Curses feature branch

[Nomad]

Haven't managed to get to any real depth yet, but some early thoughts:

• The "Oops! It feels deathly cold!" message felt a little confusing as a long-term player - I automatically associated it with the sticky curse specifically and assumed that what was on the item I'd found. (I do think there should be some sort of warning message when you equip any cursed item, just maybe a differently worded one like "A dark aura surrounds your [item]" or whatever to avoid that association.)

• Having just said that, it feels weird that weapons of Morgul and the Nazgul don't seem to show either that message or the {cursed} tag when you equip them despite having negative traits. I don't think the distinction between "inherently mixed blessing ego" vs. "good ego with added curses" is clear enough from the player side for that behaviour to make sense.

• I know the intent was to have curses start appearing early on to give the player a chance to start IDing them, but I'm not sure how well that actually works. If I find an average or magical weapon with a curse that doesn't ID immediately on wielding, I have zero motivation to either keep wielding it or waste a rare early ID scroll to identify the curse. I feel like it would be better to either make all curses immediately apparent on wielding, and/or only have them occur on egos and jewellery.

I haven't really come across/identified enough individual curses to have specific thoughts on those yet.

Also, an unrelated trap branch bug I found while playtesting this: immediately after coming down a staircase, I stumbled over an unseen trap. It looks like the game is not checking for adjacent traps when you first enter a level (via stairs, at least) so if there's one right next to the entrance square you won't see it before stepping on it.

[Nick]

The "Oops! It feels deathly cold!" message felt a little confusing as a long-term player - I automatically associated it with the sticky curse specifically and assumed that what was on the item I'd found. (I do think there should be some sort of warning message when you equip any cursed item, just maybe a differently worded one like "A dark aura surrounds your [item]" or whatever to avoid that association.)

Yeah, good point. I'll have a look at the messages generally.

• Having just said that, it feels weird that weapons of Morgul and the Nazgul don't seem to show either that message or the {cursed} tag when you equip them despite having negative traits. I don't think the distinction between "inherently mixed blessing ego" vs. "good ego with added curses" is clear enough from the player side for that behaviour to make sense.

• I know the intent was to have curses start appearing early on to give the player a chance to start IDing them, but I'm not sure how well that actually works. If I find an average or magical weapon with a curse that doesn't ID immediately on wielding, I have zero motivation to either keep wielding it or waste a rare early ID scroll to identify the curse. I feel like it would be better to either make all curses immediately apparent on wielding, and/or only have them occur on egos and jewellery.

These ones I'm inclined to leave for a bit and see how it settles down when player expectations have adjusted to the new stuff.

Also, an unrelated trap branch bug I found while playtesting this: immediately after coming down a staircase, I stumbled over an unseen trap. It looks like the game is not checking for adjacent traps when you first enter a level (via stairs, at least) so if there's one right next to the entrance square you won't see it before stepping on it.

Thanks, I've noticed something like this but not chased it down yet.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Do Boots of Wormtongue no longer have a "sticky" curse? @ found and removed such a curse on a regular item some time ago, but now having found the Boots of Wormtongue, they show as fully identified and have no curse associated with them (apart from their regular pluses and minuses).

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Was surprised to find The Cloak of Thingol had a curse (sticky curse). Also there is a bug in the messages line when a curse is removed. Casting a remove curse spell resulted in a question asking if I wanted to remove the sticky curse and told the power of the curse (in this case power 20) and the message line:
"The D[][] curse is removed!" (Where "[]" is actually a box.)

[Nick]

Was surprised to find The Cloak of Thingol had a curse (sticky curse).

So am I - I don't know how that happened. It may be related to the bug in the message somehow.

Also yes, at this point there are only two standard artifacts with the sticky curse. There just didn't seem much point.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Well, there's something off about the curses branch when it comes to artifacts.

