Bugs and complaints on current master

[Nomad]

Okay, here's an old and massively obscure bug. If, when typing an inscription, you press any of the Home/End/Page Up/Page Down buttons, it will add what appears to be a space to the inscription. If you then drop the inscribed item with the offending space, the game will crash:

Assertion failed!

File: z-textblock.c
Line: 115

Expression: new_length >= 0

Out of curiosity I tested it out in some older versions, and this bug occurs all the way back to 3.5.0, but not in 3.4.1.

(Edit: Oops, sorry, wrong bug thread. Having this one hanging around is confusing me.)

[PowerWyrm]

also, you must have changed something in the drop rate. i was on my 3rd amulet of trickery by DL32, and i am finding dwarven shields, armors of speed +5, and gauntlets of combat like it's nobody's business.

That's strange, I'm currently playing the angband-4.0.3-696-ge906c66 nightly and with my bookless egoless char, I'm clearing mid dungeon levels a lot and I didn't come with many OoD finds...

[Pete Mack]

I don't know what you think is wrong with the valuation on that shield. 25K seems about right--it's surely worth the price of yet another copy of Raal's.

[Sky]

another couple of minor observations.

some prices in town seem a bit messed up; i sold a wicker shield 2 +38 (granted, thats some massive AC bonus right there) with +1 light, +2 infravision, basic resists and regen for a whopping 25.000 gold.
helm of vision +5 for 9000 gold.

also, you must have changed something in the drop rate. i was on my 3rd amulet of trickery by DL32, and i am finding dwarven shields, armors of speed +5, and gauntlets of combat like it's nobody's business.

[PowerWyrm]

My current plan is to do a little bugfixing now, and then get on to the monster list revamp, which is the last remaining major pre-4.1 task.

IMO the monster list revamp should be left out for 4.1, which already has a ton of new features, especially if it's gonna impact the list drastically.

[Gwarl]

There is a version.sh in the scripts directory. Which makefile are you using? I use

MINGW=yes make -f Makefile.win

from src when building on MinGW if that helps. Also you can check the buildbot page (I assume you can see that) to see how the autobuilds work.

Okay I see the script.

I just use ./autogen.sh && ./configure --with-options && make

Didn't realise there were makefiles for each platform! I don't really know how to use them though.

I don't know what the buildbot does, I assume it's something that might be helpful when I re-up the server for giving an option to play using the latest nightlies build.

In terms of gameplay though;

My gnome rogue died after I a) dropped my scrolls of satsify hunger after learning the spell b) quaff-ID'd salt water c) chain paralyzed by hunger before I could make it back to where I dropped my scrolls. So I never got telepathy and couldn't really see how the pathfinding was working. I feel like explosive breeders were a lot more of a pain but I'm not sure. I also feel like I've been getting high level devices earlier more often when playing the nightlies - in this case a staff of speed and a rod of drain life (!) by DL20.

I appreciate the efforts made toward rebalancing the status effects but there are still a lot of problems:

The usefulness of confuse monster is very slight, you might get one or two free moves before it wears off. This one has changed from 'don't bother it won't work' to 'don't bother it won't help'.

Reduced charges in the wands basically just translates to slightly higher carry weights and more combing (although I didn't really stop to comb and I built up sufficient charges simply by carrying more of the things). Additionally, there's been no corresponding reduction in max charges for staves - slow monster wand now has around 3 charges but the staff still has 5.

It's done nothing to change the fact that there's still a battle script for any tough encounter of slow+stun.

Like I said before, no-save status effects have drastic cascading effects on gameplay, they'll remain overpowered until they're nerfed to the point of uselessness (like confuse monster is at present) and any attempt to find a happy medium will just lead to tedium as you're forced to do more to get your slight advantage. Like lowering the number of charges in wands - finding fairly common wands isn't particularly dangerous or difficult (i.e. fun/challenging), simply making the player do it more often is just requiring more grind, not solving the issue of no-save status effects inevitably leading to a battle script which reduces the difficulty of tough encounters. You'd have to buff all the uniques by about half the amount status effects they aren't immune to nerf them by, and all that does is get you back where you started with more keystrokes.

