[Announce] PosChengband 4.0.0 Released

[Therem Harth]

In my fork of ToME 2.x, I've decided to just remove the monster memory entirely in favor of full knowledge. Much simpler and gets rid of ton of (likely) buggy code.

Nifty. When will you be able to push to GitHub? I want to check this out.

[AnonymousHero]

Nifty. When will you be able to push to GitHub? I want to check this out.

I'll try to get things into order for pushing to GH in a few days, I think.

[AnonymousHero]

I'll try to get things into order for pushing to GH in a few days, I think.

Pushed to GitHub.

Apologies for the thread hijack.

[Therem Harth]

Cool. I'll see if I can get the no-traps branch sorted out then.

/me vacates thread

[wobbly]

So elementals & food sources. Air eats staves right, & water potions. Fire elementals start with oil flasks but can't seem to eat them & Earth I can't work out what the deal is there.

[wobbly]

So elementals & food sources. Air eats staves right, & water potions. Fire elementals start with oil flasks but can't seem to eat them & Earth I can't work out what the deal is there.

Edit: Ok didn't look hard enough, earth have eat rock & fire quaff oil. ignore

[chris]

And, one more quick update. I've been thinking a lot about Object and Monster Lore. For the latter, I went ahead and added the easy_lore option, as promised. But, I must confess, I never really paid attention to monster lore, mainly because the monster recall display is so darn horrible! For example, what I, as a player, usually want to know is whether my weapon slays will work, or whether my enemy resists my chosen attack. As a test, I timed myself in attempting to determine whether or not the Serpent of Chaos has reflection or not. It took me way too long to answer this question, mostly because I didn't feel like reading a long story format and kept trying to guess where in the description this tiny, but relevant piece of info would be located. I kept guessing wrong, and in the end, had to skim the entire entry which was horribly annoying. (Not to mention that output wraps using the terminal's entire width, which might be over 200 characters long ... Yuk!)

So, monster recall has been *redone*. It is now presented similarly to the character sheet in that information is labelled and generally appears in the same place on the screen. I used the object display pattern for line breaking long lists of resistances and the like. The description is at the bottom since its length is highly variable (and, I confess, it is the last thing I would care to see . With this change, the Monster Recall window option is now, officially, the first darn extra terminal window that is actually worth using! Perhaps Monster List is as well, but being able to SHIFT+5 to re-center the map really makes that one unnecessary.

With regard to Object Lore, I have some ideas for improvement. I do not think this should just be removed from the game, and won't do so! For those of you who will naturally hate anything I do in this area, don't fear, easy_id will be here to stay But what I want to change will be a big project, and will break savefiles. Thus, I'm pushing everything now, at this point, in a very under-tested change. Next release will be 5.0 (around Xmas?).

Other changes include:
[1] Monks and Ninjas can now choose Metamorphosis as a Draconian talent. I haven't tested this one, but I think it'll be fun. Originally, it was restricted since monks will lose martial arts, and ninjas would have lost their sneak attacks and criticals. But I gave monks a bit of stunning and added support for ninja sneakiness (and rogues too) so this should now be a good option to try. I can't remember who suggested this ... Fnord, maybe? (Sorry, I'm currently offline).

[2] The Weaponsmith got some playtesting tweaks. Not much though, and I did playtest towards the endgame before getting squished. They are more powerful now then in Hengband, but overall, I was happy with the new version.

[3] I added the MPA Rune-sword changes, with a slight addition to adjust the AC penalty as the weapon grows more powerful. I also tested the this a bit in wizard mode, and the changes look to be good ones.

[4] I tried to make SHIFT+5 bind to CTL+V by default now (Windows and X11). If you don't know, CTL+V recenters the map, and since I am running alot, my hands are naturally ready to press SHIFT+5 more than CTL+V. Sorry to curses fans, but "curses doesn't do that!"

[5] I added new Dragon Armor egos and tweaked distributions a bit. More big changes coming next release.

