Angband 4.2.0

[Derakon]

The adj_int_dev table in player-calcs.c says that your device skill modifier from INT ranges from 0 to 13, with most of that bonus coming from the upper end of the stat table (as usual). Meanwhile, racial skill modifiers range from 0 (Human) to 22 (Gnome) to -8 (Half-Troll). Both of these are largely overwhelmed by your class modifiers; a warrior will start with 18 before race/INT modifiers and gain an extra 35 over the course of the game, while everyone else is considerably better off (mages start at 36 and gain an extra 65).

So a half-troll warrior will likely start with a skill of 10, and end with a skill of probably around 55-60, assuming decent-but-not-great INT. Similarly, a gnome warrior will start with a skill of 40 and end with a skill of around 80. In both cases their INT has a trivial impact.

[MWGE]

My thoughts after a few games and my first winner (post to follow when i remember how).

I tend to play HT Warriors or Necromancers but have played the former with the winner and so these will comment on that.

In no order

1) It's harder i think. This is a good thing. The various trees are certainly tough and in the early/mid game they are a real trial as they seem (?) to follow one around a lot and are often hard to escape. Not least the confusion effect caused by some is a pain.
2) I got caught out by the shape changing thing more than once. A Maia changed into a shardstorm in the middle of a large battle and then blasted me with shards (i didn't have resist and was avoiding heavy shard hitters) for a LOT of damage. Nearly killed me. Not sure what i think about this one to be honest as it's a good, in milieu, attribute but it is quite a tricky thing to keep track of and i was almost killed twice by heavy hitters appearing to be innocuous and that's a tough one.
3) Randarts seem well balanced. I had a few tries before winning and in a couple of games I was stymied by just not finding rconf but i think that was merely the RNG. Mostly they seemed fine. I did find a ring giving +2 attack speed with the winner which was awesome but that was about it. I certainly didn't find huge OP items.
4) The food counter is fine. Didn't really notice any issues with it and it did allow closer tracking which with a HT is quite useful.
5) I haven't looked but i hope the potion of death has been removed? WIth no identify scrolls that would be unfair.
6) The rune system works well. Didn't miss the old ID system and i quite like the system now.
7) New monsters...those two "bloody" Maia at the end are really tough...quite surprised me. I presume they are analogues of the missing giants/titans?
8) New rooms are excellent, a nice bit of variety.
9) I'm still slightly disappointed that the best weapon for any given character is often the lightest. This seems wrong. A HT wielding a dagger. This is more specific to V though rather than this version number.
10) Overall the changes (for a warrior) felt positive. It was well judged, harder without being impossible.

I'm going to try some necromancers now.

[gglibertine]

D&D has reskinned charisma as a "force of will/presence" kind of stat, and used it as a casting stat for several classes. That said, I feel like stats should have more purpose beyond "a specific class wants it, and everyone else doesn't care". INT and WIS already have this issue, with their secondary benefits being relatively minor.

Yeah, I don't think CHA should be linked to physical attractiveness. It has more to do with eloquence, persuasiveness and force of will. I'm not sure how useful that is in a game like Angband, though there's an argument to be made that it could contribute to saving throws. And it could potentially open up additional class options in the future.

[Pete Mack]

Sil does a pretty good job of using a stat like charisma.

[Pete Mack]

You are right. INT used to be more valuable when there was a breakpoint at skill 53 for high level activations (and at 43 for the rod of TO.) The current implementation has no breakpoint.

[wobbly]

So a half-troll warrior will likely start with a skill of 10, and end with a skill of probably around 55-60, assuming decent-but-not-great INT. Similarly, a gnome warrior will start with a skill of 40 and end with a skill of around 80. In both cases their INT has a trivial impact.

I'm not a huge fan of how the calcs are set-up now for this reason. It's fine that int is the least important stat on the warrior, but I'd prefer to be seeing a noticeable gain in devices for high int (& save for high wis).

I also would love to see gnome warriors stand out more as a device warrior & have more of a niche then just being a challenge race for that class. Yes they certainly have better fails then the half-troll, but it doesn't really stand out the way it does when you play gnome mage or gnome rogue.

