Angband 4.2.2

[Nick]

Angband 4.2.2 is now available for Windows, macOS and as source. It can be downloaded from Github, and played at angband.live.
This version is almost entirely bug-fixing and quality-of-life improvements, plus a few balance tweaks. The game was also set up to automatically build and run tests on Github.

• many bugfixes and UI improvements
• a further significant overhaul of blackguard spells
• tweaks to some priest spells
• new knowledge menu for player shapes
• increase to chest frequency
• uniques can no longer be trampled
• adjustment to food system, including much quicker reduction of Full status
• afraid monsters with nowhere to run become held
• throwing weapons can be stored in the quiver
• improved method for default stat point allocation at birth
• tweaks to powerful modifiers in randart generation

Many thanks to all the contributors to this version, especially the indefatigable backwardsEric.

[Sacksquatch]

Thanks to everyone involved in keeping this game alive!

Alright, breaks over, 4.2.3 when?

[Selkie]

Thanks Nick, looking forward to trying it.

"tweaks to powerful modifiers in randart generation"

Does this mean powerful randarts will be more common or less?

[Nick]

Does this mean powerful randarts will be more common or less?

Less. In particular:

• movement speed will probably only appear on boots;
• off-weapon extra blows, extra shots and slays are less likely;
• movement speed, extra blows and extra might bonuses will be smaller;
• there's a fix to a bug which was messing up depths.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Congratulations, Nick! What a great amount of effort from you and everyone who contributed. Of course, now people will be clamoring for the new version of First Age Angband.

Note: 4.2.2 does not yet appear available on angband.live.

[Egavactip]

Less. In particular:

• movement speed will probably only appear on boots;
• off-weapon extra blows, extra shots and slays are less likely;
• movement speed, extra blows and extra might bonuses will be smaller;
• there's a fix to a bug which was messing up depths.

This is not quite what I had hoped for, especially that limitation on speed. In most cases, players are going to need speed from at least three sources in order to reach +20: a ring, boots, and something else. Unless you get really lucky with a ring, you'll typically need that sort of multi-source speed. Making it appear only on boots is a problem.

I was hoping more that the pluses for damage would not get into the high 20s or into the 30s except very rarely, and that elemental immunities would not be as common. To me, those were the two things mostly wrong with randarts in 4.2.1. I didn't think the other things were problems.

[Grotug]

@Ega I think Nick means that movement speed will mostly be restricted to boots, and that items getting regular speed will be left unchanged.

I personally haven't seen any broken randarts in awhile, except maybe a ring that had double immunities.

[will_asher]

<A question I accidently deleted when I pressed edit instead of quote.>

EDIT: It's kind of funny to keep flasks of oil in the quiver...

[Nick]

Does it work to copy the lore.txt file (as well as any savefiles) from the 4.2.1 folder into the 4.2.2 user folder?

It certainly should.

[Bogatyr]

I'm lagging behind the releases, I just started a 4.2.1 game (MacOS). I notice that all the UI windows have the text laid out strangely, even though the font is identical to 4.2.0 -- the characters are spaced too widely on all the informational windows, making them need to be much wider in order to fit , and in general they seem not to update correctly or reformat to deal with width changes.

Is this fixed in 4.2.2?

Hmmm, unfortunately not. See these two screenshots, one 4.2.0 where all the non-main-window glyphs are laid out fine (and like how it has been for a long time), and 4.2.2, where the glyphs in the non-main window are are placed too widely apart, so that all the information no longer fits in the window widths I had set up.

https://i.postimg.cc/5yVvVCn6/4-2-0-just-right.png

https://i.postimg.cc/zGnsDZzv/4-2-2-too-wide.png

[will_asher]

EDIT: It's kind of funny to keep flasks of oil in the quiver...

...And it won't let you refuel your lantern while your oil is in the quiver. Is that intended?

[Nick]

I'm lagging behind the releases, I just started a 4.2.1 game (MacOS). I notice that all the UI windows have the text laid out strangely, even though the font is identical to 4.2.0 -- the characters are spaced too widely on all the informational windows, making them need to be much wider in order to fit , and in general they seem not to update correctly or reformat to deal with width changes.

Is this fixed in 4.2.2?

Hmmm, unfortunately not. See these two screenshots, one 4.2.0 where all the non-main-window glyphs are laid out fine (and like how it has been for a long time), and 4.2.2, where the glyphs in the non-main window are are placed too widely apart, so that all the information no longer fits in the window widths I had set up.

https://i.postimg.cc/5yVvVCn6/4-2-0-just-right.png

https://i.postimg.cc/zGnsDZzv/4-2-2-too-wide.png

Are you using the same font and text size?

[Nick]

...And it won't let you refuel your lantern while your oil is in the quiver. Is that intended?

No, nobody had come up with that one before. That's quite amusing

[Bogatyr]

Are you using the same font and text size?

Yes. English/Menlo/Regular/10

[backwardsEric]

Hmmm, unfortunately not. See these two screenshots, one 4.2.0 where all the non-main-window glyphs are laid out fine (and like how it has been for a long time), and 4.2.2, where the glyphs in the non-main window are are placed too widely apart, so that all the information no longer fits in the window widths I had set up.

For the same font and font size, the 4.2.1 and later Mac front end will take up more space. That was a side effect of rendering changes to speed things up, avoid clearing artifacts with some fonts, and allow the front end to work reasonably well with some of the variants (Hengband, Sil-q).