Experiences with Frog-knows

[Derakon]

I definitely remember laying a line of mush down and then hoovering it back up whenever I got hungry. Ahh, memories.

[Magnate]

Create food creates food in floor, no direct satisfy hunger in here. Created food also seems to be less nutrient than food rations.

Is that the "pint of fine grade mush"? ISTR Moria had those - they have negligible sell value so you can't abuse them.

[Timo Pietilä]

Some differences this far:

Priest pointy penalty doesn't work in same way. I seem to be able to happily use any weapon as long it has positive enchantments. That might be a bug, but I'm not sure because it seems to be the case with any weapon (currently using katana of animal slaying, some orc dropped RoDam +6).

There is level feeling only if it isn't boring level. For a long time I thought that there are no level feelings at all, but there is if the level is not boring. Unfortunately there is no command to repeat that feeling, so you need to remember it somehow if you save game when you are in the dungeon. I miss macros and alter grid command. I find myself walking into traps because I try to "alter" it instead of "D"isarm it.

There is targetting in 1.31 (the very first frog-knows doesn't have even that), but you need to target first, shoot after, not the other way around.

You can't use items directly from floor or ID item that you have not picked up, which is annoying when your inventory is full. You also can't drop item standing on item, which makes this even more annoying.

Create food creates food in floor, no direct satisfy hunger in here. Created food also seems to be less nutrient than food rations.

Stunning causes confusion (your status is stunned, but your movements act like confused), which makes stunning worse than it is in modern vanilla. I didn't try casting spell while stunned, it might still be possible.

Enchant weapon scrolls (all of them) enchants your currently wielded weapon. It doesn't give choice which item to enchant.

[Magnate]

When I read unID'd scrolls, I do not fear summoning. I fear curse weapon/armor. I think that's a much bigger impediment to encouraging ID-by-use than summoning. I've read summoning scrolls many times and have yet to be insta-killed by them. The odds are very low.

Well they're high enough to have killed buzzkill and me several times. Buy you make a good point that curse armour is pretty brutal - nobody bothers to strip naked before reading a new scroll. IMO it should only remove a single flag ... but ISTR that's heresy.

@buzzkill: for normal play I agree with you - a very small but nonzero chance of instadeath adds to the excitement - this is why I agree with people like Timo/d_m who want more OOD monsters. So what if once in a hundred games you get instakilled by an OOD critter - that's pretty cool!

But for ID-by-use I think the opposite holds. I think most players (who are neither newbies nor veterans) don't do it much, because the rewards aren't that great and the risks from stuff like Summon Undead and Curse Armor are pretty high. And ID-by-use is one thing I *do* want to turn into a no-brainer: the ultimate aim is to remove magical ID completely. But maybe your view of ID-by-use is more accurate than mine, and most people are quite comfortable with the odd instadeath. Could be time for a poll ;-)

[fizzix]

We only need to ensure the first move to encourage ID-by-use. Once an item is ID'd, you deserve everything you get. Summoning traps don't need to guarantee @ the first move either, otherwise there'd be little point to them. But nobody will ID stuff by use if there's a chance of instadeath, so we have to ensure that beasties summoned by unID'd scroll, staff or polymorph will not get the first move.

When I read unID'd scrolls, I do not fear summoning. I fear curse weapon/armor. I think that's a much bigger impediment to encouraging ID-by-use than summoning. I've read summoning scrolls many times and have yet to be insta-killed by them. The odds are very low.

edit: If anyone that's not me wants to actually quantify these odds...

[buzzkill]

But nobody will ID stuff by use if there's a chance of instadeath, so we have to ensure that beasties summoned by unID'd scroll, staff or polymorph will not get the first move.

Ah, so it's only un-ID'd items that your looking to safeguard. OK, I get it now. I still think you're being too protective of the player, but I get it.

Let me throw this at you. Players will ID stuff by use, even if it's risky, because there's an incentive/reward to do so (speedier gameplay, excitement, less GP spent on ID). It's always been this way. I'd say that you're removing most of if not all the risk and leaving only the reward, making the decision a no-brainer. I thought you wanted less of that.

I think that if we were to change the quote so that the word chance read reasonable chance then we'd be in agreement.

[Magnate]

Really? I frequently get killed by ID-by-use of items of summoning, but I rarely play V. The player really gets first move vs. summonees???

