FAangband 0.3.6

[Nick]

Curiouser and curiouser. I could not get autoinscription to work on my scrolls of id {25% off} and thought it was a discount bug, but much later when I autoinscribed a rod of trap location, suddenly the scrolls inscribed too.

Thanks for the info - that will help for fixing it.

@Donald - I'm just ignoring your post again

[Nick]

I, as you know, think anything determined from the code except the RNG should be given in online help.

I don't go quite that far - my criterion is that the player shouldn't have to do stuff where they think "damn, I shouldn't have done that" without having any clues. Or at least when they do, it should be rare and memorable. So I don't think full monster info should be given out beforehand, as fighting something new and having to be prepared for anything requires skill. The game not being perfect, of course, there are occasions where the line is drawn wrong. And I can't see any point in having to learn a spell before you have any idea what it does.

[Psi]

I think the logical way for me to fix this is that if the player has a recall point in a town that they move to, this point gets changed to their old home town.

That would be very useful! I always set a recall point just outside town when moving as has been suggested earlier.

Regarding silly display bugs. Angband weapons (and other cursed things) also say that they decrease your stats by a negative amount which is clearly wrong.

[PowerDiver]

I think the logical way for me to fix this is that if the player has a recall point in a town that they move to, this point gets changed to their old home town.

I have suggestions. I hope you are not surprised.

(1) Why not allow the player to set a recall point at any time, without using the spell?

(2) When there at most 3 recall points, and you recall, just add the point [if new] without prompting for which to overwrite. When the current location is already a recall point, do nothing and don't ask.

(3) This "swap home with current location" dynamic seems strange. Instead of a separate home recall point, why not allow any recall to select any recall point? Or at least, when you recall from danger > 0, why not allow any recall point at danger == 0?

[Arralen]

Just spotted a bug looking at the ladder: Weapon of angband shows "+" for stealth, rather than "-".

Yes, fair enough - although it's more of a lack of feature. Any "-" in the power section is against the player only - since originally the "+"s in that section were just "is affected by", rather than "adds to", and the player had to go and look up the pval. But now I've expanded on the resists, it does look inconsistent.

Yeah, noticed that in my char dump,too. Figured the "+" thing as well, but maybe those "+" could be replaced by little "*" or "#"? After all, not all "+" in that section would mean some values is actually added, so that would be somewhat inconsistent as well?

Desert is getting a new feature next time - sand dunes - so there will be less rubble. Also, traps in rubble are going to happen at some point. So enjoy it while it lasts.

Sounds good, looking forward to it.
Atm, the route through Ered Luin and later Lothlann is just too easy for a dwarf: evasion first, free movement through all the rubble later, what seems to result in a stronger "evasion effect" than evasion itself, because ....

This is partly the reason for the Ghoul scenario above. Basically to be able to attack you the monster has to make a roll for entering the rubble square - if it fails then it misses its turn.

Seems to be the case here. I wonder, though, why some monsters seem to be affected much more than others by this? (Especially some "z" and "H" seem to have trouble, while several "d" seem to do fine?)

You may have stunned and/or confused the ghoul--shield bashes can do that. They make a big difference--all other things equal, you should always wear the heaviest shield you can carry.

There was no message 'bout shield bashing / stunning, so I think I'll go with Psi's explanation.
Btw., you're right, shield bashing is great, I'm only using a small metal shield and get stunned/confused enemies quite often... which really helps at times ;-)

[Arralen]

Fighting in Lothlann 42 on rubble, again.
Looks like the Spirit naga evades an attack byher own ball of darkness spell (or whatever that was)? I have seen some other "n" and "h" cast such spells at me, and they were never actually damaged by those spells when there was nothing to hide behind, so I guess the spirit naga shouldn't need to hide here as well? Looks like the fact that I hit her in that combat round makes a difference, what it shouldn't ?!

You hit the Spirit naga.
You miss the Spirit naga. <2x>
The Spirit naga gestures in shadow.
Darkness surrounds you.
The Spirit naga ducks behind a boulder!
You miss the Spirit naga. <3x>
The Spirit naga gestures in shadow.
Darkness surrounds you.

[PowerDiver]

I'm not sure. Since you home doesn't move until you physically leave town A, I'd say you have a chance. Worst case scenario is you end up in town A and wasted a WoR (and have to walk back to town B to set a recall point). Then again, maybe you'll end up in Nowhere Town.

I didn't try that, but I mistakenly thought I knew what was going on and stepped out of town, read ?recall to set the recall point, stepped back into town to do some shopping. I thought I would recall from the town to itself. When the recall kicked in, it kicked me out of town. Whether I returned to the space outside town was luck or a given I do not know.

[Nick]

Fighting in Lothlann 42 on rubble, again.
Looks like the Spirit naga evades an attack byher own ball of darkness spell (or whatever that was)? I have seen some other "n" and "h" cast such spells at me, and they were never actually damaged by those spells when there was nothing to hide behind, so I guess the spirit naga shouldn't need to hide here as well? Looks like the fact that I hit her in that combat round makes a difference, what it shouldn't ?!

This does look odd. Thanks for the report.

[Nick]

(1) Why not allow the player to set a recall point at any time, without using the spell?

Hmmm.

(2) When there at most 3 recall points, and you recall, just add the point [if new] without prompting for which to overwrite. When the current location is already a recall point, do nothing and don't ask.

This seems sensible.

(3) This "swap home with current location" dynamic seems strange. Instead of a separate home recall point, why not allow any recall to select any recall point? Or at least, when you recall from danger > 0, why not allow any recall point at danger == 0?

