More thoughts on v4

[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.

[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".

[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.

[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?

[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.

[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]

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]

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.

[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!

[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.

[Derakon]

Meanwhile, while I've made a number of lucky finds (including Boots of Speed +10 at 2350'), I've only found two artifacts, one of which I can't even use because I need my telepathy helmet, and the other of which was distinctly underwhelming and has now been replaced by the aforementioned boots. Now clvl 36, dlvl 58 (2900').

[Derakon]

Okay, new progress report. First off, here's some shots of the message box when accented characters are displayed:


Nothing particularly off here except for the double space, which I'm pretty sure isn't normal.


The space before "terror" is definitely wrong.


Stray character introduced at the end of the string.


Unrecognized character! Uh oh.


This immediately followed the previous message. Note the space in "have".

It looks like there's some form of string corruption. My guess is that a wide character (2 bytes) is being used somewhere when only 1 byte is expected. In the middle of a string, this would result in extra spaces (since the wide character would probably print as a space), but off the end of the string we get garbage characters instead because we're reading uninitialized memory.

Anyway, onwards! For context: currently clvl38, dlvl67 (3350').

* Spellbooks found: Resistances at 2600', Ethereal Openings at 3050', Mordenkainen's at 3150'. The first two feel a bit late, but Mordy's is normal IMO.

* Notable finds: Boots of Speed +10 at 2350' (dropped by Ulfast), *Acquirement* at 2950', "ESP at 3050' (finally can wear that artifact helm I found much earlier),

* I've found one more artifact, a hammer (playing randarts). It only became worth using once I got some +DEX from my gear -- and even then, it only barely outdamages my old dagger.

* It took me until 2950' to find a Rod of Illumination. That was annoying.

* Acquirement and *Acquirement* are noticeably more common now. Of course, they still usually don't generate anything interesting. I did get a shield with a triple-stacked Protection affix, though (total +50 to AC!). Is that intentional?

* Object detection frequently gives false positives (i.e. red stars where there aren't actually any items). Intended?

* Scrolls of Deep Descent should mention the delay, like Word of Recall items do.

* Staves of Remove Curse seem singularly useless to me right now. Not that the scrolls are much more useful, but the effect is inherently single-shot.

* Maul description: "A heavy war hammer with a larger head." I guess the "larger" could mean "in comparison to normal war hammers", but it should still just be "large" IMO.

* Dwar dropped ?Acquirement, which, when read, generated ?*Acquirement*.

* "Reached level X" notes are added to the log multiple times if you have to regain the level due to experience drain.

* I found a pile of creeping adamantite coins worth only 295 AU. In practice adamantite is always at least 800 AU when found normally, so that's a bit of a giveaway.

* There's no way to squelch ordinary lanterns without squelching the good ones too, at least not from the 'k' menu. Incidentally, I'm still using an Everburning Lantern of Observation (a.k.a. See Invisible). No Phial.

[Magnate]

OMG! Nearly four thousand posts later, magnate learns how to resize the Reply box. ARGH!

Anyway, @Nomad: yes, the stats agree with you: the first six or seven levels in v4 are *much* more likely to produce artifacts. This would reward scumming and probably needs to be toned down.

* Spellbooks found: Resistances at 2600', Ethereal Openings at 3050', Mordenkainen's at 3150'. The first two feel a bit late, but Mordy's is normal IMO.

Did you get them from certain uniques, or just random finds?

* It took me until 2950' to find a Rod of Illumination. That was annoying.

* Acquirement and *Acquirement* are noticeably more common now. Of course, they still usually don't generate anything interesting. I did get a shield with a triple-stacked Protection affix, though (total +50 to AC!). Is that intentional?

* Object detection frequently gives false positives (i.e. red stars where there aren't actually any items). Intended?

The rod of illumination is a fluke - it's as common as it is in V (slightly more so, in fact).

The Acquirement scrolls are indeed more common, as noted in the stats thread. Normal Acq is about 2x and *Acq* is about 3x as common as in V. This is a result of the object generation changes and can be rebalanced - though of course since the ego items fetched by them are noticeably less powerful, it might not actually be a problem. And yes, an acquirement scroll is now a legal target for acquirement.

Object detection giving false positives is a new one - I doubt that they are completely random asterisks. Perhaps they are squelched items?

* "Reached level X" notes are added to the log multiple times if you have to regain the level due to experience drain.

Wow, I fixed this back in 3.1.x - not sure how that's come back.

* There's no way to squelch ordinary lanterns without squelching the good ones too, at least not from the 'k' menu.

I think this has something to do with EASY_KNOW; I remember discussing it with someone before. Now that lanterns are the same as other non-jewelry wearables in terms of affixes, it should be possible to fix this.

I haven't commented on everything, but I don't have any issues with the rest of it. Thanks for the details on the utf-8 issue - hopefully this will enable noz and/or myshkin to trace the problem.

Thanks for the report - hope it's still fun.

[Nomad]

Anyway, @Nomad: yes, the stats agree with you: the first six or seven levels in v4 are *much* more likely to produce artifacts. This would reward scumming and probably needs to be toned down.

Yeah, the two I found were effectively a product of 'accidental scumming'; I sold my WoR to buy a good weapon, descended a bit to get enough money to replace it, accidentally read a DD when I was nearly back to the surface, ascended again... It seems like any play pattern like that, or just being cautious enough to hang around in the early dungeon for a while to level up, is going to produce quite high odds of finding an artefact.

[Magnate]

Yeah, the two I found were effectively a product of 'accidental scumming'; I sold my WoR to buy a good weapon, descended a bit to get enough money to replace it, accidentally read a DD when I was nearly back to the surface, ascended again... It seems like any play pattern like that, or just being cautious enough to hang around in the early dungeon for a while to level up, is going to produce quite high odds of finding an artefact.

Yes, but statistically 90% of the artifacts found in the first five levels are 'thancs. Even so, I've committed a small hack to bring artifact frequency in line with V at these levels.

I've also fixed the false positives in fuzzy detection - I think. Please report if this continues in the new version.

P.S. This thread is getting a bit long and old - could we start a new thread or two with any new issues?

P.P.S. The feature of "reached level X" appearing more than once in the history is WAD - it was a deliberate decision as part of the fix for #1170.