5 May 2011 development release(s)

[Antoine]

* Being able to cast Banishment renders graveyards and zoos trivially plunderable for their floor items. Of course this is only an endgame mage trick, so I don't know that it's worth fixing. NPP handles this by giving the items to the monsters in the nest, but then there's less temptation to try to clear the thing out.

Is there some halfway-house - like, when a monster is Banished, any objects it is standing on are destroyed?

A.

[Derakon]

Is there some halfway-house - like, when a monster is Banished, any objects it is standing on are destroyed?

A.

I really don't think this needs fixing, honestly. It's such a niche case, and besides, punishing mages for one of their few useful abilities (namely, to avoid fights that are not worth fighting without having to avoid the monsters involved) just seems uncalled-for.

[scud]

What is 'weak' branding?

I am at present seeing "You slightly burn the Ethereal hound", and I find the qualifier 'slightly' far more amusing than I probably should...

[buzzkill]

I really don't think this needs fixing, honestly. It's such a niche case, and besides, punishing mages for one of their few useful abilities (namely, to avoid fights that are not worth fighting without having to avoid the monsters involved) just seems uncalled-for.

It's not really a punishment. Assuming, as you say, the point is to "avoid fights that are not worth fighting", then that is accomplished. If the point was actually to gather a room full of treasure by doing something rather ordinary for a mage, namely casting a spell, then yes it's a punishment.

[Derakon]

What is 'weak' branding?

I am at present seeing "You slightly burn the Ethereal hound", and I find the qualifier 'slightly' far more amusing than I probably should...

Magnate added some x2 brands, with the idea that they might be more viable for off-weapon branding (though as far as I'm aware nothing uses them yet in the standard set). Feel free to suggest better messaging.

[Starhawk]

"singe" might be better verbiage than "slightly burn."

[Derakon]

It's not really a punishment. Assuming, as you say, the point is to "avoid fights that are not worth fighting", then that is accomplished. If the point was actually to gather a room full of treasure by doing something rather ordinary for a mage, namely casting a spell, then yes it's a punishment.

Okay, let me put it this way: this is an "obvious rule patch", a change in the rules solely to prevent some undesirable behavior, that makes no sense in-universe. Banishment destroys monsters. Naturally that means that the monsters' inventories are gone. Why should it affect things on the floor? The spell explicitly targets monsters, not terrain or objects.

Now, obvious rule patches can be acceptable or even important if the alternative is seriously broken. Then there's an obvious strong justification -- if we didn't do this, then this undesirable result would occur, with a significant impact on the game. If you don't have that kind of strong justification, though, then obvious rule patches are undesirable, because they break the illusion of a consistent world.

Basically, what we have here is a corner case that is, yes, technically exploitative. The requirements for exploitation require you to be playing a specific class and to have gotten that class's last spellbook, so there's a very narrow window for exploitation before you go on to win the game. If you patch the game to remove this exploitation, then all the other presumably-justified uses of the Banishment ability in more limited form (scrolls and staves) have this bizarre behavior for no real gain.

In other words, I don't think the cost-benefit is there.

[Max Stats]

"singe" might be better verbiage than "slightly burn."

I like that too. What about the other elements?

Frost: "You chill it." (or, to be silly, "You give it a mild case of frostbite.")
Acid: "You irritate it."
Lightning: "You zap it" is currently the strong version; maybe this should be the weak version, and "You shock it" should be the strong version. I thought of "You electrocute it" but technically that would mean you killed it.
Poison: Not sure here... "You sicken it" or "You nauseate it" sounds just as strong as "You poison it" besides the fact that they make it sound like your character is just ugly.

[Magnate]

In other words, I don't think the cost-benefit is there.

What is your day job? Lawyer? You have an amazing way of explaining things clearly. I wish I could do that.

[Magnate]

I like that too. What about the other elements?

