New nightly

[scud]

I HAVE THE POWaaaaaghhhh... *thud*

I have regained my respect for cave spiders. I'm sure they used to be much quicker and more poisony in 2.x but in recent times they've seemed comparatively rubbish.

[buzzkill]

*makes mistake of trying to tiptoe across a roomful of cave spiders*

"By the power of Numbskull!"

[scud]

*makes mistake of trying to tiptoe across a roomful of cave spiders*

Stupid game.

[scud]

After just 2366 turns I can tell you that the Mac nightly of 14 April is undoubtedly the finest ever version of the game...

[Magnate]

Yeah, not monsters casting when I'm blind. E.g. there's an air elemental down the corridor, but I can't see him; I hear him mumbling, and I see a blue bolt fly in and hit me, but I'm not told what I'm hit by.

Ah, got it. This is because we test for blindness, but not unseen-ness. Should be fixable.

EDIT: fixed in staging. Thanks for the catch.

[Derakon]

Yeah, not monsters casting when I'm blind. E.g. there's an air elemental down the corridor, but I can't see him; I hear him mumbling, and I see a blue bolt fly in and hit me, but I'm not told what I'm hit by.

[myshkin]

When "something mumbles" and a bolt of electricity flies out and hits me, it'd be nice if I were told what I was hit by. The messages for when you're hit while blind would be appropriate here.

Are you referring to invisible/out-of-LoS monsters?

[Magnate]

My point on searching chests is that while the majority of chests are generated trapped, sometimes they are merely generated locked. However, there is no way to tell if a chest is untrapped without casting Identify on it -- no matter how long you search, you will simply not find any traps on the chest. It would be nice if searching could reveal that the chest is not trapped.

We could - but that would make the game easier ;-). The status quo doesn't seem terrible to me.

Now, I've investigated the blindness issue, and things are WAD AFAICT:

It bites you.
You are struck by electricity!
Something crackles.
You are hit by lightning!
Something crackles.
You are hit by lightning!

... and so on for other GF_ types. Some of them just say "You are hit by something", but all of them say "You are hit by ...". If you can improve the vocab used in the second field of src/list-gf-types.h, please do!

[d_m]

Also, my statement on cavern levels had a typo: things in early cavern levels are too spread out (i.e. very low density). Of course if the monsters had higher density then it'd probably be too easy to be overwhelmed. My main takeaway right now is that without detection, finding anything in early cavern levels is more tedious than fun. Possibly detection-less exploration could be improved, but an alternate solution would be to simply push their generation to later in the game when more classes have detection.

I think my goal is to split the difference on this... maybe move them down a little bit, try to make illumination work better in caverns, and to try to figure out ways to generate caverns with lit areas (I'd love to add features/info like "glowing lichen" or "campfire" or things but that may not be V appropriate and might take a lot of doing).

[Derakon]

My point on searching chests is that while the majority of chests are generated trapped, sometimes they are merely generated locked. However, there is no way to tell if a chest is untrapped without casting Identify on it -- no matter how long you search, you will simply not find any traps on the chest. It would be nice if searching could reveal that the chest is not trapped.

Also, my statement on cavern levels had a typo: things in early cavern levels are too spread out (i.e. very low density). Of course if the monsters had higher density then it'd probably be too easy to be overwhelmed. My main takeaway right now is that without detection, finding anything in early cavern levels is more tedious than fun. Possibly detection-less exploration could be improved, but an alternate solution would be to simply push their generation to later in the game when more classes have detection.

[Magnate]

* First off, it'd be nice if there were some way that manual notes stood out from automatic notes in the file, so they'd be more greppable.

Nice suggestion - not too hard to do, but the sort of thing that's going to take a while to climb anyone's priority list. A ticket would help; a patch even more so.

* I hit Wormtongue with a Wand of Slow Monster and when it actually took, he was moving at something around one-quarter normal speed. Intended?

Not sure. IIRC there is provision in the MON_TMD_ code for multiple applications - maybe you hit him with it twice?

* Cavern levels are absolutely terrible if you have no detection and a radius-2 light (i.e. early game). Partly this is because they have so much more empty space than normal levels, so what's in the level isn't very well spread-out. Partly it's that you can't cover ground effectively. Partly it's how easily you can get surrounded. IMO they really need to be moved later when the player's more capable of directing their exploration and dealing with suboptimal terrain.

Well, they're a standard feature of Sangband, and it doesn't seem to suffer for their early presence. We are trying to make the game more challenging, and caverns are supposed to be scary and open and (above all) unlit ... but perhaps we could look at adding some checking to monster placement so there aren't too many monsters in them (or they're more deeply asleep, or whatever).

* "Weak" elemental brands still have an x3 multiplier on 'em, so AFAICT they're exactly equivalent to strong ones except in flavor text.

Wow, that will go down as one of my stupider mistakes. "Hey folks, look how easy it is to add new brands. Don't forget to change the multiplier after pasting though". Fixed in staging.

* It'd be nice if, when searching near a chest, you could determine if the chest is trapped. As it is you just have to search a bunch and then either burn an ID or just hope it isn't.

Don't think I understand this one. Do you mean "not adjacent but within X squares"? That would be a lot of work for little rewards. You already do search the chest if you are adjacent and searching.

* Check out this shield:

The Leather Shield of Earin (+4,+10) [8,+10] <+4>
Found lying on the floor at 2350 feet (level 47).

