Comp 205

[Nick]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post, but here are a few issues I've had with the nightly. I downloaded the version I'm using on 15May2017. It identifies itself as angband-a6a82bf45846155e267b0a54e8ddbcb04e8bc47f

1) I have a weapon of Extra-Attacks in my inventory, but I do not yet know the Rune of attack speed. If I 'I'nspect the weapon before I wield it, the "blows per round" number is nevertheless reported factoring in the extra attacks (i.e. even before I know the Rune).

2) If an ego object with an unknown rune is in a store, the name of the ego is given. If an object with an unknown rune is in my home, the ego name is *not* given. This is clearly the correct behaviour. However, if i 'l'ook at the object in my home, the extended description *does* give the ego name. (e.g. "Mace of Slay Dragon", or "Iron Helm of Night and Day", even without knowing the relevant rune(s).)

3) I have an object with multiple curses in my inventory. I now remove one of the curses. The 'cursed' flag is removed, and if I cast Remove Curse again, I am told that I don't have any cursed items. If I then drop the item on the floor, the {cursed} flag comes back, and I can now attempt to remove another one of the curses from the item.

4) Vorticies are affected by the "poison" brand. Since they are non-living, it seems as if they should be immune to poisoning.

5) I set the option to report the amount of damage my blows do to the monsters. If I throw something at a monster (i.e. 'v') instead of 'f'ire something, the game does not report the damage done by the thrown object.

6) The splash page still says "4.0.5" rather than "4.1 alpha" (or whatever).

Yes it is, and thanks.

[bron]

Regarding the whole "ID by use" and "Rune" thing: I find ID'ing things to get kinda tedious pretty quickly. However, I do like the notion that your character advances in knowledge, as well as advancing in experience. Once you get deep down in the pits, the rune system lets you ID almost everything on sight, which is a huge time savings when you're looking for equipment. So, personally, I think that "Identify" (both the spell and the scroll) should work on consumables as well as equipment, and that you should be allowed to sell equipment with unknown runes to the shops, which would then make the rune(s) known to you. [Right now for instance, if I sell a ring to the magic shop, it buys it, and puts it up for sale, calling it a Ring of the Dog, but this transaction does NOT cause me to learn the Rune for some reason; I have to buy it back.]

This makes ID'ing things a lot easier and quicker, but without doing away with ID entirely. I think it also make the ID spell more useful, since now maybe you don't have to waste that first Potion of Life you found in order to ID it. And I very much like the fact that when you're wading though piles of equipment after clearing a vault or a pit, you can quickly zero in on the potentially useful stuff. It seems like a good and effective answer to the TMJ problem.

[bron]

I've noticed a problem with Rune ID: When I kill a monster, and it scatters stuff on the floor, the newly created stuff does *not* have their Runes identified e.g. when I 'l'ook at it, it just says "Leather armor". However, if I now save the game (cntrl-X) and restart, now the items are Rune identified (e.g. "Leather armor of Resistance"). This is also true when I drink a potion of Enlightenment: all the items on the level are made visible, but not ID'd, but if I save and restore, then all the items on the level are ID'd (even if they are not in line-of-sight). I don't know if this happens with artifacts too, or not.

I'm assuming that the items are supposed to be ID'd immediately (and in particular, any squelched items should never even be seen in the first place), but regardless, the current inconsistent behavior is clearly wrong.

[Nick]

Regarding the whole "ID by use" and "Rune" thing: I find ID'ing things to get kinda tedious pretty quickly. However, I do like the notion that your character advances in knowledge, as well as advancing in experience. Once you get deep down in the pits, the rune system lets you ID almost everything on sight, which is a huge time savings when you're looking for equipment. So, personally, I think that "Identify" (both the spell and the scroll) should work on consumables as well as equipment, and that you should be allowed to sell equipment with unknown runes to the shops, which would then make the rune(s) known to you. [Right now for instance, if I sell a ring to the magic shop, it buys it, and puts it up for sale, calling it a Ring of the Dog, but this transaction does NOT cause me to learn the Rune for some reason; I have to buy it back.]

This makes ID'ing things a lot easier and quicker, but without doing away with ID entirely. I think it also make the ID spell more useful, since now maybe you don't have to waste that first Potion of Life you found in order to ID it. And I very much like the fact that when you're wading though piles of equipment after clearing a vault or a pit, you can quickly zero in on the potentially useful stuff. It seems like a good and effective answer to the TMJ problem.

This seems pretty reasonable to me too. What do others think?

Thanks for all the analysis of ID, that clarifies a few things for me.

[Pete Mack]

this is more or less how enlightenment works already: you get the ego type, but not the pvals...seems reasonable.

[Derakon]

This seems pretty reasonable to me too. What do others think?

Thanks for all the analysis of ID, that clarifies a few things for me.

I am quite all right with erring on the side of making Identify "too easy" rather than too hard. I've never found the "identification minigame" to be interesting.

[Estie]

My warriors are commonly groping for id scrolls. The main contributor to this problem are the gazillion different curses; there seem to be a similar amount as positive runes.

I dont suppose that players are expected to "id by use" curses, so given the (otherwise appropriate, imo) role curses play currently, the id requirement seems blown out of proportion.

Maybe make a feature out of the bug: reading a remove curse scroll could actually identify all the curse runes on an item, whether they get removed or not. Since those scrolls are guaranteed in town, curse runes wont require precious id anymore. But unremovable cursed items should probably become targetable then.

[bron]

I've experienced a failure with the AI. Attached is a save file that demonstrates the problem. @ is in an ASC fighting Kronus, who has just broken the Rune of Protection @ was standing on, and then breathed fire or plasma or whatever it is and converted the space into lava. @ then backs up one space in the ASC to the fallback rune. Kronous does NOT step forward into the lava, nor move back, he just stands there. @ now spams OOD into the lava space, dealing indirect area damage to Kronos, who continues to stand there stupidly. Since @ regenerates SP faster than the monster heals, this can continue until the monster is near death and flees in terror.

Also, there really needs to be some short message mentioning that @ is being damaged by the lava. Right now, it appears that the damage is done silently, making it relatively easy to miss the fact that the floor you thought you were standing on has turned into molten lava; something that I personally think would be relatively easy to notice :-)

[bron]

It appears that the "Unbarring Ways" prayer does not work on traps on chests, whereas the older version did. Is this intentional?

When I cast "Detection", objects are shown as a red '*'. But a chest mimic is shown as a '~', revealing the fact that it is a monster, rather than an object. But if I 'l'ook at it, it is still described as a "chest" not as a "mimic". One could argue both ways about whether it should be revealed by the Detection or not, but the current behavior seems inconsistent: either the Detection should show it as a '*', or it should be identified as a mimic.

[Thraalbee]

HTML dump crashes the program

[Pete Mack]

Yes; and this is a huge pain, especially because of the temptation to try right after a big fight.

HTML dump crashes the program

[Nick]

HTML dump crashes the program

This is (or at least should be) fixed in the nightlies now.

[bron]

Another minor issue with the nightly:

I use a "Rod of Disable Traps" on a trap in a corridor. If I then run ('.') down the hallway. the character stops next to the (now disabled) trap, just as they would have if the trap had not been disabled. If I attempt to run down the hall while starting *next to* the disabled trap, the game will attempt to disarm the (disabled) trap.

[bron]

And another:

I 'u'se an unknown staff. It tells me "You have no curses to remove." But the staff remains unidentified.

[Nick]

And another:

I 'u'se an unknown staff. It tells me "You have no curses to remove." But the staff remains unidentified.

This is working for me - I am guessing this report is from a nightly before it was fixed.