New nightly

[Derakon]

Notes from my current game, playing as a mage this time:

* You can hit monsters at the extreme end of range with spells.

* I killed several novice mages with a lightning bolt. They light the dungeon. The tiles they had lit didn't stop looking lit until I forced a screen refresh.

* Teleport Other's description still says it fires a beam.

* Acid and fire are a bit schitzophrenic about which deals more damage. The acidbolt spell is better than firebolt, but the firebolt wand is better than acidbolt, and the various ball wands and rods are all over the place. Not necessarily a problem, but a bit weird since the other elements are so consistent (-ly worse). I could see an argument for everything outside of the mage's spells dealing equal damage. At the very least wands of frost bolts ought to get a boost, since they're only half the damage of firebolts right now.

* Crystal drakes resist frost, but shardstorms don't.

* If you have learned all the spells you can currently learn and you hit 'G', you get the message "You have no books that you can read." This seems weird.

* I found an Executioner's Sword of Extra Attacks when I was too weak to use it. 'I'nspecting it gave the message "With +0 STR and +0 DEX you would get 2.0 attacks/round".

* I kinda feel like clay golems ought to resist acid.

* I had a horde of half-orcs materialize less than 10 squares away from me (out of LOS but not out of telepathy range).

* 300k AU for a Scoll of Acquirement in the Black Market is sufficiently excessive that I don't think anyone would ever buy it. 100k sounds like too much, even.

* Beam spells have more range than Teleport Other does. Intended?

* !Mana is sufficiently common that ,Debility is basically worthless.

[Darin]

* !Mana is sufficiently common that ,Debility is basically worthless.

Seconded. My current Warrior from one of the April 17 nightlies has run into at least a dozen !Mana and hasn't run into any ,Debilities. Yeah, yeah, I really should squelch them, but I always forget to.

[scud]

I don't yet know what it is, and I'm not sure I'm brave enough to identify through reading...

[SSK]

Hi Magnate.

I'm playing Mac nightly 34b524fdf9 of 4/23 I believe.

I see ticket #1398 involving strangeness of artifact dice reverting to base weapon was closed by you.

But I just found the beaked ax of Hurin which was listed initially in my inventory as 2d6. I remembered that in prior versions of the game it had been 3d6. I used "I" to check the damage/round, and when I was finished, the artifact was now listed in my inventory as being 3d6. It is still 3d6 as of the present.

I conclude weirdness of artifact damage dice with it flipping between the correct number of dice and the base weapon dice has not been entirely fixed. I'd open a ticket if I knew how.

Thanx.

p.s. Derakon: I am playing birth_no_selling per your suggestion and it is MUCH BETTER. I am shocked. Required some getting used to with beginning characters, but you are so right, makes play much better by freeing up inventory for useful marginal items instead of using it to tote cash-value items.

I wonder if we could have something at the town level though called "Artifact trophy room" that would allow unlimited storage of artifacts. With no-selling it wouldn't create a huge gold pool, but I kinda like collecting them rather than throwing them away...

[Derakon]

p.s. Derakon: I am playing birth_no_selling per your suggestion and it is MUCH BETTER. I am shocked. Required some getting used to with beginning characters, but you are so right, makes play much better by freeing up inventory for useful marginal items instead of using it to tote cash-value items.

Thank PowerDiver for pushing the concept and (I think) Magnate for actually getting it done.

Regarding your axe, by any chance did you not have it ID'd when you saw the 2d6? Artifact weapons with unusual dice will show the usual dice for the weapon type until they are ID'd.

[PowerDiver]

Regarding your axe, by any chance did you not have it ID'd when you saw the 2d6? Artifact weapons with unusual dice will show the usual dice for the weapon type until they are ID'd.

Correct dice are shown once you hit something with the object even without casting ID.

[SSK]

...Regarding your axe, by any chance did you not have it ID'd when you saw the 2d6? Artifact weapons with unusual dice will show the usual dice for the weapon type until they are ID'd.

Hmm. In older versions of Ang it used to say just Beaked Axe 3d6. By which I would know it is some sort of ego item with an extra die and probably Hurin. Then pseudo ID would say {special} by which I would know it was Hurin.

In 3.2 and 3.3 I am noticing all artifacts are sort of ID-ed automatically--I saw it initially in my inventory as Beaked Axe of Hurin (2d6) {special} without doing any spells or pseudo ID--I think that was the terminology or was it {artifact}. Then I ID'ed it and the {special} or {artifact} went away. I am pretty sure it still said 2d6 after the ID, until after I did "I" to check the damage.

Hmm, maybe it is *intended* behaviour for the true dice not to be given until you do "I"...

I will weigh in again if it suddenly turns back into 2d6, which would definitely be a bug...

[Derakon]

Correct dice are shown once you hit something with the object even without casting ID.

I'm counting this as ID'd since you ID'd it by use, though I grant I could have phrased that better.

SSK: the current intended behavior is that you see an axe 2d6. You pick it up and are informed that it is Hurin's axe, but you still only see that it is 2d6. Once you hit something with it or cast ID on it, you should see the dice get updated to 3d6. 'I'nspection should always be consistent with the information shown when looking at your inventory/equipment.

