New nightly

[Magnate]

Hi all,

As trailed deep in a thread where it was completely OT, I have merged the last month's worth of changes to master, so there will be a new (and very mis-named) nightly build in a few hours.

There are not many gameplay changes, but a lot of internal refactoring, specifically of object flags and monster spells. If you notice any new bugs when playing this new nightly, please report them in this thread first. I apologise in advance if I have failed to find some obvious, embarrassing, show-stopping bug - I will endeavour to fix any of those ASAP.

There are three bugfixes in this new version: the oddness with fractional blows with earthquake weapons; the F5/F6 duplication, and the ID-by-use of wands of Dragon's Breath. Also, the cold brand on Paurnimmen has been reduced to x2 instead of x3.

Many thanks.

[jens]

Yes! New nightly up at:

http://rephial.org/nightlies/

Thanks Magnate :-)

[jens]

A quick initial report on todays Nightly.
I started a High-Elf Mage, and had progressed a few levels down when I discovered...

Level Feelings:
- No need to stay 1000 turns on previous level, you get the feeling anyway.

Unconnected part of dungeon:
Some time later I happened to read a scroll of Deep Descent. I ended up in what seems to be a normal dungeon level, except I am trapped. I have detected for doors, there are none, I have detected treasure outside my area, so I know there is more.

Next step: trying to trip the trap next to me (strange rune), hopefully a teleport trap :-)

[Derakon]

The game doesn't guarantee that the dungeon is connected, though up until recently it almost always was. The new circular rooms give it a lot of trouble though. I routinely see circular rooms with no corridors leading to them.

[geoff_tewierik]

Found a gas trap that can't be disarmed, ^P will show how many attempts have been made. Pity really as I need the down stairs just past it.

See attached.

[geoff_tewierik]

The game doesn't guarantee that the dungeon is connected, though up until recently it almost always was. The new circular rooms give it a lot of trouble though. I routinely see circular rooms with no corridors leading to them.

I've encountered the down stairs dropping me into and octagonal room in which there is no doors out of it, and without magic mapping, or a weapon capable of digging through granite, there's no way out. So it's back up the stairs, and back down again. Kinda pointless really.

[geoff_tewierik]

Found a gas trap that can't be disarmed, ^P will show how many attempts have been made. Pity really as I need the down stairs just past it.

Imadork. Blind = can't disable traps. noob.

[jens]

The game doesn't guarantee that the dungeon is connected, though up until recently it almost always was. The new circular rooms give it a lot of trouble though. I routinely see circular rooms with no corridors leading to them.

Well, since I have never encountered unconnected dungeons before, except if there is a vault, I am certain that this is a change since 3.2. Probably due to changes in dungeon generation ;-) Need to get it back to almost always connected is all I'm saying :-)

[jens]

Some thoughts while playing the Nighlty angband-r7dda40ccdd, on Windows 7. Well these are not really concerning a difference from the previous nightly, but they are still concerns about it :-)


Creating a character
- Sex, Neuter: What is the reasoning for this? Which of the races are not split in only male/female?
- Race/Class Extra information: Wow, great!
- Mage: could you add information about gloves and heavy armor reducing SP?
- XP mod, race/class: Example: half-elf mage, xp mod is +10% for race, and +30% for class, but the information given is 110% for race, and 30% for class. Same terminology in both cases, but different type of information. Probably a leftover from long ago when the terminology was different between race and class... Need to give the same information if you call it the same thing, or it will confuse new players. Least confusing to me would be: XP mod: +10% (the + is important since we are adding percentages, not multiplying)


Interacting with keymaps
- Still called 'Interacting with macros'
- There is now a new prompt 'Press any key to continue.' which needs to be cleared after each interaction, feels unnecessary.


Visuals
- The yellow floor from torch light is much harder to distinguish.
- The green floor at the edge of DTrap is much harder to distinguish.


Dungeon levels have fewer rooms -> fewer empty spaces -> items and monsters are more crowded.
- I'm guessing the generation code is in some experimental phase? Anyone knowledgeable want to expand on this?


Mage spell books
- Any special reason for changing the order of spells? I much prefer to see them in order of level required...


Multiple pvals
- When displaying them <+1, +3>, remove the space <+1,+3>, it is not needed and gets too long.


It blinks away.
- Guess it's nothing new... but still feels strange that I would notice something invisible casting blink...


