[Announce] Poschengband 2.0.0 Released

[emulord]

Still on 2.01, because I didnt like the sound of body-booting. Mangband does that better.
novice warrior-> dark elven ?? -> (orc unique) -> logrus master -> bull gates was a very fun progression.

[DaviddesJ]

If the goal is to keep Possessors busy, well, possessing, then I suggest that corpses should gradually decay while they're "in use". So every time you possess something, you're on a timer (say, 10k player turns or thereabouts; it shouldn't be measured in game turns since speed varies so much). You'd better find a new corpse before the old one wears out!

Maybe cumulative damage to the corpse (even if healed) eventually causes it to fall apart, rather than just time? That has a few advantages---you don't have to worry about different time rates or overland travel, the cumulative damage could be tracked so the player can prepare for it, you could avoid taking damage in order to last longer so it creates some interesting tradeoffs.

A similar idea would be, every time the corpse takes damage there's a small chance of a permanent reduction in its max HP.

[Nick]

There is now a roughish Cocoa port, and a source branch including this, a V-style build syetem and an SDL port on github here; chris, I've put in a pull request. I don't think I've broken the Windows port, but you might want to check

There does seem to be a bit of key input weirdness, but it runs and I've had enough for now.

[chris]

There is now a roughish Cocoa port, and a source branch including this, a V-style build syetem and an SDL port on github here; chris, I've put in a pull request. I don't think I've broken the Windows port, but you might want to check

There does seem to be a bit of key input weirdness, but it runs and I've had enough for now.

Wow, thanks Nick!

Can I ask what changes I would need to make if I were, say, to add a new source file at some point in the future?

Again, thanks for what was obviously an incredible amount of hard work!!

[Nick]

Can I ask what changes I would need to make if I were, say, to add a new source file at some point in the future?

The list of sources is in Makefile.src - just add the .o file in there. The other thing to do is run

make -f Makefile.inc depgen > Makefile.new
mv Makefile.new Makefile.inc

in the src directory; this keeps all the file dependencies in order.

The other thing that's good to do is change the version number in Makefile.src, but that is mostly cosmetic. The Cocoa port needs to be compiled with XCode 4 - which usually means OS X 10.7 or later; I should be able to do those from time to time.

Again, thanks for what was obviously an incredible amount of hard work!!

Not really that much, and it will now be easier for the next V-buildsystem-less variant

[chris]

The other thing to do is run

make -f Makefile.inc depgen > Makefile.new
mv Makefile.new Makefile.inc

in the src directory; this keeps all the file dependencies in order.

That won't work on Windows ... Is that something that needs to be kept up to date in the github repository?

[Nick]

That won't work on Windows ... Is that something that needs to be kept up to date in the github repository?

It quite possibly doesn't need to be done at all, actually

[chris]

Can I give a suggestion?

Fail rates on scrolls are too high. ?Phase and ?Tele are similar to _Tele, which feels wrong, considering _Tele can be used while confused/blinded.

I've been savescumming, because failing ?tele twice in a row with ~18 int is pretty shitty. This and fear mechanic rewards boring safe play where you *never* even see/detect a dangerous enemy. It's too severe.
Fear and insanity from OoD enemies is good enough alone imo. Don't also remove the way to flee from them.

Without seeing your character dumps, its hard to give concrete advice.

Scroll fail rates are calculated the same way as magical devices in general, employing a calculation involving the object's native level and the player's device skill.

Scrolls of Teleport are L10 objects. Scrolls of Phase Door are L1 objects, so may work better. Staves of Teleportation are L20 objects so are harder to use, and susceptible to mass destruction.

I think you may be over-estimating the importance of intelligence for device skills. An Int of 18 only gives +3 to your device skills while some races give +12 and some classes give +40. Even personality (shrewd, lucky) can be more important than intelligence, at least early on.

What sorts of characters are you playing?

[chris]

Maybe cumulative damage to the corpse (even if healed) eventually causes it to fall apart, rather than just time? That has a few advantages---you don't have to worry about different time rates or overland travel, the cumulative damage could be tracked so the player can prepare for it, you could avoid taking damage in order to last longer so it creates some interesting tradeoffs.

