PWMAngband's long walk towards 1.3.0 has started...

[tangar]

It would be great if there would be any kind of speaking with NPC, even the most simple one, like if you 'walk' into NPC - it would give you some text. This would provide possibility to create proper tutorial and also put a lot of lore to the game, to make it 'alive'

TomeNET got such fuction, even with possibility to 'talk' with NPC (ask questions).. It's cool, but I suppose even the most minimalistic way to 'talk' would help a lot Just give certain text after you 'bump' to certain NPC would be GREAT

Another way to do it could be option to show certain message in message window when you step on certain terrain. This would give possiblity to add 'MUD'-like stuff to the game, eg when player enter tavern - he would be able to see description of this tavern. I've wrote about this idea there http://tangar.info/en/blog/roguelike-mud

[tangar]

Process: blackguard added, new terrain tiles

http://angband.online/process-blackguard-added-new-terrain-tiles/

[PowerWyrm]

Just so you laugh a bit...

That was the Thunderstorm spell (Summoner) before rework:

spell:Thunderstorm:25:10:65:50:0
effect:STAR:LIGHT
param:3
dice:$B
expr:B:PLAYER_LEVEL:* 2 + 200
effect:STAR:SOUND
param:3
dice:$B
expr:B:PLAYER_LEVEL:* 2 + 200
effect:END_INFO
effect:STAR:ELEC
param:3
dice:$B
expr:B:PLAYER_LEVEL:* 2 + 200

Okay... Summoners are supposed to suck, so maaaybe I overcompensated a bit. Level 25, 10 mana, 250 star ball sound + light + elec. This has to be a bug... In comparison, Elementalists which are supposed to be the epitome of elemental casting have a Thunderstorm spell, level 43, that does a blast of sound for 225 damage + 18d6 (average 63) lightning star beams.

I suppose PLAYER_LEVEL:+ 20 should be more than enough for each ball...

[tangar]

funny) another way to rebalance in such cases could be to make uber spell eat _all_ mana and even make you exhausted (temp debuff).. like a 'nuke' spell

[tangar]

/bug
can't chop down trees in other locations except first (spawn poin at 0.0 coords). Eg when I go to the 1.0 location and trying to chop the same tree as in 0.0 I have this message:

Nothing happens.

[PowerWyrm]

/bug
can't chop down trees in other locations except first (spawn poin at 0.0 coords). Eg when I go to the 1.0 location and trying to chop the same tree as in 0.0 I have this message:

Nothing happens.

Feature. You cannot chop trees on the static levels because they don't grow back. Imagine you design a nice level with a lot of trees then some idiot burns them all down and you're left with a desert...

[tangar]

Yep, but spawn point (0.0) is also 'static' lvl and after you cut down trees there - the grow back.

0.0 0.1 and 1.1 locations are all towns (in wild_info.txt I've marked them as T also). So they all should act equally - if tree cutted down - it would be refreshed after player leave location. But now only at 0.0 I could cut down trees (and afterwards when I leave location - they grow back); in 0.1 and 1.1 on attempt to cut tree there is a message "Nothing happens".

I suppose this problem could be connected with 'starting' town; in town.txt :

# Starting town should ALWAYS be the first entry in the list.

So in starting town cutting down trees works.. But on other towns - doesn't

[tangar]

PWMAngband: min/max lvl reqs to prevent scumming

/rfe add "Minimum/maximum level requirements" flag to objects.txt (eg in tomenet).

It would help to balance items and prevent a lot of scumming mechanics (passing powerful objects to low lvl players etc).

This flag could be optional, so there won't be need to assign it for all existing equipment; just to add it where it really needed.

In comparisson to TomeNET, PWMA could have more advanced lvl assigning - to have also 'maximum lvl reqs' for items. It could be really useful to prevent high lvl players to scum low lvl dungeons for certain low lvl items. Eg 'food' which is an important resource @ AO; without such restriction high lvl players could just grind food in newbie dungeon which makes hunger system not so awesome as it could be.. One of my favorite ever moments in playing online roguelikes was where I thought that I'm out of food in IDDC and I had to eat all what I found to survive - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4lP2L_vHzc ... this should be situation which players rarely get, it would give players a lot of fun. And if player want to avoid it - he still would be able to buy food from other players; but it should be rare to make it interesting.

Yet another addition to solve this problem is to have "maximum level requirements" parameter for dungeons in dungeons.txt; so player won't be able to come in dungeons which got weakier monsters. Then it would be possible to prevent low lvl dungeons scumming at all. Also it would make rescue missions more interesting as players would have to rescue "equals".. Without it most of rescue missions are quite boring - cause you come to the dungeon with high lvl char to rescue low lvl char in low lvl dungeon. Also it would motivate players to play together in parties.

