Angband 4.2.0

[wobbly]

"The 9-headed hydra fiddles with the lock". Ah what?

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Why isn't the rune of aggravation learned when you can observe monsters waking up the moment @ wields the relevant item? It appears the only way to learn it is using a scroll, but it seems to me to be appropriate for id-by-use.

[Nick]

Thanks for all the comments, interesting and helpful.

Throwing.

Throwing axes already exist.

The whole throwing mechanic is only very recent. It could certainly do with some work, thanks for the ideas.

[Hounded]

Throwing & Other Observations

So I'm working my way through my second character under 4.2.0. First round was a Half-Troll Fighter (my standard re-establish monster memory and get acquainted with the game choice) who got in deep with some Hydrae just before a Shadow Drake appeared through the wall.

Second round I'm trying a Druid (and loving it I might add). No real perspective from the other classes so far but I'm leaning towards a Necromancer for round three. So much for context.

1) Starting the Dunedain Druid was confusing. I was excited by Fox Form but took a while to figure out what it was good for as whenever I did manage to hit something with my whip (starting equipment) the damage penalty cancelled it out more often then not. I also (for some insane reason) didn't realize that the damage calculation in the alternate form would be re-calculated by viewing the weapon. I was putzing around trying to do the math on the character screen and wondering what possible value could be gleaned from the alternate forms if I lost the weapon damage (again, the 1d3 whip muddied the water here as it matched the 1d3 of fists). Anyhow I've a handle on all that now but it would have been nice if how all that worked was clearer somehow.

2) Maybe I watched Disney's Sword in the Stone or enjoyed Injun-Joe-Listens-to-Wind beating up the Skinwalker in Dresden files too much but my imagination would love to be able to switch directly from form to form without having to revert to human every time. (Kudos that reverting to human doesn't take a round. That's a huge lifesaver and balances out the lack of inventory use nicely).

3) Tile gaffes (Shockbolt set). "Tamers" look like giant red centipedes. Eastern Dwarves still look like Drow (mentioned another time but re-stating here for continuity). No tile for Throwing Hammers. (Figured those are worth mentioning). Also how about alternate tiles for the different forms a Druid takes?

4) Conclusion on the stair generation only at the end of dead-end corridors or conglomerating all in one special room: Meh. I don't like it but it can be lived with. Personally I can't recall ever being one-shotted off a staircase. One of the dangers of arriving on a new room is that you're prepared to get away from your drop point and don't start off by lighting everything up and announcing your presence when you've no idea what's around you.

5) I'm always disappointed when I find the Special Ego weapons. Inevitably I have a better artifact long before I encounter a widget of Westerness/Gondolin/Lothlorien. Perhaps it's my playing style (grinder who clears every level and cheerfully burns an hour playing cat and mouse chiselling a unique I should just be leaving alone) and if I dove more aggressively they wouldn't be so anticlimactic (in which case I retract the following) but beyond atmosphere they really don't seem to contribute to the actual game play. Not sure how this might be balanced.

6) I wonder if Ents should have some ability to wake up Old Forest Trees and polymorph them into Huorns (cause apparently I'm a masochist to even think of that).

7) Throwing. Again this one really speaks to my imagination (thank you Count Rugen, Chingchgook and the ninjae from Shogun). Love the addition of the throwing hammers and had some thoughts on expanding along that theme.

- How about an ego throwing hammer that returns to sender (think Mjolnir or Aegis Fang). Maybe a better concept as an artifact but not sure if there's any reasonable precedent in Tolkien lore. Would hate to suddenly mix in random Norse mythology here.

- Throwing Axes anyone?

- Most thrown weapons are lighter and generally only effective based upon perfect placement or due to poisons of some sort. Possibly some sort of damage multiplier based upon a "Throwing" skill to make up for the lousy base damage which one would have on throwing knives or shuriken (yeah I know those aren't in there but I can dream).

(and here I start to ramble)

- Maybe some suitable treatments using the enchantment system for small thrown blades. Think soporific (sleep), paralytic (hold monster), or confusing agents in addition to just regular old poison.

- Hey! That would really transfer over nicely to a new blowgun/dart ranged weapon. Could be a good complementary weapon for rogues, blackguards, necromancers... druids and rangers too but questions on the morality of using poisons... (as though any @ isn't sociopathic to an alarming degree).

- Rather than finding "enchanted" darts/throwing knives/shuriken how about a variation on the old Elemental Brand spell for certain classes. It can only be applied to "throwing" weapons or darts but would give that batch one of the above-mentioned "poison" effects.

