[Announce] Poschengband 3.3.0 Released

[HugoVirtuoso]

I recently started playing the Angel monster race again in 3.3.1. But, Angels NO LONGER start with a Scroll Acquirement. Since when did this happen?!

[chris]

Is it on purpose that Wis based monsters don't benefit from mana consuption decrease and lowered failrate?

It was, but this was probably a mistake. Next release (3.3.2) will use the pseudo-class of the form in question (In r_info.txt, this is specified on the initial P:Copy:Race:Class line for each monster). This means that almost every form will now benefit from Economical Mana.

As an aside, I don't like that practically every class can use a wizardstaff. In my opinion, only pure mage forms and perhaps priests should be allowed this. All hybrid casters should not benefit.

[wobbly]

So I've been playing a few chaos warriors & one thing that's been bugging me flavour-wise is I can't seem to bring up any info on my patron demon. For instance on my current character my patron shows as the demon lord Eequor. Demon lord of what? What form does he take? I have know idea, it just shows a name & that's it.

On the subject of item avaliability in stores bows/slings seem a little rare. Normally I'd like to pick-up a sling at the start, & it's not that often it's avaliable. Though that's just a minor annoyance of course.

Edit: Possible bug. The fire command has the option of fire from floor, but it tells you your out of ammunition if you try it.

[Arjen]

Is it on purpose that Wis based monsters don't benefit from mana consuption decrease and lowered failrate?

[Arjen]

Oops. You can edit r_info to get your spells back.

Lost the form as I couldn't kill anything. Hunting for Dark Elven Sorcerers.

[chris]

Found a bug? Jasra, Mistress of Brand can't cast any spell? Just mimiced her in the anti-melee cave.

Oops. You can edit r_info to get your spells back.

[Arjen]

Found a bug? Jasra, Mistress of Brand can't cast any spell? Just mimiced her in the anti-melee cave.

[debo]

Word of Recall is the only one that is even occasionally annoying to me. The rest seem fine to me, even remove curse.

There is a bit of a disconnect between remove curse and stat drain though; you can pay more at a store to get stats restored, but remove curse requires a scroll.

I also think the priest shop restoration service is very cheap for how good it is, but maybe that's just me.

[krazyhades]

Word of Recall is the main one that is incredibly frustrating for me to not find in the shops, especially because I have had mostly bad experiences exploring the overworld for loot/levels. Similarly, starving to death or running out of light feels awful (except the first time, when it's like "Welcome to Angband!").

Your point that when it's always available makes the rest of the game uninteresting has some merit, to be sure, but when I run out of ?Teleport or !CCW, I basically feel like I can't do anything interesting until I get more. Though now that I think about it, as much as it's nice to have escapes/healing to avoid or power through tough fights, the thing that really is annoying is getting chain-cc'ed (confusion, etc) by something without counterplay once you get caught initially. I wouldn't mind seeing some sort of !Curing-like-effect, perhaps less powerful (not 100% chance? not cure hallucination? Not remove the debuffs but make you unaffected by them for N rounds?).

Anyways, just my two cents. Already I'm pleased by your favoring shops stocking !WoR, food, and light.

[chris]

Finally, please have the following items always be in stock:

• Scrolls WoR
• Scrolls of Remove Curse and *Remove Curse*. (I had to buy out the entire priest shop just to unstick a stupid shovel that I accidentally wielded.)
• Scrolls of Teleportation
• Potions of CCW and possibly CSW
• Rations of food
• Flasks of oil
• Digging implements (not counting that stupid cursed shovel)

I'm OK with most of these, but I'll tell you what happens if you add !CCW. Always in stock means I can buy as many as I like, no? Well, what players used to do in the past was to town scum 3 stacks of 99 !CCW and then go fight a single foe (Great Wyrm or even end game unique). You can dig ASC and phase door out of line of sight and begin chugging !CCW to your heart's content (Or just teleport away and chug someplace quiet). 10 !CCW equals 1 !Healing. Recall and town scum for more potions to replenish your supply. Repeat.

