[Announce] FrogComposband 7.1.toffee released

[Draghmar]

Hi there. I play exclusively having chaos personality which means I have chaos patron [wrecking my char all the time] and per level stat shifting. The only time I don't use this personality is when playing chaos-warrior.

From what I understand reaching 50lvl will render both features of chaos personality as dead because the only time they are 'activated' is when gaining a new level. It makes chaotic way of life less rewarding then other personalities because their features are going to be active after 50lvl (for example Lucky).

That's why I have a suggestion to preserve at least patrons to appear after 50lvl. It would have to have some triggers to happen of course and some of the effects would have to be tuned or disabled (like gaining more exp).
The triggers I see fitting:

• Virtual levels - from what I understand, even though exp indicator is capped, the exp is still gained and tracked. So if we would have some hidden levels still in place they could work in exactly the same way like normal ones.
• Totally random - I mean, I know it's not 100% random but there are already effects that happens from time to time. For example random teleportation from mutation or some energy release also from mutation. Chaotic feature could manifested itself in a same way.
• Have a chance to happen after killing a uniq, where the chance would tied somehow to the level or difficultly of the defeated opponent and even greater chance after killing dungeon guardian.
• Let it occur after completing a quest, both regular ones and those random that happens in the dungeon.

Please make it happen.

[Gwarl]

Hi there. I play exclusively having chaos personality which means I have chaos patron [wrecking my char all the time] and per level stat shifting. The only time I don't use this personality is when playing chaos-warrior.

From what I understand reaching 50lvl will render both features of chaos personality as dead because the only time they are 'activated' is when gaining a new level. It makes chaotic way of life less rewarding then other personalities because their features are going to be active after 50lvl (for example Lucky).

That's why I have a suggestion to preserve at least patrons to appear after 50lvl. It would have to have some triggers to happen of course and some of the effects would have to be tuned or disabled (like gaining more exp).
The triggers I see fitting:

• Virtual levels - from what I understand, even though exp indicator is capped, the exp is still gained and tracked. So if we would have some hidden levels still in place they could work in exactly the same way like normal ones.
• Totally random - I mean, I know it's not 100% random but there are already effects that happens from time to time. For example random teleportation from mutation or some energy release also from mutation. Chaotic feature could manifested itself in a same way.
• Have a chance to happen after killing a uniq, where the chance would tied somehow to the level or difficultly of the defeated opponent and even greater chance after killing dungeon guardian.
• Let it occur after completing a quest, both regular ones and those random that happens in the dungeon.

Please make it happen.

Composband already does this. Not exactly your list of triggers, but the system has been made and playtested and found to be fun.

[Sideways]

The most recent player that I saw complaining about the removal of always small levels on angband.live felt that without this option, levels were full of boring empty space and he had to spend too much time getting to the action (all my paraphrase, I don't keep chat logs ).

And that kind of thing is why I'm wary of adding options like this without extensive vetting. Levels are, on the whole, already smaller than in PosChengband; and there are more quests (which in many ways are small levels full of out-of-depth monsters and good loot); and we have coffee-break mode that puts people in the thick of action pretty quickly, even if it does still generate levels with empty space.

Obviously not everybody will find those an adequate substitute for their favorite options from PosChengband, nor do I expect them to. The point is more that it's not the same game anymore; old solutions might or might not be good in the new game; and solutions that wouldn't have been good before might be good now

Which is also why I want to be sure when feedback is based on actual FrogComposband play and when it's just based on memories of Pos; the latter kind of feedback can still be very valuable as an indicator of what people want (or don't want), but needs to be seen in context.

[Rudiment]

You are born with a random life rating between 87 and 117 inclusive (what the game actually generates is a random HP increase for every character level, and then calculates what life rating those HP increases correspond to, and discards the result if it's lower than 87 or higher than 117), and six random stat maxes (which are between 18/70 and 18/130 inclusive, and always average 18/100). Self Knowledge reveals what your life rating and stat maxes are.

(You can make a good guess at the stat maxes without Self Knowledge by looking at how much a stat-up improves a stat once it's past 18; if it improves more than you'd expect, you probably have a high max in that stat, and vice versa. You can also guess at your life rating from your HP, but that's much less reliable unless you're level 50.)

New Life generates a new life rating (it will still be between 87 and 117), and also generates new stat maxes. (There are a couple effects, notably one of the possible results of the Trump spell 'Shuffle', that only regenerate your life rating while leaving the old stat maxes.) This new life rating and the new maxes are just as unpredictable as the originals, and follow the same rules. It's possible for a new max to be lower than what you already had in that stat (e.g. you have a DEX base of 18/129 and then generate a new max of 18/70), in which case you simply lose the extra DEX.

