Class/magic feature branch

[Voovus]

Estie's suggestion for the spell fail instead of Con change for necromancers sounds like a good idea, and I think it's worth trying. With the current setup (yes, I know I'm sort of responsible) I found myself constantly pushing for an extra +4 Con, just to be on the safe side.

Banish, Mass Banish and Destruction now affect vault monsters again

"We love the Vanilla Maintainer" day celebrated in Angband

[Estie]

I see - I really dont like that and would disable it during play if I had the option.

How about a different benefit, for example a -/+ on spell fail chance on dark/light squares ?

[Nick]

Sometimes constitution gets increased for no apparent reason; I found that annoying, as change in hp is a danger signal and draws my attention. Whats the point of this behaviour ?

Necromancers get +2 CON when on darkened square, -2 CON when on light squares.

[Estie]

I have levelled a necro to 50; dump: http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=21608

The game version I played on was angband-4.1.2-180-gabe3acb9d.

Save file and randart file are uploaded here, if anyone wants to play around with an endgame necromancer:

http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=02395735478759369325

http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=62004432907007425183

where the the first one needs to be placed in the save folder, the second in the user folder.

Reading Ingwe´s report, I picked halftroll, distributed points between str dex and int, bought a lucern hammer with my starting gold and took it from there.

Playing without light takes some getting used to, but it kindof works. Which is as well, since the only artifact lightsource I found was cursed - .

Sometimes constitution gets increased for no apparent reason; I found that annoying, as change in hp is a danger signal and draws my attention. Whats the point of this behaviour ?

Some of the spells seem off; others are great utility. I didnt bother with damage spells as my start was with low int. I am going to play around a bit more before drawing conclusions.

[Nick]

All right! New builds are up for Windows and macOS on the build page, source zipfile here.

Changes are:

• Banish, Mass Banish and Destruction now affect vault monsters again
• Druids start with a whip
• Fix bug where monsters hardly ever hit the player
• Fix bug where player didn't get a move for ten turns after throwing something
• Fix bug where monsters were not detected by !*Enlightenment*
• Make darkness cast by necromancers map rooms in the same way that light spells do

I think this now covers all the bugs and balance issues reported in this thread, but please tell me if I'm wrong. I hope this branch is now competition-ready, so please do let me know if I've missed something or if there are further issues. Thanks very much everyone for your helpful reports and discussion.

On your Necro comments, Ingwe:

1. I'll leave this one for now and see what people think after the comp
2. Others have liked shapechanges (in particular, I think the necro's Vampire is really powerful), and they are optional - again, the competition may give more enlightenment
3. Good idea; added
4. Bug; fixed
5. Actually, Holhenneth used to not map at all; continue complaining and I may take it away again

[Nick]

Been playing necromancers for the feature branch on angband.live (no win yet), but have a few observations/comments

Thanks, I'll look at those soon.

Current plan is to get all the issues on this thread (plus a couple more balance tweaks to 4.1.2, which will then com in to this branch as well) roughly sorted over the next few days. Then Gwarl will run a comp for this branch, probably with no savefile and it's just play whatever race/class you want, in the hope of testing them all out at once

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Been playing necromancers for the feature branch on angband.live (no win yet), but have a few observations/comments:

Necro

1. I think starting fighting is nerfed too much (not just for necro). Survival in the first 5 levels of the dungeon is almost entirely dependent on luck.

2. I find shape changing is virtually useless. Then again that may be because I'm not versed in its intricacies.

3. Now that there is a necro class, consider having darkness scrolls, staves, and spells show contours of room when used in a room (c.f., light).

4. !*enlightenment* used to show location of every monster on level for one turn (in vanilla) but now shows only close by. Was this changed for the feature branch, or also for vanilla? Why? Given their extreme rarity, I don't think it was overpowered to have that one glimpse into monster location for one turn on the entire level. [I always saved these VERY rare items, if I could find one, to hunt Sauron, and if extremely lucky enough to get two, then to hunt Morgoth].

5. Holleneth used to map an area commensurate with a scroll or stave of mapping, but now shows only a very small area. Why?

[Nick]

Thanks for the requested reports. I have realised that it was a stupid request, and removed the responsible piece of code - my apologies for wasting your time.

The latest builds are now up for Windows and macOS on the build page (which thanks to myshkin should from now on be only producing the latest builds), with source here.

This build has the nerfs to the blackguard class discussed upthread - impaired HP regen; reduced damage, and confuse and stun chance, from shield bashes; and reduced stacking of blessing and berserk buffs (casting when buffed will only extend by 5 turns). Also, if anyone notices whether the slowdown is fixed, please let me know.

[mrfy]

With the recent update, I'm getting "Gear object mismatch Phase Door - please report" when I buy stuff from the town. Let me know if you need a savefile (+randart.log or .txt?). Seems to happen when I buy anything from any of the shops.

[Estie]

http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=72596322947238659617

http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=15142484529064691961

It happened often with stacking items, one time in town when I was buying ammo.

[Nick]

Gear object mismatch & Bolt~ - please report

Hereby done - want savefile ?

Please, and I might have some questions for you once I've looked at it.

[Estie]

Gear object mismatch & Bolt~ - please report

Hereby done - want savefile ?

[Nick]

Finally, new builds on this branch for Windows and macOS now up on the build page - source zipfile is here.

This build incorporates the bugfixes and tweaks to 4.1.2 (including the trap reduction), and also (I hope) fixes the slowdown reported by several people. Please let me know if that is actually fixed.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

I vaguely remember this bug may have already been reported for the feature branch: when @ throws something (e.g., throwing an arrow), monster gets three moves to @'s one, or @ is frozen in place for some time, or some such thing, is happening.

[AnonymousHero]

Nice work, bad cop

Hey, I resemble that remark!