[FA] FAangband development

[Nick]

Having recently encountered my first few Gelatinous Cubes with a reasonably competent character (20th Paladin, though ill equipped to fight the cube with his Saber of Shocking and Wand of Lightning Bolts). Although its acid attacks destroyed most of my armor my biggest problem with the cube was its speed. It simply moved too quickly. It shouldn’t be able to keep pace with you. An average character should be able to outrun a cube without the aid of ‘speed’. You can’t always stand and fight a cube, due to its constantly showering you in acid, buy you should certainly be able to outrun one. It should be more of a nuisance than a deadly enemy.
Slowing the cube (maybe just -2 or as much as -5 or more) seems like an obvious fix. On the flipside, make it resistant to normal arrows and bolts, on the premise that they would simply be absorbed, inflicting very little damage. This will prevent the cube from falling prey to the run and shoot offence. As an additional compensation, perhaps it should also be at least somewhat resistant to normal melee damage inflicted by blunt weapons, since slicing into it with a blade would seem to be the preferred way to inflict damage to gelatin.
I also encountered one in the wilderness, which seemed out of place. They should be confined to dungeons corridors as per the description.

This is all fair enough comment. There are a few other monsters like this which don't really belong in wilderness. Resistance to missiles is an interesting thought, too.

I must say, the easiest way for me to deal with all this is just to rename the monster and rewrite the description

It also seemed to have the ability to unerringly track me down when I ‘teleported’ away from it. However, I think this may be a problem with most, if not all, FAangband creatures. Once you are out of line of sight even intelligent creatures should have a hard time finding you without the aid of magic or telepathy. Maybe they can logically figure out where you ran off to on foot, but all too often creatures seem to know exactly where you are, even when out of sight, even after a ‘blink’ or ‘teleport’.

OK, here's my explanation of what goes on without looking at the code. Monsters have a detection distance; once you're inside that, it's assumed they just know where you are. Outside that, some monsters also follow scent trails, which require them to follow where you have been on foot. I think it is the detection range aspect which you are finding odd, and it probably is a bit, especially in wilderness. I'll think about that for when I overhaul the monster AI generally (probably version 0.4.0).

[buzzkill]

Having recently encountered my first few Gelatinous Cubes with a reasonably competent character (20th Paladin, though ill equipped to fight the cube with his Saber of Shocking and Wand of Lightning Bolts). Although its acid attacks destroyed most of my armor my biggest problem with the cube was its speed. It simply moved too quickly. It shouldn’t be able to keep pace with you. An average character should be able to outrun a cube without the aid of ‘speed’. You can’t always stand and fight a cube, due to its constantly showering you in acid, buy you should certainly be able to outrun one. It should be more of a nuisance than a deadly enemy.
Slowing the cube (maybe just -2 or as much as -5 or more) seems like an obvious fix. On the flipside, make it resistant to normal arrows and bolts, on the premise that they would simply be absorbed, inflicting very little damage. This will prevent the cube from falling prey to the run and shoot offence. As an additional compensation, perhaps it should also be at least somewhat resistant to normal melee damage inflicted by blunt weapons, since slicing into it with a blade would seem to be the preferred way to inflict damage to gelatin.
I also encountered one in the wilderness, which seemed out of place. They should be confined to dungeons corridors as per the description.
It also seemed to have the ability to unerringly track me down when I ‘teleported’ away from it. However, I think this may be a problem with most, if not all, FAangband creatures. Once you are out of line of sight even intelligent creatures should have a hard time finding you without the aid of magic or telepathy. Maybe they can logically figure out where you ran off to on foot, but all too often creatures seem to know exactly where you are, even when out of sight, even after a ‘blink’ or ‘teleport’.

[Arralen]

Wilderness is fine as it is - in fact, it's one of the strong points of FA.
I would rather see overland travels be much longer - and recalling from wilderness or from town to town removed: no more townscumming ... .

If you have such troubles finding your first dungeon (entry) - have your read the help files and used the "M" key? And if you die early - where do you start? Maybe you should consider a easier starting position?

[Arendil]

So I guess the answer is a fairly definite maybe. Any opinions?