The goal is to make it so artifacts aren't obvious at a distance. Since dice are always displayed for weapons (and base AC for armor), this requires the UI to lie to you up until you actually know the item's real attributes.

[SSK]

SSK: the current intended behavior is that you see an axe 2d6. You pick it up and are informed that it is Hurin's axe, but you still only see that it is 2d6. Once you hit something with it or cast ID on it, you should see the dice get updated to 3d6. 'I'nspection should always be consistent with the information shown when looking at your inventory/equipment.

The goal is to make it so artifacts aren't obvious at a distance. Since dice are always displayed for weapons (and base AC for armor), this requires the UI to lie to you up until you actually know the item's real attributes.

That goal makes total sense to me. Unfortunately I can't remember for SURE whether it said 3d6 after I ID-ed it. Next time I find an artifact weapon with more dice than the standard for the type, I'll have to notice when it says what more carefully. I would think though that once it says in your inventory "Beaked Axe of Hurin", you already know it is special, so it might as well display 3d6. I *AM* positive this was not the case initially. It definitely said Beaked Axe of Hurin 2d6 when first in my inventory.

I just found another artifact with normal dice (can't test the above)--Gondricam. After it was dropped by Smeagol I looked at it lying on the floor and it correctly said simply "A cutlass 1d8". But immediately on my picking it up it said "A cutlass 'Gondricam' (1d8)" and listed certain attributes when I did "I" but some info was correctly withheld until I identified it.

[takkaria]

I would think though that once it says in your inventory "Beaked Axe of Hurin", you already know it is special, so it might as well display 3d6. I *AM* positive this was not the case initially. It definitely said Beaked Axe of Hurin 2d6 when first in my inventory.

That is intentional. You only figure out attack damage by attacking (or using ID).

I just found another artifact with normal dice (can't test the above)--Gondricam. After it was dropped by Smeagol I looked at it lying on the floor and it correctly said simply "A cutlass 1d8". But immediately on my picking it up it said "A cutlass 'Gondricam' (1d8)" and listed certain attributes when I did "I" but some info was correctly withheld until I identified it.

What did it list before you identified it?

[SSK]

What did it list before you identified it?

It gave me damage figures. I believe they were true, because the identified attributes didn't affect damage--it's got no slays and the weight is the same as the base weapon. Curious to see if the damage is incorrect on not-yet-identified artifacts that have slays and/or are different weight than the base.

I still think "lying" about the dice is handled a bit silly. I think it ought to say base weapon dice ("lying") when looking at it on the floor, but if you're going to reveal it is an artifact that has a name upon picking it up, how about not showing ANY dice (A beaked Axe of Hurin {special} period). At least that is not confusing. But it's really a very minor point affecting nothing, except it confused me into thinking something might be broken--since there was a dice issue before with artifact reversion (which I observed myself).

[takkaria]

It gave me damage figures. I believe they were true, because the identified attributes didn't affect damage--it's got no slays and the weight is the same as the base weapon. Curious to see if the damage is incorrect on not-yet-identified artifacts that have slays and/or are different weight than the base.

Damage figures are always calculated from what you currently know about the object. If you think they're wrong given your current knowledge, please report that as a bug, but it sounds like what you saw was 100% intentional behaviour.

[gudjkrist]

Originally Posted by SSK
p.s. Derakon: I am playing birth_no_selling per your suggestion and it is MUCH BETTER. I am shocked. Required some getting used to with beginning characters, but you are so right, makes play much better by freeing up inventory for useful marginal items instead of using it to tote cash-value items.

Thank PowerDiver for pushing the concept and (I think) Magnate for actually getting it done.

Regarding your axe, by any chance did you not have it ID'd when you saw the 2d6? Artifact weapons with unusual dice will show the usual dice for the weapon type until they are ID'd.

Just wanted to add my two cents. I love playing with "birth_no_selling" and it feels exactly like it was supposed to be this way all along. It's almost like I feel all the older games playing with selling on was an aberration. Great change.

[EpicMan]

Damage figures are always calculated from what you currently know about the object. If you think they're wrong given your current knowledge, please report that as a bug, but it sounds like what you saw was 100% intentional behaviour.

Although once you know the artifact name unless it's the first time you've seen it you will already know what the damage dice are, unless you are playing with randarts.

[SSK]

Damage figures are always calculated from what you currently know about the object. If you think they're wrong given your current knowledge, please report that as a bug, but it sounds like what you saw was 100% intentional behaviour.

Hi Takkaria.

I understand at this point that I was initially mistaken that this had something to do with the prior dice reversion issue, and that the current behavior is intentional. I take issue with a minor aspect of this intentional behavior as I have laid out above, but that is for another thread.

Next issue: Level feelings.

I've always thought these were behaving funny. For instance, just yesterday at DLevel 30 or so I descended to a cavern level and got the feeling "This seems like a quiet and peaceful place". I picked off the floor, not dropped by any monster, Ethereal slippers of speed <+9>. That item is not sufficiently powerful to generate even "You feel a little lucky"???