You teleport away from danger into new danger

[Grotug]

You teleport back to original danger.
You teleport back to "new" danger.
You teleport back to original danger.
You teleport back to "new" danger.
You teleport back to original danger.
You failed to concentrate hard enough. You die.

Ummm... seems like it might be more fun if I teleport to a new location each time? Just a thought.... It seems really dumb that self teleport only takes you between two locations in the whole map. I don't understand what's going on here. Is it intentionally programmed to behave like this, or does it do this because maps are small and it tries to send you somewhere far away? Even when I interchanged between staff teleport and book Portal, I was still bouncing back between the same two spots; didn't matter which method of self teleport I used.

Terrible luck second half of the dive. Started out promising, got some good armors and a powerful +17 light xbow early as well as an early esp weapon swap, pBlind and rod of detection from store, but there's only so much I can bop around a level away from almost everything since level after level after level gives me no items but tons of monsters I can't deal with and that won't leave me alone once I reached DL40. Grrrr. No new weapons, no FrAct off ring, no TO. 63 damage a round doesn't really work at DL49. Not a single stat potion the entire DL40s! Except one stat swap which is native to like DL28.

I dunno if I want to try another no artifact, though I feel like I could have had just as lousy luck with artifacts on. The real problem was the lack of *any* good items throughout the DL40s (except 4 healing potions), but tons of troublesome monsters like death quasits and unique wringwraiths that wouldn't leave me alone.

And if that's not bad enough, teleport keeps sending me back and forth between the same two dangerous locations until I die. Seems to me the game would be more fun if teleport was a method of getting away from danger and exploring a level quickly at the risk of being one shotted. But back and forth ad nauseum is really annoying.

[Nick]

Ummm... seems like it might be more fun if I teleport to a new location each time? Just a thought.... It seems really dumb that self teleport only takes you between two locations in the whole map. I don't understand what's going on here. Is it intentionally programmed to behave like this, or does it do this because maps are small and it tries to send you somewhere far away? Even when I interchanged between staff teleport and book Portal, I was still bouncing back between the same two spots; didn't matter which method of self teleport I used.

What teleport does is (assuming you're playing 4.1):

1. Get the standard teleport distance (CLx3 for Portal, 100 for staff);
2. Add or subtract a random value up to 25% of the original;
3. Make a list of all grids, and pick the one closest to being the target distance away.

So if you're using a staff, it will pick some distance between 75 and 125 grids away, and try to teleport you to a grid exactly that far away, or if not as close as it can get to that far. So hopping from place to place can happen if the dungeon is a particular configuration, but shouldn't ordinarily.

[PowerWyrm]

He's clearly using the spell, which teleports up to 400 grids away. In 99% of the cases, adding or removing 25% of the distance does nothing, as the value is still way above the size of the map and the code simply picks up a location at the edge of the map and teleporting again pick up the location at the complete opposite of the map.

[Grotug]

I was using portal mostly but staff once or twice. I was not using self teleport (I didn't have it). I believe I was CL29 at the time.

It often happens that I bounce back and forth while trying to teleport around a level or away from danger. Not all the time, but more often than I'd like. I'd say it's rare I teleport between 4 different locations, and 3 seems the most common. But I guess I think it'd be better if I'd teleport between like 6-8 different locations.

My suggestion is that the various self teleportations are all too far. Portal should be like 30 squares regardless of CL. Or, if having portal increase as CL goes up is important, then the minimum should be like 15 and the max like 40. Most levels are around 150 at their greatest distance, so having a teleportation that maxes out at 400 is too high.

Maybe teleportation ranges should take the map size into account, rather than be a value determined without any consideration of the map size as seems to be the current system. So if the max distance in a map is 165, then self teleport would teleport you up to 120 squares, and portal would teleport you up to 50 squares so that this bouncing back and forth nonsense doesn't happen so frequently.

Another thing I'd really like to see is two distances to Phase Door / Blink instead of just one (so, a new spell for both caster types). So maybe Blink would be like the current value (which I think is up to 10 squares away) and Phase Door would be a bit farther, maybe up to 19 squares away.

But, I hope I am not the only one who sees the flaw in the portal/teleport distances being too far, the consequence of which is that most of the time there isn't an appreciable difference between teleport and portal.

