Nightlies

[Derakon]

Labyrinths are crowded period, but the proportion of uniques to non-uniques also seems to be higher than in normal levels. It's difficult for me to gauge if there's lots of "hard" monsters since I'm at clvl 39 / recall depth 3300'...

[Timo Pietilä]

Yes.

Takkaria introduced a change so that drained stats are restored on level up, and also removed the restore stat potions. I think Potions of Life have always restored stats though.

This does one thing that I'm not sure devs have considered, it forces you to dive early levels fast, because in early levels you don't have means to restore stats other than clvl upgrades. Get lucky and find potion of XP and you have no other choice than to dive to dlvls with potions that can restore your stats, even if your gear is still bad. Maybe this requires restoring the early sustain rings?

[Taha]

But during early levels, you gain levels fast - except in your special case of a potion of experience. And that gets you to the point where you can start dropping quickly.

Mushrooms of vigor make this work for me - rare enough that you don't use one for a minor stat ding or when a level up is close, common enough that you can save one in case you get really messed up pre stat gain. Also, the gain one / lose one stat potions restore the gained stat first, and those are available fairly early.

My experience is that I now worry less about stat drain then before, since it comes back pretty much automatically. Maybe that will change at higher char levels, but prior to 30 it has not been a problem. It also makes leveling up something to look forward to past the point where HP/SP gain percentages are small, and you already know more spells then you can learn without a dungeon book.
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AngelOnline

[d_m]

This does one thing that I'm not sure devs have considered, it forces you to dive early levels fast, because in early levels you don't have means to restore stats other than clvl upgrades. Get lucky and find potion of XP and you have no other choice than to dive to dlvls with potions that can restore your stats, even if your gear is still bad. Maybe this requires restoring the early sustain rings?

If this ends up being a problem for people then bringing back the early sustain rings would work. I would probably prefer to tweak the mushroom of vigor's depth/rarity instead though.

I was a little worried about this scenario, but so far I haven't had a problem with this (I often don't really dive, my clvl is usually around my dlvl until maybe 20 or so). In fact, I feel like I have saved a bunch of money, compared to recalling to buy a ~400gp restore potion and 2 ?wor for about ~300gp.

I do worry about the mid/upper 40's a bit, but by that point you often do often end up finding stat potions. If reports come in from play testers that this is a bad change I'm sure it will be addressed.

[Derakon]

So far (clvl 40), I am starting to feel like stat restoring is a little rarer than I'd like it to be. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's too rare though. I've bought one mushroom of vigor all game and seen none in the dungeon. Looking at object.txt, several mushrooms are supposed to show up throughout the dungeon (depths 1 to 100), but I can't remember the last time I saw any at all. I wouldn't be surprised if they're getting squeezed out by the increased number of other items that can drop. I.e. at dungeon level 4, mushrooms only have to compete with sandals, cloaks, robes, and a few potions and scrolls; now they have to compete with every single equipment option and most of the consumables, so they get comparatively far more rare.

[PowerDiver]

If this ends up being a problem for people then bringing back the early sustain rings would work. I would probably prefer to tweak the mushroom of vigor's depth/rarity instead though.

The sustain rings did not go away. They were improved and are called bodykeeping and soulkeeping. I occasionally use them. Well, very occasionally.

I'm curious. What was the problem with the previous situation? Or is this about something else, an attempt to make leveling more significant? I cannot guess whether it is an improvement, but it sure does seem strange.

[d_m]

I'm curious. What was the problem with the previous situation? Or is this about something else, an attempt to make leveling more significant? I cannot guess whether it is an improvement, but it sure does seem strange.

Well, Takkaria made the change, but as I understand it the basic idea is to reduce store dependency, and also solve the "scumming for restores" issue. People have been asking for store services to do restoring for awhile, and this accomplishes the same thing in the other direction--now there is almost never a reason to recall when your stats are drained--you just have to push through until you find a restoration item in the dungeon, or level up.

