My Thoughts on 4.2

[Nick]

Here's a shot at it

# === Understanding projection.txt ===

# Format:
#code:computer code for this
#name:human readable name for this
#type:element|environs|monster the latter two define what this projection affects
#desc:
#player-desc:how this is described to the player when he can see the monster using it
#blind-desc:how this is described to the player when he cannot see the monster using it
#lash-desc:
#numerator:if defender resists, multiply the damage by this amount
#denominator:if defender resists, divide the damage by this amount
#divisor:divide the attacking creature's HP by this to determine damage
#damage-cap:max damage regardless of mon HP, before resistance is applied
#msgt:computer code for this effect
#obvious:0|1 effects?
#color:displayed color

That's great, thanks

[Derakon]

Permanent consequences almost certainly. Probably more than in Angband, which has basically only death, slight disenchantment, and occasional theft or destruction of inventory items. (Did I miss any?)

There's semipermanent stat drain and experience drain as well, but I take your meaning. You want the player to really have to pay for their mistakes, eh?

[Grotug]

I'm playing Ranger and keep very nearly dying, but I'm still alive and finally found a bow better than a short bow of power, an artifact short bow (+22) X4 with a bunch of useful stat bonuses including +2 speed, and it is branded with lightning) and provides pconf/pblind. And I just discovered I can create arrows in Angband now! That is super nifty! I see that I need a staff in order to do it. But I wonder if I'd be getting carried away if I suggested any mithril object could be used to make mithril arrows?

I wonder from a spell language aesthetic if "fashion arrows" might be better than "create arrows".

I'm not sure how I feel about rangers using WIS; that means dwarf ranger is now a viable option since dwarves have decent wis but a dwarf shooting arrows is a bit hokey at best....

[Derakon]

I'm not sure how I feel about rangers using WIS; that means dwarf ranger is now a viable option since dwarves have decent wis but a dwarf shooting arrows is a bit hokey at best....

I'm honestly a little surprised that Nick hasn't swapped the mental stats of dwarfs and elves in Vanilla yet.

[Nick]

I'm honestly a little surprised that Nick hasn't swapped the mental stats of dwarfs and elves in Vanilla yet.

Well, I had been planning some sort of shakeup of races, but after Discussions decided to just leave them all as they were.

[Tibarius]

unable to handle different opinions

Sorry, no, society does not work that way...

In my eyes you just reveal, that you are unable (or unwilling) to handle different opinions that do not match your own view of the world.

[Tibarius]

As I have said here before, the label "Angband maintainer" is not really an official one...

I am wiling to not just express my criticism, actually i am willing to proof that i can do it better.

So, you wanna share a little of the burden of maintaining the game Nick. I considere it necessary to overwork the arcane spells and am willing to do so.

There is your (and everybody else's) chance to let me participate in shaping the game.

If you are interested in it, give me a forum message and i detail my thoughts.

Edit: Basically there is no risk for anyone in it ... if we make a version 4.2.1 and the simple majority of the active forum members votes it down after publishing it, we simply remove the changes and go back to 4.2.0

[Tibarius]

Well, I had been planning some sort of shakeup of races, but after Discussions decided to just leave them all as they were.

On first sight i would agree that it wouldn't hurt. Besides the fact that i cannot imagine how a half-troll could actually be given birth to, i think Dunadan is just a special form of human. And i cannot recognize any logic behind the XP modifiers either.

I actually would vote for removing half-breed races, and keep
Human
Elf
Orc
Hobbit
Gnome
Kobold
Dwarf

Human is the standard, all other races should have their unique strength and weakness. XP modifier are not realy required from my perspective, because the other races should not be stronger than human but just have a slightly other game behavior.

[MWGE]

On first sight i would agree that it wouldn't hurt. Besides the fact that i cannot imagine how a half-troll could actually be given birth to, i think Dunadan is just a special form of human. And i cannot recognize any logic behind the XP modifiers either.

I actually would vote for removing half-breed races, and keep
Human
Elf
Orc
Hobbit
Gnome
Kobold
Dwarf

Human is the standard, all other races should have their unique strength and weakness. XP modifier are not realy required from my perspective, because the other races should not be stronger than human but just have a slightly other game behavior.

