More thoughts on v4

[Malak Darkhunter]

Any thoughts on fixing the wierd hight/weight attributes of the races? This has always been a pet peeve of mine, specificaly half-trolls and High-elves, and dunadan, High-elves aren't 8 foot tall and weigh 170lbs half-trolls arent 9feet tall and 250lbs, I never heard of the dunedain being 7 foot tall brutes either, seems kind of messed up to me, but that's my opinion, take it for what it's worth.

[fizzix]

That said, I have no objection to ensuring that the general store carries unenchanted daggers or whips.

It's possible I need to recalibrate my early dive distance to be different from v4. In V I'd go down to about dlevel 15 or so on the first dive, maybe I can't do that in v4.

I think unenchanted daggers in the general store is a good approach.

[Magnate]

2) Playing with no-selling it can sometimes be very difficult to find a cheap weapon in town. In 4 starts, the cheapest weapon I found in either the armory or the temple was over 150 gp. I think either a cheap dagger/whip should be available always in the town, or that characters should start with a dagger and 550 gp.

I am not really buying this one. I've played quite a lot of games with no selling, and I find the money invested in the initial weapon (be that a launcher or melee weapon) to be well worth every gp. I often spend 500gp or more on a starting weapon with plusses.

That said, I have no objection to ensuring that the general store carries unenchanted daggers or whips.

[fizzix]

Had some time to test-play v4 a little this week (still plan to do a lot more) but here's two issues that cropped up.

1) When takkaria proposed making torches radius 1 light I didn't like the change but decided to wait until I got a chance to play with it and see if I was being hasty in my decision. After playing with radius-1 torches, I've decided that I still don't like it at all. It's fine for every race except for dunadan and human, but these two races have the problem that they can run into e's, j's and m's in early levels and get immediately killed. Radius-1 light makes no-infravision characters have a very painful first couple of levels, and I don't find it enjoyable at all.

2) Playing with no-selling it can sometimes be very difficult to find a cheap weapon in town. In 4 starts, the cheapest weapon I found in either the armory or the temple was over 150 gp. I think either a cheap dagger/whip should be available always in the town, or that characters should start with a dagger and 550 gp.

[takkaria]

I see what you did there ;-)

Thought you'd like that

[Magnate]

You have to distinguish the fact that an object has a property from its origin, e.g. keep magical/natural flags separately, if you want it to make sense.

It would be a massive headache to code up, but there's no conceptual problem in it.

I see what you did there ;-)

Ok, added to the to-do list as #1589. I just wish I could close tickets as fast as I create them.

[takkaria]

Separately, I've now realised why I have a problem with takkaria's issue of hates fire being a physical property of the material not a magical property of the item. Let's take IGNORE_FIRE instead: sometimes it's a natural property of the material (i.e. mithril), and sometimes it's a magical property of the item (e.g. Defenders). It makes no sense to me that a given property would sometimes be a rune and sometimes not be.

Why not? Some things don't catch fire naturally (rocks) and other things need fire-retardant spray (fabric). The rock doesn't have (or need) a rune, the fabric does. You have to distinguish the fact that an object has a property from its origin, e.g. keep magical/natural flags separately, if you want it to make sense.

It would be a massive headache to code up, but there's no conceptual problem in it.

[Magnate]

No, I didn't know that, and yes it does make a difference. (If there are HURT_X flags for x2 damage, does that mean SLAY_EVIL and SLAY_ANIMAL now do x3, or are they still x2 as before? I'm horribly confused.) But I do think pval is the way to move, because inconsistency in naming bugs me as well.

Good, that's settled then - slays and brands will be pvals and there will only be one rune for each type. That still doesn't quite solve the conundrum of how to deal with obvious affixes which have runes, but we're getting there.

Yes, I'm afraid SLAY_ANIMAL and SLAY_EVIL really ought to be HURT_ANIMAL and HURT_EVIL because they are still only x2 ... but this will soon all be irrelevant ...

[Nomad]

I'm not sure if Nomad realises, but Slay Demon is x3 whereas Iron is only x2, so they're not exactly the same. I also don't see much point in having two affixes give identical properties under different names. But I do see the point in having some items give +1 STR while others give +6. In that case there's a single rune for "affects your strength", so maybe the key to this is to get on with moving slay multipliers to a pval ...

No, I didn't know that, and yes it does make a difference. (If there are HURT_X flags for x2 damage, does that mean SLAY_EVIL and SLAY_ANIMAL now do x3, or are they still x2 as before? I'm horribly confused.) But I do think pval is the way to move, because inconsistency in naming bugs me as well.

