More thoughts on v4

[Nomad]

I think there might be something slightly amiss with artefact drops in the very early levels of the dungeon. AKA "I was mentally composing my chardump post about how much it feels like cheating to find the Arkenstone at 100' when I found a randart ring at 200' in the same game."

I've noticed before that there seems to be an oddly high probability of finding a very OOD artefact in the first half dozen levels, but this game has just crossed a whole new threshold in ridiculousness.

[Magnate]

It would be great if squelching could all be done via the menu that pops up when you squelch something. That's by far the most accessible squelching available.

Eventually, yes, the popup menu will offer you "squelch all <this tval>s with <this affix>" and "squelch all items with <this affix>" for affixes on the item. But that's a while a way, since I'm not good with UI code. Eventually the separate squelch menu will also go, and all squelch permutations will be selectable via the knowledge interface. At least, I think that was the consensus - but it was quite a while ago now. (EDIT: found it - #1115)

@fizzix: I'm fine with making call light targetable. A test case for the new effects code!

[Derakon]

It's done via the knowledge menu, under "ego item knowledge".

Ah. I was looking under the rune knowledge menu.

It would be great if squelching could all be done via the menu that pops up when you squelch something. That's by far the most accessible squelching available.

[Nomad]

Backing up a bit, regarding squelching: this isn't evident to me. I'm still seeing the "squelch good / squelch excellent with no high resists / squelch non-artifact" delineations. There doesn't seem to be any way to squelch affixes as far as I can tell. I'd also like to be able to say "squelch all Maces" before "squelch all Hafted Weapons".

It's done via the knowledge menu, under "ego item knowledge".

[Derakon]

Change "rune" to "affix" and that's exactly how it works. You can squelch individual affixes on all items, or on individual base item types (tvals), and the item will be squelched if you have chosen to squelch all its affixes. (We use affixes instead of runes for precisely the issue you note above: not all properties can be represented by runes.)

Backing up a bit, regarding squelching: this isn't evident to me. I'm still seeing the "squelch good / squelch excellent with no high resists / squelch non-artifact" delineations. There doesn't seem to be any way to squelch affixes as far as I can tell. I'd also like to be able to say "squelch all Maces" before "squelch all Hafted Weapons".

[Nomad]

Yes it has. I'm playing a built-from-source version; git cloned the repo then did "make -f Makefile.osx".

Then maybe the issue is with the makefiles? I'm compiling mine using the CodeBlocks IDE and haven't seen the chardump bug again since I started doing that.

[buzzkill]

2) Call light should either be changed to be a ball spell of radius that varies with level (not forced to center around the player) or it should have a minimum radius of 2.

Yes, yes, yes. Can it still light a room? If yes, can it light a room from a distance?

[fizzix]

More small feedback.

1) Rune information leaks (I think). The unknown runes are visible in their appropriate categories, so you know what general class a rune is. Furthermore, I think they're ordered so that, with enough outside knowledge, you can determine what each rune is.

2) Call light should either be changed to be a ball spell of radius that varies with level (not forced to center around the player) or it should have a minimum radius of 2.

re: Derakon. Many monsters are deeper but uniques are not. Uniques are now extremely powerful for their level. If this is problematic, we'll figure out what to do about it. I did not move colbrans or pukelmen deeper, but maybe I should.

[Derakon]

Yes, this is widely reported and completely untraceable. I *think* it's something to do with the autobuilder, because it hasn't been reported by anyone who has compiled their own executable from source.

Yes it has. I'm playing a built-from-source version; git cloned the repo then did "make -f Makefile.osx".

[Magnate]

So far it's definitely more challenging, not just more tedious. I've made it down to 2200' and have never really reached a point where I thought "Ah! Now I'm set for awhile!". Though buying a Ring of Speed +6 from the Black Market (for 49k AU -- I could just barely afford it after a quick hop back to the dungeon to murder some cutpurses) helped quite a bit.

Interesting - a lot of people think that should have cost upwards of a quarter million gold.

On a related materials note, you shouldn't be able to get dragon scale chain mail. You can't make rings from scales!

Hmmm. I'm kind of with the big dwarven hole punch idea here. It seems a shame to get too realistic about it.

* I received a Low Hitpoint Warning when a monster cast a fear spell at me. Expected? Desired?

More evidence that we need the master message buffer. Presumably the message was warranted given your hp warning setting, but just at the wrong time.

* I've encountered a lot of significantly out-of-depth monsters / situations. Not just the aforementioned puddings, but also e.g. Itangast 500' OOD, a Zoo at 2050', etc.

These are the result of the most recent changes - you're exploring new territory here. Sounds good so far.

* Notes still get cut off in the file well before they get cut off when you're writing them in-game.

I'm not 100% sure how this works, but it should be fixable by just increasing char[80] to char[500] somewhere.

* Rods of Recall seem to be a lot more common than they used to be. I've found three already and seen a fourth for sale.

Well, the stats say that the difference is 16%, the same as most consumables - so this is an unusual game, I think. Average per game is about 6.9 in v4, but sigma is probably two or three, so you'll occasionally see ten or twelve in a game.

* I get the message "Something fiddles with a lock" even when I can see the monster doing it (via telepathy). Wouldn't be surprised if the same applies to the bash-door message.

Hmm. This is from artes's door changes in 3.3, and I guess it's using player_can_see_bold rather than m_ptr->ml. Shouldn't be too hard to fix.

* Character dumps don't include item details, as you can see in the ladder post. That's not a bug with the ladder; the dump file on my computer is also missing details.

Yes, this is widely reported and completely untraceable. I *think* it's something to do with the autobuilder, because it hasn't been reported by anyone who has compiled their own executable from source.

