V 3.5 now in feature freeze

[Nomad]

Just found my first mini ant nest at 500'. Good fun, and about the right size for my character to tackle, though I did get spammed by a ridiculous number of "Something slams against a door" messages from the ants trying to get out while I was exploring the area around it and looking for a way in. (Literally over 100 messages in a row, without the ants succeeded in breaking through - seems like something must be amiss with the bashing mechanic there?)

The dungeon levels are definitely looking a lot more interesting now. Just stumbled on the first of my templated rooms on the same level, and the layout seems less sparse and empty in general. (Incidentally, I don't know if you'll want to add them now we're in feature freeze, but I designed another dozen or so room templates a while back that I could upload.)

And I like the decision to push the early rings a bit deeper. The first time I spotted one there was a little moment of, "Hey, a ring!" that you don't get when you're finding all the items right at the beginning.

[takkaria]

Just found my first mini ant nest at 500'. Good fun, and about the right size for my character to tackle, though I did get spammed by a ridiculous number of "Something slams against a door" messages from the ants trying to get out while I was exploring the area around it and looking for a way in. (Literally over 100 messages in a row, without the ants succeeded in breaking through - seems like something must be amiss with the bashing mechanic there?)

Yeah, it should be a bit better as of today's build, thanks to PowerWyrm.

The dungeon levels are definitely looking a lot more interesting now. Just stumbled on the first of my templated rooms on the same level, and the layout seems less sparse and empty in general. (Incidentally, I don't know if you'll want to add them now we're in feature freeze, but I designed another dozen or so room templates a while back that I could upload.)

Oh, please do! More room templates would be excellent. I think they could comfortably go in now, it's not like they can cause crashes or bugs or anything. (Famous last words...)

And I like the decision to push the early rings a bit deeper. The first time I spotted one there was a little moment of, "Hey, a ring!" that you don't get when you're finding all the items right at the beginning.

I'm glad it's working.

[Nomad]

More room templates would be excellent. I think they could comfortably go in now, it's not like they can cause crashes or bugs or anything. (Famous last words...)

Well, they can't crash anything (I hope) but they can certainly give you a pretty mangled layout if you get the spacing wrong in the edit file. But I did some level scumming with cheat_room on and they all seem to display okay. Here's the updated edit file, which adds another 20 room types.

[takkaria]

Well, they can't crash anything (I hope) but they can certainly give you a pretty mangled layout if you get the spacing wrong in the edit file. But I did some level scumming with cheat_room on and they all seem to display okay. Here's the updated edit file, which adds another 20 room types.

Included, thanks!

[Nomad]

Having played a few games and got a character down to 2000' before he died to a mana bolt from Gorlim, I'm definitely very impressed with 3.5 so far. Much more fun to play than 3.4 (which I got frustrated with because the dearth of ego weapons and armour made it hard to keep my warriors alive past about 1500'). The new drop rates seem a lot better, and I like the elemental rings appearing earlier too - I got a fair bit of use out of a ring of ice before I found a good damage ring to replace it.

The levels are far more varied and interesting to explore as well. I really like the new smaller nests and pits; they're a much better size for characters to risk taking on in the early game. (I even cleared a jelly nest.) The rooms full of themed items are great too - it's very cool to come across a little stash of consumables in one place. I find I'm actually diving faster and running away from dangerous locations more often, because there's more a of promise that if you flee an interesting area you'll find something equally worthwhile later.

And I love the new smaller and more varied monster groups - far less boring than battling through great hordes of the same type of monsters. Themed uniques appearing together is fun too. (For values of "fun" that sometimes involve, "Aargh, run away, run away!") I came across Bolg and Azog as a pair, and the trio of stone trolls.

I can't speak for how balanced it is, but it definitely feels like a big leap forward over 3.4 in terms of fun and interest. Really enjoying it!

[ekolis]

The shop interface seems a bit confused. You scroll through the items with the arrow keys, but "g" and "l" don't buy/examine the selected item; instead, they prompt for an item as in old versions of Angband. Still, certain letters used for commands don't have items associated with them, and the help for the shop interface says the "g" and "l" buy/examine the selected item, rather than prompting.

Also, pressing 0/Insert on the numpad with numlock turned off no longer triggers the count prompt for the next command; I have to press the 0 above the O/P keys.

When I died, examining my starting dagger said it did a LOT less damage than it said it did when I was alive...

[Antoine]

Thanks Nomad for your comments on the new monster and unique groups.

If anyone else had comments on these I would be interested to hear them...

A.

[PowerWyrm]

Yup! Here: https://github.com/angband/angband/b...er/changes.txt

I think this is one of the longest changelists we've ever had. In particular feedback on the following would be helpful:

* Replace rings of rFire & rCold with one ring, rFire&Cold
* Move =Flames/Ice/Lightning/Acid higher in the dungeon
* Radically improve Slow Digestion (you nearly never need to eat with it).
* Tweak mushrooms:
- fast recovery heals some HP, clear mind heals 10SP.
- substantially increase duration of telepathy from ,SecondSight and rConf from ,ClearMind.
- Terror now gives you +10 speed

All changes here are great, but the slow digestion system could probably let digestion be a bit faster.

[PowerWyrm]

Why can't no-selling just *prevent* selling, not rip off the player???

For example: by selling your empty staves/wands to 6 for 0 gold, you can get them recharged at a much more interesting price than buying recharge scrolls... and it never fails!

[PowerWyrm]

Yes. One fun part of the game is to find out what things do.

You can also just open the monster.txt file in /lib/edit and get the info

[PowerWyrm]

When I died, examining my starting dagger said it did a LOT less damage than it said it did when I was alive...

When your character dies, the game calculates the damage as if you were raised as a zombie wearing that dagger. And everybody knows zombies are slow and weak.

[takkaria]

For example: by selling your empty staves/wands to 6 for 0 gold, you can get them recharged at a much more interesting price than buying recharge scrolls... and it never fails!

I would like (at some unspecified point in the future) to sort out the shop stuff so that we have store services for recharging and identification and then no selling players can use those and can get rid of the somewhat confusing mechanic where you sell items for 0 gold to a store for side-effects.

[fizzix]

I can't speak for how balanced it is, but it definitely feels like a big leap forward over 3.4 in terms of fun and interest. Really enjoying it!

So, there really was not an attempt to balance the grouped uniques. Personally, in my few playthroughs, I found them to be a bit too hard and wouldn't mind either weakening some of them (lowering HP) or moving them deeper, or maybe some of both.

I know Derakon has thought that grouped giants are too hard, so feedback on that also is useful. These are trivial changes to make, since everything is now in the edit files. It just needs player feedback on where to go.

[MattB]

Not sure if thus is a bug or not...

...but I just found this lying on the ground on dlvl1, a 'nothing much interesting' level.

Not that I'm complaining, a cloak of protection (1,+13) will do very micely indeed, thank you, especially as it was the first thing I saw!

[MattB]

Not sure if thus is a bug or not...

...but I just found this lying on the ground on dlvl1, a 'nothing much interesting' level.

Not that I'm complaining, a cloak of protection (1,+13) will do very micely indeed, thank you, especially as it was the first thing I saw!

Oops, forgot attachment...