Your race, class and personality have no effect whatsoever on this life rating (or on the maxes). They all have their own, separate life ratings that affect your overall HP and that you cannot modify during the game, except by being polymorphed into a different race.

You cannot control the life rating or the maxes you are born with, only change them later through !NewLife (or other similar effects) if you are unhappy with them, and hope for a better result.

1) Then what does lifer rating mean during character creation?
2) How does it impact on life gain per level?
3) Does constitution affect hp gain per level?

[Sideways]

This is how your HP is calculated:

1) There's an initial contribution from N hit-point gains (where N is your character level), all of which are random (except for the first one which is always 10 points), independent of each other (except in that if the total is a huge outlier it will be rejected) and generated at the beginning of the game. The total of these gains by the time N reaches level 50 is usually about 260, but it can be as low as 223 or as high as 299 (if it's any lower or higher than that it's rejected).

This is the only random contribution to your HP. The "life rating" shown by Self Knowledge, and displayed (if known) through ~@ and on your character sheet, is a description of how good the level-50 total of these gains is, compared to an "average" of 255 which is 100% (like I said, the real average is somewhat higher; and the percentages are computed with the fixed level-1 gain of 10 points deducted). A Potion of New Life re-rolls these random gains. You will not have any control over this life rating at character creation, and until later in the game (when you find Self Knowledge or learn a spell with the same effect) you will also have no way to tell what life rating your character rolled.

2) There's a secondary contribution that depends on your character level. This contribution will reach exactly 300 HP at level 50 regardless of your class, but it will take very different paths to get there depending on what your class is. In general, warrior-type classes get a bigger part of this contribution early than a mage-type class does. This is why mages do eventually get decent HP, but only in the endgame.

This is not connected to any life rating shown anywhere, because its eventual total contribution, 300 HP, is fixed and independent of anything you do.

These two main contributions are added together (by this point in the calculations, a level-50 character with a life rating of 100% will have about 555 HP) and then put through several modifiers:

3) The total is multiplied by your racial life rating modifier. For example, the Einheri race modifier is 113%, which means your HP gets multiplied by 113%. (This would put our imaginary level-50 character with a 100% life rating at 555*1.13=627 hit points.)

Your race modifier is fixed, is the same for all characters of that race, and will remain the same throughout the game unless you get polymorphed into another race.

4) It's multiplied by your class life rating modifier. (For example, Samurai has a class modifier of 109%, which would put our imaginary level-50 Einheri Samurai with a 100% life rating at 627*1.09=683 HP.)

Your class modifier is also fixed, the same for all characters of that class, and will remain the same throughout the game whatever happens.

5) It's multiplied by your personality life rating modifier. (As an example, the Lazy personality has a 95% modifier; so this puts us at 683*0.95=648 HP.)

Your personality modifier is likewise fixed, and the same for all characters of your personality.

6) It's multiplied by a final modifier that depends on your constitution, and on any +Lf or -Lf items you wear. (For example, 18/120 CON corresponds to 130% for this modifier, and wielding Soulsword with its +9% life rating would further improve this modifier to 139%. Our lazy einheri samurai with 18/120 CON, Soulsword and a 100% life rating, then, would have 648*1.39=900 HP.)

This is the only way in which your constitution ever affects how much HP you have. But it's a pretty important way - as you can see, our samurai's HP really jumped here!

7) Finally, some lump sums are added. These include your class base-HP (12 on a samurai), race base-HP (44 on an einheri) and any points from buffs like heroism, berserk strength, etc. Our lazy einheri samurai would be expected to have 956 HP without buffs.

8) If your "life points" (unrelated to any "life rating") fall under 100% due to vampiric attacks, your effective maximum HP will be correspondingly lower. (This is explained in more detail in the FAQ.)

9) I actually rolled a lazy einheri samurai and I have 1026 HP with 18/120 CON and Soulsword! This tells me that my life rating is probably a fair bit better than 100%, and indeed, when I quaff Self Knowledge, it turns out that I actually rolled a brilliant 117% life rating, the best possible. (This always happens to me on meaningless test characters.)

NB: Actually my life rating is not quite ideal, since when I do the math it turns out that for the end result to be 1026 the random gains must total 298. Like I said, 299 is the optimal - but both are good enough to be shown as 117%.

--

It seems to me that you are confusing the non-random life rating modifiers from steps 3, 4 and 5 (which you cannot modify, but can select through selecting that race/class/personality) with the random life rating from step 1 (which you cannot either select or modify, but can re-roll through Potions of New Life). They have similar functions but are independent of each other. I hope this explanation helps you understand them and keep them apart.

