[Announce] PosChengband 4.0.0 Released

[debo]

I saw the change to resistances on breaths so I tried to take up demigod evasion to be able to better handle hounds and dragons in the mid-game. But the breaths are still having their effects! From a logical standpoint I don't get how I'm dodging these breaths and then my flasks are getting broken from earth hound shards, or teleported from nexus breath, etc. Is that a bug?

Evasion is just a straight 5-10% damage reduction from every breath. It doesn't actually dodge breaths.

[debo]

Has anyone noticed weirdness around turns passing when taking screenshots?

There is a definite problem with ?Recharging. Now that it asks you for a source device, if you pick a target, go to the 'pick source' menu, and then hit esc, you definitely lose energy (I lose an entire turn every time I do this.)

[Regalia]

Evasion is just a straight 5-10% damage reduction from every breath. It doesn't actually dodge breaths.

I think (hope ) it's 10-20%.

Base hp feels so low in comparison to damage taken. It's fine if there are 1-2 mobs but as soon as a pack of anything attacks you then you need to teleport away.

That is typically the case, yes. Fighting multiple breathers (or anything really) is something you generally want to avoid. Set your hitpoint warning high and ctrl+arrow at a chokepoint.

And well, I do mean that for the mid-tier monsters that start showing up in areas level 40+ and do 50 dmg, or more, a hit/breath/spell/etc.

Do you have resistances you need? Past dl40 you'd better have resistances to whatever you're fighting (elements+poison+nether are an absolute must imho). If you don't, you should farm until you do.

Potions of critical healing become useless way too fast

They are still good for removing some statuses. Staves of cure wounds heal for 50 and are pretty common at dl40. Pcb4 also has summoning staves which are cheese up until dl40. From what I can fathom, you lack speed. With high speed you can run away behind a corner and heal up even with ccws.

Do you have proper monster detection? Bind detect monsters to a single key and use it all the time. Dig, make the dungeon layout work to your advantage. Pull stronger monsters one by one (again, detection).

Finally, if you detect something too strong (this takes a bit of monster knowledge sadly), don't fight it. Move elsewhere, recall out...

[wobbly]

Didn't gain a stat at lvl 5 on a chaos-warrior when my patron destructed nearby enemies, immediately putting me to lvl 6. Here's the message log (apologies for length):

http://angband.oook.cz/screen-show.php?id=3382&ok

[Destro]

Thanks all for the responses. I see you are a recent winner on the ladder Regalia so I appreciate your thoroughness.

Evasion only reduces breath damage? That sucks. I've caught so many random mechanics in the source code but this is just something I never would have thought to check this based on the wording. I did notice I was still taking damage from higher breaths but I thought maybe it was just bugged somehow.

I'm going to continue working on strategies and such. I had a dumb death on my monk but I think I can make this work. I had speed, ac, but I was lacking a few high-resists and wanted some more stat pots which was why I continued doing lonely mountain runs. With potions of speed I was definitely going 20+ but I don't remember the exact. My current half-titan monk has way more hp than my last monk so I'm feeling good about this run. I want to at least beat the game once and I think I'm getting closer to that. I think maybe I can make mage work once I hit level 25 since I've read good things about eat magic. If eat magic isn't terrible then I can spam higher mana cost spells so that would be nice.

I've been wondering for a while. The turncounts on the leaderboard are so low. Is it bugged, removing 3 0's, excluding rest, or something? My characters are in the millions of turns generally as it shows when I die. Winning the game in less than 100k turns turns seems impossible to me but maybe it's just a different in game knowledge.

[Rydel]

Don't worry about turncount unless you're in a competition.

The record time for completing the original Super Mario Bros is under 5 minutes. I wouldn't expect times even remotely close to that from someone who hasn't beaten the game before. The same goes for Angband.

Turn count is going to be heavily influenced by what class you play, how fast you dive, how familiar you are with certain aspects of the game, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.

[wobbly]

Plus for speed running poscheng, look at play time not turn count. Turn count in poscheng is all about optimizing time spent in the wilderness. The path you walk between towns, the order of dungeons etc. etc. I constantly die in poscheng so worry less about competive speed & more about playing to a fun rate rather than a grindy rate. It's all very relative.

