NPP thoughts

[Derakon]

Aaaaagh, killed by a cave dweller nest at 1600'. Ettins are ridiculously sturdy at 1500 hitpoints (and that whole bit where they step back and let the next guy take a whack at me when they're half dead does not help), and storm giants can pump out damage at absurd rates. Both monsters that are dangerous when found alone. In groups, well...

Mind, I would have been in better shape if my only source of see invisible weren't on a ring; I had a bunch of useful rings that would've saved my bacon. Or if I could have found any sources of temporary speed. Only two potions, which went early, and the staff I bought from the black market got dissolved before I ever had a chance to use it.

It seems like fewer quests are available now; it used to be they'd show up every other level, but now I often have to go down 3 levels instead to get a new quest.

I'm also not certain I like how much of a crapshoot quests are in terms of your reputation. The guild can ask you to do things of wildly differing difficulty, but you don't get to know what the quest is until you've accepted it, at which point if you refuse it your reputation gets slaughtered. On the flipside, I don't think you should really be able to cherrypick your quests either...

[nppangband]

I feel your pain. I just had a promising level 30 human mage get slaughtered at 1600 by a dragon pit quest. I got the worst possible scenario... a tiny level of only two rooms, one of which was the dragon pit. I casted detect then rested to recover my mana. Two dragons enter the corridor, an inertia drake and a power drake. Immediately the inertia drake breathes, followed by the power drake breathing disenchantment.....I never even got a turn....

It seems like fewer quests are available now; it used to be they'd show up every other level, but now I often have to go down 3 levels instead to get a new quest.

This is the way it always was, the next quest was either 2 or three levels from the current max depth. The last couple Betas it was a quest every 2 levels. But that meant the player could pretty much use shafts to go from quest level to quest level, and barely have to deal with the regular dungeon at all, so I switched it back.

I'm also not certain I like how much of a crapshoot quests are in terms of your reputation. The guild can ask you to do things of wildly differing difficulty, but you don't get to know what the quest is until you've accepted it, at which point if you refuse it your reputation gets slaughtered. On the flipside, I don't think you should really be able to cherrypick your quests either...

Yep, you kind of have to be prepared for the worst when you ask for a quest. I do like your suggestion of extra fame points for harder quests. I am going to put that in, but coding the criteria for a hard quest is the challenge. I mean, I know a hard quest when I see one (kill 26 great power wyrms), but quantifying what makes it hard is difficult. Clearly, themed levels, pit/nests where you have to kill Undead, ancient dragons, demons, or humanoids (because of all the grandmaster mystics) are the hardest. But having to kill Smeagol at 100' is also difficult. Or getting a troll themed level at '1250 is practically a suicide mission for a pre-stat gain character. Bill/Bert/Tom will probably be there, and they can throw boulders causing 250-300 hp damage.

[Derakon]

It'd be interesting if instead of asking for quests by type, you could ask for them by difficulty, with compensating effects on your fame. Then the guild would give you a random quest type while trying to match the difficulty as much as possible.

Also, I don't know if I mentioned this earlier, but vault quests tend to be pretty easy. Of course it depends on which vault you get, but most are not as dangerous as a pit full of nasties or a themed level. The only problem is you have to be able to bore through rock to deal with them. I like the concept of the vault quest, but it'd be nice if they were beefed up a bit.

EDIT: erk...just got Ufthak as a quest for 250'. 9 dungeon levels out of depth, yikes.

EDIT 2: if visiting a store identifies items for you (because you now know what their flavors are), you don't reorder your pack automatically.

EDIT 3: okay, Ufthak had no escort, so I was able to slowly whittle him down with phase door and bolts. Strange.

EDIT 4: I don't think that the damage calculations for weapons take into account the identification status of your equipment. I had un-ID'd gloves of slaying, and I'm pretty sure that my damage estimates didn't change after IDing them. Also, it'd be nice if the damage calculations included the effects slays like the Vanilla calcs do.

EDIT 5: I seem to find an awful lot of cursed rings of Protection. They vastly outnumber the uncursed ones, to the extent that I simply squelch them right off; the cost of burning an ID on one is outweighed by the seemingly overwhelming odds that I get a cursed one, especially since uncursed ones are nothing particularly special.

EDIT 6: Nobody the Mummy isn't resistant to cold. Not that I mind, since he (she?) was a melee powerhouse and my weapon of choice had a cold brand, but it did seem odd.

[nppangband]

It'd be interesting if instead of asking for quests by type, you could ask for them by difficulty, with compensating effects on your fame. Then the guild would give you a random quest type while trying to match the difficulty as much as possible.

