Issues on current master

[PowerWyrm]

Sleep monster is a big big mess. There are duration values everywhere in the code and the text files and I don't see any coherence in them. The problem is that these values must match monster "sleepiness", so why not simplify the effect by removing the duration and simply affect the timer depending on that value? The corresponding formula is in place_new_monster_one():

int val = race->sleep;
mon->m_timed[MON_TMD_SLEEP] = ((val * 2) + randint1(val * 10));

This would also foolproof the case where a monster is supposed to be always awake (sleepiness = 0) but lacks the NO_SLEEP flag.

[Estie]

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=20710

Playing with randarts as always, this is the first character with artifacts that are substantial upgrades to ego items, in about 10 who made it to the lategame.

4 of the 12 slots are better:
- the ring Eriel is basically a ring of damage with some stats
- the Arkenstone is always better due to activation
- the armor with 2 attacks
- the cap Nelch is a hat of telepathy plus seeing + 5 int

In the rest of the slots, the best artifact is either inferior to or of similar level as the ego, and my other characters had either no or maybe 1 useful artifact (apart from the Arkenstone).

This would not be a problem except the point of randarts is making unpredictable items that lead to somewhat interesting choices when combined to the endgame set. As it is, this does not happen

The story of how this has come to pass, in my view, is as follows:

A new distribution by Fizzix led to previously rare egos becoming commonplace, like great weapons of <high ego> or cloaks of the magi. This made vanilla substantially easier. To counter that somewhat, the measure was to (slightly) nerf artifacts - the most powerful items - both the standarts (for example, Sting and Thorin), and, I assume, if the power value was adjusted, also the randarts based on those standarts.
This pushed the artifacts down close to egos in power, only barely held above by the synergies of the standart set. The randarts that lack this synergy are typically below the egos.

Now if the artifacts were to be improved, this would certainly lead to an "easier" game (again) and more powerfull characters. Difficulty is subjective; however, in my opinion it was a bad idea to try to increase it by tinkering with the artifacts only.

If there is to be a meaningfull option to play with items of random properties, I can see various ways to achieve this:

- randomize the egos in some way
- improve the artifacts; this will lead to powerfull characters and an easy game
- nerf the egos and keep the artifacts as is, so you end up using more randarts.

I dont know how difficult vanilla should be and I dont really care all that much, but it would be nice if there was a way to play with random items that lead to a variation in setups. It is the only way I want to play vanilla. Playing ten games to get one where 1/3 of the items are different is not that.

[Sky]

curses are seen as egos. this leads to a Ring Of The Dog getting sold for 1800 gp in the market (it's normally a 20 gold item).

[PowerWyrm]

"Farmer Maggot looks for his dogs. . Farmer Maggot tells you to get off his land.."

Adding damage for melee attacks didn't take into consideration FM's moaning when dealing with punctuation. Similar issue should also happen with Orfax and co's insults.

[Gwarl]

The latest builds on the nightlies page now have

• saving throws and fixes for status effects and
• fixes to the randart generation crash, and the DL99->DL100 crash

So we would like to hear about balance for both the status effects and the randart generation algorithm.

Gah I still have a character alive from the last build. I just found two scrolls of deep descent though so I'll see about fixing that

[PowerWyrm]

Looking at the new changes for confuse monster, the duration was changed for "confuse monster" (wand + spells) and "confuse monsters" (staff), but not for other effects using MON_CONF: Totila activation (MON_CONFUSE) + Bedlam spell.

[Sky]

yass!
i can finally into morgoth.

[Nick]

The latest builds on the nightlies page now have

• saving throws and fixes for status effects and
• fixes to the randart generation crash, and the DL99->DL100 crash

So we would like to hear about balance for both the status effects and the randart generation algorithm.

[PowerWyrm]

i agree with the stun being overpowered; i was meleeing mobs with a 300 dmg weapon and can take on stuff like Glaurung and the Tarrasque. However, i would like to see this effect lessened, not removed. The idea is right, it just needs tweaking.

Well the point is that stun was not overpowered... it was bugged

[Gwarl]

Ok don't do that. For what I've seen, stuff like Slow and Confuse are still marginally useful because not really powerful, so it's ok to leave them without saving throw.

No! There are profound philosophical objections to disallowing monster saving throws, it's not just a matter of working through the cascade of smaller issues the change causes. I can go through this one again.

[Sky]

i agree with the stun being overpowered; i was meleeing mobs with a 300 dmg weapon and can take on stuff like Glaurung and the Tarrasque. However, i would like to see this effect lessened, not removed. The idea is right, it just needs tweaking.

[takkaria]

Looking at mon-timed.h, the STUN_DAM_REDUCTION value is supposed to be "Percentage reduction in damage". But in mon-attack.c, the code is:

if (stunned) damage = (damage * STUN_DAM_REDUCTION) / 100;

Ah, that's an embarrassing basic maths error. I'll fix that later today and we can see how it plays...

[Pete Mack]

@PowerWyrm--oh wow. I could not figure out how a mage could go something like 20 rounds of melée with a horned reaper with no heals. I was pecking away at around 100 damage/turn, with Barukheled and terrible hit ratio. Yes, it was intended as a demonstration, so the character took significant damage. But it should be essentially impossible, except with something like Deathwreaker. And the stun duration was just forever from Ice Storm.

[PowerWyrm]

I think I'm OK with this. I'll fix the other issues though, and also turn on saving throws for the unresistable effects soon.

Ok don't do that. For what I've seen, stuff like Slow and Confuse are still marginally useful because not really powerful, so it's ok to leave them without saving throw. The problem reported is vs Stun... and that's because there's a bug in the new implementation. Looking at mon-timed.h, the STUN_DAM_REDUCTION value is supposed to be "Percentage reduction in damage". But in mon-attack.c, the code is:

if (stunned) damage = (damage * STUN_DAM_REDUCTION) / 100;

The recent nerfing made that even worse, since this reduces monster damage to 10% of their normal damage while stunned...

Oh and it seems that the same problem applies for STUN_HIT_REDUCTION. In check_hit():

if (debuff) chance = (chance * debuff) / 100;

Fixing both of these will give some threat back to stunned monsters, and removing the saving throw for stunning will be also fine. Maybe bring back the 25% reduction instead of 10% too, because 10% won't do much, especially when damage is low due to rounding down.

[Wanderlust]

I had a problem compiling/installing the May 7 nightly.

I install locally with:

$ ./configure --prefix=$HOME --enable-sdl
$ make
$ make install

Running the program returns:

./angband: Cannot find required file:
/usr/local/share/angband/fonts/6x10x.fon

The same installation procedure works fine with earlier versions, such as the April 25 nightly, which I am running now with no problems.