Preparing for 4.2 release

[Ingwe Ingweron]

It should work just as before - it divides the amount of food digested by 5. Other things have changed around it which may make it feel different; I believe I haven't broken it.

Then hunger must have accelerated, because with slow digestion you could go for a very long time without eating and that is no longer the case. Even with slow digestion, I'm sometimes having to recall to town just for food.

It is still a pain to figure when it's safe to eat. The food is described in terms of turns, but the hunger "clock" is in terms of percentage. I think this still renders this mechanic to be more a pain in the @$$ than an interesting rework, but it's getting closer.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

7. Feather Falling....

Not sure I understand your issue with Feather Falling. It doesn't slow your deep dive. Falling into spiked pits doesn't take @ to the next deeper level and Feather Falling doesn't prevent @ from falling (or purposely walking) through trap-doors, it just prevents @ taking damage from the falls.

[Clearshade]

Here are some notes I wrote up over the last few weeks. Some of these items have been on my mind for years, some are from last week. There are bug reports, wishes, and ideas. Some are very minor. Some not so minor. I think most of these are still relevant to the nightly from last week. I haven’t played the most recent nightly yet.

I play on a mac with Shockbolt’s tileset.

1. Stealing Bug. If you steal from a monster when your pack is full, your pack overflows and the last item gets dropped even if the item you stole is on your ignore list, so it also is not in your pack. So, you have an empty slot and an item on the floor that you have to pickup.

2. Lighting Bug. If you enter a dark room and explore it fully, it becomes fully lit. Then a monster spits darkness at you, so a region around @ becomes dark again. Once you can see again, the region of magical-dark becomes lit while your light source covers it, but if you move away while staying in the room the magical-dark region becomes shadowed, even though you are still in the room. Is this intentional? I guess there could be a distinction between natural-darkness and magical-darkness, but it still seems like a bug. Walking over magical-dark with a light source only temporarily lights the region, while walking over natural-dark with a light source permanently changes it.

3. Easy Digging Bug. I can’t pin this one down. But sometimes it becomes impossible (or at least impossibly long) to dig. I mean it takes thousands of turns to dig into quartz, or so many turns that I give up. This has only happened when I have had 2 shovels (+0,+0) in my pack and was wielding a normal weapon (like dagger or main gauche), but it hasn’t always happened under those circumstances. I thought maybe if there was a stack of an even number of diggers, the wielded weapon gets selected as your best digger. But I can’t reproduce this one reliably.

4. Display Bug. Some items like Cammithrim or the Battle Axe of Balli Whatshisname get their name (that displays at the top of the window when you are looking at them) truncated. But it truncates the start and leaves the last characters. Surely, it should truncate the end and display the beginning.

5. Acid Attack Bug. Cones of Acid have no visual representation. Fire cones have little flames in each square, cold cones have little blue snowballs, etc. But acid cones are completely absent. There is just a slight stutter. I think @ flashes once. And you take damage, get comments, etc. (I am guessing this only applies to Shockbolt’s tileset.)

6. Recall Walking Bug. Once when I was recalling back to town, I was walking down a dungeon corridor until the recall took effect. When I arrived in town, @ landed on the down stairs in town and then immediately stepped onto the lava next to the stairs. There was no warning asking if I really wanted to step onto lava. I am guessing the last keypress to walk along the corridor in the dungeon carried over as it happened after the recall event. (Or is this related to the running bug previously reported that causes @ to step one extra step when running. I may have been running. Can’t really remember.) In any case, why was there no warning? “Do you really want to step onto lava?” (Happened once.)

7. Feather Falling. I like diving and find the opportunity to do so in game limiting (not enough Deep Descent). From my point of view Feather Falling is a malus not a bonus. I know it helps with spike pits etc. But those are such minor events in most cases. I would never wear a ring of feather falling. What I am suggesting is that Feather Falling should be considered one of the new curses. It has an upside: spares you spike damage. But also a downside: stops you from descending more than one level. So, when it occurs on a shield or shoes etc. it should be removable. For anyone who doesn’t like diving, they would just never remove that “curse”.

