[Un] Unangband 0.6.3a released

[andrewdoull]

I tried to play Unangband because it seemed to be different. It has so many features and is very interesting. BUT, does some documentation exist?

Perharps it is your intention but I find it extremely annoying that I do not know what stat has which effect, that have to blindly try use this on that to see what happens etc.

If the doc exists can you please provide me with a link? If it does not, I suggest to write one, I think even you would be surprised what you created :-)

You mean other than the help files, the tip files, the built-in ability to learn what items do what by 'I'nspecting them / e'x'amining them?

Documentation is an ongoing process - particularly since the target is moving as well. If you've got specific examples, I can definitely document those. But saying work on the documentation more is something I know I have to do already.

It is also something that non-programmers can contribute to, if they want to. Feel free to volunteer if you want to help out.

Andrew

[Storch]

OK. The most important thing for me is what stats I need and how much.

For example - I want to play a mage. In V and most variants I know I need INT for spellcasting, CON for HPs, STR to not get slowed by burden. I know that in the endgame I will need to max my INT, CON, probably STR, 18/150 DEX is enough, CHR is only marginal. I also know that I will get statpotions, so even with a bad roll at the beginning I will be able to improve and get 18/100 plus bonuses.

In Unangband it is much more complex (which is not a bad thing) and I am confused. I don't have the whole picture. Because I gain stats during levelling I have to decide early in the game and can waste the bonus if I don't know what to boost.

I do not need detailed documentation for various effects of various features of objects and terrain because I can experiment with them. Hints are probably enough and more fun. But to experiment with stat gain is difficult.

OK, perharps I just need some spoilers :-)

[andrewdoull]

OK. The most important thing for me is what stats I need and how much.

For example - I want to play a mage. In V and most variants I know I need INT for spellcasting, CON for HPs, STR to not get slowed by burden. I know that in the endgame I will need to max my INT, CON, probably STR, 18/150 DEX is enough, CHR is only marginal. I also know that I will get statpotions, so even with a bad roll at the beginning I will be able to improve and get 18/100 plus bonuses.

In Unangband it is much more complex (which is not a bad thing) and I am confused. I don't have the whole picture. Because I gain stats during levelling I have to decide early in the game and can waste the bonus if I don't know what to boost.

I do not need detailed documentation for various effects of various features of objects and terrain because I can experiment with them. Hints are probably enough and more fun. But to experiment with stat gain is difficult.

OK, perharps I just need some spoilers :-)

There's two answers to this, both equally valid:

1. Since all stats are useful, you aren't wasting points by investing in any stat.

2. We don't yet know which stats you should be investing in, because not enough people have reached the end game.

Luckily the response from most people who get to the end game seems to be that their character is overpowered compared to other Angband variants. So there is probably enough 'fat' in your selections early on.

I have added suggested primary and secondary stats for each class, based on a couple of rules of thumb, that is probably always worth investing in as much as possible. For a mage, this is WIS and DEX. You'll probably want to keep boosting Dex above 18/150 because this affects the failure rate of your spells. Beyond that, you're going to get potions of temporary stat boost which will allow you to experiment to see where increased stats are going to benefit you the most.

Andrew

[Derakon]

Rolled up a Hobbit Mage, made it to level 2, and then one-shotted myself with my autotargeting magic missile macro. I got the text "You die. -more- You draw on your reserves."

The "A Short Cut to Mushrooms" guide has a type: "...its a great idea to keep a few of these around..."(should be "it's").

I'm becoming increasingly convinced that the failure rates reported in the spellbooks are lower than the actual failure rates. It's not remotely uncommon for me to fail to cast a spell several times in a row before managing to succeed, even for nominally easy spells (e.g. first-level Magic Missile). DEX is currently 18/58, for what it's worth.

A ruby dragonfly breathed inertia at me four times in a row, despite the claimed 1 in 5 bit. I think we already went over this issue, though. Just...sheesh.

Some information on how quickly poison damage occurs would be nice (both for you and for your enemies). It's a bit hard to tell how good Stinking Cloud is, for example.

