[Un]angband 0.6.2 beta 2 has been released!

[andrewdoull]

How can you get tired of Great Wyrm of Nexuss and Great Wyrm of Chaoss?

Particularly as the new 256 colour scheme allows you to distinguish your Wyrms more readily?

Arralen: We're considering moving to a shorter end game. Suggestions welcome. Diving to level 100 is not fun in anyone's book.

Andrew

[Big Al]

Is there any reason not to just have Angband start at DL 74 or where ever Angmar leaves off at? (Other than compatibility with non-campaign mode, of course.)

[andrewdoull]

Is there any reason not to just have Angband start at DL 74 or where ever Angmar leaves off at? (Other than compatibility with non-campaign mode, of course.)

Not really.

Note the problem is not necessarily descending from the surface - it's more the balance on those really deep levels. For a start, vaults are too common, which means you end up with huge numbers of deep monsters on the level. Then the monster variety isn't as great as earlier levels - due to less different monster types per level, but also because deep monsters tend to have more summoning spells, which means that you have to have monsters that they are capable of summoning in the ecology as well.

My thinking was the issue starts creeping in at about level 30, where the number of different monsters per level drops off significantly. If you e.g. combine 2-3 levels from that depth onwards into a single level, it would make the late game finish faster and ensure a greater variety of monsters without having to dive dive dive.

You'd end up with approximately 30 + 70/2 to 70/3 = 44 to 65 total levels. I suspect we'll end up with 50-60 levels in the long term (Bandobras wants 50 - I think 60 is more likely).

The problem is then balancing everything else to fit this curve.

The easiest way to do this is have dungeon stairs descend at either 2 or 3 levels per set of stairs when you get deep. It's a nice hack that means you don't have to worry about anything else except just confusing the player.

Andrew

[Arralen]

Throwing vs. Archery :

Tried out throwing with a thief and found that - in short - throwing SUCKS !
(and slinging too ... )

• Values are way unbalanced - look at the table below.
• Micromanagement: Most times, I didn't have large stacks of throwing weapons. Especially if you coat them to make them a little bit more useful, you end up with lots of weapons you have to pick up and re-wield seperatly ...
• Furthermore, there are vastly more branded/ego arrow stacks in the dungeon than darts or javelins.
• Additional criticals (if they are present) for thrown weapons cannot make up for the bad base values: as stacks of them are vastly smaller than arrow stacks, chances of actually getting the critical rolled are not that great. Most times my thief ended up throwing everything he had at an in-depth monster and meleeing it after retreating around the next corner. A similarly build ranger killed the monsters in 3 turns with ~6 arrows (of 50 or more he carried).
• Is it still possible to enchant the whole stack of arrows for the same price as 1 weapon?
• Coating the javelins (or even darts) doesn't do much good: the poisons mostly wear out way too fast, sometimes even within 1 round: blinding, paralyzing etc. doesn't do much then. Only exception is webbing which seems to be permanent at least on low-STR monsters - and which shouldn't work according to the description given for coating weapons (blood agents etc.)
• Lessened chance of breakage isn't enough: It's easy to lose the whole lot of weapons on maybe 6 monsters. Might be a bug in the latest version(s) though, as i remember getting much more "chipped/bend" messages in early versions of 0.6 ?!

TYPE      WEIGHT DAM MULT

Arrow     0.2s   1d6 2x/3x  
Bolt      0.3s   1d7 3x/4x  

R.pebbl.  0.4s   1d2 x2 
Iron Sh.  0.5s   1d4 x2

Dart      1.0s   1d4 -
Javelin   5.0s   1d6 -

I would suggest:

- changing weigth as follows: pebbles(0.2), Ishots(0.3), darts(0.3), arrows(0.6), bolts(0.9)
- changing damage as follows: javelines 2d6
- checking chance for breaking/damage on javelins and maybe lowering it more
- make coatings last longer !

[Nick]

I would suggest:

- changing weigth as follows: pebbles(0.2), Ishots(0.3), darts(0.3), arrows(0.6), bolts(0.9)
- changing damage as follows: javelines 2d6
- checking chance for breaking/damage on javelins and maybe lowering it more
- make coatings last longer !

How about the O system of having a multiplier for any weapon designed mainly for throwing?

