Angband 4.2.3

[Nick]

First time really playing with randarts. I can accept two successive characters finding an Arkenstone with telepathy early, but two artifact stars being generated? Is that supposed to be possible?

Yes, that's fine now. Before 4.1 all randart games got exactly one each of Phial, Star and Arkenstone; now it's a random selection of those and artifact torches and lanterns.

[Pete Mack]

First time really playing with randarts. I can accept two successive characters finding an Arkenstone with telepathy early, but two artifact stars being generated? Is that supposed to be possible?

It is possible, but it is astoundingly lucky to find all three by DL 22.

[Selkie]

First time really playing with randarts. I can accept two successive characters finding an Arkenstone with telepathy early, but two artifact stars being generated? Is that supposed to be possible?

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=24659

This is the thing with playing with randarts, that's why I like it. You see your next two successive characters will find a randart lamp with +3 searching, acid resistance and activate for bless.

[Bill Peterson]

Yes, that's fine now. Before 4.1 all randart games got exactly one each of Phial, Star and Arkenstone; now it's a random selection of those and artifact torches and lanterns.

Does this mean that we're limited to three artifact lights or could another Arkenstone be generated?

Incredible luck with randart lights, but I've thrown away all the randart weapons in favor of egos.

[Grotug]

Recently I found two Arkenstones in the same game and both had the same bonus of Confusion protection.

[Hounded]

Call Lightning only targets lighted squares.

Not sure if this is intentional behaviour or not.

Playing a Dwarf Druid (with Infravision) and using the call lighting spell I can cast and target it upon a mob which I can "see" but is not on a lighted square. The spell doesn't execute however, just cancels the operation until I'm close enough that they're in my light radius.

By way of testing it exectues fine for MoB's in any LoS in a lit room so I presume there's something that prevents the target from being registered on darkened squares.

(4.2.3 Windows release on Ubuntu c/o WINE)

[Nick]

Does this mean that we're limited to three artifact lights or could another Arkenstone be generated?

There are no actual restrictions on the number of any kind of light. Randart generation tries to statistically mimic the standart artifact set; the most you can really say is on average you would expect to get about three artifact light sources. So getting 5 Arkenstones and nothing else isn't out of the question.

[Nick]

Not sure if this is intentional behaviour or not.

Playing a Dwarf Druid (with Infravision) and using the call lighting spell I can cast and target it upon a mob which I can "see" but is not on a lighted square. The spell doesn't execute however, just cancels the operation until I'm close enough that they're in my light radius.

By way of testing it exectues fine for MoB's in any LoS in a lit room so I presume there's something that prevents the target from being registered on darkened squares.

(4.2.3 Windows release on Ubuntu c/o WINE)

The rule is the target monster has to be in line of sight, and on a known grid - so visited or seen, and not re-darkened by a darkness spell or similar.

[kineahora]

quits after inscriptions

Hi im playing on a MAcbook. I been playing versions of this game going back to Moria or UMORIA in 1988 LOLz

Still getting occasional quits when doing certain inscriptions. Latest was when doing a @m1@b1=g2 inscription on the basic prayer book for paladins. I noticed ti didnt give me problems with @m1=g2. Something about the browse inscription...

Admittedly I don't know how to get the very latest builds of 4.2.3 I think I downloaded in August. I think my greater Balrogs still tunnel.

[kineahora]

The latest release from the releases page has the following changes to monsters:

• Abyss worm masses, hasty ents, hounds of Tindalos, Makar and storms of unmagic are rarer;
• Greater Balrogs, Lungorthin and Gothmog no longer tunnel.

Let's see how that goes. I have some ideas about making monster pathfinding less effective, but would like to get an idea of how things stand now first.

LOVE this change. Hasty ents having boring is certainly a threat but supported by the lore--they just needed to be less common. My current character is in good shape to win (two +15 rings of speed, +9 elvenkind boots, Vilya, arkenstone, PDSM, crown of Gondor). Greater Balrogs dont bother max paladins much--Single combat (mce) is the Bomb.com for summoners and tunnelers, and of course *demon bane*. How do I get the new version that has these changes? just re-download 4.2.3?? or is it only available on versions that have to be manually compiled?

There was a lot of discussion on other threads about not single-combatting Wiruin the Maelstrom. I completely disagree with this. Paladins cannot corner-wall scum him with ball spells, and his summonses of aether and time vortices are really a problem. I would NOT do this without a very strong character but if you have 1000 HP and very good speed over 3.0, it's really the only way to kill it. Just make sure you have (A) sound resistance (B) a nice stash of restore Mana (C) some decent consumable healing just in case.

One of my biggest beefs with the current implementation/balance is the TIME attack. It's a real PITA and I just don't think it should be able to banjax your stats when you have sustains. I'm good with it screwing your experience, but it's just too unfair. Even though I have now foound 2 rods of restoration, I just won't engage Hounds of Tindalos/aether/time hounds and vortices and Great Wyrms of Annihilation. I don't mind the implementation non those nasty wyrms because they are not pack monsters and have speed 2.0 allowing you to TO and avoid them. But the pack monsters with time are too much. I think Black Breath should be special and I like that it screws up even sustained stats because it's limited to the Ringwraiths that have special lore and their damage is supposed to be a big threat. We really do not need time hounds and can we just remove time from Aether/Tindalos hounds? Leaving the vortices adds to the difficulty of Wiruin which is fine, and the fact they aren't detected by telepathy is a pain too.

