Trying out FAAngband

[will_asher]

So my DaJAngband development stuff is on a shared computer with my family and I'm not getting a lot of time on it these days. But the computer which I normally actually play the game on is all mine. But DaJAngband has bugs I want to fix before I play more (because playing an old version just isn't as cool). And that leads me to play the variant I've been saying I'm going to try out.

Here's my comments & stuff on FAAngband. Keep in mind I'm very picky about certain features and the way the game works & stuff (which is why I haven't played variants besides my own much including V), so don't take me too seriously. (Playing 1.1.4 which I downloaded a few months ago, just noticed 1.1.5 is out so maybe a few of these things are aready fixed)

My loudest comments are about Psuedo-ID and gold.
'dubious' shield turned out to have acid resistance. Also sold something 'perilous' which turned out to be good. WAD? if so, psuedo ID is worthless. I have to ID everything before selling it unless it's average. Some 'good' stuff isn't even worth the price of the ID scroll.
lug stuff back to town, problem is I have barely anything to sell because a lot of stuff pseudos as perilous or dubious and I don't want to ID everything until I have more money for ID.
I was almost to clvl 11 before I was able to afford more than one ?WoR (which cost between 300 and 400 gold!). I normally never go past dL3 without ?WoR. This time I ventured down to dL5 (because the chutes make it a little easier to get back, although I can't envision how an 'up chute' works...unless it's like a vacuum cleaner). Gold is too scarce. It's been awhile since I played with selling to stores so maybe I'm not as good with the selling game anymore. Maybe I'll try the no selling option and hopefully it'll be easier with a gold multiplier.

You have to ID wands and staffs to see number of charges even if the type is aware. I forget how recently this was fixed in V, but I'm thinking about going through object.txt and adding EASY_KNOW to all the staves and wands.
Also, I had two staves of the same type and they didn't stack because one was IDed and one wan't. ...another reason to give them EASY_KNOW.

bug: automatically drop something whenever you take it off (unequip). And sometimes if you unequip something with a full pack, something else gets dropped instead of the thing you just unequiped.

I like the desperate adventurer. He gave me 600+ gold for a few flasks of oil.

It'd be nice if there was an option to turn off PC ghosts. I got about four levels in a row with ghosts (around dL7 I think) and stairscummed until a got a level without a ghost. It is nice that there's a warning when you enter the level.

The learned feats and the novice ____s of different races are things I'd like to look at in the code and possibly borrow for DAJ.

And a couple questions
Is junk always junk? I know in V, I like to make things which seem like junk have some kind of use so I'm wondering if it's that way in FA also.

I tried a beorning (because I started with the safefile from the last FA comp to have some monster memory) what effect does changing shape into a bear have? (besides the obvious minor stat effects)

I'm already tweaking the edit files (I can't help myself). For now, I'm just switched INT and WIS on some races because I think elves should be better as mages and dwarves as priests, and I added heavy pseudo to classes that don't have it. Anyway, I noticed that some races have negative values for learning skills (the M: line). Do they really get worse at those skills as they gain levels?

[buzzkill]

I like the desperate adventurer. He gave me 600+ gold for a few flasks of oil.

Hey Nick, shouldn't be more interested in your WoR or your primary light source or weapon. He pays good prices, so much so that selling to him is always a no brainer right now. I just thinking if there were a bit more of a trade off it might me more fun. Sell him what he wants (aid his survival) and maybe you encounter him again deeper, at which point he'll ask for more and offer more.

I tried a beorning (because I started with the safefile from the last FA comp to have some monster memory) what effect does changing shape into a bear have? (besides the obvious minor stat effects)

I believe it gives you a decent low-level hand-to-hand attack. Couple it with druid's hand-to-hand for an additional boost. But still, being a bear seems to be of limited value.

[LostTemplar]

Bear form gives some boost to melee combat and armor class, penalty to device use and archery, no hand to hand special attack is given. It also gives penalty to mana and partial resist to disenchanting and complete immunity to acid damage for all equipment, like any other shapeshift.

Mages loose stealth with levels, this is intended and mentioned in help files.

bug: automatically drop something whenever you take it off (unequip). And sometimes if you unequip something with a full pack, something else gets dropped instead of the thing you just unequiped.

Intended too. What should happen if you unwield something with full inventory? Dont do it if you dont like this behaviour.

[Fendell Orcbane]

But what do think about the actual game play itself?

[will_asher]

Mages loose stealth with levels, this is intended and mentioned in help files.

interesting. I would not have thought of doing that.