[Bandobras]

How about the O system of having a multiplier for any weapon designed mainly for throwing?

What exactly do you mean?

[Bandobras]

Throwing vs. Archery :

Wow, I like this kind of writing.

Tried out throwing with a thief and found that - in short - throwing SUCKS !

(and slinging too ... )

Yeah, it's mostly the same, in particular the same ammo for both, but with larger range when slinging and you use the shooting skill, not the throwing skill, and you get bonuses from sling's to_dam, etc.

> Micromanagement: Most times, I didn't have large stacks of throwing weapons.

You are not supposed to have such large stacks. Perhaps of slings ammo, which is usually weaker and cannot be coeated, but not of weapons.

> Especially if you coat them to make them a little bit more useful, you end up with lots of weapons you have to pick up and re-wield seperatly ...

If you inscribe them with {=g}, they get rewielded automatically. Please test.

> Furthermore, there are vastly more branded/ego arrow stacks in the dungeon than darts or javelins.

There are lots of throwing weapons dropped by throwing monsters, but they are rarely ego (ever? I don't remember). I guess the problem is, throwing weapons are just very rare, so they are rarely ego, too. This can be easily tweaked in the object.txt file, I think. Anybody?

> Additional criticals (if they are present) for thrown weapons cannot make up for the bad base values: as stacks of them are vastly smaller than arrow stacks, chances of actually getting the critical rolled are not that great.

Did you use buffs? Did you enter the Blocking state before throwing? However, only normal increased criticals are implemtnted. Extra criticals for sleeping or unaware or hindered monsters are not. Volunteers welcome.

> Most times my thief ended up throwing everything he had at an in-depth monster and meleeing it after retreating around the next corner.

Happens. Seriously, that's what throwing is designed to be: kill it before it moves or despair. Only, the chances of killing a solitary, sleeping, in-depth (CL=monster level) monster before it can make a move should be quite large, which is probably not the case now.

> A similarly build ranger killed the monsters in 3 turns with ~6 arrows (of 50 or more he carried).

That sounds just right. My warrior killed them in one or two turns usually until DL 15, when his bad weapons and no Damage rings made him quite wimpy despite CL 25. But melee, being a contact sport, is more dangeous so 2 turns is about right vs 3 turns and some arrows spent.

> Is it still possible to enchant the whole stack of arrows for the same price as 1 weapon?

Not sure. I guess 1 weapon = 10 or 20 arrows, but no more. I guess throwing weapons don't get discounts. Should they?

> Coating the javelins (or even darts) doesn't do much good: the poisons mostly wear out way too fast, sometimes even within 1 round: blinding, paralyzing etc. doesn't do much then.

Last time it was too powerful, so UnAndrew toned it down... But if you throw several times a turn, lasting for 1 turn should be OK, shouldn't it?

> Only exception is webbing which seems to be permanent at least on low-STR monsters - and which shouldn't work according to the description given for coating weapons (blood agents etc.)

Could you report it on Berlios? Thanks.

> Lessened chance of breakage isn't enough: It's easy to lose the whole lot of weapons on maybe 6 monsters. Might be a bug in the latest version(s) though, as i remember getting much more "chipped/bend" messages in early versions of 0.6 ?!

For sure, you can't lose a weapon that still has nonzero to_hit+to_dam. If you can, that's a grave bug. So, to make your precious ego throwers perfectly safe, always stop using them and enchant them when they go down to (+0, +0). You can keep enchanting them already at, say, (+2, +2), but it's more expensive. Oh, and pump up your INT --- at max INT your weapons never bend nor chip.

To be continued...

[Big Al]

I've gotten deep enough to explore most of middle earth with my latest character and I think that the game needs to warn you better when you're about to go somewhere that you can't return from. I know that it says it in the dungeon knowledge screen, but a "Are you sure you want to travel there, you can't come back." prompt would be nice, at least as an option. Eg. right now, I'm stuck off in the Ithilen and beyond area, not knowing that the path from the dead marshes to Ithilien was only one way. There was still stuff I wanted to explore in the western areas, but now I'm stuck here. I got stuck on the paths of the dead once by accident too - my character was way too weak to even have a chance against the guardian and there was a big jump up in monster difficulty there. Thoughts?