+4 strength, intelligence, constitution.
Provides resistance to acid, lightning, fire, cold.
Cannot be harmed by acid, electricity, fire, cold.
Slows your metabolism. Speeds regeneration.

Personally, I'd much rather have this than Thorin on most characters. Immunity to acid doesn't beat out +10 to damage. On a side-note, why does it provide resistance to lightning but can't be harmed by electricity?

Happy for someone to change the relevent instances of lightning to electricity - again, a patch would help. Enjoy the +dam while you can - the randart rewrite is edging closer, and off-weapon damage will be much less common then.

* A large iron chest gave me Boots of Speed +7 and Wrath of God. That seems improbable.

Yet other people have been complaining about the crapness of chest drops for aeons. Oh well.

* When "something mumbles" and a bolt of electricity flies out and hits me, it'd be nice if I were told what I was hit by. The messages for when you're hit while blind would be appropriate here.

If I've understood correctly, this is a bug. You should get "something mumbles" followed by "you are struck by electricity!". You do not get told what type of creature struck you. Will test.

[Spacebux]

Floor tile/dot coloring.

Yes, harder than it used to be... The thing is that the dot representing the floor has become a lot smaller in the new tiles, that means that different colors are a lot harder to see. Check the included image...

Oh, and when testing this I also noted that when I changed the graphic menu option to use old tiles, no floor colors are shown at all...

I'm glad I'm not the only one who's noticed the green/yellow floor dots are gone.. What's worse, one cannot see a difference between grid points where one has formerly been versus lit-up squares versus dark squares. All the dots now have the same grey color. And, I have no idea how to rectify that - maybe I need to peruse the help section and RTFM....

When selectiong "Old tiles" (default), this is the case.
Selecting "None" or "Nomads" tiles, the light coloring in the dots on the floor returns to normal.
Thing is, I just prefer the old stile tiling - with '#'s instead of solid rock chunks.

Mobs suddenly appearing from empty floor spaces is just really annoying.

-Spacebux-

[bron]

Provides resistance to acid, lightning, fire, cold.
Cannot be harmed by acid, electricity, fire, cold.

why does it provide resistance to lightning but can't be harmed by electricity?

Yeah, this is a minor annoyance of mine too: I think "resist lightning" should be changed to "resist electricity" on the object descriptions. The property is called "resist electricity" most places (e.g. if a mage casts the "resist" spell), and is listed as "rElec" on the character information sheet. And a wise choice this is too, since it reduces the chance for confusion with "resist light". But not everywhere.

Admittedly, I also think that the attack should still be called "Lightning Bolt", so fixing this is not just a global text replace. And it certainly is very minor (*very* minor). But it is annoying.

[Derakon]

Here's my notes on the nightly thus far. I'll admit many of these aren't particularly germaine to recent changes, but they're my notes, so take them as they come.

* First off, it'd be nice if there were some way that manual notes stood out from automatic notes in the file, so they'd be more greppable.

* I hit Wormtongue with a Wand of Slow Monster and when it actually took, he was moving at something around one-quarter normal speed. Intended?

* Cavern levels are absolutely terrible if you have no detection and a radius-2 light (i.e. early game). Partly this is because they have so much more empty space than normal levels, so what's in the level isn't very well spread-out. Partly it's that you can't cover ground effectively. Partly it's how easily you can get surrounded. IMO they really need to be moved later when the player's more capable of directing their exploration and dealing with suboptimal terrain.

* "Weak" elemental brands still have an x3 multiplier on 'em, so AFAICT they're exactly equivalent to strong ones except in flavor text.

* You can't sell rounded pebbles to the general store, presumably because it doesn't sell them. Seems a bit odd.

* Vampire Lords are tedious foes. They're fast, they have 1400 hitpoints, and they have minimum rarity, but they aren't especially dangerous.

* Drolems actually can't hit the poison damage cap, since they only have 2200HP. Good thing too; I'd be dead otherwise.

* Quaker, Master of Earth doesn't resist acid. This is odd because his elemental attacks are all acidic. He does resist fire and cold though.

* It'd be nice if, when searching near a chest, you could determine if the chest is trapped. As it is you just have to search a bunch and then either burn an ID or just hope it isn't.

* Check out this shield:

The Leather Shield of Earin (+4,+10) [8,+10] <+4>
Found lying on the floor at 2350 feet (level 47).

+4 strength, intelligence, constitution.
Provides resistance to acid, lightning, fire, cold.
Cannot be harmed by acid, electricity, fire, cold.
Slows your metabolism. Speeds regeneration.

Personally, I'd much rather have this than Thorin on most characters. Immunity to acid doesn't beat out +10 to damage. On a side-note, why does it provide resistance to lightning but can't be harmed by electricity?

* A large iron chest gave me Boots of Speed +7 and Wrath of God. That seems improbable.

* When "something mumbles" and a bolt of electricity flies out and hits me, it'd be nice if I were told what I was hit by. The messages for when you're hit while blind would be appropriate here.

[Magnate]

Ouch!

I have fixed the connectedness issue in staging... once another dev signs off on it it will go into the (inappropriately-named) nightly build.

Hey, if everybody keeps on about that I'm going to start calling them hourly builds ...

I can't see any problem with the fix, so I'll push it to master tonight. The new nightly shouldn't be any more buggy than Saturday's, and there are four other fixes in it too.