NPP thoughts

[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.

[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!

[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

[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]

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.

[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.

[Derakon]

I either got a new quest without requesting it, or accidentally requested it while trying to clear the apparently-stuck message. I can't really tell.

Good to know on the potions of drain mana. Now if only I hadn't been squelching them all this time. It'd be neat if one of the magical realms included a "psychic drain" spell. Probably mage-only, I'd say. Reduce target creature's mana by clvl; gain clvl HP.

[nppangband]

Okay, I'm still on the previous version for now.

* The Mouth of Sauron is a bastard. It seems like 3/4ths of his turns are spent casting spells that deal more than 300HP in damage even if you resist the element in question. And most of those stun. And he never comes close to running low on mana. According to monster.txt he only has 147 max mana...so just how much mana do monster spells cost? Clearly not enough. I'm thankful I'm a paladin and thus have access to a 350HP heal spell; I have no idea how non-holy casters are expected to deal with this guy. Even then I had to retreat four times to replenish my mana supply -- and this is with Ringil, resistance to everything but sound, and +22 speed before hasting. Warriors are double-screwed because they can't use any rods or staves when fighting him. He also seems to be able to drain energy from my pack for healing even when nothing in my pack has any charges left. Can he drain partially-recharged (i.e. not-yet-usable) rods or something?

Did you know you can drain a monster's mana by throwing and hitting a monster with a potion of drain mana? That might help.

That's how NPP is balanced differently than V. Your character might get more powerful items, but the dungeon has many more creatures below 2500' that will be hitting you for 300-500 hp damage per round.

And I can't stress this enough: beware a black lowercase 'j' named Azathoth.

* It would probably be a good idea to note somewhere what makes for a valid item for artifact creation. I could guess because I've played variants with the ability before, but it's not stated anywhere that I can tell. Amusingly, the guild made me a set of gloves with +7 speed, permanent light, and (+3, +3) to-hit/dam. How is the level for the randart determined? Hard-coded, or based on the player's level, or rating, or what?

Right now, it is all kinds of equipment except for rings, amulets, and light sources. Randart rings and light sources will be added in NPP 0.6.0 (it requires a break in savefile compatibility).

The power of the randart is based on the player's fame. If your reputation is legendary, you are probably going to get a pretty great randart.

* I'm gonna repeat my request for the targeting information to stick to the unit that you last attacked, instead of the unit that last attacked you (or the closest unit after you kill something). This is very annoying.

This is in Beta-3. It should work the same as Angband.

* When I abandoned my quest (for 25 archliches...no thanks!) the message seemed to get stuck; by the time I cleared it I had somehow picked up a new quest (to clear a poison dragon pit; much better).

Are you saying you got a new random quest without requesting it? I will check into this. Thanks.

Beta-3 is savefile compatible with Beta-2, BTW.

[Derakon]

Okay, I'm still on the previous version for now.

* The Mouth of Sauron is a bastard. It seems like 3/4ths of his turns are spent casting spells that deal more than 300HP in damage even if you resist the element in question. And most of those stun. And he never comes close to running low on mana. According to monster.txt he only has 147 max mana...so just how much mana do monster spells cost? Clearly not enough. I'm thankful I'm a paladin and thus have access to a 350HP heal spell; I have no idea how non-holy casters are expected to deal with this guy. Even then I had to retreat four times to replenish my mana supply -- and this is with Ringil, resistance to everything but sound, and +22 speed before hasting. Warriors are double-screwed because they can't use any rods or staves when fighting him. He also seems to be able to drain energy from my pack for healing even when nothing in my pack has any charges left. Can he drain partially-recharged (i.e. not-yet-usable) rods or something?
* It would probably be a good idea to note somewhere what makes for a valid item for artifact creation. I could guess because I've played variants with the ability before, but it's not stated anywhere that I can tell. Amusingly, the guild made me a set of gloves with +7 speed, permanent light, and (+3, +3) to-hit/dam. How is the level for the randart determined? Hard-coded, or based on the player's level, or rating, or what?
* I just noticed that my light radius is 6. Thanks for removing the cap at 5. Pretty minor, but a nice detail.
* Thanks for giving dungeon spellbooks as quest rewards. That's quite nice.
* I'm gonna repeat my request for the targeting information to stick to the unit that you last attacked, instead of the unit that last attacked you (or the closest unit after you kill something). This is very annoying.
* Oh hey, I just discovered the extra character info screen that shows stats on your house items. Neat!
* The "Orb" greater vault has solid chunks of permanent rock that can't be mapped. Looks a bit odd when you have a source of magic mapping. Might as well put something in there.
* When I abandoned my quest (for 25 archliches...no thanks!) the message seemed to get stuck; by the time I cleared it I had somehow picked up a new quest (to clear a poison dragon pit; much better).

[nppangband]

NPP Beta 3 is out. Here is the announcement:

http://forum.nppangband.org/viewtopic.php?pid=3134#p3134

and the links:

source:

http://download.nppangband.org/npp-0.5.1-src-beta3.zip

Windows executable:

http://download.nppangband.org/npp-0.5.1-win-beta3.zip

[nppangband]

My main gripe with NPP is the potential unavoidable instadeath of ranged gravity (and other eg nexus) traps. These get first move when you enter a level. I have been hit by them when using stairs or recall, but haven't yet been killed. I realise the odds are slim, but it is still a risk.

Is this fixable?

I changed it so the player should always get at least 2 turns before a smart trap fires. In reviewing the code there is an odd chance that occasionally the trap gets to fire befure the player gets a turn, but it won't from now on.

[tigpup]

My main gripe with NPP is the potential unavoidable instadeath of ranged gravity (and other eg nexus) traps. These get first move when you enter a level. I have been hit by them when using stairs or recall, but haven't yet been killed. I realise the odds are slim, but it is still a risk.

Is this fixable?

[tigpup]

Agreed about irreversible squelch. The quality and ego aspects of NPP squelch are better than in V IMHO.

[Derakon]

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.

[tigpup]

Looking forward to that.

For anyone who's not played NPP; this is worth a download. Mass id, superior squelch, quests, store services & 4AI monsters are among the things to enjoy.

Beware the bigger hydras. Beware Azathoth. Other than that, it can be played like V with a few interesting tweaks.

If you get to Morgy; let him use up his mana (this is limited for all monsters in NPP, and shows up just like HP stars).