[chris]

And, one final last final release before taking a break ... You see, I am slightly obsessive compulsive

I had some more thoughts on Object Lore and decided to try them out. Unfortunately, the changes were large and savefile breaking, so rather than 4.0.4 we'll need to move to 5.0.0. We're still beta (I still have classes that need playtesting) but so far, I think the game is playing nicely.

So, what is Object Lore? Consider Monster Lore. Here, the player learns monster abilities one "flag" at a time, as they occur. If a monster breathes fire on you, you learn that. If a monster resists poison and you aim your almighty wand of stinking cloud, you learn that too. The idea is to add "flag" level object lore to the current system.

Here is a quick summary:
[1] Pseudo-id is as before, though it is much faster for low level players. Also, there are objects that grant automatic instantaneous pseudo-id as you step over objects. Use this to locate excellent and special items.

[2] You can learn about objects by equipping and using them. Many bonuses, such as stat and speed boosts will be immediately obvious. Other things, like weapon slays, must be experienced in the obvious manner. (I got the idea from Vanilla, since I heard it had this, but I am not familiar with V's implementation here. Probably, it is similar).

[3] Object Lore is not just at the indiviual object level. In addition, you learn fixed attributes for the Standard Artifacts and all non-cursed attributes for ego items. This lore is part of your savefile, and is transmitted to the next character using this file, just like Monster Lore. So, having discovered and learned the Phial of Galadrial in one game, you'll never need to *Identify* it again for future players. Identifying an object automatically reveals learned flags.

[4] You don't need to Identify an object to begin learning its powers. However, anything you learn at the object level will not be remembered if you die before identifying the object.

[5] You learn flags by use, as mentioned. Also, by *Identify* (spell, scroll or town service). Finally, you can sell objects for lore.

[6] Identify also accurately reveals the object's score. This is meant as a guide to encourage you, the player, to explore the object by using it. It will also assist you in determining if it is worthwhile to return to town with the object.

[7] Object inscriptions add a ? to indicate that the object still has unlearned powers.

[8] Jewelry no longer has easy_id automatically applied. However, as you learn the optional attributes for each ego type, you'll see that pretty quickly, Identify is enough.

[9] Activations must be learned. Generally, these are safe enough to simply try out.

[10] Learning device fail rates requires *Id*.

[11] View your lore by using ~e or ~a and pressing r.

EDIT: I almost forgot a rather big change: Many of the wilderness dungeon entrances are now guarded!

[chris]

The new changes look good - I'm especially happy about removal of clone monster and of 555 (I was getting tired of watching other people abuse 555, and I use no_wilderness myself...).

As one of the people involved with making the "mpa changes", I thought I'd give my perspective on the three points of contention listed by chris. Other people involved might see things differently of course.

[1] Monster lore: I'd simply prefer to be able to look at monster memory in-game to check each time exactly which eight breaths the Yamata-no-Orochi has. The alternatives are to play with r_info.txt open or to occasionally get breathed on for 600 damage because I didn't remember the precise set of attacks some monster had. Monster memory that persists between games and grows as you encounter new monsters is a cool idea, but there are too many ways to lose access to your monster memory and have to start over with it.

[2] Item lore: I added the L25 automatic stone of lore effect because I almost always found Stone of Lore by around then (usually between L20 and L30) anyway. So if you are going to have access to unlimited ID anyway, why not simplify things and not make players carry it around forever and worry about accidentally dropping it somewhere? That way players can focus more on parts of the game that actually matter.

For ID = *ID*, there are a couple things I dislike about typical *band *ID*. First, with fixed artifacts it encourages looking at artifact spoilers to save *ID* for other items. This leads to wandering around with resistances inaccurately listed in your character sheet (but you know what they are anyway). Second, it is usually pretty confusing and complicated to figure out which items need to be *ID*ed because they might have extra properties - or to figure out which properties you can detect by convoluted testing.

I believe in Poschengband there is a town *ID* service, so these issues aren't as bad as in some other *bands - they just mean that you have to go back to town frequently and spend a little money. This still isn't very interesting.

[3] no_selling: Bringing back items to town to sell them is tedious and uninteresting. There are already more interesting tradeoffs for how to spend your pack space - items that actually do something or that you might want to use some day.

