Preparation for 4.1 release

[Ingwe Ingweron]

New builds on the nightlies page, has fixes for...

Looking good!!!

There are still a few pathing things that seem off, like Saruman not pathing after @. But it may be because it was a special room (the Greater Forge). Saruman would path when @ stepped into the room, but would stop pathing the moment @ stepped out of the room. Same was true of all the other non-unique monsters in the room. @ had high stealth, but once noticed, stepping out shouldn't have made him forgotten. Nick, once you have a chance to actually play, rather than chasing and squashing bugs, I think you'll notice some of the pathing tweaks that might be needed. Other than that, my play through didn't have any issues.

[Nick]

New builds on the nightlies page, has fixes for:

• Apparent doors in front of seen monsters
• Crashes on level generation - a recent change caused the game to crash every time it tried to generate a specific type of object (as in some vaults and template rooms)

Not fixed:

• Monsters pushed into lava not being hurt by it
• Nomad's selling bug

Please let me know of any others.

I'm also likely to revert the "books only get referred to by numbers" change, because it still has some issues which are unlikely to be sorted quickly.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

@Derakon--most characters can't get more than 1 blow with Grond because it's too heavy to use. I don't actually know if it's even possible.

Not so. @'s who wield Grond should most certainly also have donned the Massive Iron Crown, which maxes all stats to 18 ***. Grond then maxes out at 4.7 blows/round. Grond is a pain because of the Impact earthquakes, but other than that is the most incredible weapon in the game by a large margin.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Some more crashes. Not instantly replicable, but, I think if you go deep and then do a bunch of stair scumming, up, down, up, down,... you can get a crash in relatively short order.

[Derakon]

@Derakon--most characters can't get more than 1 blow with Grond because it's too heavy to use. I don't actually know if it's even possible.

It should be possible. Specific screenshot:



That's a priest with maxed stats, playing one of the 3.5 dev versions (so, postdating the formula change).

[Pete Mack]

@Derakon--most characters can't get more than 1 blow with Grond because it's too heavy to use. I don't actually know if it's even possible.

The lost blow affects more than the heaviest weapons. It affects Half-trolls much more than any other race, because it's so hard to get near 18/200 DEX, never mind 18/220. It's not worth even picking up a weapon like Eorlingas anymore.

[Derakon]

When we discussed this at the beginning of the month, with the relevant build, my rogue could get 6 blows. Ive since played a paladin and seen him cap at 5. Since we did discuss nerfing hybrids, i thought the latest build had the max set to 5 for paladins AND rogues.

Then either something changed very recently, or your rogue had +1 blows somewhere on their gear.

[Sky]

When we discussed this at the beginning of the month, with the relevant build, my rogue could get 6 blows. Ive since played a paladin and seen him cap at 5. Since we did discuss nerfing hybrids, i thought the latest build had the max set to 5 for paladins AND rogues.

[Derakon]

Unrealted, i understand paladins and rogues now max out at 5 blows?

This has literally always been the case. The only thing that's changed remotely recently about blows is that several versions ago (Nick says 3.2 and I'd believe him) the formula that gives blows for a given STR and weapon weight was tweaked. The caps have never changed since the very first version of the game. People complaining about the warrior's "lost blow" are really complaining that warriors can't get more than IIRC 5.3 blows/round with max STR and the heaviest weapons, simply because the new blows formula gives that result for 40-pound weapons. I believe they get even fewer blows/round with Grond, but I haven't checked in a long time.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

...that was before I removed the probably cause of the level generation crashes. This is good news, because I now know of no other crash bugs. Except...

Sadly, a crash bug definitely still exists. While I couldn't duplicate the descend after killing Morgoth level generation crash, I just now had a level generation crash upon reading a ?Deep Descent.

EDIT: And again, 5 minutes later, taking some stairs....

[Huqhox]

Totally unrealted also, i believe it deserves a different post. Lets talk about pathing for a sec.

Should mobs always path back to you?

Specifically, if i TS away from a bunch of summons, but still have yellow health, why would a unique with red or purple health path back to me?

I think chasing @ should be restricted if the mob is injured and also if @ is injured, similar to the hounds AI.

A unique might want to find you, but only after they have healed a bit (or a lot), even more so for uniques that can heal self.

That's more about AI than pathing, something to discuss for 4.2 rather than 4.1 but I agree. I've also noticed sometimes when you have monsters with teleport to who are nearly dead, start running then TT you to them just so you can finish them off. Which is very nice of them

[Nomad]

Some slight ID weirdness: I'm wearing an Amulet of Resist Acid, and it's already identified by that name despite the fact I haven't yet learned the rune of rAcid, so it still has the {??} and "You do not know the full extent of this item's powers" message on the Inspect screen. See attached savefile.

Another, possibly related issue I had earlier in the same game: I had two Rings of the Dog, one fully identified, one with the {??} to indicate it still had an unknown curse. I tried to squelch the fully identified one, assuming the other one would be unaffected because I hadn't learned all the runes yet, but squelching Ring of the Dog as a category caused me to drop and ignore both despite one of them having unknown runes.

[Sky]

Totally unrealted also, i believe it deserves a different post. Lets talk about pathing for a sec.

Should mobs always path back to you?

Specifically, if i TS away from a bunch of summons, but still have yellow health, why would a unique with red or purple health path back to me?

I think chasing @ should be restricted if the mob is injured and also if @ is injured, similar to the hounds AI.

A unique might want to find you, but only after they have healed a bit (or a lot), even more so for uniques that can heal self.

[Sky]

I feel Ancalong should squish mobs like Huan does. Huan is a big, horse-sized wolf. Ancalong BROKE A FREKIN MOUNTAIN BY FALLING ON IT.

Unrealted, i understand paladins and rogues now max out at 5 blows?

Gibe back extra blow for warriors nau plos.
Come on, let me "i suck at everything but at least i can rekk you".

[Nick]

Bring back the warrior's extra blow. The way things stand now, Half-Troll warrior is a huge drag. I'm stuck using Aglarang when I have lots of nice heavy weapons at home. This just seems like bad role-playing. A half troll warrior should be able to use a heavy club.

As far as I can determine, the current blows system has been in place since at least 3.2.0; I don't know when or how did warriors lost their extra blow. If we were making lists of things to revert to their pre-2010 state, I don't know how high this would be on mine

This seems like quite a good thing to examine when classes are up for re-examination post 4.1, rather than something to squeeze in at the last minute.