Current master post-4.1.3

[mrfy]

"The Maia of Orome intones strange words.
Huan, Wolfhound of the Valar shimmers and changes!"

Followed shortly by:
"Your Mithril Arrow (3d4) (+11,+11) hits Huan, Wolfhound of the Valar (104).
A change comes over Huan, Wolfhound of the Valar
The Maia of Orome dies."

That's quite a surprise...that the Maia of Orome (level 52) can change form to a deep level unique (level 90). Fortunately, I already had the Maia down to 2 stars and a couple of well-placed mithril arrows and it died. Presumably it gets all the abilities of Huan while it assumed that form?

[Chud]

Another couple of small observations... should uniques be able to be trampled?

"The berserker tramples over Ulfang the Black." :-)

In the monster knowledge though, Ulfang is still listed as "alive". Also in the monster knowledge, I have two entries for Beorn -- "Beorn, the Shape Changer" is "dead" and "Beorn, the Mountain Bear" is "shape".

[Nick]

1) The xp drain seems really high and hits a lot. Especially on white wraiths. Maybe its meant to be that way?

White wraiths are tougher now, and were meant to be deeper (level 38, not 26) - it looks like I've failed to fix that.

2) The new spell books should be more clear on which class they are for. Nature Magics aren't all for druids. And not all the Necromancers books are for Necromancers. It was easier before since all classes shared either Priest or Mage books. Also can druids or necromancers take control of enemies (animals for druids, undead for necromancers?)

This has been mentioned - I think the class needs to be in the description of the books.

3) The new webs are interesting. Maybe make the character auto clear webs rather than asking if you want to. I find it annoying to have to say yes while I'm trying to melee a spider or another mob while in one.

Yes, that's probably better. I thought not having the message micght be a bit of a trap - player goes to move, has to clear the web instead, and then dies - but the message spam is a bit annoying.

4) Make Web a spell the character can cast.

It doesn't really feel like a player spell to me.

5) Would also be cool if you could make a spell that would make lava passable without damaged (pass lava - turns = @ level/5 or somesuch with min of 1 possible). Lava could then become more than just a interesting curiosity.

I think that might be a bit too rarely useful. Also the player does get that abiity if they have fire immunity.

6) The Green Elf Archer - maybe its name should be Green Elf Archer since there is more than one. Same with The Great Brown Sandserpent (its name might be slightly different, but still starts with The).

Those monsters don't have The in their name - it must just be how the messages have been constructed when you see them. Try 'l'ooking at one.

7) It might just be getting used to the new color scheme, but I miss mage types being red. On another note, purple used to be almost solely for uniques but now includes witches and others. Is that intentional?

The unique purple is a slightly different color. I'm still coming to terms with the new colors too. It seemed like a good idea to change them to be consistent when the new spell realms came in. That said, if anyone has strong opinions about how the colors are working please let me know - now is the time to be changing.

8) The idea of necromancer focused artifacts - especially an unlight (maybe Ungoliant's Eye) - would be great.

Agreed.

Thanks for the comments

[Youssarian]

A few things while playing:

1) The xp drain seems really high and hits a lot. Especially on white wraiths. Maybe its meant to be that way?

2) The new spell books should be more clear on which class they are for. Nature Magics aren't all for druids. And not all the Necromancers books are for Necromancers. It was easier before since all classes shared either Priest or Mage books. Also can druids or necromancers take control of enemies (animals for druids, undead for necromancers?)

3) The new webs are interesting. Maybe make the character auto clear webs rather than asking if you want to. I find it annoying to have to say yes while I'm trying to melee a spider or another mob while in one.

4) Make Web a spell the character can cast.

5) Would also be cool if you could make a spell that would make lava passable without damaged (pass lava - turns = @ level/5 or somesuch with min of 1 possible). Lava could then become more than just a interesting curiosity.

6) The Green Elf Archer - maybe its name should be Green Elf Archer since there is more than one. Same with The Great Brown Sandserpent (its name might be slightly different, but still starts with The).

7) It might just be getting used to the new color scheme, but I miss mage types being red. On another note, purple used to be almost solely for uniques but now includes witches and others. Is that intentional?

8) The idea of necromancer focused artifacts - especially an unlight (maybe Ungoliant's Eye) - would be great.