I think the "Detect Power" spell could use a better description. It's not clear until you learn it exactly what it will do for you with respect to identifying items.

It's very easy to find yourself unable to learn any spells for quite some time, which can in turn leave you coming up a bit short on attack spells if you've been spending your early spells on utilities on the assumption that you could learn the attack spells when you need them.

[Pete Mack]

A ruby dragonfly breathed inertia at me four times in a row, despite the claimed 1 in 5 bit. I think we already went over this issue, though. Just...sheesh

I bet it only seems that way. Dragonflies move at double speed, and you are slowed to 1/2, so he's really getting 4 moves to your one...

[andrewdoull]

Rolled up a Hobbit Mage, made it to level 2, and then one-shotted myself with my autotargeting magic missile macro. I got the text "You die. -more- You draw on your reserves."

It's on the to do list, as mentioned...

The "A Short Cut to Mushrooms" guide has a type: "...its a great idea to keep a few of these around..."(should be "it's").

Thanks.

I'm becoming increasingly convinced that the failure rates reported in the spellbooks are lower than the actual failure rates. It's not remotely uncommon for me to fail to cast a spell several times in a row before managing to succeed, even for nominally easy spells (e.g. first-level Magic Missile). DEX is currently 18/58, for what it's worth.

I'll have a check. But I almost exclusively play mages and it feels fine to me...

A ruby dragonfly breathed inertia at me four times in a row, despite the claimed 1 in 5 bit. I think we already went over this issue, though. Just...sheesh.

Sorry - are you playing 0.6.3a or 0.6.4-pre?

Some information on how quickly poison damage occurs would be nice (both for you and for your enemies). It's a bit hard to tell how good Stinking Cloud is, for example.

IIRC poison adds the same damage again, up to 10 hp per standard player turn.

I think the "Detect Power" spell could use a better description. It's not clear until you learn it exactly what it will do for you with respect to identifying items.

Will look at it.

It's very easy to find yourself unable to learn any spells for quite some time, which can in turn leave you coming up a bit short on attack spells if you've been spending your early spells on utilities on the assumption that you could learn the attack spells when you need them.

Could you clarify a bit here? Is this because you aren't getting spells when you gain level, because you're not finding books with new spells in them, or something else?

Andrew

[Derakon]

I bet it only seems that way. Dragonflies move at double speed, and you are slowed to 1/2, so he's really getting 4 moves to your one...

This was me taking a turn while slowed, then seeing the dragonfly breathe four times in a row before I got my next turn. With 1 in 5 breathe odds, that's a 1 in 625 chance.

I'll have a check. But I almost exclusively play mages and it feels fine to me...

Well, you know how Angband players are with failure rates. They always seem too high. Just, this time they really seem too high...

Sorry - are you playing 0.6.3a or 0.6.4-pre?

I'm playing 0.6.3; wasn't aware there's a new version out.

IIRC poison adds the same damage again, up to 10 hp per standard player turn.

Okay, so if I deal N damage with Stinking Cloud, then the target takes N damage, plus min(10, N) damage per 100 ticks until no longer poisoned?

Could you clarify a bit here? Is this because you aren't getting spells when you gain level, because you're not finding books with new spells in them, or something else?

At the moment, it's because I'm not getting spells when I gain level. Perhaps this was due to my wisdom being a bit low (it was 17 up until my last levelup) since I'd forgotten that impacts your ability to learn spells.

[andrewdoull]

Okay, so if I deal N damage with Stinking Cloud, then the target takes N damage, plus min(10, N) damage per 100 ticks until no longer poisoned?

It's 1 damage every 10 ticks, up to N damage total, at which point the monster stops being poisoned.

At the moment, it's because I'm not getting spells when I gain level. Perhaps this was due to my wisdom being a bit low (it was 17 up until my last levelup) since I'd forgotten that impacts your ability to learn spells.

Int affects how many spells you get as a mage. Wis affects your mana.

