NPP thoughts

[PowerDiver]

Good to know on the potions of drain mana.

IMO they sound better than they are. It's been quite a while since I played, so my experience might no longer be relevant, but every time I executed a plan to use them I decided afterwards that it was a waste of effort.

If you pick one up and the opportunity to use it immediately presents itself, go for it. I went back to squelching them.

[nppangband]

IMO they sound better than they are. It's been quite a while since I played, so my experience might no longer be relevant, but every time I executed a plan to use them I decided afterwards that it was a waste of effort.

If you pick one up and the opportunity to use it immediately presents itself, go for it. I went back to squelching them.

They take away about 10% of the monster's current mana. They are best used at the start of a battle. They probably aren't worth an inventory slot, but they do help in battles like that one.

[nppangband]

I'm not so certain that NPP's squelch is superior to V's, actually. V is very clean here: squelched items simply disappear, but can be "retrieved" if you decide you want to see them later. This allows you to squelch items that you only need very rarely (e.g. restore-stat potions) and unsquelch them later if you find you do need them. With NPP, squelching is nonreversible, since squelched items are outright destroyed -- and they are displayed in-game (even if only as a purple dot) until you do destroy them by walking over them. Moreover there are a few edge cases where you can squelch an item and others of its type don't disappear immediately (mostly if there's multiple of the same item on the tile you're standing on when you squelch).

That said, NPP's squelch is miles better than no squelch at all. V's is just a bit more polished IMO.

In NPP, there are other options for pickup/squelch that help out in the situation above. You can just set an item like restore stat potions to NEVER_PICKUP. They will be visible, but your character will ignore them. You can then just quaff them directly from the ground as needed. The squelch setting is best used for cursed items or items that are always useless, such as rings of WOE or potions of water.

[nppangband]

Found a couple bad errors in Beta 3. The updated links are:

source:

http://download.nppangband.org/npp-0.5.1-src-beta3a.zip

Windows executable:

http://download.nppangband.org/npp-0.5.1-win-beta3a.zip

[Derakon]

Still on Beta 2, sorry. I'll get around to updating soon!

* I cleared out a giant pit, and while I was sorting through the treasure, I saw periodic flashes of light, like you get when there's a monster surrounded by a cloud. I killed most of the giants with Sun Burst and Sun Beam, if it makes a difference. Savefile here. This did happen again when I cleared a later giant pit. Are those spells supposed to have a lingering "super-light" effect?
* Interesting that there are ironman-only items. I only noticed this when I wondered why I hadn't seen Holy Infusions yet...not that I wanted any of the prayers in it anyway.
* Rod of *Identify*, hey! Neat.
* It seems like staircases often get generated all in a group (like, four staircases in the same room). Is this intentional?
* Boiling mud was able to destroy one of my scrolls. Intended?
* Instead of "The foo fails to set off your trap", shouldn't it be "The foo avoids your trap"?
* Cruelty idea: make quest pits and the area around them be filled with terrain the monsters in the pit are native to or that they're elementally-aligned with. Oil-filled red dragon pits, anyone?
* If you're going to have wallwalking monsters keep me from resting, could you please at least make them not move erratically? Trying to sleep when there's a group of dreads in a nearby vault doing a very bad job of chasing after me is an exercise in frustration.
* Likewise, trying to dig through ice walls to reach awakened monsters, especially with the increase in digging difficulty, is tedious at best.
* Monsters don't seem to path around sessile monsters that are blocking their path that they can't push through. For example, put a Death Mold in a moat, stand in the center room, and watch other monsters walk up to the mold and stop.
* I got Full Plate of Resistance as a quest reward for a rather difficult quest (14 Great Wyrms of Inertia; I ended up at double-digit HP at one point from double inertia breaths) at 3600'. A bit disappointing.
* IMO, the fireproofing service is overpriced. For the amount of money I could spend to fireproof priest book 4, I could buy my own personal random artifact from the guild.
* There's a difference between "ancient dragon pit" and "great wyrm pit". Just sayin'.

...13 great wyrms of power, cripes...

* Ooh, I dig the boost to the Ring of Tulkas. It's actually worth using now. Or it would be, if I didn't already have Narya and near-maxed STR/DEX/CON.
* There seems to be some kind of refresh issue with burnt terrain. When I move out of LOS of some burnt walls, they get drawn as completely black tiles (even if I cast mapping or drink Enlightenment), sometimes when I cast detection I see monsters on burnt floors that aren't actually there, if I pass my targeting reticule over a burnt black tile, then the reticule keeps getting drawn there even after I've moved it off. I think this involves tunneling, but I'm not certain.