Just some of the experiences I have had while playing to give some feed back.

[Nick]

I'm not sure what the primary stat for the necromancer is... the point-based generator seems to maximize dex, but for spell casting it seems to be int maybe? Necromancer is supposed to be mostly a spell caster rather than melee, right?

The point based generator is completely broken for the new classes, and probably also for rangers and perhaps rogues, because it was written based on the old classes. It is on my list of things to fix.

And necros should maximise INT.

[Chud]

I'm not sure what the primary stat for the necromancer is... the point-based generator seems to maximize dex, but for spell casting it seems to be int maybe? Necromancer is supposed to be mostly a spell caster rather than melee, right?

[mrfy]

Browsing the priest prayerbook Wrath of the Valar, it needs an extra space after Spear of Orome and Light of Manwe, so the level column lines up correctly. This is on MacOS, if that matters.

[Derakon]

The idea was to replace all the minor healing spells with one that scaled; I'm happy to take input on what would do that best

I suspect that making this work would require making the spell's cost increase as you level. Otherwise you end up with spells that are ridiculously powerful for their cost. Mindcrafting in Zangband or ToME has this problem; in particular the level-1 detection spell eventually scales to being full-detection plus clairvoyance, all for 1SP. The only reason mindcrafters are at all balanced in that game is that their best attack spell only does IIRC 200 damage, which isn't much against Z/ToME-tier enemies.

I guess you could add some other penalty that makes it undesirable to spam, like its failure rate is greatly increased if it's been cast recently or something. But that would be kind of an odd effect to have just on this one spell.

[Grotug]

The idea was to replace all the minor healing spells with one that scaled; I'm happy to take input on what would do that best

Maybe not the most elegant solution, but what about having the cost of the spell increase with character level? Something like 2 mana up to CL29. CL30 it costs 3 mana. CL35 4 mana, CL40 5 mana, CL42 6 mana, CL44 7 mana, CL46 8 mana, CL48 9 mana, CL50 10 mana.

As someone who doesn't 'scum' levels, I'm very happy to see the reversal of the no-selling gold drops nerf for the first five levels! Also probably will try Druid again given the change to shapechanges being able to pick up objects. :thumbs up:

[olivertheorem]

This post is just for the purpose of thanking Nick for his ongoing attempts to improve the game, his excellent communication of what his intended changes are and why, and his willingness to listen to constructive feedback about what would make those changes even better.

[Nick]

The Hydra changes seem to be a bit much. Ran into a pit at 2500', mostly 9-headed (at least 15). Lured one away and the battle quickly became unmanageable with its summons.

OK, maybe those need to be toned down a bit. Might need to lose the summoning altogether.

[mrfy]

The Hydra changes seem to be a bit much. Ran into a pit at 2500', mostly 9-headed (at least 15). Lured one away and the battle quickly became unmanageable with its summons.

[Nick]

My intuition is that if you want a healing spell that's mostly only useful in the early-to-midgame, it shouldn't restore any percentage of the player's HP, rather being fixed values only. Like, from 10 up to maybe 50 HP.

The idea was to replace all the minor healing spells with one that scaled; I'm happy to take input on what would do that best

[Derakon]

changes:

• Change percentage heal value of Minor Healing from 3/4 player level to 1/4 player level

If I'm reading this correctly, at level 50, this spell will restore 12.5% of the player's max HP? In other words, likely a bit over 100HP for most endgame characters. That still feels like "super-regeneration" to me (8 turns of trivial spellcasting instead of resting, and you're back at full health). But at least it's not so powerful that you'd use it in the middle of a fight, which I gather was an issue with the previous version of the spell.

My intuition is that if you want a healing spell that's mostly only useful in the early-to-midgame, it shouldn't restore any percentage of the player's HP, rather being fixed values only. Like, from 10 up to maybe 50 HP.

[Nick]

New builds are up on the nightlies page, with the following changes:

• Remove nerf to no-selling gold drops in the first five levels (reverting a change that ruined the game in 2011)
• Reduce first cast experience for many spells
• Allow shapechanged players to pick up items
• Change percentage heal value of Minor Healing from 3/4 player level to 1/4 player level
• Make Tap Unlife do more damage but give less mana

Not a lot of changes, but aimed at fixing some of the more glaring problems.