[Announce] Poschengband 3.3.0 Released

[Fnord]

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!

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

And this also goes for races.

The only point in removing such options would seem to be in "streamlining" the game - but I think that's not really a realistic goal. Let's face it - anyone playing a game like this is not going to be put off by too many classes or races or other choices.

[UglySquirrell]

I agree, if you search long enough you will find exploits anywhere. This does not mean you have to or should use them. Farming in the tower, or granite walls for gold has been around since Hengband if i remember correctly. I just never find using those type of tactics fun. Granted i have used the farming technique to evolve my mounts a few times but i find this type of gameplay extremely boring.
I guess it really comes down to, if you don't like it don't do it. Kind of like people who save scum, it's easy to do if you know how but in the end it defeats the purpose, and cheapens the game imo.

With regards to boring classes like warriors, i believe they have there place. Some people just enjoy the vanilla style classes, and if your starting out warriors are pretty badass and can actually use devices etc. (not well). Just smashing things is fun sometimes too

As far as weird classes, i really enjoy the stranger ones. Mirror masters are actually really cool, they take a bit to set up some spells. But you can still play almost like a mage if you want.

[chris]

Man, why are fast leveling, or infinity experience from a single monster issues at all? If you don't like it, then don't do it. Simple as that.

Agreed. I usually only patch exploits that I personally cannot resist, or ones that somebody asks me to do.

Intoducing a level/experience cap depending on player location is a horrible idea.

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

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?

I'd rather see some overall balancing of races and classes. At this moment it is a horrible mess of combined ideas of several variants put together. Some classes have many interesting abilities to choose from, some, like warriors, have exactly one, meaning they are just plain boring. Or weird, like mirror-master. Some are exactly the same as in Vanilla. Or Zangband. Or whatever other inspiration it was.

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!

[Arendil]

Man, why are fast leveling, or infinity experience from a single monster issues at all? If you don't like it, then don't do it. Simple as that.

Intoducing a level/experience cap depending on player location is a horrible idea.

I'd rather see some overall balancing of races and classes. At this moment it is a horrible mess of combined ideas of several variants put together. Some classes have many interesting abilities to choose from, some, like warriors, have exactly one, meaning they are just plain boring. Or weird, like mirror-master. Some are exactly the same as in Vanilla. Or Zangband. Or whatever other inspiration it was.

[chris]

btw,there are still a myriad of other ways of gaining infinite xp with hotkeys.
keyword--> infinite food-->hobbits-->life magic
you see,the problem is that you gain xp from hurting monsters.it is easy to make a macro like that

maambbmbbmbbmbbmbbR2000\rmaambbmbbmbbmbbmbbR2000\r and etc..

maa->food spell (or hobbit create food)
mbb->non lethal attack spell

R2000\r---> time monster needs to heal

you see,there are a couple of quests with non animated monsters who will just stand there and let you hit 'em :---))

Actually, the problem here I think is that you can gain infinite experience from a single monster. Gaining the experience as you fight is a wonderful addition of Hengband and is probably necessary for any riding class (where your mount will steal 50% or so of your kills). The exploit is easily fixed by tracking the actual experience gained on a per monster basis, and then capping it!

I'm still digesting the remainder of your post ... Give me time

[poschengbandplayer]

""* The Summon Mold exploit has been removed.""

o_o

btw,there are still a myriad of other ways of gaining infinite xp with hotkeys.
keyword--> infinite food-->hobbits-->life magic
you see,the problem is that you gain xp from hurting monsters.it is easy to make a macro like that

maambbmbbmbbmbbmbbR2000\rmaambbmbbmbbmbbmbbR2000\r and etc..

maa->food spell (or hobbit create food)
mbb->non lethal attack spell

R2000\r---> time monster needs to heal

you see,there are a couple of quests with non animated monsters who will just stand there and let you hit 'em :---))

also,BIG bug report.when casting genocide,you get damaged for every monster that resists genocide.in the icky caves i tried to genocide the j's and got x30,x22 damage.go figure.