Okay, I want some respect. That quest for an ancient dragon pit? I completed it. I'm quite confident it wouldn't have been feasible for any other class than priest or paladin; I must have cast that 325-HP heal over 100 times. If I hadn't had Narya's fire immunity I never would have made it because I'd be out of spellbooks. Likewise, if I hadn't had all those vitality bonuses from the guild, this would have been completely infeasible (I currently have 1425HP at clvl 50 with maxed CON). I had several scary moments where I was stunned (thus, 20% baseline spell failure rate) and had to either heal or teleport right then...naturally, every single consumable I had had been destroyed by frost or acid. Why do staves and scrolls have to be susceptible to acid? Anyway, here's my wyrm killcount:
13 Great Wyrms of Power
3 Great Wyrms of Balance
1 Great Chromatic Wyrm
3 Great Wyrms of Chaos
5 Great Wyrms of Law
6 Great Ethereal Wyrms
8 Great Time Wyrms
6 Great Aether Wyrms
21 Great Wyrms of Inertia
3 Great Crystal Wyrms
5 Great Wyrms of Thunder
7 Great Bile Wyrms
7 Great Hell Wyrms
11 Great Wyrms of Perplexity
2 Great Ice Wyrms
2 Great Storm Wyrms
19 Great Swamp Wyrms

And here's what I got from the wyrm drops:
Dor-Lomin
Fingolfin
Oromé
Amras
Angrist
Tulkas
Thirien (randart executioner's sword with a bunch of slays and decent damage, but not much else)
Brandinde (randart sling with +1 to most things)
Lanthron (Cesti with +8 speed and disenchantment resistance)
3x Godly Insights
2x Purifications and Healings
1x Wrath of God

And the quest reward:
The Shadow Cloak of Tindor (+5,+5) [6,+22] (+4 to INT/CON/CHA/Stealth)
Resist acid, cold, shards. Sustain INT/CON/CHA. Slow digestion, free action, feather fall, permanent light.

(Not bad, but is (+5, +5) worth losing 2 points of speed?)

And after all that, they still didn't bump my reputation up to legendary! C'mon, I've got damned-near full monster memory on the frickin' Great Wyrm of Power, whose monster memory says "Nobody has survived long enough to know all the different ways it can breathe." All I'm missing is its resistances and how alert it is!

[Derakon]

I made this post last night, and was rather peeved at the time. However my internet connection wouldn't let me post it...anyway, I'm a bit calmer now, but I still hold that Sauron's too hard. Post commencing.

And dead, again. Killed by Sauron and Ungoliant in tandem -- I failed to react to Ungoliant popping next door (she can walk through walls now, WTF), and my 5% teleport-self failed => dead. I've uploaded the poor sod to the ladder here. Some observations:

1. Sauron is impossible. His listed spell percentage is 65%, but in practice it's at least 90%, and every spell he casts deals about 400HP in damage. I can't count the number of times I had a chain like this:

Sauron, the Sorceror casts a plasma bolt.
You feel very good.
Sauron, the Sorceror gestures fluidly.
You are lost in a raging tempest of wind and water!
You feel very good.
Sauron, the Sorceror casts a powerful darkness storm.
You feel very good.
etc...

Thus, trying to fight him turns into chain-casting healing spells, hitting him on the rare turns when he doesn't cast a spell, teleporting him away when I run out of mana, resting up (during which time his mana meter completely refills and he recovers from most of the damage I dealt), and then chasing him down again. The best I ever managed was getting him down to about 70% health.

By way of comparison, in Vanilla you have to be alert for the odd attack that will take off 600HP in one shot, but most of the time that attack doesn't show up, so you aren't forced to burn through healing like crazy. This is good, because most classes don't have healing to burn through. Unless you're expecting everyone to scum for money to buy lots of potions using the temple services? Which then means that if you fail a big fight, you're faced with a lot of runs through the dungeon to pick up salables to replenish your stocks.

2. Normally I'd consider my character to be ludicrously overpowered. He had three elemental immunities, resistance to everything, base speed of +38, and over 1400 hitpoints. I'd rather have a weaker character fighting more reasonable challenges than a superpowered character fighting godlike blast mages. The latter turns into too much of just hit&heal; there's no room for more detailed strategy because the enemy's damage output is simply so high.