That said, digging for gold is just as bad. Personally I basically never dig for gold, and I think most people who use no_selling don't either. I would be very happy myself if digging for gold just wasn't a thing, and players had to explore and fight in areas of the game that actually contain monsters to get gold.

If there are concerns about monsters dropping too much gold in no_selling, that can just be reduced. I would happily play with no_selling even if it didn't get any bonuses to gold drops compared with selling.

Thanks for your feedback. It is nice to know some of the concrete reasons for changes, and I'll continue to consider alternatives. It just seemed like it would be a hassle for you guys to try to keep the mpa-poschengband repository up to date with the official release, so if aspects of game play are super annoying, I'd like to address these. I've added easy_id and easy_lore as birth options, and I've taking stabs at addressing the no_selling issue. Getting perspectives from other players is always helpful!

If there are other show-stoppers, please let me know and I'll try to address them. I've grabbed many bug fixes from you guys, as well as just cool changes (like Rune-sword changes or having android construction points visible on an object level). Again, thanks for your contributions!

[chris]

But Dispel is pretty stupid, yes. It's main purpose seems to be automatically making characters that center around one or more major buffs feel awful and play mostly like worse versions of other classes in many situations. Particularly annoying because most classes that use lots of buffs are hybrids that suffer even more than most because their worse mana pools and casting fail rates make a dispel turn extra punishing. My attempts have led me to decide there is no reason to take a buff realm (especially craft) over one with healing, damage of a good element, or sorcery.

I don't particularly feel bad about Dispel Magic: It's a Hengband classic! Yes, it is mean, but not many monsters do it. I think Dispel Magic and Breathe Disintegration are two of the most awesome game balancing mechanics from Hengband ... I'd rather not nerf either of these.

While we're at it, the overwhelming majority of Brand Weapon spells are awful because even on high mages they show up way too late, long after all relevant monsters resist, and all your weapons are already better unbrandable artifacts or egos...and the few great boosted non-ego non-artifacts that you do find you will want to save for artifact creation or reforging, not a worthless branding.

Agreed. Though Trump Branding and Holy Blade are worthwhile, especially on Heavy Lances (riding) and Diamond Edges. The other brandings I'll probably move to very low player levels some day. Fire branding at CL10 might get some use, but not at CL40.

[chris]

Yup. Certainly, for me it's mostly about the annoyance of having to start all over again probing things (sounds wrong, doesn't it?). I actually never use Probing items/skills -- I just read the r_info.txt/monster.txt/whatever instead. Turns out it's more convenient to just have it open in a separate terminal/editor and use text-search to locate the monster you care about.

I added easy_lore as a birth option for 4.0.3. I also re-did the monster recall layout.

Personally, I always ignored monster lore since the display was worthless. But now, I find myself using it, especially as a child terminal. The auto-tracking is nice, always showing me recall of the monster I just ROFL stomped. Resetting lore is annoying, though, and I keep breaking savefiles. Sorry

[Cold_Heart]

Awesome update!

Just to confirm, savefiles from 4.0.2 tag are incompatible with 5.0.0 tag?

[chris]

Awesome update!

Just to confirm, savefiles from 4.0.2 tag are incompatible with 5.0.0 tag?

Yes. Anytime I break savefiles, I bump the first number in the version (4 to 5 in this case). You can play 4.0.3 for easy_lore and a few other things, but the new object lore changes were *massive*.

[wobbly]

I don't particularly feel bad about Dispel Magic: It's a Hengband classic! Yes, it is mean, but not many monsters do it. I think Dispel Magic and Breathe Disintegration are two of the most awesome game balancing mechanics from Hengband ... I'd rather not nerf either of these.

What about for the mimic? Currently it reverts mimics to natural form. I believe the serpent has dispel magic making fighting it in a non-humanoid form awkard due to a change in gear slots.

Anyway good to see a new release. About to go try it.

[Cold_Heart]

I'll try it out asap when the current (CL28) sorcerer decides to retire (one way or another ). Excited about DL40 and 80 books a lot!