is now finished - congratulations to ewan for the spectacular feat of winning with all three possible characters.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

We could have three huge tables of sound effects: Slash, Bash, and Pierce Armor (with edged weapons). For each table, one sound effect for every possible damage point result.

[buzzkill]

even more random thoughts...

• The whole accidentally turning into a statue thing turned out not to be such a bad deal. In fact it was pretty sweet, but I suppose it could go either way.
  
• Make Azog a different color (maybe white) (or an "O"). He commonly appears with shamans who are also red. Can probably do teh same with a few others, the Stone Troll brothers come to mind.
  
• More Batman sounds (cause fighting while hallucinating is more fun!)
• bonk kapow bam crunch biff whap zamm pow powie crunch boff crash whamm pow zap splatt
• crunch thunk biff whack sock zowie vronk thwapp zonk
• bang-eth whack-eth thwacke clange crunch-eth ouch-eth wham-eth
• http://www.batmania.com.ar/paginas/s..._episodios.htm --->(full list)
• Maybe differnt tiers of sound effects for different levels (remaining duration) of hallucination, the odd-ball ones equating to higher levels. Thus "wack-eth" would mean you've got a while to go yet... but when it gets down to "pow" and "bam" you know it's almost done. All in all a lot of work for little gain... but I do enjoy fighting while under the influence.
  
• Not specific to mist... I'd like to see an "Are you sure you want to do this? (Y/n)" when I attempt to cast a spell or RSW effect upon on an enemy that I already know resists it (like casting a fireball at a (known) fire elemental or, more to the point, catsing confuse monster on something that is known that it cannot be confused).
  
• Later in the game I often chose to fight two or three (weaker) enemies at a time, like at the mouth of a corridor, just to kill them faster (less turns), before something more dangerous showed up. Just an FYI.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Ewan, btw, how would you balance the spell Absorb Hit? Just quintuple the mana cost maybe?

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Playing a Rinaldo now: my first circle of permanance, but it does not appear to work. I was excited to then find 2 scrolls of Absorb Hit, so ran back to the circle to read the second, but it wore off pretty fast.

[Toting assorted ego items around in the hope of finding altars, but no luck thus far! Still, plunging down pretty fast.]

Absorb Hit is a special case, I think. It does last forever if you don't take damage, but taking damage does wear it down.

[ewan]

Playing a Rinaldo now: my first circle of permanance, but it does not appear to work. I was excited to then find 2 scrolls of Absorb Hit, so ran back to the circle to read the second, but it wore off pretty fast.

[Toting assorted ego items around in the hope of finding altars, but no luck thus far! Still, plunging down pretty fast.]

[mtadd]

In shop 5, you can buy powder vials to complete most of the ritual circles.

[ewan]

@buzkill - I wonder whether turning on easy_alter was the issue? I'll check - thanks for the thought.

Other than the interface/overall design issues, the only 'gameplay' gripe really is that monster healing appears to be unlimited, so that an enemy with heal is often impossible to sensibly kill.

I've just been forced down to level 48, so we'll get a result one way or the other..

[buzzkill]

Gripe part 3 - sorry! The game itself is I think interestingly designed - is the inability to affect enemmies in walls even though they can hit you .

I had the same gripe... it's designed to push combat out of corridors and into open areas. There are also magic devices than cause great damage to enemies in walls.

[buzzkill]

Latest annoyance is that it appears impossible to voluntarily walk onto traps - so the vault I'd like to explore becomes inaccessible .

I get a "are you sure (y/n)" prompt when trying to walk on a known trap (Win7). Maybe check your options.

[ewan]

Gripe part 3 - sorry! The game itself is I think interestingly designed - is the inability to affect enemmies in walls even though they can hit you .

[ewan]

Oh. Well, I eventually relied on the help files (which state that if it's grey, it's unusable by your character) and hence dumped it. Oh well.

I have accumulated a bunch of the 'ritual' books but none of the materials needed to create appropriate circles. Oh well again.

Latest annoyance is that it appears impossible to voluntarily walk onto traps - so the vault I'd like to explore becomes inaccessible .

[Mikko Lehtinen]

You need to identify the artifact tome to know whether you can use the spells. It also contains a ritual that any class can use, but you need to Fully Identify the tome in a Circle of Knowledge to learn about the ritual.

From my point of view, always reaching a point where id is reliable means that the game would be better off without an id system. Id system is only justified if it forces the player to make hard choices. (What to identify, is it worth it to boost MEM for better id, whether to risk id by use, should you use a powder for combat or a Circle of Knowledge, etc.)

At the moment id is a bit too cumbersome. In the next version Circle of Knowledge abilities require two identify points but they always work.

[ewan]

Random comments, not comprehensive:

* I like the effects of terrain and furniture
* Conversely, I dislike the ID. But I'm used to being able to reach reliable ID in almost any variant.

* What's "An ancient tome"? Kavlas dropped it, but inspecting doesn't reveal anything and it does not contain spells (?) - that latter is questionable since I just found a magic book labelled as such that also is unbrowseable, and I assume mage-only or somesuch?