3. Mana meters are pointless, because monsters never run out. I don't think I've ever seen a monster drop below 50%. They can spam spells until the cows come home, and many do. This is smart -- it's what the player does, after all -- but it's not exactly fun to fight. I have absolutely no idea how a class without unlimited healing is supposed to deal with high-level casters. I consider paladins to be playing on easy mode, and I was able to take on quests that wouldn't have been feasible with other classes (c.f. 13 great wyrms of power), but everyone has to be able to kill Sauron, and then Morgoth; how are they supposed to do it?

4. With rods susceptible to touch-to-drain attacks, there is quite literally no reason to carry them against anything in the late game. The only rods I got any use out of after learning Mass Identify were *Identify* and Stone to Mud. I carried two Rods of Healing, but they were always drained in any fight where I'd possibly want to use them, so they were pretty pointless.

5. Tunneling is too hard, IMO. It shouldn't take hundreds of turns to take out a granite block when I have maxed strength, even if I'm not using a digger.

6. I do like the use of A for maiar, and the new enemies you've added to that character set.

7. It'd be nice if the upper-tier hydras had some clues in their descriptions as to what they can do.

8. I noticed that "monsters learn from player's weaknesses" appears to be on by default. Either that or that last great wyrm of power I fought got very lucky about choosing to breathe electricity very consistently. I don't think this is a bad thing; just an observation.

Anyway, my next character will be on the new version. I am a bit peeved about the implausibility of Sauron; I can't imagine what Morgoth is like. But it'll be awhile before my next character is ready for those fights anyway.

[nppangband]

Sorry to read about your character dying so close to the end. NPP is a different game than vanilla and requires a different strategy to win. I looked over your character dump, and here are my thoughts:

1) Monster mana does run out, even Sauron and Morgoth. When it does, both Sauron and Morgoth are borderline helpless. Step one to beating them is draining their mana, then you concentrate on draining their HP.

2) It is absolutely mandatory to kill every deep unique (2000' and below)before taking on Sauron or Morghth. Scrolls of summon unique help speed up this process.

3) I personally think even the most powerful character should always carry around scrolls of teleportation. Even a 0-fail spellcaster with every resist can get stunned.

4) Potions of speed do help, even at +38. Even if they only increase your speed a minimal amount can turn the tide to you attacking, Sauron healing, you attacking again, etc.... This helps drain their mana.

5) I wish you had posted the character either here or on the NPP forums asking if you were ready for the big fights. I think you would have gotten a bunch of useful suggestions. I would have recommended wearing Feanor and wielding a much more powerful bow or crossbow. And some powerful ammo. Even Paladins can dish out a tremendous amount of damage through archery. Then you could have phase doored around, not letting him touch you, which would have made your rods useful.

6) The character is powerful by Angband standards, but NPP is a little different. Immunities are easier to get in NPP because they are practically manditory for the deep fights. Not so much to ward off damage but to protect and preserve your inventory.

I am working on your other suggestions for the game. Tunneling shouldn't be much different. Why not stone-to-mud? And what disturb options do you have that monsters out-of-LOS are disturbing? Is disturb_move turned off?

[Derakon]

1) Monster mana does run out, even Sauron and Morgoth. When it does, both Sauron and Morgoth are borderline helpless. Step one to beating them is draining their mana, then you concentrate on draining their HP.

From my reading of the code, Sauron has 197 mana and most of his attack spells cost about 5 mana. If we assume that each attack spell deals 300HP in damage, that he casts nothing but attack spells (i.e. no summoning), and that he never recovers mana, then that means that you have to tank 11700HP in damage before you can consider trying to deal with him. IIRC you said that hitting him with a potion of drain mana drains 10% of his current MP? So if I had saved ten potions for the fight then I'd be able to cut that down to ~4200HP (assuming I could hit him with all ten potions before he started casting, mind you). This is still high enough that I can't see how you're meant to deal with him without stocking up a huge pile of healing potions.

2) It is absolutely mandatory to kill every deep unique (2000' and below)before taking on Sauron or Morghth. Scrolls of summon unique help speed up this process.

I have to say that I'm not a fan of this concept. I've proven I can survive indefinitely at the deepest parts of the dungeon, but now I have to go scum levels to kill uniques just so they can't make the final fights complicated?

3) I personally think even the most powerful character should always carry around scrolls of teleportation. Even a 0-fail spellcaster with every resist can get stunned.

I could have used the ?Destruction I was carrying, but I didn't because I didn't want to lose the progress I'd made against Sauron so far. In fact, I failed two spells in a row here, so this was a 1 in 400 death.