- Now... how about an Atlatl that can be used with a spear like Nimloth or a Rocke- {urk}

Obviously I'm really enjoying all of the new twists. Thank you again Nick for all of your hard work and everybody else for the collaboration and atmosphere to be enjoyed here.

[Gwarl]

Another possible bug, but one that has probably been around for awhile and I just noticed. When fighting a Black-Hearted Huorn, and using the Pike 'Til-i-arc', the weapon keeps "freezing" the monster. Til-i-arc can both freeze and burn opponents and the monster is supposed to particularly susceptible to fire. I assume since the message is "freezing", that @ is being denied the extra damage that should be accorded due to the monster's susceptibility.

Had the monster been resistant to cold, the weapon would be burning. Shouldn't it be doing whatever damage is greatest? In this case, burning.

This might be a bug where freezing is displayed and burning is happening, rather than freezing being correctly displayed as happening in lieu of burning.

At least, my variant has a bug like this.

[wobbly]

Found a mixed pit of spiders, beetles & centipedes & all the beetles seemed stuck in the webs. Undecided if that's good or bad.

[MattB]

Anyone else having issues with really clunky and annoying redraw?
Could just be my laptop, I'm on Win10.

[Nick]

I notice getting gorged is possible again, but it doesn't say gorged (but I see I'm slow).

Hunger system is more complex now - short version is there's more types of food, a hunger bar so you can tell precisely how hungry you are, being hungry or too full has (different) bad effects, but the higher your hunger bar the faster you regenerate.

[Nick]

Has anyone gotten a bug where
You fall into a pit
Pit disappears (as it has since a couple versions back)
Pit would return and be visible after some count of turns.
In the new release, it sometimes is there but not visible. Character disarms a blank space or falls into invisible pit.

Could it be doing a searching-check again?
That wouldn't explain the ability to disarm the unseen trap.

This behaviour sounds a bit like when a trap is temporarily disabled, except that is a deliberate action. Or possibly it's a graphical glitch of some sort.

[Grotug]

Glad to see 4.2.0 finally released! Congrats Nick! I haven't played much Angband since early Spring and I'm probably still needing a bit more of a break before I play it much, but I just started a Hobbit Ranger in the new version and after finding a ring of Searching I had an idea of what if the ring had an activation to reveal hidden doors in a given room (and maybe traps as well)?

I may edit this post periodically to add comments about the new game. I notice getting gorged is possible again, but it doesn't say gorged (but I see I'm slow). This looks like it's going to last awhile! =-edit-= died to cave spiders due to being gorged. Next @ had to use a deep descent scroll to escape bolder and a shreiker (shreiker yeeks?)

[Vorczar]

Has anyone gotten a bug where
You fall into a pit
Pit disappears (as it has since a couple versions back)
Pit would return and be visible after some count of turns.
In the new release, it sometimes is there but not visible. Character disarms a blank space or falls into invisible pit.

Could it be doing a searching-check again?
That wouldn't explain the ability to disarm the unseen trap.

[DrWho42]

In a fight with a blue ooze, my blackguard got a shield bash in. The following log says that the ooze is stunned and right after that it says the ooze is unaffected. The question is, unaffected from what? Can shield bash do something on top of stunning or something? The character is a lvl 6 beginning character that has absolutely nothing special on him.
[ATTACH]1751[/ATTACH]

tfw the ooze lose

[Pete Mack]

@powerwyrm--
near and far were 8086 specific keywords from the very old days. As far as I know, they are gone from every modern compiler, except apparently for microcontrollers.

https://bytes.com/topic/c/answers/606284-about-far-near-keywords-c

[PowerWyrm]

Just found out that my compiler refuses to compile some V code due to some instances of "struct loc near". The word "near" is usually reserved in C since it's a type modifier ("int near __cdecl foo" vs "int far __cdecl foo). Changing "near" to "nearby" fixes the problem.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Another possible bug, but one that has probably been around for awhile and I just noticed. When fighting a Black-Hearted Huorn, and using the Pike 'Til-i-arc', the weapon keeps "freezing" the monster. Til-i-arc can both freeze and burn opponents and the monster is supposed to particularly susceptible to fire. I assume since the message is "freezing", that @ is being denied the extra damage that should be accorded due to the monster's susceptibility.

Had the monster been resistant to cold, the weapon would be burning. Shouldn't it be doing whatever damage is greatest? In this case, burning.