T-Engine4 / ToME4 beta14 unleashed!

[DarkGod]

As promised here comes T-Engine4 and ToME4 beta14 !

See http://tome.te4.org/ http://te4.org/ http://blog.te4.org/

This is a very big release, introducing many changes, some very big the the removal of consumables (do not freak out, there is a replacement, hopefully more fun and balanced than chain-chugging potions) or the change of game setting.

WARNING: Please remove your quickbirth data/do not use quickbirth to recreate characters when upgrading

This is also a very special release for me because the first line of code was commited one year ago, the 17th november. So this is the one year’s release!

What a long way it has come since then, thanks to you all my good players!

Release highlights:

* Changed game setting from middle earth to the custom world of Eyal, with full history and lore to support it
* New unlockable campaign: the Infinite Dugeon
* New classes: Geomancers and Corruptors
* Multiple new zones
* Easier and more fun identification system
* Removed consumables(scrolls and potions) and replaced with an inscription system. You can put infusions/runes on your skin that grant a permanent skill
* Added random artifacts
* More randomness in boss drops
* Much balancing and fixes

Expanded changelist:

* Activated fog of war on the world map
* New Game dialog will autoselect the first game
* Allow dwarven females to be played
* Setting changed to the custom world of Eyal. Main continent is Maj’Eyal
* Added random patrols and hostiles moving around the world map
* Scrolls, wands and spells of identification are gone (do not cry this, with the other changes, makes things much less boring)
* There is a shop in town that can identify stuff for you
* New quest: to get the orb of scrying
* Added many new room shapes
* The game should slow down a bit less while saving
* Saving will now display a progress bar
* Reworked Divination spells, there are now: Keen Senses, Arcane Eye, Vision and Premonition
* Added much much lore
* Flameshock has got a cooldown again, oups!
* Both Maj’Eyal and the Far East are on the same worldmap
* Fix trap of lethargy
* Quake should not work on vaults
* Saving the game while running/resting will not crash the game/savefile
* Allow the Static generator to read table of tables instead of table of strings
* Changed experience level charts
* Meditation can not fail due to equilibrium
* Most bosses that drop an artifact now have only a chance of dropping theirs, if they do not they will drop a random one and theirs will be added to the random pool
* Boss artifacts can be found before the boss is killed, the boss will cheat and use it for combat but will drop something else
* Gwai’s Burninator got a fitting description
* Many zones can now scale a bit more in levels to prevent player overgrowing them too much
* Normal monsters give much less experience now, bosses give hugely more experience
* Creatures stop giving experience if they are 7 levels below you instead of 3
* Added wands of conjuration
* All wands now have a spell inside
* Many new world artifacts
* Reduced Bill damage output
* Reduced power of the Shade
* Added random artifacts
* Prevent an infinite loop under some rare conditions with thunderstorm on a NPC
* Fix Throw Bomb special effects
* Alchemist Protection protects against side effects at level 5
* Rogue traps duration is now based on trap mastery
* Fix mouse over on the hotkeys when an object is not present
* Fix resting/running while waiting for recall
* When Equilibrium is below the current willpower score talents will never fail.
* NPCs Summon talent is now subject to equilibrium failures and each time it is used its cooldown will increase
* Creatures that split on damage will have reduced split chance with each split
* Meditation now dazes the player, if he is hit it will stop. Each turn some equilibrium is regenerated and a big chunck if the effect ends without disruption
* Fixed Hurricane
* Fix Channel Staff with the staff of absorption
* New effect for Blastwave
* Flame now beams at level 5, watch the pretty colors!
* Removed the spider quest from the east, replaced with a new one upon arrival
* Urkis drops an artifact in addition to the rod
* Adjusted some spell costs
* Skeletons can not bleed
* Improved Angolwen design
* Mana Clash absorbs more mana
* New town: Zigur, the home of the Ziguranth, who oppose magic. Not available to magic wielders
* Antimagic quest can now be taken from Zigur.
* The Map class can now be configured for a specific search order for checkAllEntities. Default is now: Actor, Terrain, Projectile, Trap, Objects
* Melee attacks now work to hit things inside walls like xorns
* Example modules have their Game:setupDisplayMode() method fixed when loading a save
* Ardhungol is now a side quest
* New random encounter in the far east: the shadow crypt
* New vaults
* New campaign: the Infinite Dungeon (require unlock). Descend into the infinite dungeon, see how far you can go and die in a blaze of glory!
* New achievements for going deep in the infinite dungeon
