My Thoughts on 4.2

[DavidMedley]

Another possibility to specifically solve the necromancer's problem would be a mid/high-level necromancer spell that removes the +light effect from your equipment.

Yeah, if the Nek's are the only class having this problem then that is a great alternative.

[DavidMedley]

If we're just talking about Necros and light, they could just have their darkness aura and light oppose each other, whether the light is from rooms or equipment or other monsters. Like, at CL 1 they have light -1, and increases from there. When there's light it reduces the necro's darksense range to zero at net light 0. If the total light is positive then shadow spells are negatively affected.

I *think* rooms only ever have light 1, so maybe the magnitude would have to vary. Not sure if monsters ever have light > 1. And maybe light 1 hurts shadow spells somewhat, but higher net light scores hurt it more.

Anyway, easy for me to speculate when someone else is doing the programming.

[DavidMedley]

Also, the light penalty is not insurmountable. I found Eriril and the +4 INT was too good to pass up despite the +1 light. Around CL 30 I could cast Disenchant in the light with a low fail rate. The higher spells I could cast at sleeping monsters or after I switched weapons when I'd burned the extra SP that the 4 INT gave. Not super fun to cut your grimoire in half, but it worked.

Unfortunately I didn't have enough answers for confusion... going to give Necromancers a rest for a while.

EDIT: Unfortunately -> Stupidly

[DavidMedley]

Blackguard

Ran my Blackguard up to CL 18 and when he died I didn't even care. I like playing Paladins so a Dark Paladin should be right up my alley, but this class puts me to sleep. Someone earlier said at high levels his Blackguard was one of his strongest melee fighters ever, but I don't think I'll get there.

[DavidMedley]

Fear Kinda Silly

I know this goes way way back, but the things you can and can't do while afraid are really absurd. A strapping warrior can't take a blow while swinging his sword, but he can take the exact same blow while shooting a bow at an adjacent enemy. Wimpy little mage laughs in the face of fear while shooting magic missiles at adjacent enemies. And so on.

The way fear is implemented is obviously very simple to program. Other options would be: 1) create a list of allowed/disallowed actions and spells. 2) create a list of allowed effects.

#2 seems better. Any action that produces movement, healing, or buffing should be allowed. Actions that produce only damage are out when an enemy is adjacent. Something like that.

[Derakon]

It's worth noting that fear, along with a few other effects like poison and especially stunning, impair your spell failure rate, chance to hit, damage bonus, etc. So even if you can work around it, it's not completely harmless. That said, I'm inclined to agree with you.

[DavidMedley]

Good point.

[wobbly]

Sil doesn't let you shoot when afraid (it lacks wands & attack spells). The heng-likes have a more complicated fear mechanic where various things fail at different rates and you can lose turns. I like it, but not everyone is a fan. Fear can be quite dangerous in these variants.

[Sphara]

It is a bit silly, yeah.
Still, I think fear works pretty good as it disables any melee whereas blindness disables any spellcasting. Both status effects are easily curable, if you happen to carry remedy potions for them.

Using launchers and wands already have penalties if you have either of these conditions, just as Derakon already mentioned. I dunno if blindness affects zap failure rate but not being able to target is a punishment enough. Launchers should probably have major penalties if you're scared or blind. At least if you compare it to severe penalties hunger inflicts.

[wobbly]

The device penalty for fear is negligible:

/* Analyze flags - check for fear */

	if (of_has(state->flags, OF_AFRAID)) {

		state->to_h -= 20;

		state->to_a += 8;

		state->skills[SKILL_DEVICE] = state->skills[SKILL_DEVICE] * 95 / 100;

	}

you'll see that there's actually the same sized bonus on blessed, not sure anyone ever notices a difference zapping while blessed (or under heroism):

	if (p->timed[TMD_BLESSED]) {

		state->to_a += 5;

		state->to_h += 10;

		state->skills[SKILL_DEVICE] = state->skills[SKILL_DEVICE] * 105 / 100;

	}

Your to-hit chance against invisible monsters is halved. Pretty sure "invisible" also covers blinded & firing down a corridor at unseen enemies.

[Tibarius]

my thoughts

Nick is the current maintainer, right?