Commands
- CTRL-E command (switch view of inventory to equipment), doesn't work in shops (it doesn't work in 3.2 either, but I remember that it worked in some previous version)


Options
- when setting options, let t toggle between y and n. I believe it did long ago... And it does work in 'Subwindow display settings', so it is user-friendly to allow same command to work :-)


/Jens

[Derakon]

Multiple pvals
- When displaying them <+1, +3>, remove the space <+1,+3>, it is not needed and gets too long.

Personally I disagree. Do you have an example of a situation in which the extra space is reducing legibility? It's only one space after all, and I'd rather see Angband use punctuation properly than not.

It blinks away.
- Guess it's nothing new... but still feels strange that I would notice something invisible casting blink...

Actually, messages for when monsters take actions when you can't see them have gotten a lot more vague. Blink and teleport are presumably still in since they provide very important tactical information, but you're reduced to "strange sounds" and "grunts of effort" and the like for other spells/special abilities.

[Chud]

The game doesn't guarantee that the dungeon is connected, though up until recently it almost always was. The new circular rooms give it a lot of trouble though. I routinely see circular rooms with no corridors leading to them.

I actually don't mind unconnected areas - maybe it's just me. Part of the challenge.

How about this - after dungeon creation, test for connectedness, and if not connected, place an additional nexus Q in each piece, possibly to be manipulated into moving you (if you're lucky) into the other sections?

Ok, well, maybe that's silly...

[Napsterbater]

I got killed by a Spotted Jelly. Apparently their Speed is now 120, same as the Stegocentipede. *sigh* found a nice artifact Rapier on dlev 2 in that game...

If you're going to make them that deadly, make them some other color than yellow.

[jens]

Personally I disagree. Do you have an example of a situation in which the extra space is reducing legibility? It's only one space after all, and I'd rather see Angband use punctuation properly than not.

I have no example as yet, but when combining some long basic item name, with a long ego item name, and then adding an extra long pval display on top I know it will run out of space, just want to minimize what gets cut off. Since this change is called multiple pvals I suppose we are talking about more than 2 pvals in some cases, so it will be more than once space...

Actually, messages for when monsters take actions when you can't see them have gotten a lot more vague. Blink and teleport are presumably still in since they provide very important tactical information, but you're reduced to "strange sounds" and "grunts of effort" and the like for other spells/special abilities.

Is teleport something in the lines of 'It dissapears'? In that case, maybe use the same line for blink? Gives the direct tactical information, but you will be less sure of where in the dungeon 'it' might be...

[Magnate]

I got killed by a Spotted Jelly. Apparently their Speed is now 120, same as the Stegocentipede. *sigh* found a nice artifact Rapier on dlev 2 in that game...

If you're going to make them that deadly, make them some other color than yellow.

Er, I don't think we changed this - but I couldn't swear to that. Speed 120 is +10, i.e. twice as fast as normal. I think they've always been that fast.

[Magnate]

- Sex, Neuter: What is the reasoning for this? Which of the races are not split in only male/female?

This is a whole can of worms. Suffice it to say that gender is a topic dear to hearts of number of roguelike developers. It's not as if the extra choice does anyone any harm.

- Mage: could you add information about gloves and heavy armor reducing SP?

Good idea.

- XP mod, race/class: Example: half-elf mage, xp mod is +10% for race, and +30% for class, but the information given is 110% for race, and 30% for class. Same terminology in both cases, but different type of information. Probably a leftover from long ago when the terminology was different between race and class... Need to give the same information if you call it the same thing, or it will confuse new players. Least confusing to me would be: XP mod: +10% (the + is important since we are adding percentages, not multiplying)

I agree with this too - we need to be consistent. Good catch.

- The yellow floor from torch light is much harder to distinguish.
- The green floor at the edge of DTrap is much harder to distinguish.

Harder than what? Than it used to be? I don't think they've been changed, but other devs can correct me.

Multiple pvals
- When displaying them <+1, +3>, remove the space <+1,+3>, it is not needed and gets too long.

I think we rather need more intelligent code for truncating what's displayed in inven/equip lists. I don't particularly mind whether there's an extra space, as long as it's consistent with (+hit, +dam) and [base_ac, +ac].

It blinks away.
- Guess it's nothing new... but still feels strange that I would notice something invisible casting blink...

I agree. I'd like to reduce the information available about unseen monsters even further, though that may cause complaints. I don't hold with this stuff about being able to "hear" monsters teleport.

- when setting options, let t toggle between y and n. I believe it did long ago... And it does work in 'Subwindow display settings', so it is user-friendly to allow same command to work :-)

At the moment Enter toggles between y and n. Why would anyone need to use t?

Thanks for taking the time to post all these observations - I hope other devs will pick up the ones I've not commented on.