Current master post-4.1.3

[Chud]

"OP" is probably not the right term. For all I know they might be super-fragile - I never got a chance to find out.

They are super fragile, but they are also super fast. Personally I enjoyed discovering them, as something new (I probably would have enjoyed them less had I died as a result). I was definitely taken by surprise at how much damage they can do all at once though.

[Voovus]

So you're suggesting they're possibly OP, then

"OP" is probably not the right term. For all I know they might be super-fragile - I never got a chance to find out.

My view is that any mechanic that suddenly terminates the game and makes you restart is a bad mechanic.

Yes, this includes Drolems. But Drolems are at least usually asleep. It also includes Faegweath who, a few years ago, decided to turn up at 2000' and instakill my Half-Troll Warrior before I had even noticed him. But at least there I got a very suitable "Omens of death" warning... Maybe I was just really unlucky, but I'm concerned that blood falcons will occasionally destroy perfectly good games in a bad fashion.

If you want to make the player fight for survival (rather than auto-die), make someone cast a temporary anti-teleportation curse. (Mwahahahaha....)

[Nick]

Just returned to Angband after a break of a few months. Got instakilled by a blood falcon, without being given the opportunity to do anything. In fact, the beast isn't even in my lore list now, presumably because I never had a turn with it in sight. Not happy. I like a challenging monster, but not an "oops you die just because" scenario.

The actual experience was, in some mildly sick way, more amusing. A Dwarf Priest just found a secret door, and decided to see what's behind it:

> You have found a secret door.
> You failed to pick the lock.
> You have picked the lock.
> The blood falcon claws you.
> The blood falcon bites you.
> The blood falcon claws you.
> Low hitpoint warning!
> *** LOW HITPOINT WARNING! ***
> The blood falcon bites you.
> *** LOW HITPOINT WARNING! ***
> The blood falcon misses you.
> The blood falcon bites you.
> You die.

So you're suggesting they're possibly OP, then

[Voovus]

Just returned to Angband after a break of a few months. Got instakilled by a blood falcon, without being given the opportunity to do anything. In fact, the beast isn't even in my lore list now, presumably because I never had a turn with it in sight. Not happy. I like a challenging monster, but not an "oops you die just because" scenario.

The actual experience was, in some mildly sick way, more amusing. A Dwarf Priest just found a secret door, and decided to see what's behind it:

> You have found a secret door.
> You failed to pick the lock.
> You have picked the lock.
> The blood falcon claws you.
> The blood falcon bites you.
> The blood falcon claws you.
> Low hitpoint warning!
> *** LOW HITPOINT WARNING! ***
> The blood falcon bites you.
> *** LOW HITPOINT WARNING! ***
> The blood falcon misses you.
> The blood falcon bites you.
> You die.

[Sphara]

OK, will fix.

Thank you

[Nick]

Trap-summoned monsters still get a first turn.

OK, will fix.

[Sphara]

Trap-summoned monsters still get a first turn.

Is the thing here not to touch magical traps without disarming device? Because the outcome is too risky as it is now.

Tried to pick a chest trap (Multiple Traps one) on DL50. The chest exploded and Scatha, Itangast, Queen Ant and Rogrog were all summoned and all got one move before I had a chance of doing anything. I got lucky this time but this kind of bullshit just isn't right. One breath from either Dragons would have killed me. I know I was at speed +0 so those monsters were all initially faster. I dunno if that's a point: haste yourself before attempting to disarm a magical trap.

I think just summoning uniques without the first turn and destroying the chest and all its contest, is punishment enough for triggering the trap. I have posted about this topic before after being killed by similar situations without any chance of surviving.

If nothing is going to be done, should I assume I am SUPPOSED to carry disarming devices or leave the chests (and other traps) alone?

[Mondkalb]

Well, gorgons and 9-headed hydras, but they may be so dangerous they need toning down. Blood falcons if you don't see them coming. Eastern dwarf lords and stiffbeard sorcerers are like the old dark elves, but not light-susceptible.

