[Announce] Poschengband 7.0.2 released

[Gwarl]

When it comes to virtues, your options are either learning a bunch of deeply non-intuitive relationships (even by the standards of roguelikes) then significantly modifying your playstyle accordingly...
...or deactivating virtues.

Obviously by my presentation of the issue I favour the latter.

You're significantly overestimating the impact of virtues. If you're playing a crusade paladin you don't want to be evil and if you're playing a death priest you don't want to be good. Outside of the magic realms you'd expect, virtues don't really do much at all and can be safely ignored.

[CyclopsSlayer]

My understanding is that if you want to deactivate virtues then you either have to modify the source code or play an older version

As of 7.0.0 the option to deactivate virtues is gone along with Easy_ID, Easy_Info.

The problem with the virtue system from a non-programmer POV is it enforces a single playstyle. If you use stealth to get the first blow, you are Evil. Ranged shot across a room? Evil again.
The costs and benefits of the Virtues are completely hidden. I have heard second hand that to get the best Fail rates a Life user needs to be good, a Death user Evil, a Nature user needs to be Neutral. What about a Craft user, Trump? Etc...

Failing to cast a spell, eating food, trying an un-ID'd item, drinking a speed potion, are all Punished. The benefits are only apparent late game and even then there is nothing that I can point to and say, "See! My Fail rate is 3% not 4% because I did this! Or didn't do that!"

Virtues are just a way to ego-stroke those that are clued into a secret system.

[Conker]

On the topic of cheating that's been alluded to a couple of times; does it actually matter? I mean, it's a single-player game, and there aren't any competitions comparable to, say, the DCSS tournaments. We only have our own enjoyment to ruin. Or is everyone else taking the ladder really seriously, and I'm the only one who doesn't particularly give two shits about it beyond as a neat tool to see what gear other people tend to use?

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate difficulty in roguelikes. The idea of making it easier for myself is quite unpleasant to me on a personal level - fuck, I've genuinely suicided characters on Angband after finding a Staff of the Magi on D:1, or similar 'too much luck' scenarios. Which is probably a little crazy, but who cares. I can certainly empathise with the desire to challenge yourself and choosing to avoid perceived 'easy outs' like Easy ID, etc.

And I get the aggravation caused by something being turned into what it's not. If one individual guy is savescumming in his game, it doesn't do me any harm, but what if more and more people started doing it - what if it became the norm? And then influenced the whole conversation around the game, its future development, and that of other games? It'd be pretty damn annoying. I get the impression that's what Chris feels when he sees alternate versions of Poschengband going around.

But the thing is - and I'm going to be blunt here, apologies if I cause any offence - Poschengband (much like Vanilla Angband, at least the last time I played, and much like the vast majority of games) isn't a finely-balanced game. That's a matter of opinion, certainly, but having beaten both it (without any modifications or cheats, and without Easy ID or Easy Lore enabled for that matter) and pretty much every other major roguelike out there I'd say I have the breadth of experience to offer an informed opinion at least.

It's fun. There's lots to it; so much to do, so much variety, so many different ways to develop a character. Loads of really cool ideas. But balance is not its finest point by any means. The line between what is a strong tactic and what is an exploit seems entirely arbitrary. RNG has far too great a sway on combat in the lategame, particularly when variable speed/randomised energy and spells like Mana Storm come into play. Some spells are far too powerful in the player's hands. And half the things that are being passed off as 'difficulty' are closer to busywork than actual challenge.

I'd suggest that perhaps ultimately it doesn't really matter if some people are making Poschengband easier, or not playing it entirely the way the developer intended, because that 'balance' really isn't its greatest strength. Removing options people enjoyed in the sake of that balance will seem a harsh price to pay for those who didn't rate that balance very highly in the first place. For me, Poschengband's strength is that it manages to remain fun for the dozens of hours it may take a character to go from being an incompetent scrub doing the Mayor's quest up until they're ready to take on the Serpent.

I certainly agree that variants should be clearly marked, but at the end of the day I don't think removing options and contributions people seemed to enjoy is worth whatever we're supposed to be gaining.