I work with many Germans, lovely people. They would despair of you I'm sure.

Intentional confrontational rudeness is not a virtue. If you believe you can do better then simply do so. No one is stopping you.

On the other hand being obtuse and rude is simply...being obtuse and rude.

One garners no respect and it's hardly professional. Much of the current version of V is due to a lot of collaboration and painstaking work, mostly by Nick.

You are welcome to your opinions. I however should likely learn and not throw rations to Rogrog.

[Gwarl]

I am wiling to not just express my criticism, actually i am willing to proof that i can do it better.

So, you wanna share a little of the burden of maintaining the game Nick. I considere it necessary to overwork the arcane spells and am willing to do so.

There is your (and everybody else's) chance to let me participate in shaping the game.

If you are interested in it, give me a forum message and i detail my thoughts.

Edit: Basically there is no risk for anyone in it ... if we make a version 4.2.1 and the simple majority of the active forum members votes it down after publishing it, we simply remove the changes and go back to 4.2.0

The point is that you don't need anyone to give you a forum message. You simply publish angband 4.2.1 and everyone else goes with it, and congratulations you're the new maintainer. This is roughly how Ben Harrison and Robert Ruehlman earned maintainership.

[Tibarius]

Yeah, i just came to the same conclusion Gwarl. The things i consider moving into a wrong direction are meanwhile to a vast majority configured with the gamedata .txt files. THAT is by the way, GREAT work from Nick. And i will just create my own variant modifying those files to my needs.

[Derakon]

In my eyes you just reveal, that you are unable (or unwilling) to handle different opinions that do not match your own view of the world.

This is laughably false. I change my opinion all the time, when presented with facts or convincing arguments that run contrary to my beliefs. It's one of the things that I make a serious, conscious effort to do, because a core part of my self-image is the belief that one might always be wrong. It takes a lot of work, to embrace doubt like this. The human brain is psychologically built to reinforce its currently-held beliefs, even in the face of contrary evidence. So you have to be constantly self-analyzing, saying "do I believe this just because it's comforting to believe it? Or does the preponderance of the evidence actually support that belief?"

Like, for example, your consistently-held belief that your conduct is reasonable, despite all the people who keep telling you how rude you're being. What would it take to convince you that your behavior is inappropriate? Is there anything?

You hope to become a maintainer, apparently, but from everything you've demonstrated on these forums, you're not going to do well when people tell you what they don't like about your work. And they will. It is really hard to make a good game. Your first, second, third, etc. attempts will have glaring flaws, which you will not notice because you're far too close to the problem to see them. You'll have to listen to others, take in their feedback with as much impartiality as you can muster, and make changes to your personal project to suit their needs.

I don't think you can do it. But I'm open to being proved wrong.

[Pete Mack]

Tibarius-- while a lot of the game is done in config files, it is not all. Stuff like monster AI, breaking down doors, dungeon generation, the details of combat and critical hits... And finally, if you want to add fields to the config, you will need to update associated code.
That said, if you accept the basics of how V works, yes you can write your own variant without changing code. Since Andrew Sidwell took over, that has been a back-burner goal. Nick moved it to the front burner, but significant work had already been done on that front.

[DavidMedley]

Not to make it all about me, but this thread is supposed to be all about me Please take your "major refactor v4.3 because 4.2 Nick is a moron" talk to your own thread.

[DavidMedley]

m in Class.txt

The construction (PLAYER_LEVEL+10)+m(PLAYER_LEVEL/4) doesn't look like it does (to a noob like me) what the help says it does. It looks like it adds, like other similar uses of the + symbol. But it actually unpacks to say "if whatever follows this m is greater than the previous expression, use this percentage of player max HP instead." That is to say, it's a minimum.

Is that right? Using + here seems like a bad choice, presumably made in the long long ago.

EXAMPLE:
spell:Minor Healing:1:2:15:4
effect:HEAL_HP
dice:$B+m$M
expr:B:PLAYER_LEVEL:+ 10
expr:M:PLAYER_LEVEL:/ 4
effect:TIMED_DEC:CUT
dice:20
effect:TIMED_DEC:STUN
dice:20
desc:Heals a level-dependent amount or percentage of hitpoints, and
desc: cures 20 points worth of cuts and of stunning.