OK, I'm just going to have to rethink the whole system now.

[buzzkill]

Word of Recall remains unchanged.
*Word of Recall* takes you where you want to go, home, surface, or any set recall point.

[Arralen]

Dwarves can float ??

Really ... looks like they can:

*Edge of trap detect region* <2x>
You stumble upon a trap!
You fall into a pit!
You float gently to the bottom of the pit.
You leap out of the pit.

And no, the "c"har info screen does not show any featherfall from equipment. (see the attached screenshot).
When checking the equipment manually, I found the iron crown of lordliness indeed does give feather falling, but it's not shown on the char info screen!?

[Nick]

When checking the equipment manually, I found the iron crown of lordliness indeed does give feather falling, but it's not shown on the char info screen!?

It should be - looks like that's a bug.

[Atriel]

OK, i didn't want to answer without having played quite a bit with rangers...
I agree that Warrior melee should deal more damage than Ranger ranged; I was pointing that as basis of balance that was used for of time...
Now, i think the first tier dices are pretty good, and every sugestion i make is accounting that.

Yes, I've looked at all these things in great detail. However the changes you suggest effectively take damage back to where it was, which makes endgame Rangers a munchkinish option. I also like the way that 2d5 arrows are better than 3d3. It means that normal arrows don't become junk when seeker arrows become native.
...
Well with endgame kit and ego enhanced ammo you can do over 200 *average* damage now. The main reason for 'squashing' the ammo into more dice was to eliminate the massive criticals you could get (and I mean massive). Criticals are still effective (extra dice always are), but not quite as ridiculous as they were.
Marksman is only of much use in the early game as it is not culmulative with the criticals you get anyway as a high level archer. Rapid fire is by far the best spec for a Ranger (and I had to tone that down considerably from the previous versions of FA where it gave an extra 2 shots at max dex!).

I sort of agree with the first point, like how a simple arrow can be better than the seeker in the hands of an expert...
The dice balancing is quite a puzzle, I've been burning my brain to solve it... And i bet you had too I think that you did a good job with all the dices from the first tier!
The second tier that does feel strange... Slingers seem to be broken, with the lack of buckland and completely dependant on enhanced dices;
The damage got more constant overall, and criticals cripled. I think that lots of the problems of the old overpowered ranger were brand related.
Marksman was usefull to the end of the game before and was the coolest spec available to missile users... it can pump the chance to crit from ~20% to ~35%, and thats quite a bit... But as criticals are now um... ~3x weaker, Marksman is weaker as well.

(reply to sugestion
What would you do about standard ammo though? 1d5, 1d6 and 1d7 are too low. Raise these and you are almost on top of your seeker ammo. Then what about enhanced ammo?
...
I looked at this last year some time. The problem is that 2d7 is just too high for an enhanced arrow - we could do this if we only allowed ammo to gain 1 additional side (I've already reduced this from 3 to 2 as it is).

Particularly, I don't see much of a problem for standard ammo to be on top of seeker ammo... Even if the game sometimes throw enhanced arrows better than normal seeker arrows.
...
Hmmm... nice to know that! I'll take some time messing with the debug mode to check damages and everything!

My guess is that you try to kill everything with your bow (and hence your concerns about supply of arrows), whereas I use my sword where I can (and it is safe to). I wouldn't expect to attempt a pit with my bow for example. The thing is that one-on-one the Ranger is still supreme - uniques fall very (maybe too) easily. Yes, they are more vulnerable to crowds of monsters up close, but that is the trade off.

Actually, I used melee quite a bit back then, in [O] arrows were much harder to stock, and playing only as elfs (not high) I could hardly kill chickens with melee... heh. Should had played dunedain then

Athletics and FastShot seem to be imho *MUCH* stronger than PiercingShot and Marksman. FS rocks so much because more shots = more time to react to any danger between shots = difference of life and death. As is Athletics.
Piercing Shot is mostly only useful against lots of non-summoning monster pits... xcept the occasional pierce during boss fights.

Suggestions:
- Add (some, (2/5(clvl)?) straight damage to criticals for the Marksman character, ala the assassin straight damage, but only for crits.
- Make Piercing Shot do something else... say, a (very, 2%? 2%=less than 1 in 100 shots counting misses) small chance to make it rob energy, slow, paralyze(imagine shooting an orc fix to a wooden wall heeheeehee) or cause fear when it happens. Hm. might be too powerful even then...
ok, back to playing now

edit:
Ignore this post. I have to play more, learn more of the balance and suggest better things heh

[buzzkill]

Nick, may I suggest more descriptive descriptions for the healing potions (including CLW CSW CCW). I've two ideas.

No brainer. Add the HP amount healed to the basic spell description. It's something one should have to guess at since it's kind of important and seems to vary widely variant to variant.

First idea. Add additional healing effects (confusion, blindness, cure poison, heal cuts) to the description once the player discovers them, making healing potions function much like monster memory. Also, potions bought in town should automatically come with a full description. Again, like monster memory, this should be carried over form old character to new character if it's not too much trouble.

Second (lazy) idea. Just include all the info in the default description, although I like the first idea better.

Why? Because I can never remember which potion is good for what, (esp when playing multiple variants) and I'm guessing that I'm not the only one. I'm having to use notes now to accomplish this so I don't die YASD.

[Nick]

Second (lazy) idea. Just include all the info in the default description

I'm actually inclined toward this one.