[Pete Mack]

Wobbly--
This used to be the case, in 3.0.x. The original device fail rate was a lot more sensitive to modest skill boosts

[backwardsEric]

segmentation fault in hit_trap()

With 4.2.0 on Mac OS X 10.14.6, walking into an unseen trap triggered a segmentation fault. It was in a checkerboard half pillar room on level 4. The end of the call stack reported by Apple's crash reporter was:

Thread 0 Crashed:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
0   org.rephial.angband           	0x00000001090e50f7 hit_trap + 583
1   org.rephial.angband           	0x000000010909b68a monster_swap + 522
2   org.rephial.angband           	0x0000000109052b7d move_player + 621
3   org.rephial.angband           	0x0000000109052eae do_cmd_walk + 318
4   org.rephial.angband           	0x0000000109053f41 process_command + 369
5   org.rephial.angband           	0x00000001090540ef cmdq_pop + 111
6   org.rephial.angband           	0x0000000109063af9 process_player + 377
7   org.rephial.angband           	0x0000000109063e8e run_game_loop + 46
8   org.rephial.angband           	0x00000001090efe32 play_game + 258

Using the save file with a version compiled with debugging symbols indicates the trap is an ancient mechanism. What seems to be happening is the initial effect_do() gets called. Then when the extra effects of the trap are evaluated, the contents of *trap are no longer valid (from the initial effect_do()?) setting the stage for a crash.

Edited for extra information from debugging and replaced "hitting" with "walking into" for clarity.

[Nick]

Using the save file with a version compiled with debugging symbols indicates the trap is an ancient mechanism. What seems to be happening is the initial effect_do() gets called. Then when the extra effects of the trap are evaluated, the contents of *trap are no longer valid (from the initial effect_do()?) setting the stage for a crash.

Thanks for the excellent report.

[Cadex]

This is the first time I've played Angband since over 12 years ago (version 3.0.6 or earlier), and I'm still trying to absorb all the changes, but overall I'm having a good time. It still feels fundamentally like the same game, despite all of the differences. Thank you to the devs for updating and maintaining the game for all these years.

I have something to ask about my current character: a dwarf priest lvl 29 and currently on dungeon lvl 29. He is doing well, except for one significant problem: I have yet to find any priest spellbooks after the initial two, despite full-clearing most floors. The only exception was "Wrath of the Valar" appearing once in the Black Market when I was low level and couldn't afford it. I've had 6 spell slots open for ages, and I've found each of the first two books many times over. I am absolutely sure I do not have "ignore" turned on for any of the priest books (though I am ignoring the other book types). Is it normal for them to be this rare? Do they only spawn at a certain dungeon/monster lvl?

Also unrelated to the above, I found a couple bugs to report:
1) Monsters that are two tiles tall do not redraw properly when they move or die, leaving the "head" part of their sprite on the screen (Windows 10, Shockbolt's tiles, windows scaled to display resolution)

2) Scroll of Light and Staff of Light object descriptions are missing text: "ball of <blank>" instead of "ball of light"

[Pete Mack]

Generally you need to be deeper to find dungeon books. The first is native to dl 30, so you will see it soon enough. The second is native to dl 60.

[Pete Mack]

Mystery expressions in class.txt

Minor healing spell has effect

dice:$B+m$M
expr:B:PLAYER_LEVEL:+ 10
expr:M:PLAYER_LEVEL:/ 4

What is 'm' in dice expression?
Something similar happens in teleport, but there the expression is M$M

It'd be nice if the comments included the entire expression language.

[Nick]

Mystery expressions in class.txt

Minor healing spell has effect

dice:$B+m$M
expr:B:PLAYER_LEVEL:+ 10
expr:M:PLAYER_LEVEL:/ 4

What is 'm' in dice expression?
Something similar happens in teleport, but there the expression is M$M

It'd be nice if the comments included the entire expression language.

It's the maximum of the "enchantment bonus", a random number weighted by depth. More detailed description is in z-rand.c; agreed, something in the comments would be good.

[Cadex]

Generally you need to be deeper to find dungeon books. The first is native to dl 30, so you will see it soon enough. The second is native to dl 60.

Ah, thank you! Sounds like I'm almost there!

Taking that into account, I'd like to give one piece of feedback. In my opinion, this part of the spell progression feels flawed, given that I still have the same spells at clvl 29 that I've had since clvl ~1 (books acquired) or clvl 16 (fully learned)

Maybe it is intended to be more balanced toward fast diving, where someone would reach dlvl 30 earlier? I'm more of a slow, cautious player, and with that style of play, it just doesn't feel quite right to me. For the last 10 dlvls or so, the thought in the back of my mind has been, "Where is that dang spellbook already?"

[Pete Mack]

Feature request:
Thrall/lost soul mode. V definitely needs this.