[Announce] Poschengband 3.3.0 Released

[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.

[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.

[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]

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

[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]

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!

[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.

[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.

[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?

[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.

[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.

[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?

[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]

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.

[debo]

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

Alternately, make Metal Babbles breed explosively.