It used to be this way. You could choose easy, medium, or hard monster quests. But again, there is no good objective criteria for what makes a monster hard. Some monsters are easy if you have the right immunity/resist, or enough speed. Some monsters are easier for some classes, but hard for others. I might bring back the easy, medium, or hard monster quests in NPP 060, if I can come up with a way to quantify what makes a quest easy or hard.

I would like to have a greater variety of quests, so I am always open for suggestions. I think I want to add the choice of adding fixed quests (no down staircases until you finish the quest), and maybe a wilderness quest (completely clear out a wilderness level).

Also, I don't know if I mentioned this earlier, but vault quests tend to be pretty easy. Of course it depends on which vault you get, but most are not as dangerous as a pit full of nasties or a themed level. The only problem is you have to be able to bore through rock to deal with them. I like the concept of the vault quest, but it'd be nice if they were beefed up a bit.

Luck plays a big part here. There are 3-4 potential spots for the quest item in the vault, and the monsters holding the quest item are generated up to 10 levels out of depth. But it all depends on what monster is put there. It could be a white harpy, it could be one of the harder uniques. My last character had an ancient blue dragon holding the quest item at 900'.

EDIT 2: if visiting a store identifies items for you (because you now know what their flavors are), you don't reorder your pack automatically.

Good observation. Fixed.

EDIT 3: okay, Ufthak had no escort, so I was able to slowly whittle him down with phase door and bolts. Strange.

I think because he was so out-of-depth none of his escorts could be generated. I changed it so the monster generation level is slowly raised until a suitable escort is found.

EDIT 4: I don't think that the damage calculations for weapons take into account the identification status of your equipment. I had un-ID'd gloves of slaying, and I'm pretty sure that my damage estimates didn't change after IDing them. Also, it'd be nice if the damage calculations included the effects slays like the Vanilla calcs do.

That is a popular request, and I am slowly working towards it. But I want to re-do a couple things in combat at the same time. That is an NPP 0.5.2 item.

EDIT 5: I seem to find an awful lot of cursed rings of Protection. They vastly outnumber the uncursed ones, to the extent that I simply squelch them right off; the cost of burning an ID on one is outweighed by the seemingly overwhelming odds that I get a cursed one, especially since uncursed ones are nothing particularly special.

It is a 50%-50% chance, so that's just a run of bad luck.

EDIT 6: Nobody the Mummy isn't resistant to cold. Not that I mind, since he (she?) was a melee powerhouse and my weapon of choice had a cold brand, but it did seem odd.

Fixed. And again, I greatly appreciate all of your feedback.

[Derakon]

For a pit/nest quest, 5 random creatures will drop an extra item. That item will have the object generation level increased by 5, will not be cursed, and will not be a junk item.

I just had some creeping coins drop a Metal Cap of Teleportation [3, -8] {cursed}. I'm guessing this passed the "great" check and then rolled a bad ego? I also got a Potion of Resist Heat; not sure how that works into things.

Regarding my quest for Ufthak, if he'd had an escort he would have been miles more difficult to take down; I don't think I could have done it. As it was he was merely quite difficult. If you're going to ensure that uniques always get their escorts, please also ensure that escorted uniques don't show up quite so early in quests. The orc uniques are dangerous enough when they're at their appropriate depths.

I was able to recognize that creeping coins that I'd detected earlier were mimics when I got within 2 squares of them, even though there was a wall between me and them (get a creeping coins pit, detect them, then walk along the moat; might have to light the pit up first).

You appear to have changed the stealing system; even with 18/150 DEX master thieves are able to take my stuff. Annoying.

Magic Mapping staves seem like a poor deal compared to scrolls. 16 scrolls for 832AU, 1 staff with 7 charges for 1302AU.

In your pack: a Heavy Crossbow of Power (x4) (+16,+6) (v). Suggest you add a check for that ego to flip the to-hit and to-dam bonuses if the former is bigger than the latter (and similarly for the "of Accuracy" ego).

And hey, I'm glad my feedback is proving useful!

EDIT: annoyance: monsters can see (and breathe) through fire, but I can't.

EDIT 2: I'm pretty sure Vanilla recently put some fairly strict limits on monster breeding. Could you add something similar? It's incredibly aggravating to have a louse explosion take over a quest level; the level is basically impossible to navigate through no fault of your own, meaning that you either get lucky or are forced to abandon a quest. What fun is this? Yes, sometimes you can contain them, and usually you're lucky enough to get to them before they wake up, but not always.