Frost: "You chill it." (or, to be silly, "You give it a mild case of frostbite.")
Acid: "You irritate it."
Lightning: "You zap it" is currently the strong version; maybe this should be the weak version, and "You shock it" should be the strong version. I thought of "You electrocute it" but technically that would mean you killed it.
Poison: Not sure here... "You sicken it" or "You nauseate it" sounds just as strong as "You poison it" besides the fact that they make it sound like your character is just ugly.

Ok, I've made changes to fire (singe), lightning (zap and shock) and poison (sicken). Chill was already in place - I'm just looking for something better than irritate for x2 acid brand, as irritate is more like enrage than corrode. Melts?

[Derakon]

Here's my votes for weak/strong brands:

Frost: chill / freeze
Fire: singe / burn
Lightning: shock / zap (I feel "zap" sounds stronger than "shock", personally...)
Acid: corrode / dissolve
Poison: poison / strongly poison (...I got nuthin', aside from that "weakly X" is worse IMO than "strongly X" since the weak variant is still stronger than a bog-standard attack)

My day job, oddly enough, is software development. But thanks for the compliment.

[Magnate]

Magnate added some x2 brands, with the idea that they might be more viable for off-weapon branding (though as far as I'm aware nothing uses them yet in the standard set). Feel free to suggest better messaging.

The x2 cold brand is on Paurnimmen in the nightlies. So far it doesn't appear to be dramatically unbalancing.

[Nick]

What is your day job? Lawyer? You have an amazing way of explaining things clearly.

Not a lawyer, then

[Max Stats]

My day job, oddly enough, is software development. But thanks for the compliment.

Aren't software developers usually obfuscators instead of explainers?

[buzzkill]

Before we go any further, I'm discussing what I believe to be Mass Banishment (hereafter referred to as Banishment), the one that removes everything around you, not the one that targets a specific race. My bad if I'm off topic.

Okay, let me put it this way: this is an "obvious rule patch", a change in the rules solely to prevent some undesirable behavior, that makes no sense in-universe. Banishment destroys monsters. Naturally that means that the monsters' inventories are gone. Why should it affect things on the floor? The spell explicitly targets monsters, not terrain or objects.

Your making assumptions that aren't necessarily true. Literally, Banishment should banish things. Who's to say that it's only monsters. Using your logic, I could just as easily definitively state it to be only treasures. Banishment targets monsters only because that's what it has always done. It could just as easily be interpreted to banish all things in the vicinity.

Now, obvious rule patches can be acceptable or even important if the alternative is seriously broken. Then there's an obvious strong justification -- if we didn't do this, then this undesirable result would occur, with a significant impact on the game. If you don't have that kind of strong justification, though, then obvious rule patches are undesirable, because they break the illusion of a consistent world.

Since when is a "strong justification" needed to push something into nightlies. While the current implementation isn't broken, it is highly exploitable by the mage class, or by anyone with the right scroll. Consistency isn't Angband's strong suit, legacy is. Lot's of things in Angband make no sense and are inconsistent. These things are generally accepted because player are used to them and/or it's the way it always been.

Basically, what we have here is a corner case that is, yes, technically exploitative. The requirements for exploitation require you to be playing a specific class and to have gotten that class's last spell book, so there's a very narrow window for exploitation before you go on to win the game.

An exploit none the less. Why not fix it? Are we still "making the game harder" or has that been abandoned already. In terms of cost/benefit, the best way to make the harder is to eliminate known exploits.

If you patch the game to remove this exploitation, then all the other presumably-justified uses of the Banishment ability in more limited form (scrolls and staves) have this bizarre behavior for no real gain.

It's not bizarre behavior, it's just a little different from what we're used to. It might even produce unanticipated good side effects, like players actually fighting monsters rather than skipping by them. Of course, they would still have the option to skip by them, just at a cost.

In other words, I don't think the cost-benefit is there.

The benefit is there, what's the cost? I doubt that coding this would be that big of a deal, but what do I know.