and did you fix beruthiel?please tell me you did !!!!! <3

edit:yes,you did!!!!!!love you!!!!!
i have a proposition about the food system
make gorge status affect dexterity rather than speed
remove food spell and hobbit create food
put in an option that higher level players(20>?) automatically buy food when entering town
put in an option that food gets eaten automatically when status hits "weak"
this should make the experience abuses impossible,make the food thingy also more interesting.

next proposal.FEAR
as it is now,fear makes you sometimes unable to fail to access the menu.when i get the fear status,things are usually sooo bad that *I* am also afraid(im sure most players are,lol).thing is,i panick and open the different menus to see what options i have to escape,and i open and reopen them eratically many times.the fear status however sometimes kicks in and makes me loose one turn because of that.what if the fear status kicks in when you actually choose something in the menu??


next proposal.instant death :<
okay,i know this may be heretic,but all players who are able to win know by experience exactly how much a monster can damage them,what their damage cap is,their damage per second relative to their own speed and etc etc.In most other bands there is a cheat option that allows players to see the monsters total information.what i would like to propose is,is to add in the description and the damage output of monster attacks in the monster description,acessed by the "l" key.



next proposal.wilderness
I would like to suggest to make the wilderness level the "first level".what i mean by that is to readjust the depths of all dungeons so that you have to be around level 20-30 to actually have a fighting chance in them.those levels you have to gain in the wilderness.You see,with your recent wilderness changes i am able to level up with mage characters to level 20-25 in under 15 minutes.
failing that,i propose(though not happily,lol)to reimplement the XP cap for the wilderness :,(

minor tweak and fluff proposals:
change the greek pantheon theme to a warcraft 40 k theme(regarding demigods)?i think mount of the emperor where the "god emperor of mankind" is the dungeon master,instead of zeus would be more awesome(and would be more fitting with the cyber monster theme(cyberdemons etc).
that would also mean to change the demigod parentages(which are kinda meh).

cyberdemon race:
in the description of them it is mentioned that they have some kind of "cyber magic" but they only can shoot rockets!!!!!can you make two sub classes for them?cyber demon grunt---->berserk like cyberdemon dude \ cyberdemon void caller(or something)----->mage like cyberdemon dude

magic eater:
what about making the magic eater a little bit like weapon smiths?like,in absorbing essences?i propose that because a magic eater may grow tremendously powerful and have a lot of offensive power,but they are all scattered across different hotkeys!!!!!really,the hotkeys are the problem here,because for a magic eater i have to make a lot of them,which is annoying.it would be rather nice to,lets say,absorb essences and then choose in what offensive power to spend them.well,i think you get the general idea.
failing that,can you make some kind of hardcoded "hotkey" that uses all offensive powers,from most powerful to weakest first?

i hope you can decipher my rabble,have a nice day ^^^^^^

Ps:I just read your response to my last post,happy you think my ideas are good :0.I am full of ideas,and if you want I can name alot more in the future <3~!

[chris]

Since nobody has found any show stopping bugs, here is another release (3.3.1). The main changes this release are UI related changes including:

* Mimic shapeshifting now intelligently reequips previously worn items. For the most part, you may remove all your @mimic manual inscriptions and let the system manage things for you. The only time you might have an issue is if you need certain pieces of gear to go into a specific slot. For example, dual wielding and you need one weapon in your right hand and another in your left. This *can* be handled, but let's see if it actually comes up

* I added an option to Identify All when using a scroll of identify or a staff of perception. Simply press '*' to identify all unknown items in your pack, in your currently worn equipment and under-foot in a single action (up to the allowed number of charges, of course). This convenience does not take extra energy.

* I added a new pickup preference action to automatically identify an object. For example, a line like "?unaware items" is a very nice thing to have. The source of the identification is either a scroll of identify, a charge from a staff of perception or a charge from a rod of perception if available. Sorry, no support for spells.

* I redid the default pickup preference file. I really like the changes but I'm not sure others will. The defaults are in lib/pref/pickpref.txt so any who grok the autopicker should feel free to critique or to offer suggestions.

* I fixed a longstanding auto-destroy bug. You all know what it is: Register a mace for autodestruction and suddenly maces of disruption are also destroyed! (Text now supports $ as an end of string marker).

I did also do some gameplay changes, mostly with regard to mimics:

* Spell stats can now be specified in r_info. To celebrate, zephyr hounds now use Dex as their spell stat even though they emulate rogues (Hounds aren't particularly bright, after all).