Perhaps it will become worth it, if the developer's ultimate aim for the game is as a test of balance and skill more than anything else. If that's the case though, I'm afraid I'd have to say Chris still has a way to go before Poschengband's even close to that point, and he shouldn't be surprised if players turn to alternatives (even alternatives based largely on his own work, given the rich tradition of variants Angband has) that prioritise things they are more interested in than his idiosyncratic sense of balance.

[Atopian]

Apologies for the bad info on deactivating virtues - I have been slowly finishing off some old characters before upgrading. Although under the circumstances, I might not hurry to finish.

[Gwarl]

I've found a bug
If ctrl-g auto-collect is used whilst standing on an item then that item will be picked up

That's not a bug

    /* Get any objects under foot first ... this is the old
     * 'g' behavior sans interaction with features (e.g. re-
     * enter a shop) */
    if (cave[py][px].o_idx || p_ptr->wizard)
    {
        if (pack_get_floor())
            energy_use = 100;
        else /* Pack is full or the user canceled the easy_floor menu */
            return;
    }
    /* Now, auto pickup nearby objects by iterating
     * the travel command */

[wobbly]

While quite possibly the intended behaviour I don't personally find it optimal. Quite often in a fight junk drops end up rolling beneath my feet. At the end I press Ctrl-g &.. It works fine with stuff set to destroy because it'll destroy it on pickup, but stuff set to leave on floor it'll try & pickup. At the end of the day it's a pretty minor inconvenience to drop it manually or just move 1 step & press ctrl-g again (if your inventory is full & it gets stuck trying to pickup something that doesn't fit).

[CyclopsSlayer]

Display Bug

Playing a Beastman and received the mutation;
"You have remarkable infravision (+3)"

Yet the Infravision line of the character display remains blank, showing no range. Yet in play, the vision seems to work properly.

[CyclopsSlayer]

Grr, so frustrating to play a non-magic user and soon going to fail the Warg quest out of simple frustration.
Two Wargs are lost in some unconnected branch of the level. No digger, and I haven't the food and oil to mine out the entire level searching for the two AWOL dogs.
<mutter><mutter><curse><mutter>

[murphy]

the "allow involve player in area spell" doesnt prevent your pets from shooting you with a bolt spell when you are between the pet and a target. a colbran pet is a good example, he shot me twice per turn sometimes, I was like, c'mon man

[CyclopsSlayer]

I have found a bug

I have lost multiple characters to continuous crashing
Whenever I reload the character it asks if I want to delete the temporary files and continue, I say yes and it crashes again in seconds

Try installing a new copy of PCB over the top of the old? It shouldn't affect your save files. I had to do that with a corrupted version of NPPAngband a while back.

[CyclopsSlayer]

Odd behavior, if not a bug.

Fang dropped his amulet, I was wearing it unID'd.

The amulet was displaying as:

An Amulet (+1) {special, St;Fe}

I replaced it with an amulet of the Magi I found a while later,

The unequipped Collar of Fang was suddenly fully ID'd.

The Dog Collar of Fang (+2,+3) (+1) {St;Fe}

[wobbly]

The amulet doesn't have id on it? I know some knowledge helms have full id like the stone of lore, not sure if you can get it on an amulet.

[CyclopsSlayer]

The amulet doesn't have id on it? I know some knowledge helms have full id like the stone of lore, not sure if you can get it on an amulet.

I sold the Magi in town and it was merely a sustain InWiCh amulet.
Just seemed odd, Playing Demon Monster on the Manes > Quasit path. But that shouldn't have any innate ID that I know of.

[budswell]

Not sure if this has been mentioned before:
Looks like name is corrupted whenposting dump to the ladder. e.g.

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=21379

[budswell]

Found a usability issue with new (as of 6 I think) inventory system. I don't like the way having inscribed items removes the letter from inventory choice.

e.g. I have arrows of both fire and frost.
I have inscribed both with @f1 because normally I do not care (and have it macro'd to F1). But if I come up against a frost/fire monster I press 'f' to fire, but then cannot chose a specific arrow type, because they are both in the list with no "letter".

Ideally lists would still assign a letter to each one, and the number would still work as an "alias" like it used to.