I just analyzed the class.txt file for 4.2.0 to see if i can figure out the reason why necromancers and wizards can buy 3 books in town and the other two classes only two.

You did a good job in thematically aranging spells to the classes. Even better would it have been if things like frost bolt or fireball would not be in the arcane spells section any longer, because elemental is obviously druids favor. The character generation help says "Druids can charm monsters" ... i actually missed how that works. Is it a spell? I just noticed the command spell for high level necros, is that a charm equivalent?

The highlights are from my point of view: shapechanging, vampyr spells & command.

But you created a totally new game, this has nothing to do with Moria anymore.

And from a game mechanics point of view you failed totally in my eyes.
The highlevel damage output is for the spellcasting classes way too low and varies between the four classes. Melee combat classes have what? 5(6) attacks with an average of around 100 damage? Why do spellcasters have just half of that?

Why do druids get haste self? I mean that perfectly fits to rogues (and i thought wizards).

Even worse! Looking through the hybrid classes paladins get slay evil (works vs Morgoth) and increases the damage difference to spellcasters even more.


So if there is any variant maintainer out there, i am seeking one who would be interested / willing to let me shape the wizard's class. Power Wyrm maybe? You seem to be an excellent coder and i had the impression we two share at least equal looks on this great game.

Main changes would be:
+ MORE than LESS books (maybe even so many books that mages cannot learn all spells, they can choose which ones to learn at last)
+ broader drop level to book power level: the new books are just between 30 and 60 (so the first 30 and the last 30 dungeon levels cannot hold anything good for pure spellcasters and are way less interesting to play)
+ either remove spell casting XP bonus (1st time) or make it worth something
+ remove character level restrictions from spells (you are limited by the mana cost of the spell, and early drops should benefit the character)


Any variant maintainer out there, or someone willing to replace Nick? Please contact me via forum message, Thanks.

[Tibarius]

+1 from me for ...

+1 for the following two ideas from me:
=> STR influencing the number of equipment slots (more STR = more slots)
=> spellcasters do not need books to cast spells (they just have a list of learned spells)

Aquire new spells (without books) could be done like this:
+ @ can learn from scrolls/books he finds in the dungeon which always hold only one spell at a time (then the choose to learn spells ability makes much more sense than now)
+ learning spells from scrolls / books would also allow to adjust drop level much easier to the power of the spell (priest(good) oppose necros(evil), arcane(training & will) opposes druids(natural powers) You can learn all spells you find except the spells of your opposition. Spells which are not your own type cost double mana to cast.

[Nick]

Any variant maintainer out there, or someone willing to replace Nick?

As I have said here before, the label "Angband maintainer" is not really an official one. I am generally regarded as the maintainer currently, and the versions I am putting out are regarded as the "official" Angband, only because most of the people prepared to comment on the matter agree.

If someone else wants to call themself Angband maintainer, all they have to do is put out a version that they claim is the official Angband. It's really that simple.

[Derakon]

Any variant maintainer out there, or someone willing to replace Nick?

Alright, I was civil in my earlier response, but now I'm gonna be blunt. You have the following options, in no particular order:

* You may do the work yourself. Make the game you want. If enough people like it, congratulations you're the maintainer now.
* You may play older versions that better adhere to what you want from the game.
* You may drop the attitude, and civilly argue for a different direction of development, while accepting that nobody is obliged to listen to or agree with you.

What you may not do is bitch and moan about how a volunteer is ruining your precious game. This forum's old posts are full of in-depth, passionately-argued debates over how some part of the game ought to work, where everyone involved was able to treat the others like capable, thoughtful, and well-intentioned adults. You could stand to learn from those examples.

[Tibarius]

* You may do the work yourself. Make the game you want. If enough people like it, congratulations you're the maintainer now.

Great! I doubt that it works that easy, but surely we can try

So who is putting the official download files at the rephial.org website? Please give me a forum message, thanks.

I am more than willing to modify the class.txt file restricting myself to the mage class for first and shape a spell list which i believe would be more fun to play, would be more balanced to the damage output of warriors and has more variety. We could version it as 4.2.1.

Overall i believe the user visible modifications to the game while Nick's was/is maintainer has done the game no good. I repeat my statement that whoever steps forward with coding experience willing to replace Nick as official maintainer would get my personal backup.