Bugs and issues in 4.1.0

[Nick]

OK, there is a new build on the nightlies page which has the following changes to 4.1.0:

• Running can now take a command count (thanks kaypy)
• Some structural improvements, typos fixed, etc (thanks AndreyB)
• Fix to the bug where an item could have an apparent unknown rune, but couldn't be identified
• Elvish Waybread now heals a flat 20HP (and the description agrees)
• Levels with a single vault and the player on a disconnected grid should no longer appear
• If they do, ?Phase should fail with a message rather than hanging the game
• Several changes to randarts:
  • Negative level allocations should no longer be possible
  • Curses have been toned down considerably
  • To-hit and to-dam on gloves is now specifically looked for, which should result in it occurring more often
  • Fixed the issue (thanks Estie) where quickstart characters were basing their new randart sets off the previous randart set instead of the standard artifacts
  I still want to do more work on randarts, mostly on the issue that they get a lot of little bonuses (notably slays) rather than a few large ones

[spara]

Should a wand of stone to mud identify itself when aimed at a monster that is hurt by it, like umberhulk?

[fph]

On #2029: TMI when blind, please add that the monster list window contains a line about 'monsters you see' also when you are blind and have ESP.

[Nick]

For those wondering what's happening with development, I'm currently filing (and in some minor cases fixing) bugs reported since the 4.1.0 release. I'll start reporting here on updates to nightly builds when they start happening.

[Nick]

When I try to compile on Debian unstable:

[elided]
Successfully compiled z-virt.c.
Successfully compiled z-util.c.
/usr/bin/ld: -r and -pie may not be used together
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
Makefile:34: recipe for target 'angband.o' failed
make[3]: *** [angband.o] Error 1
make[3]: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs....
Successfully compiled main-gcu.c.
Successfully compiled main-x11.c.
../mk/buildsys.mk:110: recipe for target 'all' failed
make[2]: *** [all] Error 2
mk/buildsys.mk:115: recipe for target 'subdirs' failed
make[1]: *** [subdirs] Error 2
mk/buildsys.mk:110: recipe for target 'all' failed
make: *** [all] Error 2

gcc 6.3.0
GNU gold 1.14

Happy to provide extra info if necessary.

Edit: tried compiling with clang 3.8.1: the linking phase succeeded, I'll play to see if everything seems okay.

I think I have a fix for this in development - it's to replace

       $(LD) -nostdlib -Wl,-r -o $@ $(OBJECTS)

by

       $(LD) -nostdlib -r -o $@ $(OBJECTS)

in src/Makefile. Found it somewhere on searching, explanation seemed plausible, seems to work, don't fully understand.

[Estie]

I ran into a bug that had been posted about elsewhere - the game creating an artifact with negative level allocation, which made starting the game impossible. I tried to fix by manually changing the negative level values and that did work, however the next artifact set also had such an artifact, and so did the 3rd so I was assuming it would continue. Thats where I deleted everything and reinstalled.

I have a suspicion that creating a new randart set somehow does not start from scratch, but instead uses values from the previous set. It looks like both the amount of curses and high value properties like extra attacks somehow aggregate, possibly the curses do (which might lead to super cursed items with eventually negative allocation levels) and the game picks extra attacks and slays to cancel that to get a reasonable power value. If this is the case, my new installation should go crazy too eventually.

Edit: none of this explains why I never get extra might randart launchers; does anyone have a rough estimate for the probability of a laucher picking up might ?

[kandrc]

I am afraid I deleted it when I reinstalled.

I, too, am getting ridiculous artifacts with almost everything cursed. It's bad enough that I've suicided a few apparent winners because it simply wasn't fun. I'm running in my git view where I built and ran nightlies for many months (years?), though I was forced to blow things away a couple of times.

[Estie]

i hope you have saved the borked installation folder? i'd like to see that.

I am afraid I deleted it when I reinstalled.

[Derakon]

Drink the potion, and it is guaranteed to ID on use. There are no Potions of Death/Detonations; IIRC the worst ones are Lose Memories, Poison, and stat-swap potions that are for stats you don't care about. But you can afford to drink one of each of these bad potions for each character.

The changes in 4.1 are intended to make the "ID minigame" less irritating, not more. They may not be perfect, but IMO they're still an improvement over the old days. I'm sorry that you don't agree.

[Muscleguy]

Had it.

Okay I have now had it with 4.1. Now I can't Identify potions? potions!!!!!!

I'm ditching it and going back to 4.0.4. I hereby repent of looking for a new version. I pledge never again to do so, to maintain and buy old computers, operate on them to keep them going (I'm awaiting new fans for this macbook).