[Regalia]

Thanks all for the responses. I see you are a recent winner on the ladder Regalia so I appreciate your thoroughness.

Not recent enough (not pcb4). Still, if you want more input, you should probably post on the ladder.

I've been wondering for a while. The turncounts on the leaderboard are so low. Is it bugged, removing 3 0's, excluding rest, or something? My characters are in the millions of turns generally as it shows when I die. Winning the game in less than 100k turns turns seems impossible to me but maybe it's just a different in game knowledge.

This and that are different turns.

http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showpost.php?p=107021&postcount=23

[GenericPseudonym]

A minor bug report:

Chaos Warriors are coded to get a "rod of chaos bolt" as the reward for the Logrus Master quest, but no such rod exists.

When I turned in the quest the game complained and then gave me a rod of illumination instead.

[poschengbandplayer]

Hello!

How much fame do I need to reforge an artifact to a power dragon scale armour?
Funny note:I had to use a scroll of mundanity on bladeturner PDSM.It was too heavy for my blood mage (60) to wear.its mundane form is 20.

[Pete Mack]

Suggestion: move insane home possessions last in the character dump file. Last messages and options are interesting. 58 pages of junk in the closet, not so much.

[poschengbandplayer]

Also,is there a way I can make the screen not turn colours when casting invulnerability or wraith form?it makes me colour blind and i cant see what enemy i am fighting ;_;

[mewmew]

Evasion only reduces breath damage?

also damage of thrown rocks by giants, ents etc i believe too

[caruso]

Falling back into my habit of amassing lots and lots of feedback before finally posting it... I should change this.


Bugs

• When playing an evil priest, learning a new prayer deepens your faith [in good?], like s/he was a good priest. Reciting the prayers lowers it again, as expected. Or indeed, do worshippers of evil gods incur a penalty if they pray too often?
• While hallucinating, terminal windows still display the true kind and number of opponents around
• The game said that Dailai Dongzhu was immune to confusion, but the monster memory still does not say anything about confusion resistance.
• Monsters that are hurt by bright light seem to be unaffected if they were unseen when hit by a beam of light. This can make the difference when you're fighting a hoard of orcs.
• Once so far, the game told me that my character had been given a light cut when in fact it was a bad cut. This happened when a hill giant threw a boulder at him.
• The game calls you a brute when one of your allies turns to fight
• The game calls you a glutton while your character is starving
• Once so far, a terrified novice warrior ran straight toward my party instead of running away

Tweaks

• Prevent the game from suggesting that a certain kind of item might have hidden powers when in fact it never has them.
• If the character is too heavily loaded for swimming, tell the player about it before the char walks into deep water
• in the terminal window with the list of present monsters, separate enemy monsters from allies.
• always display current mana upkeep after you have dismissed pets, not only when you are forced to dismiss some of them
• if the character uses a wand suitable for boosting your allies, choose the character's allies first as suitable targets
• running should be interrupted as soon as your character sees projectiles and spells flying around (which are not aimed at the character)
• "Riding" in the description of a weapon should be expanded to "It is suitable for use while riding" again.

Flavour

• Speaking allies should only talk when you are aware of enemy monsters.
• You could change the virtue Faith to Faith in good, to explain why reciting evil prayers "shows a complete lack of faith". Unless, of course, that should be meant as a penalty for evil priests and paladins of death who keep asking their deities for help.
• Moulds should not "hit" their targets but release spores at them

Manual

In the subchapter on Riding, it says that you need to attack monsters with melee or ranged weapons in order to train the riding skill. Does it matter whether the attacks actually hit? I'm asking because my current chance to hit with a sling is 0% when riding.

[Regalia]

If I may, um, interject .

[*]If the character is too heavily loaded for swimming, tell the player about it before the char walks into deep water

You mean something like "Overburdened. Enter water (Y/N)"? As an option at most. I can't imagine how tedious it would be to confirm every time when you're fully aware that you're too heavy and you're ok with it.

[*]running should be interrupted as soon as your character sees projectiles and spells flying around (which are not aimed at the character)

Again, as an option. Some characters wouldn't care all that much unless actually hit.