If you want, you can think about it like a "timed stat drain" but one where you can't just Rest for 1000 turns to make it go away.

[PowerDiver]

If you want, you can think about it like a "timed stat drain" but one where you can't just Rest for 1000 turns to make it go away.

A reasonable definition of timed is something that it goes away with resting, so there's no way I can wrap my brain around that contortion. There's no need to think of it as anything but the strange thing it is. Who knows? It may be brilliant. We shall see.

In my serious id_by_use games, restore potions are a real pain. I have to keep track of which restores remain to be learned, and try to keep those stats drained by 1. This change will stop me from searching out rot jellies and taking off all my armor so they can hit me.

[d_m]

A reasonable definition of timed is something that it goes away with resting, so there's no way I can wrap my brain around that contortion. There's no need to think of it as anything but the strange thing it is. Who knows? It may be brilliant. We shall see.

The reason I described it like that was because Takkaria considered timed drains, and rejected them on the assumption that it really only hurt players interested in turn count. This was an attempt to get some of the benefits of timed drains without that problem.

In my serious id_by_use games, restore potions are a real pain. I have to keep track of which restores remain to be learned, and try to keep those stats drained by 1. This change will stop me from searching out rot jellies and taking off all my armor so they can hit me.

Hope you enjoy it then!

[PowerDiver]

The reason I described it like that was because Takkaria considered timed drains, and rejected them on the assumption that it really only hurt players interested in turn count. This was an attempt to get some of the benefits of timed drains without that problem.

IMO the obvious answer is to make each restore potion common, say 70% likely to drop on any level after you start encountering drainers. Then if you are willing to devote a precious slot, you recover immediately, and otherwise you will get the restore in not too much gameplay. How's that for a "non-timed timed" effect? And if you are unlucky, a store service in town can act as a safety net.

The need for this change is yet another symptom of attacking TMJ as a generation problem, rather than as the ID-and-squelch problem which is the real TMJ issue IMO.

Anyway, the current solution will probably make my games less annoying, and it is certainly worth an experiment. I've been waiting for the next massive transfer from staging before I upgrade, so I haven't tried it yet.

[d_m]

Anyway, the current solution will probably make my games less annoying, and it is certainly worth an experiment. I've been waiting for the next massive transfer from staging before I upgrade, so I haven't tried it yet.

Yeah, I would hold off. Taha hit a save/pref file problem that we are still trying to resolve. I will post here when the push is made and things seem likely to work well.

[takkaria]

Latest nightly (feb 20) won't allow me to move with the keypad, and gives some parse error on loading my preference file. It also changed (corrupted?) my savefile so no older version can open it.

I upgraded on death, and have a backup of my hard drive to restore the monster memory, so back to the old version with no huge loss.

The Feb 20 nightly removes macros and rewrites the keymap code, to the point where you will have to redo your keymap pref files. If you use a clean game, does the keypad still not work?

[Taha]

Will test again this evening and let you know / upload files. It was on OS X, so it could be system specific.
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[d_m]

Will test again this evening and let you know / upload files. It was on OS X, so it could be system specific.

In Fizzix's case we have determined that saves from 3.2.0 work fine in the current nightlies, but there was a short period where it seems like savefiles were being saved in a way which causes problems with the current nightly.

[Taha]

The following is all going from the Feb 13 nightly to the Feb 20 nightly on OS X 10.6.

I get the following error on loading my file: "Parse error in /mypath/taha.prf line 475 column 1: P: undefined directive". The game loads, but the keypad doesn't work for motion - arrows do, as do number keys on the top of the keyboard. Interact with macros shows only options a-e, all relating to keymaps. All my macros are missing. Tried suiciding character and restarting, same issues.

Starting a new fresh character doesn't get the error, but the keypad still doesn't work. No way to interact with macros there either.

The savefile broken issue was going backwards, not forwards. Opening the modified file with the slightly older nightly gave an error about a corrupted save file. The funny part was the error: "Savefile too old. Try importing it into an older Angband first."

The old character and a new one and my prf file is attached.
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