Z+ 0.3.3 released!

[buzzkill]

Also, I just tried playing as a Skeleton for the first time...not so great for Chaos Warriors due to the intelligence hit, but quite an interesting race. When you drink potions, they "spill", having I think the same effect as if they'd exploded - i.e., affecting monsters all around you. So if you drink a healing potion, all the monsters around you get healed also! Am I right about that? If so it seems like a pretty horrible setback - although of course you can also exploit it by chugging potions of poison to hurt everybody else while enjoying your immunity....

AFAIK you've got it right. Be extra careful with potions of speed. Your speed boost will wear off, theirs won't.

[Jude]

AFAIR, the stock is NOT guaranteed even in Vanila Angband. I may mistaken, because I played vanilla some 10 or 15 years ago. But I do remember waiting for some insane amount of time, like 10k turns, to get some ?WOR or alike. And I'm pretty sure, that in Zangband nothing is guaranteed. With so many stores to buy from, and so many houses to keep all kinds of spare stuff - it is not such a heavy problem, imho.

The obvious solution is to store spare scrolls at home. I usually buy some 20-30 ?WoR, tele, phase door (dimension door in Z+A), some healing stuff, flasks of oil, food. Just buy them when you see any. If you already have access to 3-4 towns, this shouldn't be a problem. Of course, at first you have too little money to buy even 10 WOR (~1k gp), but at first you don't need even 1 : ). Walk down and up the dungeon and get some starting money, then some 3-4 spare WOR wouldn't be a problem. Same with teleport: buy 3-4 and take 1-2 with you to the dungeon. If there are none in the stores - then make the first trip without. When you have more money and more health to brave the Wild, then you stock up some spare scrolls.

I think it is a feature of most *bands... Or, in case Mangojouce would make some guaranteed stuff, I would ask it to be optional! We need some diffictulties, the life shouldn't be an easy walk...

I consider not having basic essential supplies to be either an oversight or, if it's in there intentionally, a kind of fake difficulty. It's the difference between how mountain biking is challenging, and how mountain biking with skinny road tires on your bike because you couldn't find any fat tires, is challenging, if you get what I mean. And I'm not referring to having problems with supplies later in the game, I'm talking about the very early phases where it's too dangerous to go deeper than a few levels into the dungeon (or far into the wilderness) because I don't have any means of teleportation. I think vanilla went the right direction with that and I'd like if Z+ did too.

Mind you, it's not demanding that great items always be on sale - those are supposed to be rare in stores - but that very simple bread and butter items which are crucial to early-game survival are on sale. Also, if the stuff isn't available in one town, that's one thing, but I actually am talking about going to 3-4 (or more) towns and not being able to find a single scroll of teleportation! And it's happened a good number of times...

Also, the skeleton thing sure seems interesting, but they seem like kind of a challenge race. I still haven't won yet so I'll probably not play one for a while...

[Snarka]

Another suggestion: please improve representation of monster camps on the map, and also in the quest listing. Make it more readable. After some wilderness exploring there is a long list for several screens, and in no particular order that I could discover (maybe by level?). For example, I'm exploring the terrain and have found a new camp. I want to look at the list immediately, to find if it points at some new town I don't see yet... Now I have to read all those screens of camps, all towns are repeating randomly, and I have no way to see this new camp in the list... is it the orc camp south from a known town, or that giant camp north of this Blablablah... do I know this town yet, or not? Let me check all towns starting with B... seems no B town sound exactly like this Blablablah... oh stop, did I miss that one in NW corner of the map? Overall, this "system" (or its absence) is an incredible pain, imho.

It would be better if the camps were grouped by location: this way you can navigate the map much easier. Also, what mean those red numbers on the map? A friend of mine says it indicates monsters level. Fine, but again its a problem to connect a number on the map, and a description in the list. I'd propose to mark camps not with a number, but with a letter meaning the race. And specify the level in the list, not map. Something like, "Defeat the orc camp sw from Blablablah, average level 5 (or, danger level 5)." And mark the camp with red o's on the map.

Also, the quest list is too long as it is, even without camps. The scrolling takes forever... Maybe you could divide it into separate lists:

1) Monster camps
2) Couriers
3) All other quests

The command ^Q could bring a menu like this. Or it maybe another way:

1) Monster camps
2) Current quests
3) Completed but not finished
4) Finished

I think the camps actually should be separate anyways: they are not quests, because nobody ever gives the task to defeat them, and nobody gives rewards. They are same as dungeons or exploring wilderness: some challenge you may take, but no NPC cares.

Actually, any other system dealing with the camps would be better than now : ))). I would greet it dearly!

[Jude]

I agree about the camps - I find it hard to look at the quest list with them clogging it up.

Speaking of quests, I have one to clear out an orc den and although I seem to have killed every orc and explored every nook and cranny, the quest won't end. I have ESP and a staff of Detection on top of that and there's absolutely not an orc left. Bug I assume...

Edit: Nevermind. A Shrieking Mushroom Patch was on the floor, which was red just like the damn mushrooms...