I like the overall balance of paladins--they would be too easy with portal and OOD, and those are the whole reason to play a priest. Paladins get single combat which is totally awesome. I wonder if I should try to pull a Fingolfin and single-combat Morgoth--then again Fingolfin lost, and I don't even have Ringil 8-). In this manner single-combat *is* supported in the lore, but really kinda only that one instance. Most characters don't get to insist on single combat--that's the whole reason Morgoth used up his power creating Balrogs and dragons etc.

Items balance:
Standarts: I find that after powerful amulets went into the game (older versions basically had just wisdom and then the artifacts), the big non-artifact amulets became a little too powerful relative to the best artifacts. In particular I think Ingwe (the highest elf of all) and the Nauglamir--legendary, so powerful and beautiful it caused wars should really stand out, and with amulets of trickery and weaponmastery being so good, I find these two artifacts don't really shine. I think Elessar was recently nerfed of combat bonuses which is OK--it's a 3rd age non-ring artifact worn by a Dunadan. Would you consider slight buffs to Nauglamir and Ingwe that might elevate them above Weaponmastery and Trickery? Maybe an immunity or a modest combat bonus, broader stat bonuses, or increasing the damage done by Ingwe activation and/or its charge frequency... Also I always found Tulkas' ring to be kind of underwhelming--only a major God and the best fighter of all time, maybe his ring should rival the elven rings of power? But of course he really didn't need much help from items (he didnt bother with a weapon) so that makes sense too...

[Nick]

How do I get the new version that has these changes? just re-download 4.2.3?? or is it only available on versions that have to be manually compiled?

They're available on the releases page (there was a link in the part of my post you quoted ).

[backwardsEric]

Still getting occasional quits when doing certain inscriptions. Latest was when doing a @m1@b1=g2 inscription on the basic prayer book for paladins. I noticed ti didnt give me problems with @m1=g2. Something about the browse inscription...

If you can provide some more detail about what you were doing before it quits, that would be useful (for instance, does it happen when creating a new inscription on an uninscribed book or does it happen when editing an existing inscription?). If the dialog for Apple's crash reporter comes up after Angband quits, pressing the "Report..." button and then posting here what appears in that report would also help. You don't need to send the report to Apple. The part of the report that's most relevant is the part immediately after "Application Specific Information" so posting the 15 to 20 lines after that is likely enough. That would look something like this:

Application Specific Information:
Assertion failed: (0), function -[AngbandAppDelegate beginGame], file main-cocoa.m, line 6051.
 

Thread 0 Crashed:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
0   libsystem_kernel.dylib        	0x00007fff2046a92e __pthread_kill + 10
1   libsystem_pthread.dylib       	0x00007fff204995bd pthread_kill + 263
2   libsystem_c.dylib             	0x00007fff203ee406 abort + 125
3   libsystem_c.dylib             	0x00007fff203ed7d8 __assert_rtn + 314
4   org.rephial.angband           	0x0000000108981b40 -[AngbandAppDelegate beginGame] + 608 (main-cocoa.m:6051)
5   org.rephial.angband           	0x000000010898496a -[AngbandAppDelegate applicationDidFinishLaunching:] + 138 (main-cocoa.m:6398)
6   com.apple.CoreFoundation      	0x00007fff20586a53 __CFNOTIFICATIONCENTER_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_AN_OBSERVER__ + 12
7   com.apple.CoreFoundation      	0x00007fff206224d9 ___CFXRegistrationPost_block_invoke + 49
8   com.apple.CoreFoundation      	0x00007fff20622454 _CFXRegistrationPost + 496
9   com.apple.CoreFoundation      	0x00007fff20557cce _CFXNotificationPost + 736

[kineahora]

If you can provide some more detail about what you were doing before it quits, that would be useful (for instance, does it happen when creating a new inscription on an uninscribed book or does it happen when editing an existing inscription?).

I'm gonna try to download the latest version and see if I can get it to crash after book inscription and then do the report thing for y'all.

Usually this happens on the town level after inscribing newly bought basic books (I often dump them in the dungeon to make an inventory slot for stuff I wanna drag back up). But I think it also happened before when I was messing with inscribing thrown weapons in the quiver--in that case changing inscriptions from @v2=g to @v3=g for instance.

Anyway what I recall (for now until I can reproduce it) is that after doing the @b1 inscription, when I try to browse the book using the b command (b1), it quit.

[sffp]

So previously I mentioned the nerfing of rods of Magic Mapping for warrior types.

Now I noticed you did it for rods of Curing too.

Not sure why that was changed. They were pretty bad already...

[Ugramoth]

Arkenstone shown in grey?

Maybe it's same for all versions and not specific to 4.2.3 but just saw this:
Drank potion of enlightenment and it listed 'an arkenstone'. But it was in grey color at the bottom, as if it was a crap item. Turned out to be perfectly fine arkenstone with no negative effects so no reason to show it as junk... good that I went to check it anyway