feature/monster

[MattB]

Sure. Here you go.
I still have the cursed shovel that clears granite in 29 turns.
I dropped the standard one, but if you look at the general store you can see that a normal shovel clears granite in 100 turns.

[Nick]

Sure. Here you go.
I still have the cursed shovel that clears granite in 29 turns.
I dropped the standard one, but if you look at the general store you can see that a normal shovel clears granite in 100 turns.

Which build was that? It isn't opening for me in my latest dev version.

[MattB]

Hi Nick,

It's the one you posted below (post63).
4.1.3-300-g9ce38b40e

[Grotug]

Wow, I'm very impressed by the gameplay in new Angband. I just had a wonderful losing battle against a rabble of orcs and some giants. Between the layout of the dungeon with new/improved rooms during my battle and the more menacing nature of the updated enemies, I have to say splendid!

That last outing makes me sorta retract my feelings that the shield bash was a bit overpowered. I guess it isn't when the enemies are much more interested in seeing @ die.

I love how these enemies don't insta kill you, but slowly wear you down! Makes them seem smart and organized, but not more than such oafish opponents ought to be. Case in point:

https://youtu.be/LQZu1r6mCek#t=3m38s

But basically, I got into trouble with giants and orcs, and because they were coming from all angles, I was never able to stabilize. I very nearly did succeed, and if I had taken the whole situation a little more seriously I may have, but whenever I'd escape to what I thought was a safe corridor to take on a giant, an orc would come from the other way, and then I'd phase into another giant! Then I'd =escape up a room with limited shelter along its walls and get harassed by wolves. It all seemed like it was a carefully choreographed fight scene in a movie, quite honestly, which is damn impressive for a randomized-generated game!! And it wasn't quite so dangerous that I didn't feel like I couldn't win the battle, so when I had opportunities to escape, I didn't.

For me that last outing was a quintessential case in point of how to make the game fun through legitimate challenges and danger, without it feeling in the least bit unfair. Now that is quite the feat! This is the sorta gameplay I relish and why I enjoy the early game more than the late game (and even more so, now with these latest changes!). But I have yet to make it to the late game in newfangled Angband, so we'll see if I enjoy it more as well, when (if) I do!

[Thraalbee]

I'm on level 98 now enjoying the new dragons/wyrms and demons. Love it! Wyrm of Annihilation for instance, why didn't we have that before? Demons with passwall are both fun (e.g. Fury) and quite dangerous. However, this shifts the balance of classes to reward the ones with access to ?Destruction as as spell. However, tele other and vaults are also useful tactics.
Also lot's of new and modified high end bosses, all more [and sometimes much more] badass than before!

[Thraalbee]

Monster AI and Lava

A comment on monster AI: I took a fight vs Glaurung and Huan and realized teleporting Huan away would be a mistake. He was eager to join the melee but stood back for Glaurung waiting for his turn. However, Glaurung soon created lava patches in the corridor which hurt Huan badly every round. He just sucked it up instead of backing off. Once Glaurung was dead there were only two or three stars left of the poor dog. Unlike normal battle vs Huan he was quickly reduced to nothing and I took virtually no damage.

[Nick]

Hi Nick,

It's the one you posted below (post63).
4.1.3-300-g9ce38b40e

OK, I need your randart file as well. We'll get there in the end

[MattB]

OK, I need your randart file as well. We'll get there in the end

No worries - attached.

I'm just intrigued, to be honest. I'd laugh if it was a mysteriously un-ID'd randart shovel 1d2 (+0,+0) with +1 tunnelling!

Hmm... I wonder... could it be a well-balanced shovel?

[Nick]

No worries - attached.

I'm just intrigued, to be honest. I'd laugh if it was a mysteriously un-ID'd randart shovel 1d2 (+0,+0) with +1 tunnelling!

Hmm... I wonder... could it be a well-balanced shovel?

OK, thanks - bug found and fixed in development. It resulted in cursed diggers getting more digging power the more curses they had...