EDIT 3: this might be one of those "only on OSX" things, but you'd better check. If I escape out of the service to restore or raise a stat, then when I get back into the town the map's blanked out and I can't see, even if I have a light source. Very bizarre. Goes away if I reload the save though.

EDIT 4: okay, you miiiiight want to reconsider your stair-placement algorithm:
Those are the only stairs on the level. Not only is this silly; it also happens commonly if very slightly less compactly in the "pillared" rooms (normal rooms with every other row having every other column be a solid block), which means that all of the stairs on the entire level are in one place. IMO stairs should be more spread-out; if you're going to pack them all together, you might as well just have one staircase and be done with it.

[nppangband]

I just had some creeping coins drop a Metal Cap of Teleportation [3, -8] {cursed}. I'm guessing this passed the "great" check and then rolled a bad ego? I also got a Potion of Resist Heat; not sure how that works into things.

It shouldn't work that way, but I have seen an occasional potion as well. It is supposed to be equipment/weapons, no worse than average. I have reviewed the code, and I don't see any reason for this to happen. I will keep looking.

Regarding my quest for Ufthak, if he'd had an escort he would have been miles more difficult to take down; I don't think I could have done it. As it was he was merely quite difficult. If you're going to ensure that uniques always get their escorts, please also ensure that escorted uniques don't show up quite so early in quests. The orc uniques are dangerous enough when they're at their appropriate depths.

It should get the weakest possible escort, probably just a couple snagas. It is odd that you got a quest for him that early. that's one of the hardest possible quests you could have gotten at that depth.

I was able to recognize that creeping coins that I'd detected earlier were mimics when I got within 2 squares of them, even though there was a wall between me and them (get a creeping coins pit, detect them, then walk along the moat; might have to light the pit up first).

In NPP 060 mimics are literally going to be objects...until they change into a monster and attack you.

You appear to have changed the stealing system; even with 18/150 DEX master thieves are able to take my stuff. Annoying.

It is slightly different. They only have a 10% chance at 18/150, and zero chance at 18.180. I must admit I have no idea when and why this was changed. Maybe I will change it back.

Magic Mapping staves seem like a poor deal compared to scrolls. 16 scrolls for 832AU, 1 staff with 7 charges for 1302AU.

In general scrolls are cheaper than staves per use. I guess the advantage of staves is that they can be recharged. Maybe this is only noticable because there are so many magic mapping scrolls in NPP stores. I will think about this one....

EDIT: annoyance: monsters can see (and breathe) through fire, but I can't.

You are shooting through the fire. Only you can't see it. Line of sight and line of fire are calculated differently in NPP. There is an object memory, much like monster memory, that can tell you all you know about the terrains.

EDIT 2: I'm pretty sure Vanilla recently put some fairly strict limits on monster breeding. Could you add something similar? It's incredibly aggravating to have a louse explosion take over a quest level; the level is basically impossible to navigate through no fault of your own, meaning that you either get lucky or are forced to abandon a quest. What fun is this? Yes, sometimes you can contain them, and usually you're lucky enough to get to them before they wake up, but not always.

I didn't see much different between NPP and Vanilla as of 3.1.2v2. Once I finalize NPP 0.5.1 I am going to take a look at the latest vanilla. Maybe it is in there. I am constantly going to be adding vanilla features, in order of desirability. At the pace they are coding, I doubt I will ever catch up to them again.

EDIT 3: this might be one of those "only on OSX" things, but you'd better check. If I escape out of the service to restore or raise a stat, then when I get back into the town the map's blanked out and I can't see, even if I have a light source. Very bizarre. Goes away if I reload the save though.

It was a bug, and it is fixed. Thanks.

EDIT 4: okay, you miiiiight want to reconsider your stair-placement algorithm:

Wow. Looks like a mage just found a copy of Mordenkainen's Escapes, and was practicing the create stairs spell.

NPP puts a high priprity on making the stairs in the most remote part of the dungeon possible, trying to make sure the player almost has 1-2 turns before being attacked. Sometimes things like that screenshot happen. I am suprised no stairs were put over there in that corridor on the lft side. Maybe someday I can make it look better, but mostly I want to make sure the player is reasonably safe.

[Derakon]

In NPP 060 mimics are literally going to be objects...until they change into a monster and attack you.

It's already a combination of annoying and lifesaving how they go dormant until you get close. If all 95 monsters in a treasure pit mobbed you at once there'd be no way to take one down at the depths you get quests for 'em.