* Players start with the Orb of Knwoledge when doing the infinite dungeon
* New world encounter: the ruined dungeon
* Lightning Speed breaks when drinking potions
* Added a new rank between elite & boss for creatutes: unique
* Added new random unique creatures
* Fixed rod of recall/teleport: angolwen to not make stuff appear on the worldmap
* New class: Geomancer (mage subclass)
* Hexes are now balls, except Domination Hex
* Malicious thieves has arrived in towns, making it unsafe to leave stuff on the ground
* Blighted Ruins (undeads starting zone) is still 8 physical levels deep but NPC level will only increase at 0.5 per level
* When a boss dies the player gets experience even if he did not kill it directly or through summons
* Some more lore to be randomly found (well lore .. err .. trollish lore .. err .. kinda .. well trollish stuff!)
* Random lore scrolls now can actualy be generated! Oups!
* Zone:checkFilter() can now check “properties” and “not_properties” fields which contains list of fields to be found/not be found on the entity to validate it
* Added new egos
* The Awakened Staff of Absorption has been buffed and added lore
* Staff of absorption has its own tile
* Bows/Slings can not be used as melee weapons
* Bows/Slings now have an “infinite” ammo embedded, all ammo found are ego (and rarer obviously)
* Berserker talent now provides increasing stun & pinning resistance
* Tidal Wave correctly grows
* New random encounter on Maj’Eyal: a dark crypt
* New horror monster
* Gwelgoroths now have correct lightning atatcks instead of fire attacks (bad copy paste! bad!)
* Added missing object tiles
* Added an achievement for killing Ukruk
* Golem: Pound does not hit the caster when mounted inside the golem
* Stuns can now be partial, each turn you do not loose the energy of a whole turn, but a variable amount based on your stun resistance
* Right-click during birth correctly works
* Implemented “no teleport” objects. They do not prevent you from teleporting, but they do not follow.
* Cyst Burst will spread diseases further
* Autodetect fullscreen resolutions
* More space for price in store dialogs
* Fix tannen quest
* Fix Shockwave Bomb
* Fix mage apprentice quest when not selecting an item
* Fix lost merchant quest: can not push around things
* Replaced Forage talent with Flare (since basic ammo is infinite)
* Added unique graphics to some artifacts
* Fix dreadmaster disperse magic
* Prevent Bone Shield from bugging under some werid cirscumstances
* Aeryn will now explain why the player encountered sun paladins/anorithils in the west, if he did
* Particle effects now correctly resize in 16×16 mode (if you spot one that does not do tell me)
* “World” achievements can not be gained as personal achievements (like Reaver, Pyromancer, …)
* Seer escorts will not manathrust you in the back
* Sandworm heart provides benefit to Wyrmics
* Remove scrolls & potions
* Add runes & infusions to replace consumables. They are used once to inscribe an infusion(natural) or rune(magical) on your skin, which you can then activate at will. There is a limited number of slots available.
* Fix critical damage modifier
* Heithened senses/infravision allows to see as with a light in a 1/4th radius
* Fix character dump log messages
* Living races start with Regeneration and Wild infusions; undeads with Shielding and Phase Door runes
* More high level sandworms
* New vampire tiles
* Removed energy usage cost from chants and hymns, also lowered cooldown to 12
* Light tree is now generic
* Replaced Second Life with Providence
* New divine tree Guardian. Requires a shield to use
* Sun Paladins now can access Light tree at birth
* Sun Paladins can now access Guardian tree
* Bathe in Light also improves healing received
* New zone: Mark of the Spellblaze
* New quest found inside the mark of the spellblaze
* New class: Corruptors, a spellcaster brother to reavers
* Resistances are now capped a 70% for players. Items can increase the cap.
* Fireflash no longer does a DOT, it is all upfront damage
* Firing bolts at a wall now hits what is inside the wall.
* Firing balls at a wall now explodes the ball just before the wall.
* Weapon brands now affect only the weapon carrying it. Other equipment granting brands work for all weapons.
* Alchemist’s Golem now only levels with the player
* Talent category points can be used to gain at most two more infusion/rune slots
* Only two of the same kind of infusion/rune can be inscribed at once
* Added “Game Options” to the main menu
* Autosave all the game on zone change is now configurable in the game options.
* Saving each level individualy is now an option in the game options. This will make sure the game only keeps one level in memory (thus reducing the need for memory) but incur a small save/load on each level changes.
* Ukruk finally drops something useful. If you can beat him!
* Rain in the old forest is a bit bluer
* The endgame loot is more powerful
* Archmages will not be able to cheese their way through the Charred Scar