* I tweaked the speed calculation algorithm. Basically, forms that must use innate attacks get the full bonus and everybody else gets 35% of the monster's speed value (But see the next bullet item).

* Speed values can now be specified in r_info. If so specified, this overrides the normal algorithm for deducing player speed from the monster's speed. Why have this? Well, rogues and monks should be faster than you might expect. Also, some critters might have been too fast otherwise.

* I adjusted down many XP requirements for player monster races. The in game helpfile is now up to date again.

* Liches and Beholders gain Eat Magic. Any possessor/mimic form that emulates a mage also gets Eat Magic.

* The Summon Mold exploit has been removed.

* Sparing early uniques will no longer help you when facing The Serpent of Chaos (I almost didn't spoil this change



As usual souce code and a full diff are available.

[HugoVirtuoso]

Hmm, my girl is not high enough level to check, maybe it's been updated. I might be remembering from Hengband. I'm almost positive the spell used to light up the level as well.

On another note, would it be possible to have the Stone of Lore remain the same in Randart games? This seems to be a one of a kind artifact with special abilities, that gives a pretty significant edge to playing with standarts on.

Imo: With the randarts only option on, there should be should be ONLY ONE designated randart deternined at birth that will have the auto-id flag. It would be interesting if randarts causes the auto-id flag to be on a non-light source randart. ToME, in fact, had a Iron Helm standart with auto-id....Iron Helm of Knowlege.

[UglySquirrell]

It currently should not be lighting the dungeon. It maps the squares, but you should continue to be able to hide in shadows. A potion of enlightenment, on the other hand, will indeed light up the rooms as well (and even the corridors).

Is this not what happens?

Hmm, my girl is not high enough level to check, maybe it's been updated. I might be remembering from Hengband. I'm almost positive the spell used to light up the level as well.

On another note, would it be possible to have the Stone of Lore remain the same in Randart games? This seems to be a one of a kind artifact with special abilities, that gives a pretty significant edge to playing with standarts on.

[krazyhades]

Stealth-build characters get to strong stealth and stay there. A lot seems to depend on when one finds Jack's cloak, since it frequently worth wearing off of the ESP alone. It would be nice for early stealth to appear more often on heavier items beyond the use of rogues/ninjas so that some traditionally noisy characters can be stealthy relative to monsters at level-appropriate depth but not while diving. Casters definitely get some stealth capabilities, but melee characters don't seem to turn the corner on stealth usability until they're high enough level that they should be diving, at which point it's very strong. There's also, as in all *bands that I know of, the issue that speed*stealth=**STEALTH**

Ofc, take this with a grain of salt. I'm not the strongest of players here, but just my 2c.

EDIT:
How do Rune of Protection and Protection from Evil work in PosChengband? Even my Vanilla knowledge of these spells is very vague; I rarely use them. Pro. Evil in V prevents weaker-end evil monsters from attacking through the buff; is the same true in PosChengband? What about Rune/Glyph effect scrolls?

[debo]

As for stealth = deep dungeon exploration, I think I need to be careful about making this tactic more powerful than it already is. Having wilderness access to deep dungeon levels can be rather unbalancing and must therefor be exceptionally risky. Having some monsters always awake keeps the danger threat high.

I was actually thinking that it would be good if any new mechanics would make deep-dungeon diving less powerful.

In Sil, once your stealth is high enough, it really does feel like nothing can ever hear or see you. However, this is a false sense of security, because it's very possible to create local noise by tripping over traps, by failing a stealth check against an opponent's perception (which is easier to do when you're in LOS), or even just by physically bumping into something that was wandering around!

Right now in Poscheng, I feel like if something starts asleep and my stealth is legendary, it is basically a cute statue. I'm pretty sure there's not much at all that will wake it up, short of hitting it with something (which is why vortices are so dangerous).

However, let's say that fewer monsters started awake and hunting, and that _all monsters_ had a chance of waking up if you fail a stealth check... well, that seems much more dangerous, because I can detect monsters all I want on turn N, and I'll have no idea on turn N+1 if that thing just out of LOS is awake and ready to breathe 1600 on me

I don't think this is a high-priority thing, because the stealth game is quite fun still. It just feels very deterministic and surprisingly safe to me (i.e. oh, things are awake on the level -- leave. Oh, everything is asleep on the level -- time to have fun.)

