back porting O-variants?

[wobbly]

I'm also considering adding listen (partial telepathy from perception) from Sil to at least the rogue & ranger, which would mean puting the old perception stat back in I think. Maybe reverting traps, maybe not.

Edit: I'm thinking no racial/class xp penalties. The help files say high elfs & dunadans are the best beginner options after all. Maybe humans get a bonus to keep their stick & the numbers for xp are tweaked accordingly. I think I'll have the xp penalties in an earlier version to be original true, then take them out.

Edit: Status effects I'd like to use the old system & tweak as necessary. We'll see how hard that is to do

[Philip]

No XP penalties puts you in line with O, FA, the cutting edge of V, and in S experience works differently for different races, but the same amount will mean roughly the same thing to each race. Removing the penalties puts you in very good company. Giving humans an XP bonus as their special ability also seems reasonable, though giving them an extra specialty point seems like an option if you get around to reimplementing (and perhaps fixing) those.

Listen sounds like a fun mechanic, would really help differentiate stealthy gameplay from early on. On rangers, it feels like perhaps the kind of thing that could be applied as a temporary buff from spells (call it Tracking or something), just to give the rogue an edge with avoidance. The main issue I see here is that it would rely somewhat on monsters having a stealth stat, which they do not currently as far as I can tell.

[wobbly]

I assume they have an "alertness" for the stealth mechanic. I was thinking of borrowing that till the individual numbers could be addressed.

[Philip]

Yeah, that should work pretty well. Not sure what alertness values are like on NO_SLEEP monsters and there are going to be a couple edge cases, but it should work well enough for testing at least.

[wobbly]

An idea that occurs to me is that making the dungeon 50 levels deep instead of implementing & fixing shafts might be the right direction anyway. Plenty of play in 50 levels

Edit:Alternatively 100 levels & every staircase a shaft if people are attached to the numbers

[Philip]

If the dungeon has 50 levels, probably best to make it so that clvl=dlvl is a good rough guide to where you should be for beginners (in V this works roughly until dlvl 30 or so). This means not just dividing each depth value by 2, and would require flattening out the curve a bit, but I feel like you don't want players at clvl 5 when they hit dlvl 5 (formerly known as 10) on account of the large numbers of tough pack monsters, horrible felines, and crows of durthang.

[wobbly]

No XP penalties puts you in line with O, FA, the cutting edge of V, and in S experience works differently for different races, but the same amount will mean roughly the same thing to each race. Removing the penalties puts you in very good company. Giving humans an XP bonus as their special ability also seems reasonable, though giving them an extra specialty point seems like an option if you get around to reimplementing (and perhaps fixing) those.

I had thought about changing some of the old specialties. Maybe vanillas bonus to power from device skill is a specialty. Maybe unlight needs listen. Maybe listen is a specialty. Maybe putting the old specialties back in is more work then it's worth.

[Philip]

For what it's worth, very few of the classes had meaningful decisions to make when choosing specialties. I can't think of any class which, if you want to play a non-gimmick build as effectively as possible, would seriously be considering any abilities outside of a pool of 5 or so, counting the warrior. The only decisions a player tends to make are "this will let me survive the early game more reliably, but will become useless with time, is it worth it?". Some abilities you effectively have to take for your class to be worthwhile (Soul Siphon comes to mind).

I think you're right that reimplementing the old specialties is not worth it. I do think that the thing specialties represented, that there were different ways you could build your character, should be preserved. But the old specialties never did a great job of that anyway, and their effects were too unclear to make the decisions meaningful.

[Pete Mack]

Getting confusion to work properly (It doesn't in V, I agree) is a nice task, and should be trivial to merge back into the features branch. It's a good experience in learning git (and source control in general.) Getting the monster list to work is a bigger deal, but again will not conflict with the features branch
If you can automate that (and the object list, etc.), you will have an invaluable tool for updating older *bands to the V codebase.
Edit: "merge" and "conflict" are technical terms relating to version control. Doing the monster list first is an excellent idea so you aren't learning git and C simultaneously.

[wobbly]

I think my preference for a status effect system would be 2 tier. Full debuff on failed save, a minor 1-3 turn debuff with save and only appropriate enemies immune. So if a sleep staff fails their speed would drop a little for a couple of turns. Try & reduce the punishment for failing. Maybe things are less likely to cast disorientated (minor confuse).