One of my goals was to remove any form of Town Scumming and shift resource acquisition from the boring shopping mechanic to the exciting dungeon exploration mechanic. It might not be there yet (It's hard when even rarity 1 objects are rare) but I'm still working on it.

EDIT: Teleportation is intentionally scarce, so I will skip that one as well. Actually, I don't like making all utilities guaranteed to be available in unlimited supply. For one thing, this makes utility classes/realms irrelevant. (A pet peave of mine in Hengband was the Trump/Sorcery mage who also feels the need to carry scrolls of teleport despite the cheap easy to cast spell). For another, it removes certain aspects of game play (albeit, what some players might call annoying). Food, Light and Diggers are OK. Other resources, should be intermittent (hence bought preemptively) or better yet, found in the dungeon.

[chris]

I like your ranger and pet ideas and will give these some thoughts.

For riding, currently Rangers, Paladins and Warriors can actually become Expert riders. I never realized this before and consequently, never tried to actually ride when playing one of these classes.

For dual wielding, I need to be careful as this is one way to unbalance the game. Samurai have some very nice, very light options: Aglarang and Zanetetsuken. Also, there is Chain Sword. Finally, it might not be obvious, but one of the benefits of Genji gloves is to reduce the dual wielding penalty for heavy weapons. My intention was to make effective end game dual wielding somewhat dependent on these gloves, except for certain classes like Warriors, Samurai and even Ninja. I'm trying to keep a tight lid on melee damage and nerfing the availability of extra blows was one step I took. But what is dual wielding if not a whole bunch of "extra blows"?

[riftor_77]

Yes, this is exactly why there are Samurai, Maulers, Weaponmasters, etc. To make warriors less boring.

Couple ideas for class changes:

1. Give warriors, rangers, paladins, samurai, weaponsmasters, and any other weapon class I am forgetting the berserker's ability to dual wield heavier weapons and give them the ability to achieve max dual wield. I don't think this change is very unbalancing, as dual wielding causes slower progression in weapons skills and makes it more difficult to hit. I'm also really enjoying dual wielding right now, but wish my samurai didn't have to diminish himself to small weapons.
2. Give the same classes the ability to ride and get rid of cavalry and berserker. The lasso ability would show up when your riding skill reaches x number. I really like the idea of riding and think it should be more widely available. After all, what's a paladin without his trusty hippogryph? (see pet thoughts below for how to balance it)
3. Change the ranger class by:
   • Taking away the secondary spell realm
   • Allowing the ranger to choose either sniper or scout skills instead
   
   I make this suggestion because I see the ranger class being able to go in a lot of different ways. You could easily have a dual-wielding arrow-slinging frontal ranger, a stealthy sniper ranger, a mounted ranger, a ranger and his trusty wolf companion, or any combination thereof. (Chris may like ninjas, but I *love* rangers.)

While I am here, I would like to propose a radical change for pets. The character can have as many pets as he or she wants. You share resistances and vulnerabilities with your pet(s). Here's the catch: the XP received from kills by your or your pet(s) is divided equally among the group. E.g. if you have three pets, each character receives 1/4 of the XP for each kill. I like this idea because it changes the role of the pet from cannon fodder to indispensable ally.

Finally, please have the following items always be in stock:

• Scrolls WoR
• Scrolls of Remove Curse and *Remove Curse*. (I had to buy out the entire priest shop just to unstick a stupid shovel that I accidentally wielded.)
• Scrolls of Teleportation
• Potions of CCW and possibly CSW
• Rations of food
• Flasks of oil
• Digging implements (not counting that stupid cursed shovel)

Thanks for a great game and more thanks for getting rid of the bleeping virtues system.

[chris]

Actually, looking at that post, I think possibly the wizardstaff bug is still around? I have a local commit fixing it but I can't see a fix in master.

Oops. Should be fixed for real this time for next release.

[MarvinPA]

Whoops! Thank you

Heh, I managed to make exactly this mistake a while ago too: http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthr...9188#post89188

Actually, looking at that post, I think possibly the wizardstaff bug is still around? I have a local commit fixing it but I can't see a fix in master.

[debo]

Yes it works. Take a look at fell_sorcery_mut in mut_a.c and it should be obvious.

Whoops! Thank you