Have fun!

[Arralen]

Nice, really nice.

I wonder, though, how "imbueing" is supposed to work (if it is, for dwarven warriors ..)

Then, if I kill a monster that poisons me in the very same turn, I get " *monstername* hits you for .. poison damage " for several turns, and the message may or may not change to " something hits you " before the poison wears off ?!

At times, the game tries to load a level, and write a savegame at the same time. Both things are slow on their own, but at once ...

Is "Help" supposed to take me to the options menue?
I could really use some help 'bout some things work ... .

It seems mostly impossible to save "Velata, the lost anorith" (lvl4 Trollshaws) .. simply because she's so fast, that she heads on into some 1-square wide corridor and gets herself killed "from the front" while there's no time to go around the trees to get to the monster ...

It's nice to see that Bree hasn't changed much in the 7th Age


PS: Is there any kind of "pseudo-ID" available? Or are all items generally useful? With all ID removed, it's a major pita to travel back to town at least once every level ...

PPS: With level(layouts) now persistent, items on the floor should not be re-rolled upon entering the level ... it's quite odd atm. ...

PPS:

Hmm, I suppose I should actually report this bug that's been annoying me forever...
Running into walls silently wastes a turn! Very annoying in combat situations in cramped quarters...

.. still not fixed ... and it IS annoying ...

[DarkGod]

Imbuing ? You mean the infusions/runes ?
They work for everybody, just use one and it will inscribe itself on your skin, then it's a talent you can use.

As for poison, it's normal, it depends if you still have LOS to the creature that poisonned you.

I'm still working on savefiles, it is very fast for some people and very slow for others :/ You can try using the save per level game option, it should save more often but save less each time.

What "help"? As for knowing what stuff does, you can mouseover most things in the character screen/main screen and you'll get an informative tooltip.

The quest is random, it's jsut raelly bad luck
And she is not faster than you (unless you're a ghoul).

You do not need to travel to town each level, instead go finish the first zone, when you get your first artifact from the boss you'll get a quest that will trigger the new ID system.

As for actor/object regen, it only happens after some time have passed

[Arralen]

Imbuing ? You mean the infusions/runes ?

No, I mean imbuing with gems like it is hinted in the info for e.g. an amethyst:
"amethyst
Gems can be sold for money or used in arcane rituals.
..
When used to imbue an object:
Increase damage type: 4%"

Atm., they're pretty useless (to my dwarven warrior) because price is minimum (starting with 0.1 gold for many - does not really make sense to gather and sell them), and and I can't get the promised imbuing to work somehow ...

As for poison, it's normal, it depends if you still have LOS to the creature that poisonned you.

Don't you think that killing a creature should break LOS instantly, instead of (seemingly) random several steps later?

