Issues on current master

[Nick]

I have now collected all (I think) the bugs on the old thread, and put them on the bugtracker. Note that there has been an update to the new status effects since any issues with them have been reported, so I am not currently counting anything related to them as a bug.

Please report new issues on this thread now; checking that bug list to see if your bug is already reported would be helpful too.

I am hoping to get some of the worst ones (like the repeated randart bug) fixed fairly soon; I will report here as new builds go up.

[Nomad]

With the pathfinding changes, breeders now seem to wake up and start breeding explosively before you're even close enough to see them. I'm wandering the early levels at the moment and keep running into sections overrun by big mobs of mice.

[Nick]

With the pathfinding changes, breeders now seem to wake up and start breeding explosively before you're even close enough to see them. I'm wandering the early levels at the moment and keep running into sections overrun by big mobs of mice.

OK, I probably need to either make them sleep longer, or nerf their hearing. Or both.

[t4nk]

monster_can_hear_or_smell():

	if (mon->race->smell > cave->scent.grids[mon->fy][mon->fx]) return true;

Scent is mem_zalloc'ed, so I think you need to check that it's not 0 here.
edit: and, I guess, the noise too?

[Gwarl]

Didn't see this thread, I'll just copy/paste part of what I posted on the other one:

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.

Note that my complaining about status effects here is on a build after the rebalncing a few days ago. I remain convinced that negative status effects require a save not to break the gameplay, and that even if I'm wrong there it's going to be extremely difficult to get a system like this right.

[Sky]

i also notice a *much* larger number of breeders.

EDIT: are any of the older nightlies being kept? for example, say, 638-g1-dce88. it was stable and didnt have the same-artifact bug which is all the newer releases.
i'm looking here: http://rephial.org/nightlies but can only find back to march 19.

i can't tell if there is a major difference in pathing, but i'm under the impression that i can kite mobs easier, now.

[Patashu]

I guess what would balance status effects is if you had to decide on investing in status effects vs investing in other stuff. But having to dedicate an inventory slot to status effects isn't enough of a tradeoff, the drawback is always smaller than the benefit. If the tradeoff was like 'your melee attacks are worse, but you can reliably land confuse on enemies' then it would be more of a meaningful decision. (Maybe Crawl's design philosophy should be an inspiration here.)

[Nick]

are any of the older nightlies being kept? for example, say, 638-g1-dce88. it was stable and didnt have the same-artifact bug which is all the newer releases.
i'm looking here: http://rephial.org/nightlies but can only find back to march 19.

Here is the full list, more recent ones at the top.

[Nick]

OK, new builds up on the nightlies page. These probably will break your savefile.

Changes:

• Fix to repeated randart bug;
• A 4.0.5 lore file can now be used (although it will be rewritten so it can't be read by 4.0.5 any more);
• Experimental change to waking up which should fix the breeder issue, but please report how the balance of stealth compares to the pre-pathfinding-change setup.

[Gwarl]

I guess what would balance status effects is if you had to decide on investing in status effects vs investing in other stuff. But having to dedicate an inventory slot to status effects isn't enough of a tradeoff, the drawback is always smaller than the benefit. If the tradeoff was like 'your melee attacks are worse, but you can reliably land confuse on enemies' then it would be more of a meaningful decision. (Maybe Crawl's design philosophy should be an inspiration here.)

Angband isn't crawl and with good reason.

The fix is to allow monsters a save. That's it.

[Sky]

Did you increase the drop ratio? I found a steady stream of OOD gear. Westernesse from a DL2 kobold, PDSM craftsmanship DL32, dwarven mail, RoS +5 .. a whole bunch of 9-9 and 8-9 levels.

[Pete Mack]

Consider: One, probability is a factor which operates *within* natural forces. Two, probability is *not* operating as a factor. Three, we are now held within un-, sub- or super-natural forces. Discuss.

Did you increase the drop ratio? I found a steady stream of OOD gear. Westernesse from a DL2 kobold, PDSM craftsmanship DL32, dwarven mail, RoS +5 .. a whole bunch of 9-9 and 8-9 levels.

[takkaria]

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

Thanks for the feedback. I'm going to think on this a little bit more, and if I can't come up with anything else, I'll turn on saving throws for all monster status effects again. If that still doesn't play well, I'll back out the changes. And if the changes around status effects are broken by the time Nick wants to release 4.1, they won't go in that release - so please don't worry about 4.1 being broken because of this tinkering.

[PowerWyrm]

The initial problem was that saving throw formula was too restrictive, which was changed. So maybe just stick with the new formula for all effects and reintroduce the saving throws? Also removing the wands from shop 6 would help.

[Sky]

Lets take a page out of rolemaster and use a similar formula.
The following are factors - actual values need to be playtested:
1. Inherent spell level
2. Caster level
3. Target level
4. Specific resistance
5. Random die roll

If the result is over a certain value, you get full spell effect. ( rm also had criticals..)
Below a minimum, no effect, and in a range, variable partial effect.

1 doesnt need to be exactly the casting level, it can be a modifier a specific spell has (e.g. "annihilate" +20).

Obviously, this approach requires a whole lot more coding...

This way, instead of having spells have no/rarely effect, or always effect and thus OP, you generally have a partial effect (e.g. light stun, 2 round confusion, slowed -3, etc) with occasionally either full status or none at all.

The stronger you are (and weaker the target) the more likely a full effect, with the opposite also true.