Preparing for 4.2 release

[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?

[Diego Gonzalez]

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

That was a nice bug

[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!

[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.

[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.

[PowerWyrm]

That was a nice bug

People on the forums report the visible bugs. I report the invisible ones.

[wobbly]

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.)

I've noticed this with priests too. They actually summon less. They changed from 1 in 12 (1 in 3 with 4 spells) to 1 in 15 (1 in 3 with 5 spells). However they now summon kin (instead of summon monster), heal kin & the light ball blinds(forcing you to lose a turn). This can spiral out of control quite quickly if you get multiple priests healing/summoning each other while you stay constantly blind.

[Clearshade]

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.

Quite possible I have always misunderstood how feather falling works. I thought if you read deep descent when wearing ff you only drop one level instead of multiple levels (in addition to ff's other effects). Since it appears I am wrong, pls ignore this point. Or consider a new curse that slows descent.

[Clearshade]

I've noticed this with priests too. They actually summon less. They changed from 1 in 12 (1 in 3 with 4 spells) to 1 in 15 (1 in 3 with 5 spells). However they now summon kin (instead of summon monster), heal kin & the light ball blinds(forcing you to lose a turn). This can spiral out of control quite quickly if you get multiple priests healing/summoning each other while you stay constantly blind.

Yeah. Summoners summoning summoners is a bad idea unless you want to kill @.

[wobbly]

Bought a ring of escaping for 0 gold at the BM. That's a bit of a bargain

[Nick]

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.

OK, I think I mostly have answers.

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.

That's annoying and needs fixing.

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.

This is a limitation of lighting with tiles. Grids currently lit by your light source, and grids not currently lit but that you know about have the same tile, which is different to the tile for a lit grid (as appears when you have lit the room).

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.

This is intentional - a digger in your pack doesn't get use if it's in a stack of more than one.

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.

I can't repeat this - in particular, the names all fit completely in the main window. I tried using object recall in a subwindow, but they seem to truncate normally.

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.)

Shockbolt's tileset used to use some tiles fro the Gervais set; his latest doesn't, and is consequently missing some, notably some of the spell effects. Thanks for pointing it out.

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.)

I will have to check this carefully.

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”.

Ingwe answered this one

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.)

And I think wobbly pretty much covered this one.

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.

Sounds reasonable.

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.

Hm, not a bad idea - I'll think about that.

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.

I don't think I want the player to know if the poison is going to kill them or not, so that pretty much rules out the running too.

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.

Uniques have a better chance of dropping good stuff, but it's still random. Learn to love this

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.

I think that's a bit niche for a birth option.

[Nick]

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.

You could carry some

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.

1% is 100 turns. Don't tell anyone

[wobbly]

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.

100 turns is 1%. So !clw is 1% & food rations are 40%

[Clearshade]

4. Display Bug. Some items like Cammithrim ...

I can't repeat this - in particular, the names all fit completely in the main window. I tried using object recall in a subwindow, but they seem to truncate normally.

I figured it out. I have more prompts auto cleared. Due to the length of the full item name, it gets split across multiple lines on my main window. I only see the last line and thought it was truncating the start. But the subwindow displays it on a single line.

10. Pick-up All....

Hm, not a bad idea - I'll think about that.

It just occured to me: how would you ever drop anything. Drop item on floor, move and pick it up again. Repeat infinitely.

12. Uniques Dropping Cursed Items....

Uniques have a better chance of dropping good stuff, but it's still random. Learn to love this

I knew I wasn't going to win this one!

13. No-Magic-Devices Option....

I think that's a bit niche for a birth option.

No need for a birth option. On the item ignoring menu, have each category page with a page wide toggle at top. Ignore all rods, etc. Or have a list like for quality/ego tailored to each class. Rangers don't need to see dark magic books or arcane magic books etc.

[takkaria]

I thought if you read deep descent when wearing ff you only drop one level instead of multiple levels (in addition to ff's other effects.

This is a nice idea, I wish I'd come up with it.