I'm still working on savefiles, it is very fast for some people and very slow for others :/ You can try using the save per level game option, it should save more often but save less each time.

Tried both settings .. started out Troll Shaws with save per level ON as default, and got the mentioned concurrent writes/reads which surely won't help, then switched and went over to the other (real) dungeon, and things didn't change much. In fact, just saving in town takes ages ...

help?!

E.g.:
How is a girdle supposed to work? On the Character screen I can see "Around your waist" (Mighty Girdle) and "In your belt" (nothing) ..
How do I recharge wands?
Why did the "wand of trap destruction" always fail for my dwarven warrior between level 3 and 7? (It's annoying, because it means I cannot get rid of traps at all ...)

The quest is random, it's jsut raelly bad luck
And she is not faster than you (unless you're a ghoul).

Hmmm .. I could swear being a dwarf seemed enough

You do not need to travel to town each level, instead go finish the first zone, when you get your first artifact from the boss you'll get a quest that will trigger the new ID system.

Actually, I got some artifact before that, just when I went back to the game after I wrote my remarks - and felt pretty stupid

As for actor/object regen, it only happens after some time have passed

Seems to happen way too fast - clearing out the last level of Troll Shaws was enough for the previous level to reset.
Speaking of "time passing" ... I get "It's the X day of Y" messages, which hint there's some time passing on, but I'm really missing a day/night cycle?!


All in all, the game looks (and plays) great already.
Keep up the good work!
Thanks!

Stefan

[DarkGod]

Imbuing requires a talent, try alchemists, or saving one.

The day & night cycle is not implemented because it does not add gameplay IMO.

As for saving speed, can you try: http://te4.org/dl/t-engine/t-engine4...15-nomusic.zip please, the saving should be faster.
(Do not play it regulary this is just a b14 with savnig tweaks, but also a nasty bugŕ

[Arralen]

help?!

E.g.:
- How is a girdle supposed to work? On the Character screen I can see "Around your waist" (Mighty Girdle) and "In your belt" (nothing) ..
- How do I recharge wands?
- Why did the "wand of trap destruction" always fail for my dwarven warrior between level 3 and 7? (It's annoying, because it means I cannot get rid of traps at all ...)
- How do I shoot at things? Think I did it at one point (tutorial, pretty sure at that), but I can't remember or figure it out again? - or is a dwarven warrior unable to shoot bows ?!

Imbuing requires a talent, try alchemists, or saving one.

Can't find a fitting talent in the "G" list, guess I'l try an alchemist next

The day & night cycle is not implemented because it does not add gameplay IMO.

Not, if you don't provide for it
Try FAAngband for an example of "better don't be out at night"
If sneaking, monster (re)spawn is dependant on light levels and "dark creatures flee the light of day" etc., it surely would add!


Some more remarks:

- (speaking of light levels.. shouldn't Trolls be suspectible to light, instead of resistant?!

- You can run through shops, opening at least 2 shop windows at once as a result.

- Shop had "poisonous poisonous iron shot" ...

- Quivers should hold more than 1 ammo type

- Ammo as "guaranteed consumables" is more annoying than having scrolls/potions.

- no crossbows? Dwarf with Longbow seems odd ...

- there's a "shooter" slot missing .. or arrows could go into the off-hand, as the shooter is blocking the 2nd weapon set atm anyway.

- The infusion/rune system does not work well, as it severely curtails beginning characters - and especially for those, the status of "consumables" just switches from scrolls/potions to the infusions/runes, as you'll have to drag a bunch of them around, to switch them as needed.

- please solve the old "hockey stick" problem with LOS.

- AI pathfinding should be improved .. in the example below, the "m" would never go around on the outside to reach the @

.....
..#m.
.@M..
..#m.
.....

- if a level resets, actors/object regen, and actors and traps are hidden again ... but object are generated visible, so all you have to do is run around and pick everything up


- I don't understand how lauchners (longbows) are supposed to work: it seems they have unlimited "default" ammo which is better then equivalent standard ammo?!