[Announce] PosChengband 4.0.0 Released

[Derakon]

It's really just the amount you get back. In Vanilla, it's reasonable. In poscheng, money is much more important, and what you get from the nosell bonus is not enough, IMO.

In particular, as I recall the early game in Poscheng really throws "valuable" egos at you. You can get >30k gold very quickly in Poscheng if you have selling on, but it's going to take a lot longer to achieve that much money with no-selling.

[debo]

Once you get a large stash of $ recalling to sell becomes pointless. If you just keep going the junk you find will be worth more then what you're carrying & eventually everything you step on is 30k. Maybe no-sell would be fine if the option also removed the need for *id. That was probably the biggest cash killer last time I played with selling off.

*identify* ruins a lot of things, IMO. If there was anything I could have removed in the main game, that would be it.

[HugoVirtuoso]

I also think that 4.0.0's Wand / Rod / Staff stacking mechanism needs more work. Carrying multiple Rods of Detect Monster or any other kind of magical device nowadays makes the backpack prone to overloading...

I still haven't figured out if 4.0.0 does in fact have a way to stack magical devices.

[Regalia]

id and *id*

Do I get this correctly, you have to *identify* stuff to get full selling price now? I'm pretty sure I sold a robe of permanence for under 1k (was about 50k to buy back) but got more for an *id*ed robe of resistance (was about 20k to buy back).

Edit2: Ok, I don't get it. *id* lowered the selling price of my ego item. Also, selling prices of pricy (to buy) ego items are very low compared to pos3.5. Is there a logarithm somewhere in there now?
Edit3: Alright, so here's how I see it: after you *id* you might get a slightly lower price if ego turns out to be crappy. You will get a proper price if ego is good. So *id* egos you know are pricy. Yes, metagame the bunk out of it!

Also, no
?unaware wands
anymore since wands all need to be ided one by one now?

In that case, how can I id all wands but pickup only some that I want (via autodestroyer ofc).
?unidentified wands
!wands:sucky wand
!wands:another sucky wand
does not seem to work.

Edit: I imagine it does the usual and only uses the 1st applicable line. Do I need to
~?unidentified wands
wands:good wand
wands:good wand
and walk over them twice?

[Tulip]

Could you consider buffing death swords? Perhaps give them retaliation or more AC.

I tried playing a few of them, and it felt incredibly unrewarding, especially when the bars one must reach to acquire effects raises with each evolution

I also noticed that when one becomes disenchanted, that the bars to acquire the next +hit +dam do not change. Eg: if I were +8 +8 and went to +0 +0, the bar does not change to go from +0 -> +1, it stays at the bar required to reach +8 -> +9. Is this intentional? It's quite annoying when you're kept at low enchantment levels due to an unfortunate run-in with a disenchanter.

[debo]

I still haven't figured out if 4.0.0 does in fact have a way to stack magical devices.

No more device stacking. On the flipside, a lot of stuff you'd want to stack can potentially have more charges now (especially standard utility rods.) Plus rods recharge pretty quick.

Stone-to-mud is sort of a huge pain in the ass now, though, as is healing and speed and sometimes TO in my limited experience so far.

The one place where this release really shagged the dog, IMO, is on making *identify* even more of an issue. For the love of god please take this out of the game, it's terrible I'd say all the other changes were pretty damned awesome, or sort of unnoticeable (I haven't noticed the high-resist changes really changing much, for example.)

Only one artefact was added, but it's _really_ good I think!!!

[debo]

Could you consider buffing death swords? Perhaps give them retaliation or more AC.

I tried playing a few of them, and it felt incredibly unrewarding, especially when the bars one must reach to acquire effects raises with each evolution

I also noticed that when one becomes disenchanted, that the bars to acquire the next +hit +dam do not change. Eg: if I were +8 +8 and went to +0 +0, the bar does not change to go from +0 -> +1, it stays at the bar required to reach +8 -> +9. Is this intentional? It's quite annoying when you're kept at low enchantment levels due to an unfortunate run-in with a disenchanter.

I think the deal with these is that they're super crap until you grind forever, and then they're insane. Not something I'd want to play, but I imagine there's an audience for it.

[Tulip]

I think the deal with these is that they're super crap until you grind forever, and then they're insane. Not something I'd want to play, but I imagine there's an audience for it.

I thought that to be the case, but I still think they need something to make the early/mid-game less of a chore.

[HugoVirtuoso]

Anyone figured out a solution to the "Options menu > HTML Dump not working in 4.0.0" bug?

[wobbly]

The message spam can get a little out of control if playing with virtues on. I was hungry & pseudo-id kicked in & between "moderation in all things" & "you feel the leather gloves are average" it actually blocked the field of play. To see what I'm talking about wait till you're hungry & run down a long corridor. I've got 15 moderation in all things running across my screen.

[wobbly]

Minor bug with rods of detect traps. They don't id if there isn't a trap but they still give you the green DTrap at the bottom of the screen. Not that I mind, I never liked having to constantly spam it till I found a trap. Maybe it should just id, trap or not.

Edit: Amusing, it will automatically detect when I leave the trap zone & is still un-ided. I wonder whether un-ided perception staffs still auto-id themselves too when you pick them up.

Edit: Re device stacking, this is particularly annoying if you want to macro your devices.

[wobbly]

Edit: Re device stacking, this is particularly annoying if you want to macro your devices.

Apologies for the triple post & self-quote but I thought I better clarify what I mean. In the older versions I used to inscribe my wands around the a(im) key. e.g. light(@aa), stinking cloud(@as), frost bolt(@az). Very convenient. In the new system if I have 2 wands of light @aa when the 1st runs out it wont move on to the 2nd.

Suggestion: default to the wand with highest power that still has charges. So 2 magic missiles @aa it would empty the strongest then move to the weaker. A wand of frost bolts @aa & a wand of magic missiles @aa. Empty frost bolts, move on to magic missiles.

Another much more minor convenience issue: It'd be nice if wands left in the home recharged. Just fake it instead of tracking it, if you recall set them to full.

[debo]

Another much more minor convenience issue: It'd be nice if wands left in the home recharged. Just fake it instead of tracking it, if you recall set them to full.

This isn't quite as convenient, but in case you aren't already doing this -- sleeping at the inn will generally recharge any wands in your pack to full, just by virtue of so much time passing.

I actually think at this point you should just be able to sleep in your home. The cost of doing it at the inn is so small that what is even the point, and it's your damned house!!

[Regalia]

For all your recharging problems I suggest this:
A:\e\e\eR100\r
T:\t
It's so very very convenient.

Onto questions though: with all those changes to devices, what is the difference between rods and staves with the same effect (other than weight)? Are there any benefits to using one over the other (assuming you don't have bonuses to either, not a devicemaster and so on)?

Other thing: having a single rod of recall is rather risky. Typically, I'd wait to obtain more before dropping scrolls entirely. In pcb4 that would mean using multiple slots which is kind of meh... so, is there a way to proof your rods; does the "resistant" (or whatsitsname) "ego" prevent all damage to rods?

Edit: Similarly, I cannot stack up on say, 20 rods of escaping (now getaway) to substitute for scrolls of teleportation. Any tips here?

[debo]

Rods recharge faster than everything else, I think. Also certain activations can't show up on certain device types.

Re: escaping -- what's wrong with a big staff of teleportation? You may also find a getaway rod with a lot of charges, or something.

The rod-of-recall risk bothers me a bit too. I always thought this should just be a class power for literally every character.