4) Potions of speed do help, even at +38. Even if they only increase your speed a minimal amount can turn the tide to you attacking, Sauron healing, you attacking again, etc.... This helps drain their mana.

From my reading of extract_energy in tables.c, the difference between +38 speed and +48 speed is 41 energy/round vs. 44 energy/round, i.e. 7%. That's pretty damned marginal. That said, I'll freely admit that I hadn't carried most of my consumables into the fight, and I should have retreated and come back with the contents of my home plus some !Heroism.

5) I wish you had posted the character either here or on the NPP forums asking if you were ready for the big fights. I think you would have gotten a bunch of useful suggestions. I would have recommended wearing Feanor and wielding a much more powerful bow or crossbow. And some powerful ammo. Even Paladins can dish out a tremendous amount of damage through archery. Then you could have phase doored around, not letting him touch you, which would have made your rods useful.

My current setup optimized covering resistance holes (most notably, getting both sound and darkness in the same kit), getting acid immunity, and as a distant third getting combat bonuses. Cubragol was arguably the best launcher I'd seen all game; the only ones that came close were Heavy Crossbows of Extra Might. And this is the best ammo I'd found; by my calculations it would do 285 damage/shot.

6) The character is powerful by Angband standards, but NPP is a little different. Immunities are easier to get in NPP because they are practically manditory for the deep fights. Not so much to ward off damage but to protect and preserve your inventory.

Immunities were not easy to get; I couldn't wear Thorin for a long time because it didn't cover electricity resistance (which you'd think would be easy to cover elsewhere...not so much), and Narya and Nenya, which I got quite late, were the only other two sources that weren't on an otherwise-crappy weapon.

I am working on your other suggestions for the game. Tunneling shouldn't be much different. Why not stone-to-mud? And what disturb options do you have that monsters out-of-LOS are disturbing? Is disturb_move turned off?

I mostly find it an annoyance that StM is practically mandatory to make any reasonable headway when digging. With this character I routinely had to spend several hundred turns tunneling to clear a single granite square, which doesn't compare favorably with tunneling in other variants I've played. I can't find where in your terrain.txt tunneling difficulty is stored so I can't tell if you've actually changed this or if I'm just somehow imagining things.

My disturbance options were set like so:
disturb_move: NO
disturb_near: YES
disturb_detect: YES
disturb_state: YES

The disturbance pattern I was seeing can definitely be characterized as "if there is an awake monster that can move through walls, then I am disturbed." Makes resting near ghosts an impossibility.

One other thing while I'm thinking about it: if you have a specific ego-type set to squelch, but the "rare equipment" set to not squelch, then rare equipment with that ego is still squelched. I'm not certain if that's correct or not. *shrug*

Anyway, time to see what Beta 3 has in store...

[ramela]

In my experience, Sauron is actually a bit of a pushover. I'll go against the grain and use letters for bullets on my list of things I consider important for fighting S and M.

a) First of all, with enough preparation, dealing with every deep unique is not mandatory. Just preferable. Avoiding being in several dangerous monsters' LoS simultaneously is paramount, but a suitably *Destruction*'ed or Stone to Mud'ed environment with Phase Door and Teleport Other has often been enough for me. It just means you can't teleport yourself, which is not a problem since teleporting at that depth is too risky anyway. It is possible to take advantage of the fact that Morgoth is faster than the monsters that he summons.

b) Against Morgoth, getting his mana down is huge. This applies to Sauron to a lesser extent, depending on how fast you deal damage. The amount of mana drained by throwing a Potion of Drain Mana is quite small so I don't collect them for the final fights, but I'll carry a few with me if I randomly find some.

c) The best way to get Morgoth and Sauron low on mana is to deal damage to them as fast as possible. The objective is to force them to spend as much of their mana as possible on healing instead of damaging you. IIRC, summoning also uses a lot of mana, so I fist pump whenever they summon something I can banish.

d) To maximise the damage I can deal, before the firghts I gorge myself on Speed, Heroism, Berserk and Prayer effects for any non-mage character. Marginal advantages are still advantages and several marginal advantages add up to a significant advantage.

e) To me, two tries at a 5% spell is not a 1/400 risk. It is a 1/20 risk of having to bail out with *Destruction* or use another 0% fail method of protecting myself.

Otherwise it's all about having a plan and the tools to implement it.

[RogerN]

I failed two spells in a row here, so this was a 1 in 400 death.

