[Announce] Poschengband 3.3.0 Released

[Patashu]

It would probably be quicker to record a ttyrec of your gameplay than all the testing/bug fixing/patching that would be needed to have deterministic input recording and playback.

[Fnord]

I know this is probably not gonna happen, but since you like suggestions:

I've always wondered why no variant offered recording games. You'd need the same version to playback (and probably would have to include all the editable data in the record), but I always thought it'd be awesome to be able to watch how exactly others play, at my own pace. You could "mark" highlights such as fun fights or interesting tactics for others to watch, perhaps you can comment at certain turns etc. Lots more of possible ideas (such as automated functions to skip to critical things - gear change, low health, big monster kill etc), but I don't want to make this too long.

It'd also allow for "fairer" competitions since anyone claiming a win would then have to provide a record.

[Arjen]

Found a small glitch with xp drain (not from an item). You can restore your drained xp by mimicing into a form with a capped level below your max level. If you undo your mimicing afterwards you regain your full xp.

[HugoVirtuoso]

That would only be balanced if Metal Babbles could also summon 6-12 Serpents of Chaos.

Or summon 6-12 "Plain Gold Rings" or the Mad Chemist from Entroband (if Brian Barnes permits this).

[Djabanete]

Idea: Give the Serpent a new ability. "Summon Metal Babbles" (6-12 of them.)

Alternately, make Metal Babbles breed explosively.

That would only be balanced if Metal Babbles could also summon 6-12 Serpents of Chaos.

[poschengbandplayer]

i wasn't just ridiculous random!it was more lol!i am asking myself what the "plain ring" monster would have dropped?a randart ring? :/

[MarvinPA]

It's a 1/666 chance I think (a good general rule from having looked at Poscheng code a bit is if some really ridiculous random thing happens, it probably had a 1/666 chance of happening :P).

[poschengbandplayer]

why are fast leveling, or infinity experience from a single monster issues at all?

Well.I certainly would rather have fun if things would be slower,but I just can't bring myself to handicap my character!!If I can (ab)use something,I have to do it!I'm sure I'm not the only one with this sentiment,lol!

A big BUG report.There's a random staff\wand\whatever shop in Morivant.I found out that if all of your equipment slots are full,except one with the desired wand\staff\whatever,you can abuse this mechanic so that the shop only sells you the desired item.Example:All of your equipment slots are full with junk,except the last,which is a,lets say,staff of mana storm.When you try to buy something and the game generates anything but a staff of manastorm,you will get an error,saying "inventory full blabla",but when the game generates the staff of manastorm,it will stack.I haven't tested it,but i'm sure it's possible.

Oh,and something maybe *extremely* odd.Smeagol dropped THE ONE RING in my last game.my heart kinda skipped a beat.It happened in one of the random sea dungeons.Play time was 3 hours and level was 35,I didn't believe my luck,but after recalling and *identifying* it,I kinda got sad!perma curse?check!drain experience?check!aggrevating?hmm,still doable.Check!ancient curse???????????????!!!!!!!!urgh.I think this was a "only once in a lifetime" event,I don't think it will ever,ever happen again!
Well,the reason I wrote this was that.I just want to know what the odd of it dropping was??my player char was a lucky amberite magic eater,level 35.in a depth of 2750-3700(random sea dungeon,I don't remember exact depth)smeagol was in a vault.the vault was one of those that look like a grid kinda,but not with permament walls,and by the time of the killing,smeagol was within the aforementioned vault.Somebody please calculate the chance of him dropping it?!!<3
my lucky amberite(naphra) is dead now though.killed by a unresisted disenchantment breath(full hp-> -20hp).i don't think i will ever get so lucky again,so i won't beg for removal of aggrevation and ancient curse.lol.

[debo]

Idea: Give the Serpent a new ability. "Summon Metal Babbles" (6-12 of them.)

Alternately, make Metal Babbles breed explosively.

[chris]

I'm not opting to remove classes. Just to make them more interesting. Just give warrior some combat abilities, I don't know, sweep, strong blow, precise blow, maybe rush attack, maybe some war cries, whatever, and immediately it gets interesting.

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

[krazyhades]

To follow up on debo's comment, my most fun PosChengband character to date was a ludicrously high-damage human warrior with suicidally-low AC (that ultimately got him killed).

[chris]

For one thing, limiting experience gain from fighting would backfire in some other cases, like fighting a very difficult, self-healing, teleporting boss. Everyone has seen that. By the time you catch up again, enemy is healed from one star to full health. In such case, I think XP reward should be on par with added difficulty.

These situations are meant to be an annoyance to the player, not a hidden boon. Why add disincentives to diligently tracking down your enemy? If you allowed him to heal back to full health (and this is sometimes unavoidable, I admit), then why should this be a benefit?

[debo]

I'm not opting to remove classes. Just to make them more interesting. Just give warrior some combat abilities, I don't know, sweep, strong blow, precise blow, maybe rush attack, maybe some war cries, whatever, and immediately it gets interesting.

In a game where almost every class and race is over the top, it is nice to have some vanilla classes that have limited tricks.

[Arendil]

Just wanted to voice my support of keeping existing classes around. The mentioned "boring" warrior? I'm certainly having fun with mine right now!

I'm not opting to remove classes. Just to make them more interesting. Just give warrior some combat abilities, I don't know, sweep, strong blow, precise blow, maybe rush attack, maybe some war cries, whatever, and immediately it gets interesting.

[Arendil]

I'm not sure you understand what we are talking about. There is no such level experience cap under consideration.

Actually, I was referring to the proposed XP cap in the wilderness.

The exploit in question involves fighting a single monster in a safe situation and not killing the monster. Rather, damage the monster a bit and then rest to allow it to heal back to full hp. Then repeat. With this approach, you can gain infinite experience with zero kills. And the fix is only handful of lines of code so I'm not sure why you object?

For one thing, limiting experience gain from fighting would backfire in some other cases, like fighting a very difficult, self-healing, teleporting boss. Everyone has seen that. By the time you catch up again, enemy is healed from one star to full health. In such case, I think XP reward should be on par with added difficulty.

Second, I object, because I'm always for more freedom in gaming If someone wants to abuse some exploits, well, it's their businnes, their time, and their fun, or lack of thereof.

Feel free to give concrete suggestions, but I'm inclined to leave the diversity and historical races/classes in play. It is sort of the whole point of this variant!

I agree that multitude of choices is fun. But there are duplicates, some funny, like you can play one Balrog as a regular race, with a class, and different one as a monster, demonic race

Also, classes for example. Basic classes from vanilla have exactly the same stats, despite obvious higher difficulty of this variant. And so on.

I spent some time wondering about possible way to rebalance races and classes, and to be honest, that task overwhelmed my measly brain just too many factors to compute.

What could be done, although that would require a lot of work, is cleaning of the code responsible for all spells/abilities/powers/whatever. Some classes constantly need spellbooks, some only to learn, some never at all. Some are under m key, some under U, some have new menus. How about a *one* way to learn and cast all spell-like abilities or techniques?