It is slightly different. They only have a 10% chance at 18/150, and zero chance at 18.180. I must admit I have no idea when and why this was changed. Maybe I will change it back.

Ehh, it's no big deal. I was just surprised that my Knowledge [Angband Lore] skill check failed.

In general scrolls are cheaper than staves per use. I guess the advantage of staves is that they can be recharged. Maybe this is only noticable because there are so many magic mapping scrolls in NPP stores. I will think about this one....

I don't think I've ever seen recharging scrolls available for sale, which means the only sources of recharging are spells (effectively mage-only) or the magic shop service (grossly overpriced; only useful if the staff in question can't be bought).

You are shooting through the fire. Only you can't see it. Line of sight and line of fire are calculated differently in NPP. There is an object memory, much like monster memory, that can tell you all you know about the terrains.

The thing that bugs me about this is that monsters which I cannot see can see me just fine and are able to shoot at me. Yes, if I detect them, I can shoot at them, but unless I have telepathy the situation is grossly asymmetrical.

I didn't see much different between NPP and Vanilla as of 3.1.2v2. Once I finalize NPP 0.5.1 I am going to take a look at the latest vanilla. Maybe it is in there. I am constantly going to be adding vanilla features, in order of desirability. At the pace they are coding, I doubt I will ever catch up to them again.

Heh. This was mostly whining, honestly. Priests and paladins really get the shaft here -- they can't detect lice and they tend to have bad stealth. I don't know that this really needs to be changed, since it's usually not an issue...then again, I never saw the point of the giant lice monsters in the first place. They're just pure annoyance.

NPP puts a high priprity on making the stairs in the most remote part of the dungeon possible, trying to make sure the player almost has 1-2 turns before being attacked. Sometimes things like that screenshot happen. I am suprised no stairs were put over there in that corridor on the lft side. Maybe someday I can make it look better, but mostly I want to make sure the player is reasonably safe.

That seems like a good priority. It might be worth trying to add a minimum-distance-to-other-stairs caveat, but it's not a huge deal, or at least it hasn't been so far. Just means exploring the entire dungeon until I find the room that has all the staircases.

A few more bits!

* If you aren't going to give strong pseudo-ID to everyone, could you at least let the weak pseudoers detect average items?
* Is it intended that ball spells can hit around corners that you couldn't shoot? E.g.

...X.
##.##
 #*#
 #@#

@ targets the *, and X is hit. If you were standing on *, then you wouldn't be able to shoot X.
* I find the addition of light-based attack spells to the priest interesting. Definitely makes them play more mage-like early on; once you get Shock Bolt there's little point in melee or missile weapons as a first resort.
* I'm guessing that carrying capacity has been tweaked. My priest with 18 STR gets overloaded woefully quickly...
* Orb of Draining seems a trifle overpowered. It seems to be a one-hit kill on anything evil it hits that comes in groups, even if they're at the fringes of the orb.
* Likewise, Sun Beam makes quick work of monsters in corridors. I admit this makes Zephyr Hounds much less annoying.
* Chests might also be a bit overpowered sometimes. A large wooden chests at 1050' netted me Ethereal Openings, Radagast's Protections, a scroll of Teleport (?), and two scrolls of Acquirement...of course, the resulting items were Gorlim's useless helm and hard studded leather of resist acid. Oh, well, the spellbook is much appreciated.
* Have I mentioned lately how I like the message compaction? "4 Cave orcs shrivel away in the light!" indeed.
* Nativity boots seem to be overpriced. 13k for boots that grant nativity to acicd; I'm not going to find any acid-based terrain until well after I've found better boots. Even if they were for earlier terrains, terrain itself is rare enough that it's not worth losing, say, +1 stealth to get that nativity.
* I cast Probing, moved the cursor over a boil-covered wretch, and instead of probing the monster, I probed the floor...
* Why does Perception have to cost 20 mana for a priest? Are you trying to make it very annoying to identify items? Its failure rate is also high -- 20% for a level-27 character (the spell's available at level 20) with 18/162 WIS.
* Are you supposed to be able to get the berries from thornbushes? They're mentioned when I walk on the tile but I can't figure out any way to interact with the terrain.
* A wounded Cold Hound breathed frost at me and the potion (of naivety) didn't shatter. Do items on the floor get a saving throw against destruction now?
* I just had a quest level where 7 of the quest monster (sasquatches) were generated in the same pair of rooms. I'm guessing this is because they're native to icy terrain, which those rooms had. Kinda weird though.