This is slightly off-topic, and you're probably already aware of the mathematics, but nonetheless everyone needs a reminder now and then

If your teleport spell has a 5% chance of failure and you cast teleport about 100 times over the course of a game, your odds of failing twice in a row (at least once, possibly more times) exceed 20%. That's a huge risk to take if death is on the line. If you're super teleport-happy and use the spell 200 times over the course of a game, your odds of double-failure increase to more than 35%.

Finally, if you already failed casting teleport once then it is not a 1 in 400 chance of failing again. It's 1 in 20, which is too much of a risk when death is on the line.

Of course when you have no alternative escapes then sometimes you just gotta roll the dice and take what's coming to you...

[Nick]

Finally, if you already failed casting teleport once then it is not a 1 in 400 chance of failing again. It's 1 in 20, which is too much of a risk when death is on the line.

In addition, this is possibly a case where the Angband RNG's deficiencies are highlighted - I believe it has a higher chance of successive extreme values. So a failure after another failure may be a greater than 1 in 20 chance.

Of course, I say this without having done any of the maths or even looked at the code...

[Derakon]

Yes, yes, relying on a 5% fail to save your life is a classic blunder. We all know this. I won't claim I was entirely rational by that point in the fight; Sauron had me too peeved.

[nppangband]

In my experience, Sauron is actually a bit of a pushover. I'll go against the grain and use letters for bullets on my list of things I consider important for fighting S and M.

a) First of all, with enough preparation, dealing with every deep unique is not mandatory. Just preferable. Avoiding being in several dangerous monsters' LoS simultaneously is paramount, but a suitably *Destruction*'ed or Stone to Mud'ed environment with Phase Door and Teleport Other has often been enough for me. It just means you can't teleport yourself, which is not a problem since teleporting at that depth is too risky anyway. It is possible to take advantage of the fact that Morgoth is faster than the monsters that he summons.

b) Against Morgoth, getting his mana down is huge. This applies to Sauron to a lesser extent, depending on how fast you deal damage. The amount of mana drained by throwing a Potion of Drain Mana is quite small so I don't collect them for the final fights, but I'll carry a few with me if I randomly find some.

c) The best way to get Morgoth and Sauron low on mana is to deal damage to them as fast as possible. The objective is to force them to spend as much of their mana as possible on healing instead of damaging you. IIRC, summoning also uses a lot of mana, so I fist pump whenever they summon something I can banish.

d) To maximise the damage I can deal, before the firghts I gorge myself on Speed, Heroism, Berserk and Prayer effects for any non-mage character. Marginal advantages are still advantages and several marginal advantages add up to a significant advantage.

e) To me, two tries at a 5% spell is not a 1/400 risk. It is a 1/20 risk of having to bail out with *Destruction* or use another 0% fail method of protecting myself.

Otherwise it's all about having a plan and the tools to implement it.

@Derakon - I am quite glad Anssi Ramela joined in the conversation. He is *THE* NPPAngband expert, having played it NPP than anyone else (even more than Diego or I). He has contributed a respectable amount of code and about 25-30 monster races as well (including the Ainur races that are getting frequent praise). He has won at least 8-9 times, and well, I could go on, but my point is if his advice contradicts mine, take his every time.

[nppangband]

This is slightly off-topic, and you're probably already aware of the mathematics, but nonetheless everyone needs a reminder now and then

If your teleport spell has a 5% chance of failure and you cast teleport about 100 times over the course of a game, your odds of failing twice in a row (at least once, possibly more times) exceed 20%. That's a huge risk to take if death is on the line. If you're super teleport-happy and use the spell 200 times over the course of a game, your odds of double-failure increase to more than 35%.

Finally, if you already failed casting teleport once then it is not a 1 in 400 chance of failing again. It's 1 in 20, which is too much of a risk when death is on the line.

Of course when you have no alternative escapes then sometimes you just gotta roll the dice and take what's coming to you...

Completely agree. I forget who on the forums deserves credit for originally saying this, but in a full game of Angband, a 1% chance of failure in your escape plans is a guarantee you will eventually get killed.

[zaimoni]

In addition, this is possibly a case where the Angband RNG's deficiencies are highlighted - I believe it has a higher chance of successive extreme values. So a failure after another failure may be a greater than 1 in 20 chance.

I've only been able to measure this for 1/27 or rarer events; 1/26 rarity events weren't measurably correlated. I needed 3*n trials to measure the correlation at 1/27 and rarer; 2*n trials wasn't measurable.