Intended too. What should happen if you unwield something with full inventory?

If you unequip an item with a full inventory it is supposed to drop the item that you just unequipped, not some other item from your pack. I don't think I've ever seen it do that before in any variant.

But what do think about the actual game play itself?

see what I said about pseudo and gold. That affects gameplay a lot. Beyond that, I haven't gotten far enough to say more.

PS: I forgot to mention here that I'm playing with no wilderness.

[Fendell Orcbane]

I'd try the game with wilderness, since that is one of the things that makes it distinct from V. Of course you may have played a lot of other variants with wilderness before.

[LostTemplar]

If you unequip an item with a full inventory it is supposed to drop the item that you just unequipped, not some other item from your pack.

Yes, it should be like this unless that item is cursed with sticky_carry. I have never seen anything strange with unwield but probably have seen the same effect on using stack of staves with full inventory but cannot reproduce it now.

It seems that some of object handling code is worth rewriting.

Psuedo-ID have limited use for spellcasters, but with some experience it is ok, e.g. it is only one possible good shield type which pseudo-id as dubious, so if you already have or dont need one you may get some usefull information from pseudo-id.

For jewellery dubious/perlious just means, that it may have some curse, so be carefull.

As for gold, no selling will be terrible for you.

[Nick]

Here's my comments & stuff on FAAngband. Keep in mind I'm very picky about certain features and the way the game works & stuff (which is why I haven't played variants besides my own much including V), so don't take me too seriously. (Playing 1.1.4 which I downloaded a few months ago, just noticed 1.1.5 is out so maybe a few of these things are aready fixed)

Cool! Thanks for the feedback. My answers may repeat something others have said, so sorry in advance.

My loudest comments are about Psuedo-ID and gold.
'dubious' shield turned out to have acid resistance. Also sold something 'perilous' which turned out to be good. WAD? if so, psuedo ID is worthless. I have to ID everything before selling it unless it's average.

'Perilous' means 'ego with some disadvantage'; that may only be a small disadvantage. For full casters, anything with any disadvantage is 'dubious'. FA does have ID-by-use (although not quite the same as V's). If you were playing a caster, that would explain the shield; if not, that's a bug.

Some 'good' stuff isn't even worth the price of the ID scroll.

Yep

lug stuff back to town, problem is I have barely anything to sell because a lot of stuff pseudos as perilous or dubious and I don't want to ID everything until I have more money for ID.

Again, ID-by-use. You can often learn stuff quite quickly, although you have to have ID'd an ego at least once before it is recognisable.

I was almost to clvl 11 before I was able to afford more than one ?WoR (which cost between 300 and 400 gold!). I normally never go past dL3 without ?WoR. This time I ventured down to dL5 (because the chutes make it a little easier to get back, although I can't envision how an 'up chute' works...unless it's like a vacuum cleaner). Gold is too scarce. It's been awhile since I played with selling to stores so maybe I'm not as good with the selling game anymore. Maybe I'll try the no selling option and hopefully it'll be easier with a gold multiplier.

FA still has some of O's hardness to start. Money is scarce to start out with; mining might even be worthwhile. Also, it is kind of optimised for wilderness...

You have to ID wands and staffs to see number of charges even if the type is aware. I forget how recently this was fixed in V, but I'm thinking about going through object.txt and adding EASY_KNOW to all the staves and wands.

Yes, this is quite a new V feature; I'm not sure if I want it.

Also, I had two staves of the same type and they didn't stack because one was IDed and one wan't. ...another reason to give them EASY_KNOW.

Staves explicitly don't stack unless they have the same number of charges; an O 'feature' because they're supposed to be bulkier (and it makes rods more valuable). Again, I don't know whether I want to change it.

bug: automatically drop something whenever you take it off (unequip). And sometimes if you unequip something with a full pack, something else gets dropped instead of the thing you just unequiped.

Not exactly a bug - if you have too much in your inventory, the bottom thing drops. I think making it the most recently added (ie the unwielded) thing that drops is also quite recent in V. Remember, O forked from V at 2.9.3

I like the desperate adventurer. He gave me 600+ gold for a few flasks of oil.

If you really want to scam him, drop all your ?WoR and nearly all your food and oil as soon as you see him, and he'll come and buy the excess

It'd be nice if there was an option to turn off PC ghosts. I got about four levels in a row with ghosts (around dL7 I think) and stairscummed until a got a level without a ghost. It is nice that there's a warning when you enter the level.