Edit: Also, shields of Deflection. I thought they'd do the same thing as Amulets of Reflection, so I sold my amulet when I found a shield...but the shield only seems to bounce arrows whereas the amulet bounced magic bolts also. Is that right?

[Snarka]

Another bugreport: this is what I saw in the swordsman shop:

[Mangojuice]

A bug! I was experimenting with a quiver, inscribing it in attempts to make looking into it more convenient. When I did the command "d 1" -
it just disappeared. Here is what I got:

Yup. I replicated the bug and I'll fix it in the next version. Nice find.

[Mangojuice]

Well... I hope I don't annoy you too much with my tons of feedback... But I have some questions.

1) I didn't find an option of merge_discounts (Merge discounts when stacking, as it is in last versions of Zangband). In Z+A it is by default Yes, and I would like it to be No. As it is now, if I don't want all my scrolls to accidentally become 90% off, I need to drop not duscounted ones, inscribe them with "a", then buy a duscounted one and inscribe it with "b" and then pick those from the ground to get two different stacks. And YES, I do this! Because at low levels money is important. And the aboundance of various shops with nice items will probably make it important always : ).

2) What is WILD_WALK ? I've found some Boots of Wild, and cannot figure out what is their purpose : ).

3) I would like to change the game background. As I recall, it was not black in some verions, but textured. There was a line in the angband.cfg like "background = background.bmp", and one could change this file. I would like the background to be dark-gray: when I make tiles max size, the screen text becomes huge and the black/white contrast really hurts my eyes... If it possible to change the background? I mean not floor, but messages, lists, etc.

1: Merging is on by default. Sorry if it's a bit of a pain but at some point I was cleaning out low-importance options and this is one. Sure, money is important early on but there aren't that many things you want to both buy (hence getting discounted ones) but also sell later.

2: In the wilderness, trees slow you down somewhat. With WILD_WALK they don't.

3: I don't think this is included right now.

[Mangojuice]

I've been noticing that I have a really hard time finding basic necessities a lot of the time - ?teleport, ?identify, ?WoR, !CSW type of thing. As in, I'll go to like 3 or 4 towns early in the game and not be able to find any of them. Might you add some kind of guarantee that the starting town, at the very least, will have some those type of items in stock? I almost never am able to find all of them in my starting town, and quite often I can find only one or none of them.

Ok, I hate to be disappointing but I'm happy with the way things work, and I think you're either exaggerating or absurdly unlucky.

This variant is already easier than some others and I think this adds to the challenge. You have to make due without these essential supplies for the early part of the game, and you have to be cautious about using them up once you have them. Plus, if you had everything you needed initially it would be all the less reason to get out into the wilderness and find other towns.

Keep in mind there are alternatives. Oh, and I noticed that !CLW seems to be very rare in shops and it should be common, so I made a change I hope will help with that.

Also, I assume the physical character descriptions (i.e. you have long black hair. your dad was a blacksmith. or whatever) were removed since they're totally pointless, but I kinda liked having them. Did you get rid of the code (or whatever it is) for them, or is it still there somewhere? If so would it be hard to add them back in? I just thought they added a bit of flavor to the game. but obviously it's not important at all just a personal whim of mine.

Also, I just tried playing as a Skeleton for the first time...not so great for Chaos Warriors due to the intelligence hit, but quite an interesting race. When you drink potions, they "spill", having I think the same effect as if they'd exploded - i.e., affecting monsters all around you. So if you drink a healing potion, all the monsters around you get healed also! Am I right about that? If so it seems like a pretty horrible setback - although of course you can also exploit it by chugging potions of poison to hurt everybody else while enjoying your immunity...

I like the huge number of races in Zangband. I used to always play as a vampire because having natural light freed up an inventory slot early on, the drain life ability kicked ass, and the stat bonuses were sweet. Now I'm trying out a Beastman and I'm covered in warts, my muscles are withered, I have an extra pair of legs (no clue how THAT must work, physiologically!) and a couple other bizarre things...pretty awesome.

Physical descriptions: I believe Z had already removed these. I certainly don't remember going it. So I'd have to steal code back from V or something,...

Skeletons: yup, apparently every potion you drink also smashes on the floor. Which kinda sucks for healing potions, but could be pretty damn cool with !Restore Mana.

Actually one of the things on my long-term todo list is to go through all the races and rebalance things. I feel like things are sort of haphazard. Some of the races are too good, others are too bad or too hard to make use of...

[Mangojuice]

I agree about the camps - I find it hard to look at the quest list with them clogging it up.

Since no one gives you a reward for it I might just not consider those pits to be real "quests" anymore. And you can locate them easily on the map, they don't need to appear in the quest list.

Snarka -- if you want to find out about a new quest pit you've just discovered, use 'M' to browse the wilderness map. That way you can be sure you're locating the correct one. Much easier than trying to work it out from the quest list.

Also, shields of Deflection. I thought they'd do the same thing as Amulets of Reflection, so I sold my amulet when I found a shield...but the shield only seems to bounce arrows whereas the amulet bounced magic bolts also. Is that right?

