[Announce] PosChengband 1.0.0

[UglySquirrell]

thank you for the lesson anonymous, sometimes i forget why i dont post on forums. You have reminded me.

[UglySquirrell]

Oh absolutely, the virtues are incredibly confusing. I only found them out ages ago, when i used to play Hengband. And i used the spoiler page for them then.

Having just had my character die horribly in the vault in Poschengband, i remembered about them again. He was lots of fun and really powerful, but when i rerolled i set the not killing natural creatures, unless i had to rule. Charming them if possible.

And i must say im having way more fun. A Griffon i charmed just saved me from death from a large pack of Paladin's, and charming a few animals to take care of jellies, and mold's works surprisingly well, i also have a sick meatbag macro setup, and it's really fun

I haven't really given much thoughts to improving it, but having some perks, like shopkeepers discounts, faster pseudo id (think this is already in there) evil/good/natural esp. + to hit opposite alignment - to hit same, levitation, etc. or mutation's if you max one of them. holy aura for good or fiery aura for bad. things like that. Maybe something along the lines of the special skills humans get.

Most of these things are just for convenience sake and not really game changing, but would some impact to your deed's.

Maybe the virtue spoiler could be included in the help files, or the Virtues themselves modified and the trigger's changed, to make more sense. Again i have no idea if this is even possible, im no mathamagician like Y'all

Just some ideas, thanx and Cheers!

[AnonymousHero]

Well, I guess I could bring back the virtue system and make it a birth option. I had a number of complaints about the system and nobody stepped in with a positive comment, so I removed all the code. Ah well, hg --backout to the rescue I'm just a little nervous that this worked correctly as it generates a ~3000 line diff.

Just leave it dead. It never made any sense whatsoever.

If there are some secondary effects from its removal (like making certain spells unusable), then those things should obviously be fixed, but otherwise... Opaque mechanics are no fun.

[AnonymousHero]

(snip)

I know this sounds (and probably is) rude, but please stop using the ' character. And take this to heart. That was intensely painful.

[chris]

One thing i noticed, is you removed the Virtue system. Granted this is a really confusing system, and only certain virtues have an actual ingame benefit , however in my quest to finish the game as a Beastmaster. I find it adds a lot of flavor that would not be there otherwise.

For example, instead of just running through the dungeon killing everything i see. My Beastmaster tries to charm natural creature's, and if he cant do that let's his pet's kill them.

I find this creates an entirely different game, and makes me use spell's and skill's i would otherwise ignore (charm, summon spider's, dragon's, hound's, etc.)
it also add's a real roleplaying feeling, that would otherwise be absent.

Chance, is another one. Without this virtue, shuffle is essentially useless. As well as wand's of wonder. I also, would never have entered a casino without it.

I'm guessing that the effect's are pretty minimal, but it adds a bit of incentive to play the game in way's you would otherwise never do.

Would it be possible to implement virtues in a more transparent way, maybe let you see them on your 'C' sheet like the Weapon's panel. And maybe have the other virtue's give a real benefit. Nothing gamechanging, but i think it would add another level to an already awesome game.

Another possibility would be to add virtues to your birth option's.

Just my 2cent's, thank's again

Well, I guess I could bring back the virtue system and make it a birth option. I had a number of complaints about the system and nobody stepped in with a positive comment, so I removed all the code. Ah well, hg --backout to the rescue I'm just a little nervous that this worked correctly as it generates a ~3000 line diff.

I'm open to ideas for improving the system. One of my major complaints was that the virtue system virtually (sorry) requires source diving or spoiler access since you get absolutely no feedback when you are behaving good or bad. Also, some of the mechanics are so obscure as to baffle discovering them in any other way. My favorite example is selling an empty bottle in town giving +1 to your Nature virtue. I mean, I've played Hengband a lot, more than anybody else on this planet I dare say, and I never knew that

[UglySquirrell]

Just want to say, thank you for all your work Chris. You have managed to make one of the coolest games ever, The new race's are lot's of fun, really liked playing a Jelly

One thing i noticed, is you removed the Virtue system. Granted this is a really confusing system, and only certain virtues have an actual ingame benefit , however in my quest to finish the game as a Beastmaster. I find it adds a lot of flavor that would not be there otherwise.

For example, instead of just running through the dungeon killing everything i see. My Beastmaster tries to charm natural creature's, and if he cant do that let's his pet's kill them.

I find this creates an entirely different game, and makes me use spell's and skill's i would otherwise ignore (charm, summon spider's, dragon's, hound's, etc.)
it also add's a real roleplaying feeling, that would otherwise be absent.

Chance, is another one. Without this virtue, shuffle is essentially useless. As well as wand's of wonder. I also, would never have entered a casino without it.

I'm guessing that the effect's are pretty minimal, but it adds a bit of incentive to play the game in way's you would otherwise never do.

Would it be possible to implement virtues in a more transparent way, maybe let you see them on your 'C' sheet like the Weapon's panel. And maybe have the other virtue's give a real benefit. Nothing gamechanging, but i think it would add another level to an already awesome game.

Another possibility would be to add virtues to your birth option's.

Just my 2cent's, thank's again

[chris]

Yet another trivial release (1.0.20) is available here:

This release adds 2 new specialities for the Devicemaster: Potions and Scrolls. Both of these subclasses can get 5 blows max instead of the normal 4 for this class since their aren't many offensive scrolls, and aren't any offensive potions (other than chucking death or detonations, but you don't want to risk carrying those in your inventory!). The standard devicemaster adjustments apply: enhanced power with potions/scrolls, the ability to use these objects much more quickly, the ability to preserve the objects so they are not always consumed, the ability to transfer "charges" from one object type to another and the ability to consume multiple items in a stack in an act of desperation for increased effectiveness.