Wands I might understand aim and observe, outside the character. But potions!!!!! I am NOT going to delve further in and find the same applies to rods, that would be too much to bear.

Here endeth my contributions to this thread.

I repent, I repent, i repent.

[Nick]

I've been pondering this and related issues for a while. Why can't rogue character steal stuff from monsters? Every single blue p or h in the game can try and knick stuff of me, forcing me to hunt the blighters down and kill them with extreme prejudice to get my gold back.

there are uniques who can do it too, starting of course with Smeagol. So why not rogue characters? Imagine the joy of it, and the challenge: with enough stealth you could pilfer the dungeon and every treasure carrying monster while they sleep. Rogues could even have a special spell of 'Find treasure carriers' kin to the priest spell of Detect Evil.

And while we are at it, how come apprentices and gnome mages blind me but I can't blind them?

There are variants where both of these happen. Blinding seems a bit of a niche thing, but stealing might make it into V one day.

[Nick]

What the hell happened to the ability to identify something the character is standing on? My Dunedain Ranger is standing on a mithril wand with a pack chock full. I have three scrolls of identify.

Rune-based ID, introduced in 4.1, means

• All wearable item properties (RAcid, Slay Orc, Hold Life, etc) count as runes - once discovered, you will always know them on any new item
• ID magic (scrolls and the mage spell) will teach you one additional unknown rune on an item you have
• scrolls and potions identify on use, or on selling (or giving) one to a shop
• wands, staffs and rods mostly ID on use; things like Sleep Monster require a monster nearby

So use the wand, and if it still doesn't ID, use it on a monster.

[Derakon]

There are a lot of inconsistencies that boil down to "monsters do not use the same rules as the player". It'd conceptually possible to change that so that they do, but things like blindness, that change what information is available to the blinded unit, would require changes to the AI and are a lot more far-ranging than stuff like confusion. You have to balance the cost of such changes against the benefits they'd provide. If you could blind monsters, when would you use that instead of confusion? Status effects are already hard to balance (as we've discovered rather recently when some changes were attempted), and adding more of them would surely end up diluting their relative importances.

A wide and varied pool of status effects for the player is of course a completely different matter, both because you don't have to write the player's "AI", and because the more avenues of attack that monsters have, the more complexity is possible with respect to game balance. Similar logic is presumably why we have more than just acid/electricity/fire/cold/poison as elements.

[Sky]

What the hell happened to the ability to identify something the character is standing on?

that ability is still in the game; what is no longer in the game, is the ability to identify scrolls, wands, staves, rods, potions, etc.
you can ONLY identify weapons and armor.

We now use a rune system where each modifier is its own rune. For example, slay orcs is a rune. resist dark is a rune. speed is a rune.

this way, once you have identified, yes wait, i know you are fuming now, but hear me out.
Once you have identified a rune ONCE, you ALWAYS recognize that rune. So once you recognize boots [OF SPEED]. you will recognize ALL boots which have [OF SPEED].
If you already know the runes [OF SPEED] and [OF STEALTH], for example, and you find your first Boots Of Elvenkind, you will not need to Identify them, you will immediately know what they are.

The big difference is that once you identify every rune once, you can just throw away the Identify scrolls. No longer do you have to find "yet another weapon of Gondolin", because any of those you look at, you immediately recognize.

For everything else, well, use it and see.

[Muscleguy]

Why can't rogues steal?

I've been pondering this and related issues for a while. Why can't rogue character steal stuff from monsters? Every single blue p or h in the game can try and knick stuff of me, forcing me to hunt the blighters down and kill them with extreme prejudice to get my gold back.

there are uniques who can do it too, starting of course with Smeagol. So why not rogue characters? Imagine the joy of it, and the challenge: with enough stealth you could pilfer the dungeon and every treasure carrying monster while they sleep. Rogues could even have a special spell of 'Find treasure carriers' kin to the priest spell of Detect Evil.

And while we are at it, how come apprentices and gnome mages blind me but I can't blind them? they can confuse me, fine, i can confuse them back. A wand of confuse kept me alive, just against a cavern full of assorted orcs when I went down too many levels too fast (Omens of Doom on level 15) I went up three whole levels killing them all. It was glorious and daring and nailbiting. I emptied three wands and drank over 10 cure light wound potions.

Why can't I blind a pesky mage or joy, of joys a hound? Well maybe not hounds they can smell after all. But I hope you see my point.

Arms should be equal. Stealing rogues and a blind spell is not much to ask