Damn mushrooms. Though in my defense, shriekers are usually pretty noticeable. Shield of deflection - no. There's an ego item, shield of *re*flection, that does that. Shield of deflection is just a high base-AC shield which is not susceptible to acid. Obviously the term "shield of deflection" is highly confusing, I think I'll rename that item "mithril shield" or something.

[Jude]

Ah, the shield of deflection thing makes sense...the name's definitely confusing. Although isn't it kind of heavy and mithril is supposed to be light? But that hardly matters.

Is there a list anywhere of spell tiers so I can know ahead of time which tier each spell belongs to? And could that information be listed in the spellbook with everything else?

[Mangojuice]

Ah, the shield of deflection thing makes sense...the name's definitely confusing. Although isn't it kind of heavy and mithril is supposed to be light? But that hardly matters.

Is there a list anywhere of spell tiers so I can know ahead of time which tier each spell belongs to? And could that information be listed in the spellbook with everything else?

True, Mithril is associated with being light. Would adamant make more sense?

Spell tiers: it's determined by the level column. To see a list of how the ranges correspond to tiers, use the "spell knowledge" command under the knowledges menu ('~'). It varies by class, but the common theme is this:

1. Each tier spans ten levels, except the highest always ends at 50.
2. Tier 1 starts at the first level where you can learn spells.

When you're improving/specializing/mastering a spell, it is typically one tier higher per level of improvement. This is not the cases for Mages and High Mages, though - for them, improvement can happen every 7 additional levels, so for instance, a High Mage of chaos can:

* Learn Magic Missile at level 1 (tier 1)
* Improve Magic Missile at level 8 (tier 1)
* Specialize Magic Missile at level 15 (tier 2)
* Master Magic Missile at level 22 (tier 3).

The problems with displaying tiers in the spellbook menu are:
1. It's potentially confusing - do we display the tier the current learned level is, or the tier the next improvement would be? Arguably the latter is the more important, but either way the player could get confused.
2. Most of the time it doesn't matter, so it clutters up the display.
3. If we do display the tier for the next improvement this is silly for Priests, Paladins, and Monks who can't ever improve spells.

In the next version, when you "try" a spell to learn (e.g. G a F instead of G a f) it will mention the tier slot that will be used in the verification prompt.

[Jude]

Looking forward to the next version - it'll be easier to think about tiers with more information. Will saves be compatible?

Also, I finally got my hands on Chaos Channels (3rd chaos book) and was bummed to find out Disintegrate (previously my favorite offensive spell) has been turned from a ball to a beam! What was the reasoning behind that? I suppose it's still a pretty good spell but I dunno, I liked it as a ball.

Currently hunting the shops for some item that can give me rPois. I saw a ring of poison freaking IMMUNITY on sale recently but it was after I'd just blown all my cash on some other great item and of course once I got back to 60k gold it was gone.

Also, are the types of monsters you see outside a dungeon entrance an indication of what's going to be inside and does that have anything to do with the birth option about generating themed dungeons? If so that's all the more reason to steer away from dungeons with hounds outside, besides inevitably being blasted by dozens of breath attacks before making it to the staircase.

[RogerN]

Also, are the types of monsters you see outside a dungeon entrance an indication of what's going to be inside and does that have anything to do with the birth option about generating themed dungeons? If so that's all the more reason to steer away from dungeons with hounds outside, besides inevitably being blasted by dozens of breath attacks before making it to the staircase.

Yes, the dungeon guardians are generated from the dungeon's theme and depth. The guardians of deep dungeons can be extremely lethal.

Planar dungeons, as you mention, are frequently full of hounds, dragons, vortices, and angels. They're obnoxious. But they're also full of lesser vaults containing more stat potions than you'll find in other dungeon types. Despite the annoyance, I frequently find myself hanging out in planar dungeons in order to finish raising my stats.

[Jude]

Good to know...I've barely been finding stat gain potions. Did manage to pick up a ring of poison immunity though...bring it on drolems. If there are drolems in this variant.

Also, it seems like all the dungeon levels I'm getting are quite small, like the size of a quest level - the size where if you show them on the map they fill the screen but are shown in full detail. Is that another aspect of themed dungeons?

Edit: Just got a quest to "find Ringil." Seriously. And they told me which dungeon to look in, so needless to say I started heading into that dungeon pretty quick. Before long I found it, clvl 30, dlvl in the high 40s. I had been thinking the quests seem pretty overpowered (thousands and thousands of gold, experience AND possible stat gain, just for killing some unique orc?!) but this seems ridiculous! Anyway, now I'm carving through monsters like butter that used to give me trouble even with "The Dagger of Fiona" which was also pretty kickass, but which I found legitimately.

Finally, Hold Life seems to greatly reduce the amount of EXP I lose from attacks (mostly freaking Bloodletters of Khorne) but it doesn't fully stop them. Is there a way to double resist it?

[ThunderToads]

I've never had a quest for Ringil over a good three dozen characters, so you just got lucky there.