8. Summoning. Are low level summoners sometimes way over-summoning? I think there was a recent tweak to make high level summoners summon less. But did the tweak flatten the curve so low level summoners now summon more. I had a priest summon a bunch of blackguards and more priests who then summoned more etc. I died very quickly. (Happened once.)

9. Drop All. From the item menu you can Drop (press d) or Drop All (press shift+d). If you choose Drop All, you then get asked to confirm (y/n). Seems if Drop All is meant to be a shortcut, it should require fewer keystrokes than d+*+enter, but it’s the same shift+d+y. I would get rid of the y/n.

10. Pick-up All. I often play with the pick-up everything option. When monsters die and drop something that rolls beneath my feet, I never remember to pick that something up until I have walked one square away and then have to go back and pick it up. It would be nice if when you have the pick-up everything option, if you leave a square with something on the floor you pick it up, not only when you enter the square.

11. Poisoning. It would be nice to have a poison meter or grades of poison (like now for hunger). Especially, it would be nice to distinguish “You are Mortally Poisoned” meaning the amount of poison will kill you at your current hp from “Slightly Poisoned” which means you have more hp than the poison will take from you. Also, it would be nice to be able to run when you are Slightly Poisoned or whatever it would be called.

12. Uniques Dropping Cursed Items. Several times I have had uniques drop items with the new curses on them. This is annoying. I think uniques should drop something special. At least, they should not drop cursed items.

13. No-Magic-Devices Option. Sometimes I like to play a warrior without using any devices (no wands, rods, staves). And of course books are irrelevant for warriors. It would be nice to have an option that squelches all devices and books from the start, so you don’t have to do it one item at a time.

Just some thoughts. I want to take the time here to thank everyone who posts here. I really appreciate it. I have read almost everything posted for the last ten years. A big thank you to Derakon, takkaria, and Nick!

[Diego Gonzalez]

Problem: blows is always 0 (see py_attack), so the x2 buff always applies for all weapons...

That was a nice bug

[Nick]

Now looking where I could implement that on the server instead... it seems the best location would be the "has_energy" function which rejects commands if the player doesn't have enough energy to act. Including the code there and returning "false" when a random attack occurs should work fine.

There's no has_energy function in the V code, but I guess the equivalent would be in process_player(), or the bit of run_game_loop() where process_player() is called?

[Nick]

One question, I can't tell for certain, but it seems to me that Slow Digestion isn't working very well anymore, if at all. Am I imagining this, or did the changes break Slow Digestion?

It should work just as before - it divides the amount of food digested by 5. Other things have changed around it which may make it feel different; I believe I haven't broken it.

PowerWyrm - keep it up

[Ingwe Ingweron]

...a biggish rework of food; in detail:...

• Character state of nourishment is now referred to in most places as a percentage
• There is a permanent hunger meter displaying the percentage, along with the usual hunger descriptions
• Full now starts at 80% nourished, and the player loses 1 speed with every 2% above that
• No more gorged status or vomiting
• Regeneration now goes faster the more nourished the player is, including when they are full
• Necromancers in the early stage of vampire form where they still get HP and nourishment from their bite attack are immune from slowing due to fullness
• Satisfy Hunger (both scrolls and spells) now sets the player to 50% nourished; Elvish Waybread sets to 75% (or gives no nourishment if the player is already above 75%)

These are quite big changes, which aim to integrate the food system more thoroughly into the game. I think they work well, but let me know how they play.

While still not a fan of the "hunger" mechanic, though I may be converted over time once I get used to it again, I think these changes make it much more manageable and much less of a "gotcha". Thank you, Nick! One question, I can't tell for certain, but it seems to me that Slow Digestion isn't working very well anymore, if at all. Am I imagining this, or did the changes break Slow Digestion?

[Pete Mack]

Satisfy hunger used to put you at, but not above, satiation. It was a dangerous spell if you planned to get into a big fight. Having it as a replacement for potions of salt water is a much better solution.

[Pete Mack]

Reading that function signature, I *do* wish it included const correctness. All those mysterious pointers, and I am trying to figure out what arguments might change underfoot!