Hmm...you can as well rename what you have already to 0.29 or something similar, release that, and then think about major changes in 0.30

I, for one, would love *slightly* smaller/redone wilderness so far none of my characters managed to discover any dungeon...but, on the other hand, maybe that's because they just die too quickly...

[pav]

So I guess the answer is a fairly definite maybe. Any opinions?

The esr's mantra Release early. Release often. fits here nicely

[Seany C]

Like a snazzy new randart ring with IFire, maybe

Heh - I've already got a Plain Gold Ring (well, platinum, actually, but that's not in theme) with PERMA_CURSE on, IRL...

So I guess the answer is a fairly definite maybe. Any opinions?

If you've got a bit more work on the new one that's worthwhile, take your time. 0.2.3 is perfectly playable and personally, I'd rather wait for one that's mythically just-right, rather than a rush bug-ridden beta...

[Nick]

Is FAA 0.3.0 coming soon? *dons flame-retardant something*

Like a snazzy new randart ring with IFire, maybe

I've been in two minds about this. I have done all the gameplay changes I'm going to for now, I think (although I haven't done any AI changes yet - they'll probably wait for a later version); I've done a major code cleanup and modernisation (but there's always more to do here, especially with Vanilla improving so fast); and I've incorporated a lot of the new Vanilla UI and features, and am currently incorporating the mouse interface cleanly into this. In some respects it would be nice to release very soon and get feedback on the changes, but my original plan was to have all the heavy code work done before 0.3.0, and there's still a bit to do.

So I guess the answer is a fairly definite maybe. Any opinions?

[Seany C]

Is FAA 0.3.0 coming soon? *dons flame-retardant something*

[Nick]

Hmm, I seem to recall some variant or other put the inscription on as soon as you wielded the item, seeing as you get the "oops, it feels deathly cold!" message right away - I just assumed it was standard :P

Well, you're right. I just found (while doing something else) how vanilla does it, and it wasn't what I was looking for before. So that will now be in 0.3.0. Thanks

[ekolis]

Hmm, I seem to recall some variant or other put the inscription on as soon as you wielded the item, seeing as you get the "oops, it feels deathly cold!" message right away - I just assumed it was standard :P

[Nick]

All right, found a bug here... looks like if you wield a cursed item that you don't know to be cursed, it does not gain the {cursed} inscription...

I believe this is actually standard behaviour - I've just compared with vanilla, and it looks the same. The only time an item gets a feeling inscription is when the inventory is sensed, which is frequently for melee types and less frequently for casters. You get a message if you try and take off the cursed item, but it still doesn't get the inscription - maybe it should at that point.

[ekolis]

All right, found a bug here... looks like if you wield a cursed item that you don't know to be cursed, it does not gain the {cursed} inscription...

[Atriel]

[QUOTE=Nick;2847]What OS are you playing in? It's probably bad implementation of paths by me that's the problem. Editing the appropriate font-***.prf in lib/pref might do the trick.

Thanks! that solved it! I´m playing in WindowsXP.

off to the wilderness!

[Nick]

1. I dump feature list to a pref with the char namefile, the only change being
Open Floor from 46 to 31 (the centered tiny dot instead of the huge low dot) but it isn´t automatically loaded, i am having to manually load every time.. Is there a way to automatize/fix this? maybe messing with terrain.txt...

What OS are you playing in? It's probably bad implementation of paths by me that's the problem. Editing the appropriate font-***.prf in lib/pref might do the trick.

2. The "hit a key to continue" in the beginning is not needed

Well, that splash screen isn't really needed, either. But it builds the suspense

[Atriel]

I just recently got into FA because it seemed daunting at first till i noticed the map in the help heh...
Just 2 annoyances i´ve found
1. I dump feature list to a pref with the char namefile, the only change being
Open Floor from 46 to 31 (the centered tiny dot instead of the huge low dot) but it isn´t automatically loaded, i am having to manually load every time.. Is there a way to automatize/fix this? maybe messing with terrain.txt...
2. The "hit a key to continue" in the beginning is not needed

BTW i sort of liked to go out of town as an adan, find something nice
to kill and gain 6 levels!
Nick: keep up the good work