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Hi,
First played Angband 25+ years ago, just downloaded a recent version to try it out. Really enjoyed the tweaked monster and spell lists and new ID system.
I seem to be doing better than I used to, after a few tries I had a promising high elf mage make it through stat gain, up to clevel 43 and 3100', base speed +17 and it felt like I was on cruise control. Killed Saruman without any great issues.
Death was strange though. I was fighting one of the "Maia of <...>" monsters, not sure which one - Orome or Mandos maybe - and it shapeshifted into a shard storm. The next round it breathed on me taking me from nearly full HP (max was 575) to *exactly* zero HP, with a deep cut. I used the Crown of Gondor which cured the cut and put me back to 500HP and it breathed again; again taking me to exactly zero HP and badly cut. Then I did a stupid thing and tried Mass Banishment and it's actually that which killed me....
Still it seems suspicious to go exactly to zero, twice? I guess I learnt something about being wary of the damage from breath weapons from polymorphed creatures, though. Certainly never had any problem with normal shard storms and had killed several 'A' without problems.
Other minor issues with 4.2.1:
With rogue like keys, some of the 'alter/tunnel' commands are over-ridden by other things: ^H brings up the "use ? for help" message instead of tunnelling to the left, and ^J brings up the onscreen menu (I would have thought SDL has a different key code for RET to ^J?).
Sometimes the animations pause on the final(?) frame so you see a breath or beam fully extended for over a second; it seems like pressing any key clears them or they clear on the own. Doesn't happen every time anyway.
Finally a thought on Priest spells (since I tried a priest after the mage) - I agree with the comments in the big "class/magic feature branch" thread that Dispel Evil just doesn't really work at present. Orb is *so* good for a big chunk of the game and spending 3x the mana for a spell which does 1/2 the damage to evil (and no damage at all to non-evil) just doesn't work. I know Orb only does full damage to the central square but even so - Orb's positionable splash is so useful for firing around corners, for choosing which sleeping enemies to awaken. Dispel Evil "forces" you to get lots of enemies in LoS to get value from it; waking them all up is also a big price to pay and potentially a terrible idea if they have any ranged attack options. Possible ways to fix it are (1) double the damage (2) halve the mana cost (3) give it some auxiliary effect like a chance to fear or confuse the victims ("they are awed by your holy might") which might reduce the odds they all activate their ranged attacks at once
thanks for all the hard work
First played Angband 25+ years ago, just downloaded a recent version to try it out. Really enjoyed the tweaked monster and spell lists and new ID system.
I seem to be doing better than I used to, after a few tries I had a promising high elf mage make it through stat gain, up to clevel 43 and 3100', base speed +17 and it felt like I was on cruise control. Killed Saruman without any great issues.
Death was strange though. I was fighting one of the "Maia of <...>" monsters, not sure which one - Orome or Mandos maybe - and it shapeshifted into a shard storm. The next round it breathed on me taking me from nearly full HP (max was 575) to *exactly* zero HP, with a deep cut. I used the Crown of Gondor which cured the cut and put me back to 500HP and it breathed again; again taking me to exactly zero HP and badly cut. Then I did a stupid thing and tried Mass Banishment and it's actually that which killed me....
Still it seems suspicious to go exactly to zero, twice? I guess I learnt something about being wary of the damage from breath weapons from polymorphed creatures, though. Certainly never had any problem with normal shard storms and had killed several 'A' without problems.
Other minor issues with 4.2.1:
With rogue like keys, some of the 'alter/tunnel' commands are over-ridden by other things: ^H brings up the "use ? for help" message instead of tunnelling to the left, and ^J brings up the onscreen menu (I would have thought SDL has a different key code for RET to ^J?).
Sometimes the animations pause on the final(?) frame so you see a breath or beam fully extended for over a second; it seems like pressing any key clears them or they clear on the own. Doesn't happen every time anyway.
Finally a thought on Priest spells (since I tried a priest after the mage) - I agree with the comments in the big "class/magic feature branch" thread that Dispel Evil just doesn't really work at present. Orb is *so* good for a big chunk of the game and spending 3x the mana for a spell which does 1/2 the damage to evil (and no damage at all to non-evil) just doesn't work. I know Orb only does full damage to the central square but even so - Orb's positionable splash is so useful for firing around corners, for choosing which sleeping enemies to awaken. Dispel Evil "forces" you to get lots of enemies in LoS to get value from it; waking them all up is also a big price to pay and potentially a terrible idea if they have any ranged attack options. Possible ways to fix it are (1) double the damage (2) halve the mana cost (3) give it some auxiliary effect like a chance to fear or confuse the victims ("they are awed by your holy might") which might reduce the odds they all activate their ranged attacks at once
thanks for all the hard work
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