[Magnate]

Then.. you either don't need physical properties or you don't need magical properties (probably physical). That's a big loss of flavor. Personally, I'd rather they stack (and replicate the old *super slay*). Chocolate ice cream in chocolate flavored cone with chocolate syrup on top > a scoop of chocolate ice cream in styrofoam cup with little plastic spoon.

I'm not sure if Nomad realises, but Slay Demon is x3 whereas Iron is only x2, so they're not exactly the same. I also don't see much point in having two affixes give identical properties under different names. But I do see the point in having some items give +1 STR while others give +6. In that case there's a single rune for "affects your strength", so maybe the key to this is to get on with moving slay multipliers to a pval ...

[buzzkill]

I suppose my view is that the random generator should not have two things it can generate that do the same thing in the first place. There should be a "Slay Demon" affix that slays demons, or there should be an "Iron" affix that slays demons, but there shouldn't be both a "Slay Demon" and an "Iron" affix that do the same thing.

Then.. you either don't need physical properties or you don't need magical properties (probably physical). That's a big loss of flavor. Personally, I'd rather they stack (and replicate the old *super slay*). Chocolate ice cream in chocolate flavored cone with chocolate syrup on top > a scoop of chocolate ice cream in styrofoam cup with little plastic spoon.

[Nomad]

Well that's an aspect of randomly generated environment that you have to deal with, or restrict generation, so that redundancies never occur.

I think the correct solution is that physical properties are obvious and trump identical magical runes (so they need not be displayed), or have them stack... do they stack? An iron sword of slay demon > a sword or slay demon or a plain iron sword.

I suppose my view is that the random generator should not have two things it can generate that do the same thing in the first place. There should be a "Slay Demon" affix that slays demons, or there should be an "Iron" affix that slays demons, but there shouldn't be both a "Slay Demon" and an "Iron" affix that do the same thing. That's like having a random ice-cream dispenser that can dispense both "chocolate" flavour and "choc-o-tastic" flavour but will still give you a scoop from the same ice-cream box regardless of which one it picks. One-to-one flavour labelling seems like a much better idea to me personally. Different names for different things, the same name always for the same thing.

[buzzkill]

I suppose my issue is not so much that they have flags as that they duplicate existing flags redundantly.

Well that's an aspect of randomly generated environment that you have to deal with, or restrict generation, so that redundancies never occur.

I think the correct solution is that physical properties are obvious and trump identical magical runes (so they need not be displayed), or have them stack... do they stack? An iron sword of slay demon > a sword or slay demon or a plain iron sword.

I hope I added something, but I fear I just repeated what had already been stated.

[Nomad]

I'm afraid I disagree with this. I don't think the design should be constrained by the implementation details. If we need to change implementation, I'm fine with that, but saying that makes and materials can never have slay flags would be very wrong IMO. I'm happy to continue looking for a solution to the runes issue that allows the properties of Iron to be obvious while magical demon-slaying isn't.

I suppose my issue is not so much that they have flags as that they duplicate existing flags redundantly. But I guess that's a philosophy of item flavours thing. I see introducing a property that is functionally identical to another property but under a different name as a bad thing; it's adding flavour for no reason other than to have more flavour, which is not something I personally like. My design instinct is to restrict flavours to something as close as possible to the Vanilla ego set, only adding new names when they're essential to communicate something that doesn't exist in V.

Which is not necessarily the guiding principle other people see for v4, so fair enough.

[Magnate]

Yeah, the slay aspect of the iron and silver affixes bugs me for exactly this reason. The same property conveyed in two different ways with different names just seems untidy and counter intuitive to me. (And the way my semi-working ego naming system is set up, it would render it "an Iron <item> of Slay Demon" and pretty much pretend it was the same as an item with the Slay Demon rune in any case.)

I'd rather see the slay removed from silver and iron entirely, honestly, and have materials and makes only affect the combat bonuses on the weapons, never the flags. (Digging on Gnomish/Dwarven/Orcish weapons bugs me too.) For a start, it makes ego squelch less of a pain because you don't have to set squelch for multiple redundant versions of the same thing.

I'm afraid I disagree with this. I don't think the design should be constrained by the implementation details. If we need to change implementation, I'm fine with that, but saying that makes and materials can never have slay flags would be very wrong IMO. I'm happy to continue looking for a solution to the runes issue that allows the properties of Iron to be obvious while magical demon-slaying isn't.

I can see your point, but the paragraph of known runes ends up huge, difficult to read and full of redundant information. Maybe Inspect should only list unknown runes, and known runes can just be covered by the descriptive text that follows? I mean, "Known runes: slay evil" followed by "It slays evil creatures." is pretty redundant already.

Yes, that's a good idea. Known runes can also be looked up in the knowledge menu, so 'I'nspect displays only unknown runes is the way to go.