Angband 4.1.3

[Nick]

Angband 4.1.3 is now available for Windows and macOS and as source (zipfile or tarball); rephial should be updated before too long. This is intended as the final 4.1.x release, containing bugfixes and minor improvements over 4.1.2 as detailed below. Please play and enjoy.

My intention now is to incorporate the feature/magic branch into master and work towards 4.2.

Changes:

• Passable rubble tiles distinguished from regular rubble
• Details of different summon types moved to a data file
• Tweaks to some potions and scrolls
• Minor improvements to monster lore
• Reduction in frequency of traps and greater vaults
• Show if monsters are hasted and slowed when targeting

Bugfixes:

• Correct weapon damage and blows information
• Fix several minor ID and knowledge bugs
• Correct some spelling errors in text files
• Check bounds properly in targeting, preventing the game hanging
• Fix some interesting room descriptions which were causing disconnected levels
• Small adjustments to object structures

[fizzix]

I might consider naming the feature/magic branch version 5.0

[Nick]

I might consider naming the feature/magic branch version 5.0

Possibly. Plenty of time to think about it

[PowerWyrm]

I might consider naming the feature/magic branch version 5.0

Definitely. This version will be as far as 4.0 than 4.0 was from frog-knows.

[spara]

Small stuff. The name of the Ring of Teleportation is revealed too early. On wearing an unknown ring @ sees that the ring grants +2 speed and has some unknown powers. Conveniently the name of the ring (Ring of Teleportation) helps @ to guess at least one of the unknown powers.

[Derakon]

Small stuff. The name of the Ring of Teleportation is revealed too early. On wearing an unknown ring @ sees that the ring grants +2 speed and has some unknown powers. Conveniently the name of the ring (Ring of Teleportation) helps @ to guess at least one of the unknown powers.

This one's arguable. A player who knows what kinds of items are possible in the game is going to know that any ring that grants a speed bonus, but does not make the wearer afraid, and has one other rune, can only be a Ring of Teleportation, because no other rings have that combination of properties. So it's obvious (if you know the item list and are willing to do basic deductions) as soon as you put it on.

So on the one hand, the game is spoiling players by revealing things that they might not know about yet. On the other hand, the game is saving players from having to tediously note down things that they can easily discover themselves once they have enough experience with the game. Do we optimize for the first time the player plays the game, when they don't know that Rings of Teleportation are a thing? Or do we optimize for every succeeding playthrough? In general I feel it's better for a roguelike to optimize for the repeat plays.

[Mondkalb]

The same goes for ring of resist fire and cold. If you discover the resist fire rune, you know immediately what this ring is and you should also know the rune for cold resist.
There are several other similar cases.

I think the runes and the nature of the items should be revealed to the player, because it just adds tediousness to reveal what you already know.
Another possibility would be to add more items with resembling properties, so that you wouldn't instantly know which item you have by revealing one or two properties.

[spara]

Yep. With the current persistent objects, revealing runes one by one from objects you already know from experience is a bit tedious. The Ring of Teleportation is a bit special in my opinion, since the ring could be a lesser Ring of Speed, if such things existed. Currently the Ring of Prot of Fire and Cold should definitely reveal itself the moment either of the abilities is revealed. It would be a different case if there were random mixtures of protections in rings available. For example a Ring of Prot from Fire and Sound. I would not mind finding rings with strange combinations of protections, might even make the game more interesting.

[Voovus]

Maybe we should have randrings?

[Mondkalb]

Maybe we should have randrings?

And so Nick's evil plan is discovered. There is something like that in FAangband. ^^

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Minor text file description omissions/errors.

“format” terms in p_race.txt

“skill-disarm:base”, should now be two lines:
skill-disarm-phys:base
skill-disarm-magic:base

“flags:, should now be three lines:
obj-flags
player-flags
values

(and correction in the description of “play-flags” should be “player-flags”)


“format” terms in class.txt

“name:class number:class name” should just be “name:class name” and corresponding description should delete the serial number requirements

“skill-disarm:base:increment”, should now be two lines:
skill-disarm-phys:base:increment
skill-disarm-magic:base:increment

should have a “realm:realm” format line (already have the corresponding description)

[PowerWyrm]

The same goes for ring of resist fire and cold. If you discover the resist fire rune, you know immediately what this ring is and you should also know the rune for cold resist.

I disagree. Someone who plays for the first time has no idea that the only ring that grants rFire also grants rCold. Knowledge code should assume that a newly created character knows nothing about what's in the text files.

[Mondkalb]

That goes for the very first play of a new player only.

[Nick]

Small stuff. The name of the Ring of Teleportation is revealed too early. On wearing an unknown ring @ sees that the ring grants +2 speed and has some unknown powers. Conveniently the name of the ring (Ring of Teleportation) helps @ to guess at least one of the unknown powers.

Yeah, technically a bug. Rings and amulets of teleportation are the only plain objects which have a curse as part of their definition, and the ID code doesn't deal with that properly.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Bug: Show if monsters are hasted and slowed when targeting doesn't always work.

Haven't been able to figure out why, but @ just fought Polyphemus and, though he was slowed, then "more slowed", targeting never revealed the slowing. I thought it might be because he was also wounded and confused, or unique, but none of those explanations apply to the next few monsters and unique @ tested on. If I encounter the intermittent bug again, I'll try and get a savefile for you, or if on angband.live, ask Gwarl to send it to you.

EDIT: Okay, slow a Great Wyrm of Thunder. Message text will say the monster is slowed, but targeting does not show it.