Also, since I was always getting so confused as to what leads to where when, I made myself a (very complicated and poorly drawn) map of middle earth. Red arrows indicate guardians blocking the way, orange arrows indicate that a location is only opened if you've visited the other location.

I'm getting the "forgetting something we shouldn't forget" bug with what seems like about half of the {superb} egos I find. I've reported it, but it's happening a lot.

Also, is there any particular design reason that you can't 'b'rowse the shrines in the dungeon? Whenever I examine one, it tells me that I can study this shrine to learn a prayer from such and such a book, but I don't know what spells are available from that book. I could fix this unless it was intentional.

[Bandobras]

but a "Are you sure you want to travel there, you can't come back." prompt would be nice, at least as an option.

Go ahead with implementing it. There are already travel prompts about food, so this should be doable. I think, no need to turn it off via options because you rarely travel, especially via one-way routes. I think it will actually add a nice flavour, if worded smartly.

Eg. right now, I'm stuck off in the Ithilen and beyond area, not knowing that the path from the dead marshes to Ithilien was only one way. There was still stuff I wanted to explore in the western areas, but now I'm stuck here.

Ooops. No maps in your inventory and no home to get the maps from? Isn't there a home in Ithilien? Perhaps add one but move the 'town' deeper to keep the 'stranded' feeling until you fight your way down to the friendly hideout?

I got stuck on the paths of the dead once by accident too - my character was way too weak to even have a chance against the guardian and there was a big jump up in monster difficulty there. Thoughts?

Well, that's exactly what should happen in such a case. There are two warnings in the dungeon knowledge and a bunch in the description of Hornburg. If you add one more in the travel menu, I'd say this is not so EMFH (nor even EMSFH, where S is for Sidekick).

Also, since I was always getting so confused as to what leads to where when, I made myself a (very complicated and poorly drawn) map of middle earth. Red arrows indicate guardians blocking the way, orange arrows indicate that a location is only opened if you've visited the other location.

Wow, isn't that game complex... And you still lack a few arrows. Good we only show the small map to newbies.

I'm getting the "forgetting something we shouldn't forget" bug with what seems like about half of the {superb} egos I find. I've reported it, but it's happening a lot.

I've fixed it at least 2 times. Or so I thought.

Also, is there any particular design reason that you can't 'b'rowse the shrines in the dungeon? Whenever I examine one, it tells me that I can study this shrine to learn a prayer from such and such a book, but I don't know what spells are available from that book. I could fix this unless it was intentional.

No reason, I guess. Probably an artifact of the changed pickup code. Or something even older and there may be a bug report about related things somewhere on Berlios.

[Bandobras]

P.S. Perhaps your map could be improved by using the same graph-theory notation trick the in-game map employs --- only draw arrows if the route is one-way. And geography would improve if you used llandscape page format, not portrait. Anyway, thanks a lot, that spoiler really helps...

[Bandobras]

One more thing: you can throw your ordinary (not coated and not ego) weapon as if it was branded, if you wield a branding ring on your left hand (of Ice, etc.). I've just checked that throwing criticals are the same as melee, so much higher than shooting. (Only proper throwing weapons get any criticals.) Shooting criticals are added _before_ damage multiplier is applied, which is why shooting criticals have to be lower than melee criticals. Since there is no throwing damage multiplier in Un (unilke O, etc.) melee criticals are OK for throwing. Perhaps they are, in effect, lower than those for shooting, though, because they don't get multiplied...

TYPE WEIGHT DAM MULT
[snip]

You are right, unfortunately. And I'm not sure how to fix it.

Edit: Perhaps the biggest drawback of throwing is it does not get to_dam bonuses from launchers as shooting does. And of course it lacks of any damage multiplier. And we insist on keeping the latter this way...

I would suggest:

> - changing weigth as follows: pebbles(0.2), Ishots(0.3), darts(0.3), arrows(0.6), bolts(0.9)

I'm not sure. Would it change so much? And why persecute Archers that decide not to ever raise STR throughout the game? Perhaps leave arrows and bolts be, or slightly raise bolts, and only lower pebbles and shots? I'm not sure I want thiefs to be able to carry unlimited darts. Better make them stronger so that fewer suffice...