[chris]

Hmm, i just remembered something, is there any chance that the Ninja enlightenment spell (can't remember the name Right now) could not light up the level?

It currently should not be lighting the dungeon. It maps the squares, but you should continue to be able to hide in shadows. A potion of enlightenment, on the other hand, will indeed light up the rooms as well (and even the corridors).

Is this not what happens?

[chris]

Have you ever thought much about improving the stealth system / borrowing some ideas from other variants? I'm having a lot of fun trawling really deep levels with a random character that just happened to find a lot of stealth equipment, but the stealth game feels really crude and it's basically "oh, is anything awake? Recall out because they're just going to chase me forever even though I'm a billion miles away." If nothing's awake, I can basically move around with impunity, even when detection gets my brain frazzled and terrified from beholding the visage of some awesome monster.

I might try a Ninja next to see how this all works when it's a primary mechanic for a class (rather than just something I do when I get bored and want to risk a -1100HP death.) Have you ever had any thoughts on tweaking stealth in PosCheng?

I'm open to these sorts of changes, but really, I'm probably the most inappropriate variant maintainer ever in that I just don't keep up with other variants. I played them all back in the day, but ever since Hengband, I haven't really played much else. So I'm woefully ignorant on all the cool stuff that other variants are currently doing.

That said, I can imagine adding some sort of monster awareness on top of the current sleeping mechanic. Monsters could wake up, but not yet realize there is an intrepid adventurer (aka 'lunch') sneaking about. The issue then is what do they do instead? Moving randomly would be lame and standing still is just like sleeping. There probably needs to be some sort of intelligent seeming action for unaware monsters to take (e.g. orc guards on patrol) which would require some clever code modification.

Ninjas offer an extra stealth dimension. Rather than awareness though, they hide in the shadows so that awake monsters know the player is lurking about someplace, just not where. In this case, the monster flails about randomly which is appropriate.

As for stealth = deep dungeon exploration, I think I need to be careful about making this tactic more powerful than it already is. Having wilderness access to deep dungeon levels can be rather unbalancing and must therefor be exceptionally risky. Having some monsters always awake keeps the danger threat high.

[chris]

Assuming that Mimicked monsters have a timer, if you go on the Overworld Map, you can keep the Mimicked monsters for extended periods of time while traveling...or not a bug at higher levels? At clvl 12, I Mimicked a Swordsman (non-learned form) traveled from an area halfway between Outpost and Morivant all the way to Morivant without the Mimicry wearing off!!

Actually, I should probably make it so that you keep your form while in the special wilderness travel mode. After all, if you lose your form and your pack is full, there is no place for unwieldable objects to drop to, so you'll lose your stuff. Seems unfair. To compensate, there are no monsters to fight, nor can you cast spells or use powers.

[chris]

The Mimic looks like a very cool class, i really like the @mimic equipment idea.
Would it be possible to have your inventory temporarily expanded when you change forms, for your extra gear? I seem to remember playing a variant that would allow you to pick up key/quest items, even when your inventory was full.

Actually, next release (3.3.1) I think I have a better solution. The game tracks which item was previously worn when you shift bodies and eject some gear. Next time you shift, your pack is scanned and any object so marked gets equipped automatically. No need to inscribe. For the most part, this is working well.

As for inventory expansion, I'm a bit hampered by the current code base which uses a fixed size array with both pack and equipment adjacent combined with liberal hard coded assumptions of this fact sprinkled throughout the code base. I'd rather not tangle with that beast at the moment*. But if you think about it (and I'm probably rationalizing), the current system makes more sense. When you shift, you can no longer wield an object, and then where does it go? To your pack or even to the ground makes sense.

* BTW, I think other variants with body types implemented things differently. I know of at least one that simply increased the size of the global array and then set aside reserved regions for equipment of a certain type (e.g. 10 slots for each kind of gear). But this approach is very unflexible (jellies? quylthulgs? multiple arms?) so I'm glad I didn't do it that way.