[fph]

FYI, my savefile didn't break and when I started my food was at 99%. Rested and down to 76%, when for a whim I cast Satisfy Hunger (I'm trying out the revamped Ranger class). Food drops to 49%. Shouldn't the Satisfy Hunger verse just do nothing and leave you at 76%?

Later I ate two slime molds (yum!) which take me to 83% and slow, so I cast Satisfy Hunger and back to normal 49%. I can also verify that the Satisfy Hunger scroll acts the same way.

Satisfy Hunger putting you at 50% even when you are above that is by design, I think. It has always been this way: the spell is both a way to cure hunger and to ensure that the next 2 or 30 CCW potions won't leave you gorged.

[mrfy]

OK, new builds up on the nightlies page and angband.live which will probably break savefiles (although probably not if the character's food counter is below 1/2). Changes are a couple of bugfixes plus a biggish rework of food; in detail:

• Satisfy Hunger (both scrolls and spells) now sets the player to 50% nourished; Elvish Waybread sets to 75% (or gives no nourishment if the player is already above 75%)

FYI, my savefile didn't break and when I started my food was at 99%. Rested and down to 76%, when for a whim I cast Satisfy Hunger (I'm trying out the revamped Ranger class). Food drops to 49%. Shouldn't the Satisfy Hunger verse just do nothing and leave you at 76%?

Later I ate two slime molds (yum!) which take me to 83% and slow, so I cast Satisfy Hunger and back to normal 49%. I can also verify that the Satisfy Hunger scroll acts the same way.

[PowerWyrm]

File player-attack.c, about shield bashes:

bool attempt_shield_bash(struct player *p, struct monster *mon, bool *fear, int *blows)
{
...

	/* Players bash more often when they see a real need: */
...
if (weapon->dd * weapon->ds * (*blows) < shield->dd * shield->ds * 3)
{
		/* ... or armed with a puny weapon */
bash_chance *= 2;
}
}

Problem: blows is always 0 (see py_attack), so the x2 buff always applies for all weapons...

[PowerWyrm]

Looking at the change that adds random attack to bloodlust-affected characters... it involves modifying the process_command() function. Ouch... When I look at this function in PWMAngband... it's a client function. This means modifying the code like in V doesn't prevent anyone from hacking the client and removing/tweaking it. Not something that I would want...

Now looking where I could implement that on the server instead... it seems the best location would be the "has_energy" function which rejects commands if the player doesn't have enough energy to act. Including the code there and returning "false" when a random attack occurs should work fine.

[Nick]

Just something I spotted while porting some stuff to PWMAngband...

File: player-util.c

void player_over_exert(struct player *p, int flag, int chance, int amount)
{
...
player_stat_dec(player, STAT_CON, perm);
...
player_inc_timed(player, TMD_PARALYZED, randint1(amount),
...
}

One day you should get rid of that "player" global variable... And the "cave" one while you're at it...

Thanks. You're right, of course, but not tonight

[Nick]

OK, new builds up on the nightlies page and angband.live which will probably break savefiles (although probably not if the character's food counter is below 1/2). Changes are a couple of bugfixes plus a biggish rework of food; in detail:

• Shapechanging monsters adopt the speed of their new shape
• Character state of nourishment is now referred to in most places as a percentage
• There is a permanent hunger meter displaying the percentage, along with the usual hunger descriptions
• Full now starts at 80% nourished, and the player loses 1 speed with every 2% above that
• No more gorged status or vomiting
• Regeneration now goes faster the more nourished the player is, including when they are full
• Druids' Herbal Healing has been replaced by Rapid Regeneration, which gives phased healing over several turns (as before) at the cost of 10% nourishment per turn, and Herbal Curing, which cures the same status conditions as before plus Black Breath
• Rangers get Herbal Curing but not Rapid Regeneration
• Necromancers in the early stage of vampire form where they still get HP and nourishment from their bite attack are immune from slowing due to fullness
• Satisfy Hunger (both scrolls and spells) now sets the player to 50% nourished; Elvish Waybread sets to 75% (or gives no nourishment if the player is already above 75%)

These are quite big changes, which aim to integrate the food system more thoroughly into the game. I think they work well, but let me know how they play.