> - changing damage as follows: javelins 2d6

Sounds nice but the Javelins become too great melee weapons. It's OK if we go the S route and make them snap if used for melee, but we already depend on throwing weapons for dual-wield melee...

> - checking chance for breaking/damage on javelins and maybe lowering it more

Try it with a descent INT and while keeping weapons above (+0, +0). If it drains money for enchanting too much even for CL30 player, I'd lower it. At least a way to spend some useless money...

> - make coatings last longer

OK. Please somebody browse the code, e.g. if uniques get shorter span, etc.

But, still, I need ideas how to improve throwing raw damage. Would above plus bigger criticals in some cases suffice? Bigger criticals in all cases? Add in equipment damage bonuses? (As in melee, but it's always limited by dice x sides + 5, so the bonus will be lower for throwing weapons.) But it does not affect players below CL 20 or 30, because rings of Free Action and of See Invisible are then more important than of Damage.

[Nick]

What exactly do you mean?

There are actually two flags for throwing weapons, THROWING and PERFECT_BALANCE. Each adds more damage dice to the weapon as it is thrown:

	  /* Base damage dice */
	  dice = i_ptr->dd;
	  
	  /* Object is a throwing weapon. */
	  if (f1 & (TR1_THROWING))
	    {
	      /* Perfectly balanced weapons do even more damage. */
	      if (f1 & (TR1_PERFECT_BALANCE)) dice *= 2;
	      
	      /* Critical hits may add damage dice. */
	      dice += critical_shot(chance2, sleeping_bonus, TRUE, 
				    m_ptr->ml, m_name, i_ptr);
	      
	      /*
	       * Multiply the number of damage dice by the throwing 
	       * weapon multiplier, if applicable.  This is not the 
	       * prettiest equation, but it does at least try to keep 
	       * throwing weapons competitive.
	       */
	      dice *= 2 + p_ptr->lev / 12;
	    }

[Bandobras]

Oh, thanks. I didn't remember only throwing weapons get a multiplier in O. OK

But we don't like that.

[Big Al]

Go ahead with implementing it. There are already travel prompts about food, so this should be doable. I think, no need to turn it off via options because you rarely travel, especially via one-way routes. I think it will actually add a nice flavour, if worded smartly.

Fixed: "You have a feeling you might not be able to get back this way for a while..."

Ooops. No maps in your inventory and no home to get the maps from? Isn't there a home in Ithilien? Perhaps add one but move the 'town' deeper to keep the 'stranded' feeling until you fight your way down to the friendly hideout?

As far as I know, there's only four or so storage cellars, no town, no home.

And you still lack a few arrows.

Really? I was 99% certain that I got everything. Once I had mapped most of it in-game, I went over dungeon.txt with a fine-toothed comb.

P.S. Perhaps your map could be improved by using the same graph-theory notation trick the in-game map employs --- only draw arrows if the route is one-way. And geography would improve if you used llandscape page format, not portrait. Anyway, thanks a lot, that spoiler really helps...

Yeah, landscape would have been better, but I was drawing it as I explored, and a lot of the time I didn't really know how much space I would need or where I needed to leave room for connections. Maybe I'll make a better version some day.

No reason, I guess. Probably an artifact of the changed pickup code. Or something even older and there may be a bug report about related things somewhere on Berlios.

Fixed in SVN.

[thorgot]

I've gotten deep enough to explore most of middle earth with my latest character and I think that the game needs to warn you better when you're about to go somewhere that you can't return from. I know that it says it in the dungeon knowledge screen, but a "Are you sure you want to travel there, you can't come back." prompt would be nice, at least as an option. Eg. right now, I'm stuck off in the Ithilen and beyond area, not knowing that the path from the dead marshes to Ithilien was only one way. There was still stuff I wanted to explore in the western areas, but now I'm stuck here. I got stuck on the paths of the dead once by accident too - my character was way too weak to even have a chance against the guardian and there was a big jump up in monster difficulty there. Thoughts?

I knew it wasn't just me!

I'm getting the "forgetting something we shouldn't forget" bug with what seems like about half of the {superb} egos I find. I've reported it, but it's happening a lot.

Same. Sometimes it happened right when I entered a level with a vault.