[Nick]

New builds for Windows and macOS now up on the builds page (source is here). Changes are:

• Canines:
  • Jackals become wild dogs
  • New deep monster, werewolf of Sauron
• Ants:
  • White ants now come in groups
  • Silver ants, blue ants and fire ants now spit
  • Silver ants get an extra blow
  • Queen ant moved a bit deeper
• Centipedes - shallow centipedes are now early examples of elemental melee attacks
• Trolls, again - the first attempt was a bit lame:
  • All trolls lose regeneration (I could find no reason for them to have this - question is, which monsters actually should?)
  • Troll priests moved deeper and their melee buffed
  • Algroths renamed troll scavengers (name was from David Eddings novels)
  • Ice trolls renamed snow trolls (cf LoTR appendix A(II))
  • Bert, Bill and Tom moved shallower
  • Half-trolls reworked as troll blackguards
  • Hill trolls buffed
  • Ologs buffed and given better tracking
  • Eldraks (another Eddings monster) renamed mountain trolls, and given powerful melee
  • Ettins renamed ettens (cf Ettenmoors, etc) and buffed
• Made object descriptions say if an item is fragile (from failed uncursing)
• Fixed a bug where cursed diggers were better at digging
• Added Sil-style lighting:
  • Lights now have an intensity rather than a radius, which reduces away from them (this will only really affects interactions with darkness)
  • Monsters which used to have radius one light have all been reassessed; some now have intensity 3 light (radius 2), most have intensity 2 (radius 1), some have intensity 1 (radius 0, so they are lit but don't cast light around them)
  • Some monsters get negative light intensity, which means they cast darkness around them
  • Lighting a grid (by Light Area or whatever) gives it a light intensity of 1
  • Bright terrain (currently only lava) has a light intensity of 2
  • Light intensity at each grid is the sum of all the intensities caused by lighting, terrain, player and monsters
  
  This all seems to work OK, but I'm sure it isn't perfect yet - please let me know of issues with it.

Feedback indicates that this branch is going OK. My current plan is to do a first rework of all the monster types and then pull it into master - I don't plan to do any other work on master before then (you'll note I'm doing bugfixes directly on feature/monster). I think that first rework is about half done - the looming big one to do is people ('p'), but a few others like wraiths are likely to have fairly significant change. There are some - eg dragon flies, yeti - which aren't going to have any changes.

Once this branch is pulled in, I don't plan any more feature branches before 4.2. There is a lot still to do, though - balancing classes and monsters, redoing races and artifacts, another rework (read nerf) of randarts and lots of bugs to fix.

[wobbly]

• Added Sil-style lighting:
  • Lights now have an intensity rather than a radius, which reduces away from them (this will only really affects interactions with darkness)
  • Monsters which used to have radius one light have all been reassessed; some now have intensity 3 light (radius 2), most have intensity 2 (radius 1), some have intensity 1 (radius 0, so they are lit but don't cast light around them)
  • Some monsters get negative light intensity, which means they cast darkness around them
  • Lighting a grid (by Light Area or whatever) gives it a light intensity of 1
  • Bright terrain (currently only lava) has a light intensity of 2
  • Light intensity at each grid is the sum of all the intensities caused by lighting, terrain, player and monsters

Note haven't tried it yet but if I'm reading this right it's missing one of the better Sil light/dark effects. In Sil a balrog is lit but casts darkness around it.

[tangar]

Nick, this is really cool update You rock, guys! Glowing lava... beautiful

[PowerWyrm]

"All trolls lose regeneration (I could find no reason for them to have this - question is, which monsters actually should?)"

This is pure D&D stuff. In D&D, not only they regenerate, but you also have to kill them with elemental attack (fire), otherwise they never die.

[MattB]

OK, thanks - bug found and fixed in development. It resulted in cursed diggers getting more digging power the more curses they had...

Bug?
Awesome feature, more like.

[Nick]

"All trolls lose regeneration (I could find no reason for them to have this - question is, which monsters actually should?)"

This is pure D&D stuff. In D&D, not only they regenerate, but you also have to kill them with elemental attack (fire), otherwise they never die.

Yes, this much I had learned