Overall, the power curve is a lot slower than in Vanilla 3.3. Based on this one character, I think what could stand to change now is pushing back stat gain and then making magical pluses (AC/hit/dam) a bit more available. My character's maxed STR and DEX already and that's been the main avenue for increasing my damage, since weapons have consistently given only marginal upgrades. I don't think the game's too hard; I just feel like there should be some level of "the gear is better than the character" that happens before the character gets really into stat-gain.

I think pushing back stat gain is the next step following the changes to item generation and monster distribution. Plusses have been boosted once since the start of v4, but it seems like they could do with a second go. I think the time to do this is when we solve the whole issue of what's magical and what isn't. At the moment we're using a single magical affix (Slaying for weapons, Protection for armour) to provide extra plusses beyond those granted by the non-magical affixes, and this is a bit crude.

[sethos]

For bows, you could use these materials:
Stonewood and Ironwood jump to mind from my D&D days (though that may have been something my group came up with)
Quickly: Stonewood was so hard that only a magicked weapon would be able to cut through it, and ironwood was just slightly less difficult to cut through. It would burn hotter and longer than any other wood (though It'd take magical fire to start). those could be very high end materials for bows.
Mithril Banded, Hemlock, Petrified, Entwood (ouch.) and Yew also sound like they'd be better quality (flavor-wise, anyways.)

So my list would be:
Stonewood, Ironwood, Entwood (ouch again), Mithril banded, Petrified, Hemlock, and yew. I think that might be a reasonable list for starters

[bio_hazard]

I reported the text corruption in another thread (I'm also on OSX). Screen grabs linked in the post below.

http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showpost.php?p=63128&postcount=18

[myshkin]

There's some kind of display bug with the monsters that have accented names -- messages involving them don't always get completely cleared after the message is dismissed, and the names themselves can have unusual spacing (IIRC Nar had an extra space in his name somewhere, e.g. "Nŕr, the Dwarf"). This may be platform-specific; I'm on OSX here.

For what it's worth, I expect this behavior got introduced in the OS X UTF-8 changes. Can you be more specific about the incomplete clearing? I think I've seen the unusual spacing.

[Prismatic]

For the bow materials, how about Yew, Compound, and Laminate? I'm not an archer, mind, but there's plenty of historical "we're going to make these tweaks to how bows are put together to improve draw weight" that could replace the existing materials.

On a related materials note, you shouldn't be able to get dragon scale chain mail. You can't make rings from scales!

I'm not an archer either but these are probably okay (though compound bows are too recent, so a recurve bow is probably better). There is a minor issue in that one of those is a design while the others are materials and as such wouldn't be logically mutually exclusive, but it probably doesn't matter for game purposes.

Also, I'm just imagining an oversized dwarven hole-punch to put holes in the scales for the chainmail...

[Derakon]

So far it's definitely more challenging, not just more tedious. I've made it down to 2200' and have never really reached a point where I thought "Ah! Now I'm set for awhile!". Though buying a Ring of Speed +6 from the Black Market (for 49k AU -- I could just barely afford it after a quick hop back to the dungeon to murder some cutpurses) helped quite a bit. I went ahead and uploaded Barlowe to the ladder. From the notes I've made:

For the bow materials, how about Yew, Compound, and Laminate? I'm not an archer, mind, but there's plenty of historical "we're going to make these tweaks to how bows are put together to improve draw weight" that could replace the existing materials.

On a related materials note, you shouldn't be able to get dragon scale chain mail. You can't make rings from scales!

Some lucky finds:
* !Augmentation and "Sustenance from a minor vault at 1600'
* -DragonBreath at 1650'
* -Healing at 1700' from an iron chest
* ?Acquirement at 1800'

Other notes:
* It'd be nice if crows and crebains were colored differently. Or we could just remove crows altogether.

* I received a Low Hitpoint Warning when a monster cast a fear spell at me. Expected? Desired?

* I've encountered a lot of significantly out-of-depth monsters / situations. Not just the aforementioned puddings, but also e.g. Itangast 500' OOD, a Zoo at 2050', etc. Also plenty of small vaults, which is nice even if they rarely have anything notable.

* Notes still get cut off in the file well before they get cut off when you're writing them in-game.

* My first artifact was a set of greaves at 2050' which did nothing but give rDark and 20 AC. My weapon is still basically a frostbrand Main Gauche with +10 to-damage -- and I added three of those damage points myself.

* Rods of Recall seem to be a lot more common than they used to be. I've found three already and seen a fourth for sale.

* I get the message "Something fiddles with a lock" even when I can see the monster doing it (via telepathy). Wouldn't be surprised if the same applies to the bash-door message.

* My AC is noticeably lower than I'm used to at this stage -- before I found a cloak of Aman [3,+27] my AC was a mere 48, and the largest magical bonus to AC I've seen was less than 10.

* There's some kind of display bug with the monsters that have accented names -- messages involving them don't always get completely cleared after the message is dismissed, and the names themselves can have unusual spacing (IIRC Nar had an extra space in his name somewhere, e.g. "Nŕr, the Dwarf"). This may be platform-specific; I'm on OSX here.

* Character dumps don't include item details, as you can see in the ladder post. That's not a bug with the ladder; the dump file on my computer is also missing details.

Overall, the power curve is a lot slower than in Vanilla 3.3. Based on this one character, I think what could stand to change now is pushing back stat gain and then making magical pluses (AC/hit/dam) a bit more available. My character's maxed STR and DEX already and that's been the main avenue for increasing my damage, since weapons have consistently given only marginal upgrades. I don't think the game's too hard; I just feel like there should be some level of "the gear is better than the character" that happens before the character gets really into stat-gain.

For what it's worth, the only stat boost I'm getting from my gear right now is +2 WIS from my helm.