Andrew

[Derakon]

...oh. Well, that explains that. My Hobbit Mage's stats, for reference:
STR 9
INT 12
WIS 18
DEX 18/58
CON 18/27
CHA 12
AGI 12
SIZ 8

Guess I misremembered which stats are important for spellcasting. :\

[andrewdoull]

...oh. Well, that explains that. My Hobbit Mage's stats, for reference:
STR 9
INT 12
WIS 18
DEX 18/58
CON 18/27
CHA 12
AGI 12
SIZ 8

Guess I misremembered which stats are important for spellcasting. :\

It shouldn't be too bad. I've deliberately weighted the spells learned so that even as an INT 12 mage, you'll learn them reasonably close together at low levels. You'll just top out at the maximum number of spells learnt before someone with higher INT would.

I will modify the character creation screen again to display which stats are used for mana, failure rates and learning spells for each spell casting class though.

Andrew

[st.patrik]

Hey Andrew, I've always liked the direction you seem to be going in with this variant, and I think it's great that this is in active development. So first off a big 'thank you'.

Second of all, two items of feedback from one user:

1. the biggest barrier to my enjoyment of the game is the documentation issue (that others have mentioned too). I'm really glad you have added info about birth stats in character creation. I think in general the in-game help (through notes, 'I', etc.) is pretty good. The birth choices are the ones that are most perplexing. Some are documented, but lots of things aren't. For example the specialties - I'm unclear on how exactly it works to be a ranger whose focus is on magic books, and which school (of the very long list) would make most sense to take. One or two sentences commentary on each option would help a lot.
I would love to help with writing docs (I realize criticism without help offered is only so helpful), but I don't understand it well enough to be able to explain it to anyone. Even though I've been messing with Un- for some time I am still very much a rookie.

2. Even though I like FAAngband (and appreciate Nick's innovation as a developer) I dislike the wilderness mode a lot. I have pretty much stopped playing FA because of this. So at least one user likes your current system better than that (although I agree with the earlier poster that WOR is a pain to use - I would much rather be transported between the last town I was in and the last dungeon level (in the last dungeon) I was in).

A little wordy, so thanks for listening!

[andrewdoull]

Hey Andrew, I've always liked the direction you seem to be going in with this variant, and I think it's great that this is in active development. So first off a big 'thank you'.

Second of all, two items of feedback from one user:

1. the biggest barrier to my enjoyment of the game is the documentation issue (that others have mentioned too). I'm really glad you have added info about birth stats in character creation. I think in general the in-game help (through notes, 'I', etc.) is pretty good. The birth choices are the ones that are most perplexing. Some are documented, but lots of things aren't. For example the specialties - I'm unclear on how exactly it works to be a ranger whose focus is on magic books, and which school (of the very long list) would make most sense to take. One or two sentences commentary on each option would help a lot.
I would love to help with writing docs (I realize criticism without help offered is only so helpful), but I don't understand it well enough to be able to explain it to anyone. Even though I've been messing with Un- for some time I am still very much a rookie.

There's an open bug for providing 'exact' spoilers about each class/style specialisation. But I would have thought the context sensitive help would have started to provide an indication here. Here's the relevant section you'd get if you moved onto Magic Book under the style choice as any class and pressed '?':

                Many spell casters devote an themselves to the in depth pursuit
                of a particular magical type. Styling themselves Geomancers,
                Necromancers, Illusionists or otherwise, they have
                a deep understanding of a particular style of magic. Each
                spell book contains the creations of the greatest mages in
                the particular field.
                
                Others have no natural spell casting ability, but have been
                gifted with an ability or have a natural talent for 
                a particular type of magic, and limited mastery of magic 
                in this particular area only.

                If the character would not normally have the ability to cast
                spells, they instead gain a limited amount of mana 
                and the ability to learn and cast spells from a single 
                magic book or school of magic.  Specialised spell casters 
                who could normally cast spells, can instead cast spells 
                from their specialised book or school of magic at roughly 
                twice the effective power of a non-specialised mage, 
                and learns them approximately 20% earlier.