I appreciate the willingness to try new things but in this case I really think the wisest course is to roll back the status effect changes and at least put them on ice until after 4.1, because all the other changes from 4.0.5 have been great and it would be a shame to see it undermined by breaking this mechanic so completely.

[Sky]

again, same bug where an artifact can be generate several times.

[Nick]

I'm compiling the lastest release now for a test run - can I request that the git contain a version file, as the makefile seems happier when it gets one?

Also, this build tells me I'm missing libpng12.dll, an error I haven't had before, using windows 10. Easily fixed but I thought I'd make a note.

Finally, the build didn't make save and score folders, and I had to add them manually to make it run, but to be fair this is probably due to using --with-no-install and building in minGW.

There is a version.sh in the scripts directory. Which makefile are you using? I use

MINGW=yes make -f Makefile.win

from src when building on MinGW if that helps. Also you can check the buildbot page (I assume you can see that) to see how the autobuilds work.

[Gwarl]

I'm compiling the lastest release now for a test run - can I request that the git contain a version file, as the makefile seems happier when it gets one?

Also, this build tells me I'm missing libpng12.dll, an error I haven't had before, using windows 10. Easily fixed but I thought I'd make a note.

Finally, the build didn't make save and score folders, and I had to add them manually to make it run, but to be fair this is probably due to using --with-no-install and building in minGW.

I should have been working on my datafile editor but irl has been busy lately and I would rather start this weekend just playing angband. I'll try and put some work in tomorrow.

[Nick]

Latest build on the nightlies page now has a new monster pathfinding algorithm. This is going to change monster behaviour - mostly for the better, I hope, but it will be a bit unpredictable.

Please let me know about the gameplay effect of these changes, positive or negative. I am expecting to have to make further amendments to pathfinding; I am thinking of the current situation as a base to build on.

My current plan is to do a little bugfixing now, and then get on to the monster list revamp, which is the last remaining major pre-4.1 task.

[Pete Mack]

Right. It used to be you'd get 'looks like any other level' if you spent too little time on a given level--meaning there's no way to know if there's an artifact on the level. Now you don't get a level feeling until you've spent enough time on the level. If you miss an artifact, well, that's the risk of using the birth option.

[Derakon]

Your statement is not fully true Derakon. It is only true for artefacts. The level feelings for treasures on level 1-9 would still NOT instantly show up.

And i would disagree to you, if you use the option to loose artefacts leaving a level i would consider it better to know if one is on the level at once.

So what's to stop me from bouncing from level to level until I get a $ feeling? That sounds like exactly the kind of behavior the delayed level feeling is meant to stop.

[Tibarius]

re: level feeling

Your statement is not fully true Derakon. It is only true for artefacts. The level feelings for treasures on level 1-9 would still NOT instantly show up.

And i would disagree to you, if you use the option to loose artefacts leaving a level i would consider it better to know if one is on the level at once.

[Derakon]

I play 4.0.4 with option 'loosing artefacts when leaving level' on. There were a few levels i left without having the $ (artefact) level feeling noticed. So i think if that option is turned on and there is an artefact on the level, then the player should be noticed upon level entry. Else he can miss it completely without even knowing it was there.

If you leave the level before giving it enough time to generate the treasure level feeling, then that's just a risk you're taking. The entire point of delaying the treasure feeling is to keep players from bouncing between two levels until they get a good level feeling (level scumming); giving them an instant $ feeling would undo that fix.

[Tibarius]

level feelings

I play 4.0.4 with option 'loosing artefacts when leaving level' on. There were a few levels i left without having the $ (artefact) level feeling noticed. So i think if that option is turned on and there is an artefact on the level, then the player should be noticed upon level entry. Else he can miss it completely without even knowing it was there.