[PowerWyrm]

Yep, but spawn point (0.0) is also 'static' lvl and after you cut down trees there - the grow back.

Not anymore. Next version doesn't have this anymore, I've removed the ability to grow trees.

[PowerWyrm]

/rfe add "Minimum level requirements" flag to objects.txt

Sorry, probably not gonna happen. In RPGs I play, people quit the game because of restrictive trading. TomeNET's system is too restrictive, not only it doesn't prevent people from cheezing if they want (how many victory posts I've seen with the same exact pair of +2 EA gloves...), but it makes half the good items char bound (those nonsense level 51+ artifacts...). And balancing this (the right level for the right item, allowing "party level requirement"...) would require probably too much of the time I don't currently have.

Something simple would be: min level = min(depth where the item was found / 2, level of the character that found the item). This would reward OoD items or items found by adventurous players. Still a problem: what to do with items sold in shops (depth = 0)? Half the item base depth?

Feel free to propose a system if you can think of something better though. But TomeNET's system will stay in TomeNET

'maximum lvl reqs' for items

This seems really bad no? Any warrior will want to be able to find potions of speed at any time, not only in the early game... I wouldn't want to farm for hours to gather 500-1000 potions of speed that would last for the whole game.

maximum level requirements parameter for dungeons

Interesting. This sounds much more logical than max level requirement on items. In fact, Sil has this and it's a good feature that forces you to dive and not play a low level too long. I'll add this feature for next version.

[tangar]

Not anymore. Next version doesn't have this anymore, I've removed the ability to grow trees.

I'm not sure that it was bad thing. I liked possibility to chop trees. After all, they could grow back It gives certain roguelikish flavor to towns. Maybe leave it as an option in mangband.cfg?

min level = min(depth where the item was found / 2, level of the character that found the item).

is "2" an example of player lvl? I'm not sure that I understood this formula correctly. Eg:

Player (20 lvl dwarf ) found an axe on -1500 depth (30 lvl). How to calculate it min lvl.. According your formula:

30/2,20 = 14.

Sounds alright. Did I understand your formula correctly?

Still a problem: what to do with items sold in shops (depth = 0)? Half the item base depth?.

Make items bought from shops - soulbonded? I also don't like such strict restrictions, just a variant..

By base depth.. do you mean
# properties: depth : weight : cost
.. in object.txt?

Then 'Black Dragon Scale Mail' would have:
properties:35:120:40000

35/2 = 18 lvl req.

Looks good. Another go..

name:Trickery
graphics:":d
type:amulet
properties:70:3:30000

35 lvl.. hm. Alright too. Looks fun to me.

Interesting. This sounds much more logical than max level requirement on items. In fact, Sil has this and it's a good feature that forces you to dive and not play a low level too long. I'll add this feature for next version.

Great!

[PowerWyrm]

is "2" an example of player lvl? I'm not sure that I understood this formula correctly. Eg:

Player (20 lvl dwarf ) found an axe on -1500 depth (30 lvl). How to calculate it min lvl.. According your formula:

30/2,20 = 14.

Sounds alright. Did I understand your formula correctly?

Hahaha..

It not "2, level of the character that found the item" but the minimum -- min(a,b) -- between half the depth and the char level.

In your case, min(15,20)=15. (well it's not far from 14 )

[tangar]

Oh, now I see. It was pretty hillarious to get almost the same value by that mad formula I've used LOL DD

So it's...

min level = min(depth where the item was found / 2, level of the character that found the item).

For a player (20 lvl dwarf ) who found an axe on -1500 depth (30 lvl):

min level = min (30/2 , 20) = min (15, 20). And what should be do now with this value? Should we take average between 15 and 20? So min lvl would be 17.5?

[Derakon]

"min(15, 20)" means take the lower of whichever the two values is (it is choosing the minimum value from the provided options). So the item's minimum level would be 15.

[tangar]

Gotcha, thanks So we need that for making min lvl not too big one.. Let's me try an example (maybe it would help to understand system not only to me, but to other readers):

20 lvl dwarf found an axe on -1500 depth (30 lvl):
min level = min (30/2 , 20) = min (15, 20) = 15 lvl

30 lvl dwarf got an axe on -2000 depth (40 lvl):
min level = min (40/2 , 30) = min (20, 30) = 20 lvl

50 lvl got axe @ -5000 ft (100 lvl)
min level = min (100/2 , 50) = min (50, 50) = 50 lvl

Now I see how it works! Good system.

Just a thought: maybe it's better to take not min, but 'average' (mean) to enforce a bit more anti-cheezing? So it would be not min (15, 20), but mean (15, 20) = 18 (round up to bigger side).