Z+Angband version 0.2.2 beta released; looking forward

[Mangojuice]

Hey folks.

Z+Angband 0.2.2 is now available, at

http://tinyurl.com/5pq2bd

The new program is savefile-compatible with the old one. Again, there's a .tar.gz source package and a .zip Windows executable, and I'd love it if anyone could compile on other systems, but this is all I've got.

Changes are detailed in the download file and on the website. Briefly, there are a number of bug fixes: many minor bugs were fixed and a few major ones, including a nasty savefile-corrupting bug, the running-with-a-torch bug, and the bug that caused quest stairs to not show up immediately. There are some game-balance adjustments; most notably, the Conjuration school's common spells have changed somewhat, and Sorcery's ID spell is pushed a little further back. There are also some new features, some by request:

- Game options to supplement the object kind squelch system
- Object source memory (e.g. "It was dropped by a Kobold at 2350'")
- Full object descriptions and quest info in char dumps
- {=gn} inscription tool; see help files for detail.


Please let me know any issues you have with the new release, but do check the changes file so you know what I intended to fix. Hope you all like it!

As always, thanks very much to all those who have been playing, and thanks for the bug reports and other feedback, it's been very helpful.

---

I have three big things on the horizon for future versions. First, I want to implement quivers, but unlike other variants, I want to have actual quiver objects you must carry around, and that may themselves be vulnerable to fire, theft, or acid. I'm mixed on the idea of including other types of containers (e.g. scroll cases, wand cases, etc.) but there's a load of interesting ideas in there.

Second, do people like the High Mage class? Because I feel like it's underpowered. Is there a way to rescue it so it would be a viable option? For those not familiar, High Mages get only 1 realm instead of 2, but have improved mana costs and learning curve.

Third, and this one is the biggie, Z+Angband (and Z, and other variants) include a LOT of races but they don't really seem balanced to me. No one ever seems to play humans, some races seem superior in all ways to others, et cetera. So I want to take a hard look at racial balance issues, and perhaps introduce some new races.

So any feedback on these design points would be appreciated.

[Altefcat]

Hello,

ZangbandTk was my first roguelike, the one that made me play endlessly in my young days . So all my support goes to you!

There is a typo on your googlepage website, changelist link is wrong.

Is there any chance that some compilation guru creates a GNU/Linux binary? My Ubuntu box would be very pleased!

[ekolis]

Sweet
Now, why is it that when I say "no" to creating a chardump, it makes me do it repeatedly and won't let me quit the game???

[Mangojuice]

Sweet
Now, why is it that when I say "no" to creating a chardump, it makes me do it repeatedly and won't let me quit the game???

Someday, I swear, you will not be the first one to find a bug with my releases.

Ok, that's now been fixed and the download packages replaced.

[AR_chie]

Second, do people like the High Mage class? Because I feel like it's underpowered. Is there a way to rescue it so it would be a viable option? For those not familiar, High Mages get only 1 realm instead of 2, but have improved mana costs and learning curve.

I prefer high mages from orydinary ones and I agree that they are hard to play with, especially in medium stadium game. And IMO high mages are to difficult with other magic realms than black and chaos (sorcery are possible also).

Do you know a branding patch to Z 2.7.2?

http://ww2.cs.fsu.edu/~steele/zangband/Z272/BRANDING/Branding.html

It contains a high priest class which is very interesting for me.

[Arendil]

Second, do people like the High Mage class? Because I feel like it's underpowered. Is there a way to rescue it so it would be a viable option? For those not familiar, High Mages get only 1 realm instead of 2, but have improved mana costs and learning curve.

One simple solution is to give High Mages a multiplier to spell power, say 1.5? So, compared to other mages, all their spells inflict more damage, last longer, etc.

[Mangojuice]

Here's the current differences between High Mages and Mages in Z+0.2.2:

1. Only one magic realm.
2. They start with a wand of Magic Missiles.
3. They have a higher chance of getting bolt spells to "beam", by 10%.
4. A few select spells are higher in power: Holy Orb, Manaburst, and Orb of Entropy.
5. Faster spell progression. (Approx. 25%)
6. Lower mana costs. (Approx. 25-50%)
7. Smaller failure penalty for not having enough mana (2%/pt vs. 5%)
8. 25% extra mana.
9. Compared to mages, +1 INT but -1 DEX
10. 15 x_thn and 10 x_thb compared to 25 x_thn and 14 x_thb for Mages. (That is, High Mages are about 20% worse in combat than Mages are.)