The rules on transfer (which is hard to balance, obviously) are that you can only transfer from source objects of a greater or equal depth from the destination objects. Also, you can't choose worthless source objects (like the relatively deep scrolls of curse weapon/armor).

Anyway, I've playtested the potion speciality a bit and the scroll speciality not at all, so I'm sure these will need some adjustments down the road.

[Susramanian]

Aha, glad it wasn't serious. Don't know how I managed to keymap escape. I didn't think it was even possible. Thanks for the fix, and keep up the good work!

[chris]

Save file sent. And yes, playing under Windows 7. While I've got your attention, could you tell me whether the option to disable selling comes with an increase in found gold, like vanilla? Or is it another ironman option?

Ouch. I finally figured what is going on:

Open up Talps.prf and note the following keymap:

A:\eR&\r
C:0:\e

Now, whenever any of the run macros fires, for instance:

A:\e\e\\.4
P:\[shift-KP_4]

The escapes in the run command become "rest up fully" commands!

To fix, simply delete the offending keymap. And thank goodness you sent me your pref file even though I only asked for the savefile, since I never would have found this otherwise

Disable Selling does indeed increase gold drops, and fairly aggressively too. There is a flat out +50% and also +2*L% where L is the current object level. You'll have to let me know if this is enough. The one time I tried no_selling I was unable to keep up with the costs of the town recharge service and found that no_selling turns the game into a "tunnel scumming" festival, which is quite horrible IMO. This may have only been at +50% drops, though ... I can't remember.

[Susramanian]

Save file sent. And yes, playing under Windows 7. While I've got your attention, could you tell me whether the option to disable selling comes with an increase in found gold, like vanilla? Or is it another ironman option?

[chris]

Fun variant!

One oddity that's slowing me down: being at less than full health is causing interruption. For example, trying to run in a direction while at low health doesn't work. Strangely, trying to use my quick-ID macro while hurt also doesn't work. It's something simple like "\e\ez0(", which normally just identifies the first thing in your bag or on the ground that needs identifying, but it cancels immediately when I'm hurt.

I'm playing as a Jelly, if that's any help tracking this down. Hope it's easy to fix!

*edit*

Turning off the option "Check for user abort while continuous command" sort of helps. It seems to force a rest up to full health any time I try to run while hurt, then proceeds with the original run. The automatic usage of so much time worries me, though. If I wanted to rest, I'd rest. I want to run. This bug just rested me to full health while trying to identify something. I had been in the process of tracking down a wounded Sir Kay... but now he's all rested up, too.

How odd! I can't reproduce this at all, though. Can you send me your savefile? I'm at ckousky at gmail dot com.

Are you playing under Windows?

[Susramanian]

Fun variant!

One oddity that's slowing me down: being at less than full health is causing interruption. For example, trying to run in a direction while at low health doesn't work. Strangely, trying to use my quick-ID macro while hurt also doesn't work. It's something simple like "\e\ez0(", which normally just identifies the first thing in your bag or on the ground that needs identifying, but it cancels immediately when I'm hurt.

I'm playing as a Jelly, if that's any help tracking this down. Hope it's easy to fix!

*edit*

Turning off the option "Check for user abort while continuous command" sort of helps. It seems to force a rest up to full health any time I try to run while hurt, then proceeds with the original run. The automatic usage of so much time worries me, though. If I wanted to rest, I'd rest. I want to run. This bug just rested me to full health while trying to identify something. I had been in the process of tracking down a wounded Sir Kay... but now he's all rested up, too.

[chris]

Yet another release (1.0.19) is available here:

* Race/Class stat bonuses restored to Hengband/Chengband values. Helpfiles regenerated to reflect changes.
* Everybody gets extra starting hitpoints, just like in Hengband. Added a "BHP" column to the helpfiles (Base Hitpoints).
* Massively changed the hitpoint calculation. Hitpoints are no longer so backloaded, but the progression is still heavily non-linear.
* Devicemaster starting equipment nerfed. Offensive wands replaced with a single device depending on their speciality. They also start with a wand of magic missiles.
* Rodmasters buffed. They get double the device power of other devicemasters (up to +50%).
* Added Rods of Mana Bolts.
* Made Rods of Mana Balls more shallow.
* Decreased costs of Gamble Shop for Scrolls, Staves, Wands and Rods
* Sleep Monster is now more powerful.

[Djabanete]

The Devicemaster sounds fun! I am looking forward to trying it out. Right now I'm working on a Shadow-Fairy Rogue (a sort of joint effort between me and my girlfriend, which involves a certain amount of dying and reloading ... and not all the deaths are her fault ... ssshh!) --- but after we kill the Serpent, which is just a matter of time with these special tactics, I'll be wanting to give this new class a spin.

[chris]

1.0.18 is available here:

I added a new class: The Devicemaster

The Devicemaster is the absolute best class when using magical devices (wands, rods and staves). In addition they choose to specialize in a particular class of devices and gain extra powers for their speciality. These include extra damage, increased speed of activation, the ability to power the device without using charges, the ability to move charges from one device to another and the ability to use multiple charges at once in an act of desperation.

Other changes include some minor game balance tweaks. For example, many monster races now have slightly less hitpoints.