Current master post-4.2.2

[Nick]

Odd message, that is a bit of an information leak to the player.

"Smeagol tries to pick up (nothing), but fails. <3x>"

As a player, I knew from the message that there had to be an artifact just out of sight. @ had ESP, so was aware of Smeagol, but hadn't yet seen the out of sight artifact.

I regard this as excellent emergent game behaviour

[Julian]

I regard this as excellent emergent game behaviour

I’d argue the “(nothing)” is a bug, but if you’d get a message about the ESPed monster picking up an item, you ought to get one about items you don’t know about, too.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

A recent change to the code has, I think, introduced an unintended bug.

My @ found the Main Gauche of Azaghal, which *Slays* Dragons, gives immunity to fire and resistance to acid and protection from fear. All that is great and proper. But, when @ casts Smite Evil, no special damage against evil is shown in the Combat Info for Azaghal. Since Slay Evil isn't in conflict with any of Azaghal's inherent properties, why isn't it shown? What happened? By the way, this is while playtesting after yesterday's Release 4.2.2-204-gc6e1498b. I suspect the error was introduced in the immediately previous release, but I could be wrong.

Edit: Nor is slay evil combat info provided for missiles or any other weapons @ had in its pack.

[Nick]

A recent change to the code has, I think, introduced an unintended bug.

My @ found the Main Gauche of Azaghal, which *Slays* Dragons, gives immunity to fire and resistance to acid and protection from fear. All that is great and proper. But, when @ casts Smite Evil, no special damage against evil is shown in the Combat Info for Azaghal. Since Slay Evil isn't in conflict with any of Azaghal's inherent properties, why isn't it shown? What happened? By the way, this is while playtesting after yesterday's Release 4.2.2-204-gc6e1498b. I suspect the error was introduced in the immediately previous release, but I could be wrong.

Edit: Nor is slay evil combat info provided for missiles or any other weapons @ had in its pack.

Fixed by backwardsEric and now in the latest release

[Ingwe Ingweron]

As of Release 4.2.2-227-gcc3d9401b, one can still be stranded in the Single Combat arena. After my @ successfully killed the Witch King of Angmar in Single Combat, @ was stuck in the arena and had to recall to Town to get out. Sucks, since @ never got Angmar's drops, whatever they might have been, and was forced to abandon a lucrative vault.

[wobbly]

Yes, this is a recent change in V where a monster which is fleeing and has nowhere to run becomes held instead. The effect of this is that an attack will break the hold. I'm still not 100% sure I like the change, partly because of the confusing messaging.

I also think their AI could use some tweaking. Often when monsters are bunched up they get frozen when they could of just veered 1 square to the left or right.

[Nick]

As of Release 4.2.2-227-gcc3d9401b, one can still be stranded in the Single Combat arena. After my @ successfully killed the Witch King of Angmar in Single Combat, @ was stuck in the arena and had to recall to Town to get out. Sucks, since @ never got Angmar's drops, whatever they might have been, and was forced to abandon a lucrative vault.

Added this to the ongoing Single Combat bug

I also think their AI could use some tweaking. Often when monsters are bunched up they get frozen when they could of just veered 1 square to the left or right.

I've seen this too, opened an issue for it.

[backwardsEric]

As of Release 4.2.2-227-gcc3d9401b, one can still be stranded in the Single Combat arena. After my @ successfully killed the Witch King of Angmar in Single Combat, @ was stuck in the arena and had to recall to Town to get out. Sucks, since @ never got Angmar's drops, whatever they might have been, and was forced to abandon a lucrative vault.

Do you remember if you had used Single Combat more than once on that level (i.e. without an intervening change of level by any means) and saved and exited sometime between the uses of Single Combat? That looks like one way to get stuck, and I wondered if it would explain your case.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Do you remember if you had used Single Combat more than once on that level (i.e. without an intervening change of level by any means) and saved and exited sometime between the uses of Single Combat? That looks like one way to get stuck, and I wondered if it would explain your case.

I don't remember specifically, but that seems likely. It was a vault level and @ used single combat to isolate and kill some of the nastiest uniques. I probably did save and exit sometime in the vault and come back to it.

I did not, however, save and exit and come back while in single combat. I've noticed that doing so will often cause problems, like appearing elsewhere on the level when @ finishes single combat if one has saved and exited while in the midst of such combat.

[backwardsEric]

I did not, however, save and exit and come back while in single combat. I've noticed that doing so will often cause problems, like appearing elsewhere on the level when @ finishes single combat if one has saved and exited while in the midst of such combat.

The save and restore would have to be from within single combat to trigger what I was seeing. Looks like more digging will be needed to find and prevent what stranded your character.

[Nick]

I also think their AI could use some tweaking. Often when monsters are bunched up they get frozen when they could of just veered 1 square to the left or right.

So I'm not seeing anything obvious in the logic - a fleeing monster should try it's preferred direction plus the two others to each side. One possibility is that a monster which is confused or has random movement could be unlucky and keep trying occupied squares - would that explain what you're seeing?

[wobbly]

I'll take a look next time I play and try and get a few screenshot of odd behavior.

I don't think its random movement. Another possibility is what I'm seeing occurs in the move order of multiple monsters. Something gets frozen, then a monster moves vacating a square, then it's the player's turn ...