Well seems I have a loose plan of:

1. Monster list & arising issues
2. O-items and spell list
3. O-combat mechanics
4. Get feedback on what's missing for an O-like feel

Somewhere in there I'll look at status effects & there's plenty of cleanup work missing in that list.

[wobbly]

I think you're right that reimplementing the old specialties is not worth it. I do think that the thing specialties represented, that there were different ways you could build your character, should be preserved. But the old specialties never did a great job of that anyway, and their effects were too unclear to make the decisions meaningful.

I think this sums up my own view as well. Something will replace it down the track after core game play like O-combat comes in. Current thought is to start with what it needs to cover & work from there. The main criteria I'm leaning towards is subclass. Warrior specialties need to cover weapon specialists, bookless paladin, bookless ranger (archer), bookless rogue, device warrior (for petty dwarf/gnome) etc. This also gives a rough power level. The bonuses need to be roughly what a stealthy race warrior needs to be a tankier spell-less version of the rogue.

[wobbly]

Quick (easy to be quick when you die) play of the old version with a dwarf warrior. Some thoughts:

Levels smaller but uglier then V - I think size matters for feel/danger density/teleports. Plan is to look into how shrinkable V dungeon layout is.

?recall more expensive. Not guaranteed in shop - my recall scroll burnt not long before death. This should be a real risk, however recall should always be avaliable in shops. I think I'll guarantee a much smaller no. of Vs guaranteed consumables.

Dry drop rate - I enjoyed this for the early game. I believe it becomes an issue in the transition to middle game? Plan is to set a point where the early game should end & the game becomes more generous.

_slow moster - mostly failing against giant fleas. I consider that unacceptable. Insects will likely be flagged "weak willed" or similar. Hound packs will probably follow.

Giant fleas bash door (do they in V). This will go unless someone gives me a compelling case for it to stay.

Edit: Status effects being generally reliable against "animal" may be a reasonable pattern:

1. The game already has "animal" coded in
2. Easy enough to telegraph to players(at least ones who read the help file or forum)
3. Status effects have useful place against early fast kitties, packs or animal pits. With wands for the lone kitties. Staves for pack

Edit 2: I think I'm settled on a plan for status effects.

Base: As in the old O (will need to look at what the bonuses for casters was & how that'll work)
Natural:Penalty equivelent to x monster levels (high level hounds are still high level)
Unique:Bonus=Natural penalty, cancelling out for natural unique
Power ties to device skill using Vs +dam on devices
Fail:Minor 1-3 turn debuff unless immune. Bonus to landing full status effect while under minor debuff.

So if I can work out how to code that I'll get a version for testing.

[wobbly]

So O-combat is in attack.c? Where is the equivelent in V?

[wobbly]

Listen sounds like a fun mechanic, would really help differentiate stealthy gameplay from early on. On rangers, it feels like perhaps the kind of thing that could be applied as a temporary buff from spells (call it Tracking or something), just to give the rogue an edge with avoidance. The main issue I see here is that it would rely somewhat on monsters having a stealth stat, which they do not currently as far as I can tell.

So one possibility here would be to link it straight off the perception skill with a minimum cut-off then tweak the no.'s that way hobbit rogue gets it first -> rangers & other rogues later -> elf/hobbit/.. warriors/mages/priests last. Everything else needs perception on gear.

Comparing the old monster.txt to the new monster.txt & monster_base.txt it looks like the format is basically the same written differently. Amusingly someone changed it into a more readable form, making this more of a pain.
Anyway looks easy enough to transfer over other then time-wise. I'll just use placeholders for now on some monsters. Bronze dragons will likely breathe force for now. Shrug. If that works they can stay that way.

[Nick]

So O-combat is in attack.c? Where is the equivelent in V?

It's player-attack.c in V. The big things to watch for are the difference in applying to-deadliness instead of to-dam, how slays/brands work, and how criticals work.

Comparing the old monster.txt to the new monster.txt & monster_base.txt it looks like the format is basically the same written differently. Amusingly someone changed it into a more readable form, making this more of a pain.

Yeah, that was mostly me. Easier for players, harder for maintainers