A similar idea would be, every time the corpse takes damage there's a small chance of a permanent reduction in its max HP.

I like this idea better than a timer approach, but I think I will stick with the low health mechanics. I'd rather not telegraph to the player the exact expiration date on their current form as it just makes switching bodies completely manageable, provided one is only paying attention. Also, you can then safely do the final battle with The Serpent of Chaos by swapping in your fresh uber corpse just before the fight. Not much risk in that ...

Zangband and Hengband have a long tradition of very "unfair" game mechanics, pioneered by the insta-death prone Ancient Foul Curse of the dying Amberite (basically, unavoidable death for any character if you are unlucky) to the nutso double move, double mana storm popularized by Hengband. Heck, even Vanilla had the aggravating nexus stat swap. How rude! Being forcibly ejected from your body at an inopportune time is right up this alley ...

[Derakon]

Quick question: is there any benefit to having a Lazy personality? Or is it just a challenge mode? Similarly, are Lucky personalities getting any benefit besides having good skills? Google has availed me naught; it just replicates the in-game help.

Also, while I'm here I should note that Androids appear to be able to eat food just fine, in addition to being able to quaff oil. Which frankly is fine by me, since oil can be hard to come by sometimes and overland travel can use up a lot of it.

[Arjen]

Quick question: is there any benefit to having a Lazy personality? Or is it just a challenge mode? Similarly, are Lucky personalities getting any benefit besides having good skills? Google has availed me naught; it just replicates the in-game help.

Lazy gives you access to some very nice items if you kill the right (uber)monsters. Lucky starts with a white aura which should boost your luck.

[AnonymousHero]

Quick question: is there any benefit to having a Lazy personality? Or is it just a challenge mode?

Well, there are the Lazy Artifacts, but other than that, I don't think so.

Similarly, are Lucky personalities getting any benefit besides having good skills?

Lucky characters also get the White Aura mutation which mainly improves odds of finding good items. (Also a minor improvement to inventory sensing, search for p_ptr->good_luck.)

[Derakon]

Okay, thanks for the info.

There seems to be little harm in playing as a Lazy or Lucky berserker, since their STR/DEX/CON will still be amazing and who cares about their other stats? I guess similarly applies to Sexy; their stealth is so low that they functionally aggravate monsters anyway.

[emulord]

Without seeing your character dumps, its hard to give concrete advice.

Scroll fail rates are calculated the same way as magical devices in general, employing a calculation involving the object's native level and the player's device skill.

Scrolls of Teleport are L10 objects. Scrolls of Phase Door are L1 objects, so may work better. Staves of Teleportation are L20 objects so are harder to use, and susceptible to mass destruction.

I think you may be over-estimating the importance of intelligence for device skills. An Int of 18 only gives +3 to your device skills while some races give +12 and some classes give +40. Even personality (shrewd, lucky) can be more important than intelligence, at least early on.

What sorts of characters are you playing?

Oh... Well that sucks. Combat Possessor right now. I think scrolls as a whole should be easier because it has 100% fail rate if you're blind or confused. That was the original balancing factor in Angband, and I think that making dumb warriors able to fail ?Genoicde or ?Destruction is great, having a smarter warrior unable to 0%fail ?teleport is kindof weird.

[chris]

Oh... Well that sucks. Combat Possessor right now. I think scrolls as a whole should be easier because it has 100% fail rate if you're blind or confused. That was the original balancing factor in Angband, and I think that making dumb warriors able to fail ?Genoicde or ?Destruction is great, having a smarter warrior unable to 0%fail ?teleport is kindof weird.

It's the 0% fail, free, infinite teleport mechanic I have a problem with. Teleportation is intended to be somewhat scarcer in this variant, though it is still very common.

If you really really need 0% fail, then you can play one of the pure spellcaster forms, or perhaps a mindcrafter. (One plus of this change is that hybrid casters with non-zero fail rates suddenly will use the teleport spell, which they almost never would before.)

Warriors are already one of the most powerful classes with almost 3x the melee damage of anybody else, so giving them a hard time is not something I'll lose sleep over. (They get 7 base blows ... everybody else used to get just 5. Plus they can dual wield with ease, so it is really 14 blows vs. 5 for (almost) everybody else).