So the main attractions of a high mage are spell progression and mana cost. But this has never seemed that good to me, since Mages already get a good enough spell progression that they more need to manage to find their next book than concentrate on gaining levels. And as for mana cost, it's good but all you have to do to get your mana back is escape and rest. So this means you'll have to do that less often, or in fewer circumstances. But I can hardly imaging playing a Chaos High Mage (where the mana cost benefit would be most useful) and thinking that the mana bonus was worth losing the ENTIRE school of Sorcery I could have had by being a Mage.

More powerful spells, for instance, may be another benefit, but the game is so different without that second magic school that I think High Mages need to have something fundamentally different going for them to be appealing.

[CJNyfalt]

How about studying the specialties of Oangband, and give High Mages the effects from one or two of your choice?

[bpleshek]

Some ideas for making high mages more useful:

1. Higher damage potential.
Depending on the spell adding a bonus per level.
2. Small %chance of ignoring creature resistances with spells.
3. Extra spell book. Tome of the High Mage
This would be a non-store book that would contain some useful spells either from each spell school or it could just include some special spells that are in no other book.
4. Built in magical resistance
You can choose how you might impliment this, but maybe a flat 5% chance to ignore ANY spell cast at you. Or if you want to make it progress it could be 5% + (level/5)% which would cap out at 15%.

These were just off the top of my head. If you want more, let me know.

Brian

[pampl]

You could give High Mages weak or limited access to Arcane though that sort of goes against their whole specialist theme. Maybe some way for them to get access to their dungeon spell books a little more easily or reliably than other classes, like they get special retrieval quests for them at clvl 25 and 35. Dunno how feasible that is.

Also, there's a (new?) save corrupting bug involving delivery quests. I just turned one in and pressed Q to get another and the game crashed, and even with panic saves left at the default setting of off, the save now crashes on load

[RogerN]

Also, there's a (new?) save corrupting bug involving delivery quests. I just turned one in and pressed Q to get another and the game crashed, and even with panic saves left at the default setting of off, the save now crashes on load

You just saved me a lot of frustration. I was about to complete a quest from a courier when I remembered your post. I made a backup of my save file in case the same crashed happened to me. Sure enough, the game crashed when I tried to get another quest.

Second, do people like the High Mage class? Because I feel like it's underpowered. Is there a way to rescue it so it would be a viable option?

You might give high mages some intrinsic abilities similar to the mindcrafter powers. In previous versions of Z the main reason I stopped playing High Mages was the lack of detection spells (assuming you didn't specialize in Sorcery). Since high mages have so few HP it's practically suicide to not be able to detect monsters. However, this may no longer be an issue now that Z+ has added staves of detection (yay!).

[Mangojuice]

You just saved me a lot of frustration. I was about to complete a quest from a courier when I remembered your post. I made a backup of my save file in case the same crashed happened to me. Sure enough, the game crashed when I tried to get another quest.

Ooooooooo! Can you please send me that backup save file? (Mangojuice75 at gmail.com)

You might give high mages some intrinsic abilities similar to the mindcrafter powers. In previous versions of Z the main reason I stopped playing High Mages was the lack of detection spells (assuming you didn't specialize in Sorcery). Since high mages have so few HP it's practically suicide to not be able to detect monsters. However, this may no longer be an issue now that Z+ has added staves of detection (yay!).

I'm mulling it over. In the end, I may just design a new class; I noticed that of the ZAngband dumps in the ladder there were as many High Mages as Mages. Maybe the class isn't as unattractive as I thought.

[sgasga]

Crash report

I've had a crash in 0.2.2beta while running in the wilderness. Worse, it has corrupted my save file, presumably by autosaving at the time of crash. Can you possibly take a look and see if the bug can be resolved and the savefile restored? I was fond of that character. Unfortunately the zipped savefile exceeds the allowed attachment size on this forum so I'm unsure how to get it to you. Should I send it via e-mail?

Regards,
Shane

[Mangojuice]

I've had a crash in 0.2.2beta while running in the wilderness. Worse, it has corrupted my save file, presumably by autosaving at the time of crash. Can you possibly take a look and see if the bug can be resolved and the savefile restored? I was fond of that character. Unfortunately the zipped savefile exceeds the allowed attachment size on this forum so I'm unsure how to get it to you. Should I send it via e-mail?

Regards,
Shane

Sure, go ahead and send it but I doubt it would help. What I really need is a backed-up copy of the savefile from before that happens, where I can reproduce the error. But I think what this shows is that the "panic save" disabling option isn't working properly. The game should not be trying to save your character when it quits unless you have that enabled, and it's probably enabled by default.

I would expect the savefile is unrecoverable. I'd say stash the file away somewhere, and at some point if I figure out how to fix these files, I may post a utility that will recover them.

(My email is noted a couple of posts up.)

[RogerN]

Ooooooooo! Can you please send me that backup save file?

It's not on this computer but I think I've still got the file. I'll try to send it to you on Monday.