Not at the moment, no. The best we can do is set the energy of all summonees to 0, but they might still move first.

We only need to ensure the first move to encourage ID-by-use. Once an item is ID'd, you deserve everything you get. Summoning traps don't need to guarantee @ the first move either, otherwise there'd be little point to them. But nobody will ID stuff by use if there's a chance of instadeath, so we have to ensure that beasties summoned by unID'd scroll, staff or polymorph will not get the first move.

[buzzkill]

It's the same principle that says that IDing staves by use should not result in instadeath from summonees.

Really? I frequently get killed by ID-by-use of items of summoning, but I rarely play V. The player really gets first move vs. summonees???

[Magnate]

If you like older games and have ever played MoO2 (and liked it), get original MoO a try it. I'm completely hooked to both, but original MoO requires less micromanagement and is more random.

Good thing is that dosbox works even in 64bit Win7 which probably will be my next computer OS (Or Win8. Don't know for sure if it has lost the infant diseases before I need to buy new computer, this one starts to be rather old).

DosBox also runs Master of Magic, which is the only game I ever enjoyed more than MoO.

[Timo Pietilä]

I've used dosbox before and have made directorys for it, but I totally forgot it existed, thank you guys for reminding me, occasionaly I like to mess around with the older games.

If you like older games and have ever played MoO2 (and liked it), get original MoO a try it. I'm completely hooked to both, but original MoO requires less micromanagement and is more random.

Good thing is that dosbox works even in 64bit Win7 which probably will be my next computer OS (Or Win8. Don't know for sure if it has lost the infant diseases before I need to buy new computer, this one starts to be rather old).

[Magnate]

Ploymoprh doesn't just happen. A deliberate action must be taken by the player before anything gets polymorphed. Why then, are you as a maintainer, worried about insta-death. It seems that your trying to circumvent player stupidity, which aside from being a fools task makes for a boring game.

For the simple reason that if there's the smallest chance of instadeath resulting from an action, nobody will ever take that action. That's what makes the game limited and boring.

Back in the old days, in Rogue IIRC, polymorph always transformed the target into something commonly found somewhat deeper, and therefore likely more dangerous to the player. It wouldn't change an orc directly into a wyrm, not that you couldn't get there by using a whole wand full of charges. Why not revert to something like that.

Here's a pitch: A LoS polymorph trap would be neat.

Sounds good. Happy to revert to something like the old behaviour, with the insurance that no polymorphee gets to move before @. It's the same principle that says that IDing staves by use should not result in instadeath from summonees.

[Derakon]

Buzzkill: remember that polymorph can happen from chaos attacks too. That's such a rare case that I don't consider it worth worrying about though. And of course we could also have different rules for player-initiated and monster-initiated polymorphs.

[kaypy]

I was using the one from

http://rephial.org/release/2.4.fk

or rather, one just this side of frogknows

http://rephial.org/release/pcangband-1.3

1.3 is where non-cardinal targetting got introduced, which was kinda my minimum UI requirement. Macros I can do myself at the OS level.

Public service announcement: ancient versions of angband do not have recovery saves, but do have bugs. At very least manually exitsave-and-restart periodically if you don't want your character do learn why glitches are more dangerous than Great Storm Wyrms.

[buzzkill]

I've always wondered why this is the case. I presume it's because in order to avoid instadeath it ends up terribly boring. I think this boosts my case for fixing #572 properly - if we could guarantee that a polymorphee would never get a move before @, we could open up the range of possibilities again, because you'd get at least one turn to get away from the Great Storm Wyrm.

Ploymoprh doesn't just happen. A deliberate action must be taken by the player before anything gets polymorphed. Why then, are you as a maintainer, worried about insta-death. It seems that your trying to circumvent player stupidity, which aside from being a fools task makes for a boring game.

Back in the old days, in Rogue IIRC, polymorph always transformed the target into something commonly found somewhat deeper, and therefore likely more dangerous to the player. It wouldn't change an orc directly into a wyrm, not that you couldn't get there by using a whole wand full of charges. Why not revert to something like that.

Here's a pitch: A LoS polymorph trap would be neat.

[Malak Darkhunter]

Google for dosbox.

I've used dosbox before and have made directorys for it, but I totally forgot it existed, thank you guys for reminding me, occasionaly I like to mess around with the older games.