Others may be better able to give examples - it does depend a bit on the class you're playing, which is one of the things I was aiming for.

One of my rogues got shred to pieces by a blood falcon lately. I didn't look closely and mistook it for just one of those ... but it was a new one. ^^

Also, abyss spiders (don't recall the exact name). They have the icon of a tick or some such, I believe, but are way more dangerous.

Ah, also the new dunadan (pink/violet "d" ?) is just a pain.

[Mondkalb]

I have been playing several rogues during the last few weeks and have noticed that recharging might be too powerful as it is now.
I can't tell any exact numbers, but I had only a few destroyed wands/stuffs.
Also, the actual number of increased charges per recharge seems to be way higher than in previous versions.
Wands of TO are now even more poweful than ever before.
Yesterday I cleaned an entire vault mainly with TO, recharging several times during the process.

[Pete Mack]

I totally agree. The dangerous monsters are a risk. The easy monsters at depth are the rewards, since they tend to have a high EXP/cost ratio. The game would be a lot more boring if it were different. That said, if Dreads are native to dl 44, they need to be worth more EXP, perhaps 2x more.

I don't dispute that dreads are tougher then most things at their old depths but I do dispute that monsters should appear at there "correct" depth in the monster list (see others comments upthread on white wraiths).

You know one of the changes I liked least in late poscheng was the removal of Gachapin. He appeared super early for the threat level he presented, adding occassional danger to otherwise "safe" mid-levels. An early dangerous monster presents a different threat to OOD, eapecially considering there's a dynamic (earlier dreads + OOD). It's a different density & probability spread. I think it's a mistake to impose too much order here.

[Nick]

Can you give some examples of monsters in your version that are unusually dangerous for their depth?

Well, gorgons and 9-headed hydras, but they may be so dangerous they need toning down. Blood falcons if you don't see them coming. Eastern dwarf lords and stiffbeard sorcerers are like the old dark elves, but not light-susceptible.

Others may be better able to give examples - it does depend a bit on the class you're playing, which is one of the things I was aiming for.

[Derakon]

Don't worry, I don't think I've created a perfectly smooth monster difficulty progression

Can you give some examples of monsters in your version that are unusually dangerous for their depth?

[PowerWyrm]

It may be the order you are reading the datafiles. Both the books (in class.txt) and the special artifacts add extra object kinds to k_info, but books increment k_max and ordinary_kind_max, where special artifacts only increment k_max. Because of this you have to parse artifact.txt after class.txt in init_arrays().

That's my best guess, anyway

Seems I missed a part of the change in the corresponding commit. The field "kind" in struct start_item was replaced by the (tval,sval) pair, which of course fixes the problem since instead of loading the kind during parsing it's loaded when creating the character. Problem solved.

[Nick]

I don't dispute that dreads are tougher then most things at their old depths but I do dispute that monsters should appear at there "correct" depth in the monster list (see others comments upthread on white wraiths).

You know one of the changes I liked least in late poscheng was the removal of Gachapin. He appeared super early for the threat level he presented, adding occassional danger to otherwise "safe" mid-levels. An early dangerous monster presents a different threat to OOD, eapecially considering there's a dynamic (earlier dreads + OOD). It's a different density & probability spread. I think it's a mistake to impose too much order here.

Don't worry, I don't think I've created a perfectly smooth monster difficulty progression

[Nick]

Ok maybe you can help me here...

I have implemented in PWMAngband the change that moves all books from object.txt to class.txt and now I have a constant crash when launching the game.

The crash happens when registering the artifacts. I have put a watch on "classes->start_items->kind->name" which shows "Word of Recall", but when the game registers the Arkenstone, this value changes to "NULL" when the code does:

temp = mem_realloc(k_info, (z_info->k_max + 1) * sizeof(*temp));

Any idea?

It may be the order you are reading the datafiles. Both the books (in class.txt) and the special artifacts add extra object kinds to k_info, but books increment k_max and ordinary_kind_max, where special artifacts only increment k_max. Because of this you have to parse artifact.txt after class.txt in init_arrays().

That's my best guess, anyway