[ramela]

I find it kind of encouraging that you find Orb overpowered, considering that we weakened somewhat it when I tweaked the Priest's spells. At least I know that I didn't go overboard.

I don't remember winning with a Priest since the change, so I was a little worried...

They still always felt like they were winnable, I guess I just haven't truly adapted to the weaker OoD and the resulting need to be more careful in the mid-game due to the changes.

As far as I remember, we moved OoD to level 15, increased the mana cost to 10 and increased the failrate, in order to make it more unreliable early on. Also, the damage it deals doesn't increase as fast as it used to, so it doesn't totally obsolete all other damage spells that Priests get.

The biggest difference in my opinion since the change is the fact that OoD used to be pretty good even against non-evil monsters, but now it is instead pretty bad against them. Which makes more sense flavourwise.

When the Light based spells were added they were made significantly worse against Trolls and Orcs while becoming more powerfull against most undead and devastating against immaterial undead monsters like 'G's .

I still feel like the Priests should propably be tweaked more though, away from spell based combat, since both Druids and Mages do that already. The existence of half-caster classes and Druids kind of shrinks the design space available for Priests.

[Derakon]

I should clarify that I haven't passed stat-gain with this character yet, so my thoughts on OoD are basically for shortly after it is obtained. Its damage output is far higher than that of Shockbolt, it hits an area, and it does double damage against evil, so even though it's more expensive it's still way more efficient than any other option until Sun Beam is obtained.

We'll see how things go with this character.

[nppangband]

I still feel like the Priests should propably be tweaked more though, away from spell based combat, since both Druids and Mages do that already. The existence of half-caster classes and Druids kind of shrinks the design space available for Priests.

Well, there are a limited amount of priest-like spells themes. The theme of the druid spells are spells involving a natural element or force, and the theme of the NPP mages is supernatural spells. There is lots of room for variety there. The priest has orb of draining, light, dispel evil, dispel undead, but they all seem to be variations on the same "damage evil" theme. There can be more powerful increments of the same spell theme, or we can come up with some new ones. I agree that priests should go the same "pure spellcaster" route that you took the druid and mage.

[nppangband]

By the way, to anyone playing NPP, please do not attempt to melee "Pazuzu, Lord of Air." (a deep unique). He needs a little fixing, as it turns out he the stun side effect of his melee attack is so strong he has a decent chance of knocking out a fully healthy character in only one round. Here is a thread with a temporary fix until the next release:

http://forum.nppangband.org/viewtopic.php?id=1029

[Derakon]

Well, that was ignominous. Stone-to-mud'd a wall with the plan to teleport away the lesser balrog behind it (in a vault at 1600'); it proceeded to invoke chaos and breathe fire before I got another turn. So much for that character! Stupid, stupid, stupid. At least should've drunk a potion of speed beforehand.

[ramela]

Well, there are a limited amount of priest-like spells themes. The theme of the druid spells are spells involving a natural element or force, and the theme of the NPP mages is supernatural spells. There is lots of room for variety there. The priest has orb of draining, light, dispel evil, dispel undead, but they all seem to be variations on the same "damage evil" theme. There can be more powerful increments of the same spell theme, or we can come up with some new ones. I agree that priests should go the same "pure spellcaster" route that you took the druid and mage.

Obviously Priests should be pure spellcasters, the problem I want to avoid most is making Priests feel too similar to either the Druid or the Mage.

IIRC, The Prime Directive in Star Trek is something like "Don't interfere with the evolution of alien cultures". IMO, in *band player class design The Prime Directive is "Make sure that no player class is just an inferior version of another class". I think we might want to make Priests stand out even more from Druids, to make sure that Priests are not just Druids without "Haste" or that Druids aren't just Priests with worse "Healing".

[buzzkill]

I not familiar with NPP but IMO priests should reign over a) evil and b) dead/undead, which should be enough to give them a decent chance of success in the dungeon. They should have spells or spell like abilities that a) protect themselves from and b) deal tremendous damage to these classes of enemies exclusively. They should be inferior fighters and inferior casters against most other enemies. I don't feel that they are commonly portrayed this way, at least in the variants I have played. Is it a tight niche? Yes, but this is a man of the cloth on a murderous rampage through a dungeon. What do you expect?

[ramela]

I think there should be more distinction than that, particularly in terms of distinction beyond just what kinds of monsters you pick your fights against. Basically, one would want playing each pure caster to feel significantly different from playing the other two.

There might be untapped design space left in the range of projections each class has access to...