I play this game a lot. It's over many games and many teleportation experiences that I am making this post. I almost never use the self teleoprt spell, even when I get it and have 400 SP because portal is so close in distance to teleport. Portal, even as a CL50 Paladin should still be noticeably shorter distance than teleport, but dungeon level sizes are not nearly large enough to make this the case with the current way that teleport/self teleport distances are determined.

[Nick]

My suggestion is that the various self teleportations are all too far. Portal should be like 30 squares regardless of CL. Or, if having portal increase as CL goes up is important, then the minimum should be like 15 and the max like 40. Most levels are around 150 at their greatest distance, so having a teleportation that maxes out at 400 is too high.

Maybe teleportation ranges should take the map size into account, rather than be a value determined without any consideration of the map size as seems to be the current system. So if the max distance in a map is 165, then self teleport would teleport you up to 120 squares, and portal would teleport you up to 50 squares so that this bouncing back and forth nonsense doesn't happen so frequently.

Good thinking - I'll have a think about how that might work.

[Grotug]

Cool, thanks!

[Chud]

What teleport does is (assuming you're playing 4.1):

1. Get the standard teleport distance (CLx3 for Portal, 100 for staff);
2. Add or subtract a random value up to 25% of the original;
3. Make a list of all grids, and pick the one closest to being the target distance away.

Interesting, thanks. I've also noted the ping-pong-between-two spots behavior with the longer distance teleports.

How about something more random... instead of keeping a "standard teleport distance," keep two, a standard min and max distance (tweak the values of these as needed). Then make a list of all grids that fall between these two distances, and pick one at random (that isn't in a vault). Or something similar?

[PowerWyrm]

That's what I implemented in PWMAngband: I keep "old" player y/x position when teleporting around and when teleporting again, I check that the landing area is as far away as possible from that location, while keeping the original behavior (teleporting x squares away). Works fine, I rarely see @ teleporting back into the same spot.

[Thraalbee]

I added a Phase Door II spell with 2x range. Tried several games. Very useful in the earlier game. Almost too good in fact. But for mages a reasonable spell especially with my other changes

[Sky]

we should also give credit to the guy who originally reported this last year.

[Derakon]

we should also give credit to the guy who originally reported this last year.

What about the people that reported it the year before that, or the year before that, or ...?

Teleportation sending you back to where you've been before has been griped about many times in the past, just nobody's bothered to take action on it, for whatever reason.

[luneya]

Until it gets fixed, there's a workaround of sorts: just don't cast teleport self. The real problem here is that the range of the teleport self spell is larger than the level size, so it drops you at the single farthest point in the level from where you started. The staff of teleportation has a much shorter range, so it's less likely to get you into trouble. Mages need to be carrying a staff anyway in case they get blinded or confused. So if casting teleportation moves you from the frying pan into the fire, use your staff for the second teleport attempt, and you'll likely land clear. Once you get blindness and confusion resistance, hold onto your staff nonetheless until you can also reliably use portal or teleport level as your escape spell, since teleport self isn't a reliable escape.

[Sky]

What about the people that reported it the year before that.

nope.

just that one guy.

[PowerWyrm]

Until it gets fixed, there's a workaround of sorts: just don't cast teleport self. The real problem here is that the range of the teleport self spell is larger than the level size, so it drops you at the single farthest point in the level from where you started. The staff of teleportation has a much shorter range, so it's less likely to get you into trouble. Mages need to be carrying a staff anyway in case they get blinded or confused. So if casting teleportation moves you from the frying pan into the fire, use your staff for the second teleport attempt, and you'll likely land clear. Once you get blindness and confusion resistance, hold onto your staff nonetheless until you can also reliably use portal or teleport level as your escape spell, since teleport self isn't a reliable escape.

In PWMAngband I don't have this problem because some monsters have ANTI_MAGIC which prevents you from using devices or casting spells... so you always need to carry a few teleport scrolls just in case

[grumbleguts]

What do people think of the ring of teleport control that used to be or still is in nethack.

Personally I think it was one of the most overpowered tools in the game, but in this game where so many other rings are so important and they have a recharge time...