@ just found the Hard Leather Armor of Himring (+0,+0) [20,+15], which has poison resistance, but in this case is also cursed with poison. (Poison power 10, when @ casts remove curse.) No strange characters in the message line this time, though. Also, I don't recall body armor having pluses to hit and damage identified (even if they are zero). I'm not talking about an encumbrance penalty, but the (+0,+0) on Himring.

[Nick]

Well, there's something off about the curses branch when it comes to artifacts.

@ just found the Hard Leather Armor of Himring (+0,+0) [20,+15], which has poison resistance, but in this case is also cursed with poison. (Poison power 10, when @ casts remove curse.) No strange characters in the message line this time, though. Also, I don't recall body armor having pluses to hit and damage identified (even if they are zero). I'm not talking about an encumbrance penalty, but the (+0,+0) on Himring.

That's really odd. Could you post your savefile? RL is interfering with my ability to maintain, but there's a small chance I may have some time to look at it in the next week or two

[Ingwe Ingweron]

That's really odd. Could you post your savefile? RL is interfering with my ability to maintain, but there's a small chance I may have some time to look at it in the next week or two

Next time it comes up, will do. Totally understand about the RL. I'm also dealing with a lot of RL these days.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Another odd bug, fight a bunch of Dreads and Dreadmasters in a hallway. You will likely see object stacks "&" fall in the peripheral walls, not just the corridor floor.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Okay Nick, here is the list of bugs I found on my initial run-through of the curses branch. Next time I will try and get a savefile for you on each of these:

1. targeting display error (axis swapped) (doesn't affect actual targeting, just display)
2. curses on artifacts that aren’t normally cursed
3. display message errors on remove curse (gobbly-gook characters in message)
4. nazgul weapons/launchers in stores (is this intentional? what shopkeeper would keep such dreadful items in stock?)
5. Treasure/object drops from Dreads appearing inside walls
6. crash on walkover of Morgoth drops (I think it was the crown).

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Okay, I have begun to more methodically test the curses feature branch. The attached save file of Testo, a half-troll warrior, will demonstrate three bugs:

1. Targeting display bug. Simply target the pitiful looking beggar to the south and you will see the targeting display box on the lower left outside the walls of the town.

2. Curse not disclosed bug and 3. Staff not identifying. This bug has two components. (A) @ is wearing a fully identified =Dexterity (+4), so knows the runes associated therewith. @ is also carrying a =Dexterity (+2), this one with "??". Don the +2 Dex ring and "Oops! It feels deathly cold!". So it's cursed. BUT, examine the ring, no curse is disclosed. (B) Next, use the Cedar Staff @ is carrying (it happens to be Remove Curse, but isn't identified as such because every previous use revealed that @ had no curses to remove, but the staff didn't identify [a bug for the Rune-id branch, I suppose]) or in the alternative read the ?Remove Curse @ is carrying. "You have no curse to remove."

Savefile: Testo.zip

[Nick]

Thanks, I will look at this - but not for a while. Remind me if I haven't said anything in a week or two.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Thanks, I will look at this - but not for a while. Remind me if I haven't said anything in a week or two.

Will do. Hopefully, by then I will also have nailed down savefiles for the other bugs.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Here is the monster drops appearing inside walls bug. @ just killed a Death Drake. Observe the Rod of Curing inside the wall immediately to @'s right. On reload, I note that the wall appears solid, no longer showing the symbol for the dropped item. However, simply dig into the wall immediately to the right (should be easy now that @ has found Aule) and you will see the rod that was dropped inside the wall. How many other items have I been missing inside of walls?!

Savefile: Testo 2.zip

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Bug: Items previously found and ignored being redisplayed as unknown objects after another treasure detection within their range. Note the two red asterisks to @'s left. These were previously ignored objects, but now show again after use of treasure detection. [Edit: Doesn't show on reload, so just zap the treasure detection rod again and you will see the unknown but previously ignored objects displayed.]

Savefile: Testo 3.zip