list of bugs and wishes

[Werbaer]

19 - Why don't shops have consecutive letters for their inventory? It is confusing and I don't see a use.

All letters that are commands in either keymap are not used as shop inventory letters.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

All letters that are commands in either keymap are not used as shop inventory letters.

To be a little more accurate, letters that are commands that can be used whilst in a shop are not used as inventory letters. E.g., "a" is used as an inventory letter, because one cannot "aim" while in a shop; but "b" is not used as an inventory letter, because one can "browse" a book while in a shop.

While in a shop one can [b]rowse a book, [d]onate an item, [e]quipment menu lookup, [g]et or purchase an item, [i]nventory menu lookup, [k]ill an item (ignore an item), [l]ook at or examine an item, [p]urchase an item, [s]ell or donate an item, [t]ake off a piece of equipment, or e[x]amine an item. Thus these letter commands are not used in the enumeration of shop inventory.

[Carg]

More bugs and Wishes

I've continued collecting more findings:

20 - wish: for auto ignore menu's: could space also work to toggle the ignore? Apparently for me that is such a logical key that I keep making that mistake. There is also no explanation which key should work (although I found the 't' quick enough. Enter works also, but I'd expect the cursor to move to the next item then, and it doesn't.).

21 - for a priest, the cure serious spell from the Purifications and Healings book is way higher level (15 vs. 5 --> higher spell failure, worsened by higher base fail: 50 vs 32) and costs more mana (5 vs 4) than the one from the basic book, and I don't see any exta benefit. Shouldn't that be the other way around? That cure mortal wounds version is 4 mana cheaper and only 4 levels higher (but 25% higher base fail).

22 - if you browse a spellbook, toggle descriptions on, and scroll through the spells, the longer descriptions lines 3 and 4 do not get erased fully if you select a spell with a single line of text (and line 4 not when two lines). E.g. browse first book, toggle descriptions, select e and then f.

23 - Wish: show with items that are recharging in their description how long it is expected before they are recharged (I know there is a random factor, but you could use the average), or at least how long it is already charging.

24 - Wish: monsters shouldn't be able to summon higher lavels than they are: why would a more powerful monster obey a lesser one?

25 - Why does in the middle of combat (lvl 92 - animal zoo) suddenly a message appear: "FINAL POWER IS 72*"? The only thing object-related was that some spellbooks were burnt at the time.

26 - spells that negatively influence monsters, like confuse monster, list the duration as "dam 40" even though they do not do damage. This is confusing and should read "dur 40", like player booster spells like haste.

27 - in some cases item description can be confusing, like with a staff of remove curse: "... When activated, it attempts removal of a single curse on an object. Your chance of success is 94.9%". The 94.9% is not the chance to remove the curse but to use the staff, so more correct would be "Your chance of successfully using this item is 94.9%". (But longer, so it might make the item description slightly less clear.)

28 - if a spell beams, monsters hit on the way that are killed seem to survive, and only when the beam has run it's full course the monsters on the way fall over. This is confusing because you are already planning your next attack, only to find out a second later that it is not necessary anymore. Can't monster kill be handled before the beam continues?

29 - Wsh: the game allows movement by mouse click. Why doesn't it use the monster pathfinding so that you can click further away - that would really make it easier to e.g. move to the stairs when you've finished the level. The only issue might be that you should not be able to find the quickest route through unexplored territory (which is a bit cheating).

30 - If you run (Shift-direction) you stop one step before an item, and when you run again one step beyond the item (which doesn't seem to make sense to me - stopping on the item itself seems most natural to me) And if there is a trap at that square beyond the item, you trigger it even when your disarm is 100%.

31 - with the action that doubled armor class of all armors, I suspect the weapons that give AC were not increased, because it seems that, apart from the Cutlass 'Gondricam', the AC bonuses from weapons is peanuts, like a defender [+2]!?

32 - an fully identified cloak [1, +6] (cursed - teleportation prevention), incorrectly displays a lot of ? in the character resistance overview.

33 - Wish: unique Ainur Osse should not have nether breath and lower Xp - that is not fitting to an angel (ainur) and it is not even evil. Having nether (550) breath is also unbalanced for level 62 - even with resistance that can do up to 471 damage. The remaining capacities, esp. water ball, and the fact that it is very quick still make it dangerous enough.
Discussion: should damage also be capped to monster level, e.g. 60*level? Or even to dungeon level - you could say that the specific monsters that are able to survive at deeper levels are the stronger ones of the spieces.

[Carnivean]

24 - Wish: monsters shouldn't be able to summon higher lavels than they are: why would a more powerful monster obey a lesser one?

This has always bugged me too. On the other hand it's not always a commandment to attend the fight, in the necromancer summons skeletons way, as sometimes it's a call to friends for aid, in the same way a smaller kid calls for help from his much bigger friend in the schoolyard.

[Huqhox]

This has always bugged me too. On the other hand it's not always a commandment to attend the fight, in the necromancer summons skeletons way, as sometimes it's a call to friends for aid, in the same way a smaller kid calls for help from his much bigger friend in the schoolyard.

The counter argument to this is: why would they bother to summon something weaker?

That said I did make that change to the source once and I thought it played better. But it's not a strong preference

[Grotug]

I threw a (+5, +3) spear at a yellow kobold and it knocked half his health off, but the spear broke. Shouldn't thrown weapons have a pretty small chance of breaking? What if instead they maybe lost some damage every half a dozen throws or so? Seems to me a spear should be good for at least a few dozen throws before breaking. Do the to-hit and dam stats affect throwing?

[Derakon]

Throwing is pretty terrible in Vanilla. The to-hit and to-dam do affect the throw, but there's no multiplier, so you basically get a single melee blow (except affected by your base throwing skill instead of your base melee skill), and then as you noted there's the chance of the weapon breaking.

Throwing could certainly be tweaked, but if it's going to be viable then it really just has to be overhauled. Realistically if you want to kill things from range, use a launcher or spells/devices.

[wobbly]

There's a tag for throwing weapons (you see it on the Thancs) though I'm not sure what it actually does. Still that's a starting pt if you are just after a minor tweak.

[Sky]

... didnt know weapons could break.

Not that i would even use throw ...


I suspect that throw is the way it is to stop people from throwing MoDs and GoPs at mobs. I mean, you still can, but the damage is nowhere near what you get with melee.

[Pete Mack]

With THROWING weapons you get 2x damage. In some variants (and in older angband versions) there is also WELL_BALANCED flag, which gets another factor of two. In any case, i never throw anything except flasks of oil for damage, and arrows and bolts for ID.

[wobbly]

Throwing slaying ammo is wierdly effective though obviously weaker then the launcher.

[Nick]

Question: what is going to happen with this list? Is someone going to enter it into the bug tracker system, or should I? Or will they be picked up even when not in the system?

I will go through then at some point (hopefully soon), file the ones that are clear bugs or needed changes, test those that are unclear, and explain why the remainder are not problems.

At least, that's the plan

[Ingwe Ingweron]

In the early game, I find throwing pebbles or iron shots is reasonably effective until one finds a launcher. This is especially true with the more fragile race/class combos, as they necessitate fighting from a distance at the very start.

[Grotug]

Recently I've taken to buying bolts (1d5) at the start of my Rogue characters for throwing since bolts do the most damage of any average ammos. Heavier than arrows but lighter than iron shots.

[Pete Mack]

But flasks of oil do more (as do wands of magic missile.) If you need to do damage early, generally you want to do it fast. I've taken Bullroarer with oil more than once, at CL 1 or 2. Using thrown bolts would probably use up all my ?PD.