[Rudiment]

Thank you for such details.
Does demigod talent "all weapon mastery" affects dual-wielding?
Notice that mindcrafters talent Clear Mind missing his description and some monsters like "Poor, the theif" doesnt have description too

[Sideways]

Weapon Versatility does not affect dual-wielding per se. It allows you to reach Master proficiency with a weapon, which can help indirectly if you're dual-wielding (getting your hit chances up is a much bigger problem dual-wielding than single-wielding), but for dual-wielding specifically you'll be better off selecting Ambidexterity.

I know there are plenty of missing descriptions, I fill some in occasionally.

[Bucephalus]

Hey, Sideways. The new version is great. I don't have much to add.

Here's what I like especially:

Reforging feedback, and the ubiquity of randart jewelry (as feedstock).

Updated arena monsters (and rewards).

The "Keyboard Cat" artifact name.


Here's what I'm leery of:

Mundanity not working on 99% discount items--if I have a diamond edge, and scrolls of mundanity, artifact creation, and crafting, I can keep re-rolling for a decent artifact, but I'm stuck with my shitty diamond edge of Gondolin forever?

The "Infernal Deal" buff


Here's a bug:

On creating a monster orc shaman, hitting the "m" button crashes the game.

[Sideways]

Here's a bug:

On creating a monster orc shaman, hitting the "m" button crashes the game.

Yeah, I already fixed that on github. I overlooked something minor while creating orc shamans that didn't cause any big trouble at the time, and then later some changes unrelated to orc shamans suddenly made that little missed detail cause crashes

[clouded]

I am interested in hearing what it is that you liked about that option - was it the monsters, or the items, or the change of pace, or something else entirely? Knowing that would help me assess what else I could fill that niche with if the old option can't be re-added as it was.

I'd also like it to return, it's a very different experience from playing normal Angband and like an alternate quick mode. Try and chat to Nivim about it, he played it exclusively for a while.

[Mocht]

And that kind of thing is why I'm wary of adding options like this without extensive vetting

These options are extremely popular and you want people to justify to you why they should be restored, you are making the exact same mistake that Chris made
You are also making another mistake
Towards the end of Chris's reign, Clouded wrote that the changes were inconsistent with the spirit of Poschengband, Chris didn't see it, and you aren't seeing it either
This lineage of games is supposed to be as big, wild and varied as possible, the term bat-shit crazy was used for Poschgengband, a term Chris took offence to
Having unbalanced options that completely change the gameplay suits the lineage perfectly

[Sideways]

People are welcome to fork FrogComposband and create their own variants if they feel they can do a better job than me

Usually, though, I end up erring on the side of adding popularly requested options even if I don't agree with them personally; like the easy_damage option; people had to yell at me and get emotional at me a lot before I added it, but I did add it. FrogComposband is a big tent variant and its players don't have to agree with my personal views on everything. That's why options exist.

But there are a few things that I'm particularly reluctant to add. The first is any option (or any other modification) that makes the game radically easier. When people win, they need to feel like a winner and know they beat the game legitimately, and not because they turned on some option that essentially amounts to cheat-mode. The other is monsters, game mechanics etc. (but not necessarily options - options are the player's own choice, they know what they're getting into) that increase the chance of unfair deaths the player could do nothing about (and monsters of this type could also fall into the first category if they got mimicked or possessed...)

I'm fully embracing the bat-shit craziness of the PosChengband lineage, but I will readily admit I'm not embracing its unbalancedness. There is space in the options, certainly, for things that change the balance, even dramatically; but if you want a complete lack of it, try Composband

--

And like I said, it's a different game now. If I just straight-up ported the old code for those options, they wouldn't play the same way anymore. If I want to make those options play the way they did then, I'll have to make further modifications - and know what it is that people liked about the way those options played then.

[Mocht]

People are welcome to fork FrogComposband and create their own variants if they feel they can do a better job than me

This is open source software's biggest weakness, the biggest thing holding it back: if you disagree with developers about anything then there is no discussion, they simply say "If you have a problem then fork me"

[Pete Mack]

Mocht: how is that different from any other project? As it happens, i understand both your points. The bottom line: if you want this option, it needs a different name--say Composband--quick mode. That name needs to be in the title, not just in the options, because it screws up the ladder, and as sideways said, it is a completely different game. Yes, it could be done as a fork, but also with ingame mechanics. The trouble is, it adds more work that *someone has to be willing to do and maintain.* This is why sideways mentions the fork: he alone can't afford to put in the time. If you want to do it, and it proves popular, it can be folded back in. That is why github exists, more or less.

[Mocht]

If I want to make those options play the way they did then, I'll have to make further modifications - and know what it is that people liked about the way those options played then

If you don't understand why those options are popular then that shows a worrying distance between you and your players