As for the long list of spell books, if you are playing birth_intermediate you only get a list of spell books which you have encountered in the dungeon to choose from - with the exception of the school spell books (Which admittedly to get context help from, you have to go back, choose a mage, then choose the school and hit '?' - but the descriptions are available from the general help screen).

It'd be good if you could give an indication of what is missing from this...

2. Even though I like FAAngband (and appreciate Nick's innovation as a developer) I dislike the wilderness mode a lot. I have pretty much stopped playing FA because of this. So at least one user likes your current system better than that (although I agree with the earlier poster that WOR is a pain to use - I would much rather be transported between the last town I was in and the last dungeon level (in the last dungeon) I was in).

A little wordy, so thanks for listening!

[st.patrik]

There's an open bug for providing 'exact' spoilers about each class/style specialisation. But I would have thought the context sensitive help would have started to provide an indication here.
.
.
As for the long list of spell books, if you are playing birth_intermediate you only get a list of spell books which you have encountered in the dungeon to choose from - with the exception of the school spell books (Which admittedly to get context help from, you have to go back, choose a mage, then choose the school and hit '?' - but the descriptions are available from the general help screen).

It'd be good if you could give an indication of what is missing from this...

You're absolutely right that the context-sensitive help gets you started. The problem for me is that I want to try something new and interesting (one of the strengths of this variant), but those are things for which there is limited information. I suppose I should play through the game until I encounter a race/spell book/etc. before playing it, but I always want to dive in and try an interesting combo and see how it goes. This is where the documentation doesn't help you out.

For example, let's say I'm creating a character. Hmm - I think I'll pick a man of Harad. Well, wait, what is special about this guy? Nothing I can tell. Maybe a Beorning instead. I hope there will be instructions about how to turn into and out of being a bear. I'll be an Artisan, and specialize in magic books. Hmm - which style? I wonder what 'Celestial Magic' is. Or how about 'Rune Magic'. I have no idea. Well maybe I'll be a Bard, specialising in Song books. Doh! same problem. What is in the 'Dirges' spell book anyway. Presumably something to do with death. A bit of a shot in the dark. Or maybe I'll be a mage, specialising in prayer books (that sounds interesting!) Wierd - now I don't get to choose my starting spell book. Well maybe all this magic stuff is too complicated. Maybe I should be a rogue. How about 'Backstab' for a specialty? But how does that work? there isn't a description.

In essence, many of the interesting-sounding options I want to try (and I like this variant partly because of all these interesting options) don't explain themselves in the contextual help, so I end up not really understanding how to put the character together and make him/her work. I don't really want to play through a character at length only to discover I made some really dumb choices on the front end. I also don't want to play through with a vanilla character just so I can familiarize myself with everything in the game, so that next time I can play something more interesting.

Could be I'm just impatient. It's a common problem.

[st.patrik]

It'd be good if you could give an indication of what is missing from this...

Same thing the other poster was complaining about. I go out into the wild world to find a dungeon and descend into it. Journey takes awhile and I have to wander over the wilderness to find the entrance. I finally do, and go diving. Six levels down I'm starting to get in trouble so I read my trusting WOR scroll, thinking I'll be back at the ranch in time for supper. <You are yanked upwards> D@mn! Where am I? Aw Cr@p - I'm in the middle of the wilderness. I have to hike all the way back home, no doubt having to fend off jackals and icky things the whole way.

When I finally get back to Bree I lock the doors, have a stiff drink, and settle in for the night. In the morning, after hitting the town, I get out another handy dandy WOR scroll, looking forward to having another swing at those annoying orcs, but I read the fine print and find I have to walk all the way to where the dungeon entrance opens up before the scroll will take me back down again. D@mn!

I know it might break the one-way travel thing, but what I would ideally like is a WOR scroll that takes me from home to the deepest dungeon level I visited in the last dungeon I was in, and then takes me out again all the way home. This is magic after all - you can do anything!

[andrewdoull]

Could be I'm just impatient. It's a common problem.

Sounds like I have a lot of work to do. It's a common problem.