I love player ghosts. You have perfect knowledge of them, so you can look them up with '/' and decide whether they're too dangerous to take on or not. Then you can either take the stairs again, or avoid.

The learned feats and the novice ____s of different races are things I'd like to look at in the code and possibly borrow for DAJ.

Specialties do affect balance, but are very cool (O feature again). The different race p's only really come into their own in wilderness, where they can be neutral; everything is hostile in any dungeon.

Is junk always junk? I know in V, I like to make things which seem like junk have some kind of use so I'm wondering if it's that way in FA also.

Currently yes, it's just flavour. I would kind of like to find uses for it though (make carrying skeletons power up necro rituals or something).

The rest has been answered, I think, although I would like to note that the INT/WIS swap I made was very deliberate. I think of elves as having deep knowledge of the world (wisdom), whereas dwarves have craft (intelligence).

[will_asher]

The game is crashing about half the time when starting a new character (just after finishing character creation). Could it have something to do with using a savefile from 1.1.4 in 1.1.5? Turning wilderness on or off doesn't help.

I tried a game with wilderness and went through about a dozen wilderness levels without finding a single dungeon or a home besides the home in the town I started in. No more wilderness for me.

novice rogues are non-agressive toward a paladin? That doesn't seem right.

the 'which recall point' question should probably be turned off in no-wilderness mode

% resist on basic 4 + poison is pretty straightforward, but what about % resist on things like confusion or nexus? Does it protect from side effects? ...some of the time or all the time?

bugs:
ID by use doesn't seem to work when throwing weapons.

cobras can darken grids with their blinding spit.

[buzzkill]

I tried a game with wilderness and went through about a dozen wilderness levels without finding a single dungeon or a home besides the home in the town I started in. No more wilderness for me.

It's usually a long walk to the nearest dungeon. Consider the wilderness part of the game, like a dungeon, and not just empty space between dungeons. I wandered aimlessly when I first started playing too. I wouldn't recommend it. Use the map (png) located in the main directory (I think).

[Nick]

The game is crashing about half the time when starting a new character (just after finishing character creation). Could it have something to do with using a savefile from 1.1.4 in 1.1.5? Turning wilderness on or off doesn't help.

That's bad. Windows? It just might be a 1.1.4 to 1.1.5 thing. Any details of how it crashes?

novice rogues are non-agressive toward a paladin? That doesn't seem right.

Likes and dislikes are based only on race - adding class dependency might be a good idea.

the 'which recall point' question should probably be turned off in no-wilderness mode

Yes, indeed. The dungeon-only mode was done fairly quickly...

% resist on basic 4 + poison is pretty straightforward, but what about % resist on things like confusion or nexus? Does it protect from side effects? ...some of the time or all the time?

You get protection from side-effects for 20% resistance or more.

ID by use doesn't seem to work when throwing weapons.

OK, needs looking into.

cobras can darken grids with their blinding spit.

Feature (IIRC).

[LostTemplar]

ID by use doesn't seem to work when throwing weapons.

Currently it only works if you throw or fire an object from the stack, if you only have only one throwing weapon or missile id_by_use is not working, this is now fixed in dev. version.

[will_asher]

That's bad. Windows? It just might be a 1.1.4 to 1.1.5 thing. Any details of how it crashes?

Windows XP home edition. Just after character creation, when you press any key to continue just before getting placed in the town, I get the windows error message saying that the program crashed ("...has encountered a problem and needs to close").

[Arralen]

That's bad. Windows? It just might be a 1.1.4 to 1.1.5 thing.

I'm running XP Pro SP3, and I have a HE mage here, started with 1.10, moved to 1.11, then to 1.13, 1.14 and finally to 1.15 - and it works fine.
(yes ... 990772 turns on its clock, and only lvl 37 and down to Nargothrond 44 .. but at least I'm getting a shitload of weapons and armours down there, most of which I can't use because it's a fragile HE mage ... )

You get protection from side-effects for 20% resistance or more.

But that's true only for the @, not for the inventory, right?
IIRC I have 40% cold resist and get shattered potions every 3rd cold hound ...

[Derakon]

Assuming FA works anything like V in this regard, the only way to make your inventory safe from damage is by getting immunity to the relevant element. In V the best you can achieve without immunity is a 1% chance per attack that any particular item will be destroyed, which means that if you have 100 potions in your inventory, odds are at least one will be destroyed every time you get hit by cold.