New version of v4

[Magnate]

I've just pushed a new version of v4. It has all the same fixes and tweaks as the new V dev version:

Tweaks:
- max stack size increased to 40
- scrolls of Teleport Level are now much more expensive, and less common
- WARNING: Deep Descent is no longer an instant effect (it's like Recall), and drops 250' not 100'
- rods of Treasure Location have gone, scrolls are now dungeon-only
- detection of objects is now "fuzzy", i.e. you know where the objects are but not what they are (this should now work ok)

Fixes:
- the confusion/Study bug is gone (thanks noz)
- the stairs-while-hallucinating bug is gone (thanks PowerWyrm)
- the crash when 'r'ecalling the (Everburning) ego is fixed (nobody spotted that one)
- the word "Unignoring" now has a space after it, like it should (hugely important)

Plus some v4-specific changes:

- consumables with OF_GOOD are now roughly back to their previous commonness
- changes to affixes cloaks can get, so that Magi cloaks are a little more common
- change lots of max depths on affixes to 100 pending playtesting the endgame
- rationalise the min depths of different shields
- stock bucklers in the armoury
- tone down rings of accuracy, damage and reckless attacks a little
- tone down the 'thancs to their pre-3.0.7 stats
- make themes show up with affixes in the ego knowledge menu
- allow squelching of affixes and themes by tval from the knowledge menu

This last one is significant: if you squelch an affix on a sword, then swords generated with only that affix will be squelched when you know they have only that affix. If you squelch lots of affixes for swords, then swords generated with affixes which are all squelched will be squelched when you know there is nothing left to learn. You can squelch themes too (though I suspect this will be unusual) - but a themed item will only be squelched if its affixes are all squelched too. This is to prevent you squelching Mithril armour of Resistance just because you squelched Of Resistance ...

Press 's' to toggled squelching for that affix/theme for that tval only. Press 'S' to toggle squelching off that affix/theme for ALL tvals on which it can appear (even if you don't know them all yet).

It's available from http://buildbot.rephial.org/v4-build...er/builds.html.

Enjoy - and please keep those bug reports coming in. For the next version I'll try to sort out all the remaining interactions with pseudo ID.

[BlueFish]

Cool, thanks Magnate. Looking forward to trying this one out!

[BlueFish]

- detection of objects is now "fuzzy", i.e. you know where the objects are but not what they are (this should now work ok)

I think Rogues should be able to detect objects as before this change. It's in the spirit of the stealthy smash-n-grab rogue and it hardly overpowers them.

[Jungle_Boy]

I read a scroll of treasure detection standing next to a potion, it turned into an asterisk and I got the message "You have no room for unknown item" when I walked over it. When I went out of LOS and then back into LOS it turned back into the potion.

[jevansau]

treasure detection is turning all detected items unknown, even if previously known.

Also found after recall several worn items were unknown. Dropping them made them known.

Why remove rods of treasure detection given the change to fuzzy detection? Seeing piles of unknown objects might give away some pits, or suggest places to explore, but given no certainty of anything worthwhile this doesn't seem that generous.

I appreciate the change to 40 stacks.

One other thing I would like to see is for stat potions to give a greater increase to stats under 18. This would make stat gain a little less slow and would make up for the lower initial stats while keeping the early game hard.

I think these developments will lead to a fascinating game. Thanks for the efforts so far.

Regards,
Jonathan

[Magnate]

I think Rogues should be able to detect objects as before this change. It's in the spirit of the stealthy smash-n-grab rogue and it hardly overpowers them.

The rogue spell Detect Treasure does still detect objects precisely - for this very reason.

[Magnate]

Ok, tonight's version contains the last of the new knowledge menus: the "known runes" menu, which helps you keep track of what things you have already ID'd. It will also be very helpful for tracing bugs in rune-based ID!

At the moment it shows the internal names of the flags: STR, INT, LIGHT, FREE_ACT etc. etc. Please let me know how you'd actually like to see them displayed in this menu. I'm assuming that Strength, Intelligence, Light, Free Action etc. will be ok - or do people want something more rune-like?

The category names might need fixing too. The categories "granular flag" and "power" could be re-brigaded into movement (speed, stealth, feather falling, etc.) and combat (shots, blows, might) and detection (telepathy, see invis etc.). The three that are hard to categorise are digging, slow digestion and regen. Anyone want to come up with a new set of category names?

Also in this version, the elemental rings brand melee blows again, but only at x2. I figured since damage output is lower in v4, this should work ok. All feedback gratefully received.

[Jungle_Boy]

I was ina room last night and saw an asterisk on the floor just out of my light radius, from a previous detect. When I 'l'ooked at it, it told me it was 66 pieces of gold worth of silver but it was still an asterisk.

[d_m]

At the moment it shows the internal names of the flags: STR, INT, LIGHT, FREE_ACT etc. etc. Please let me know how you'd actually like to see them displayed in this menu. I'm assuming that Strength, Intelligence, Light, Free Action etc. will be ok - or do people want something more rune-like?

I haven't tried this yet, but I always imagined a system like the flavors, where we have a bunch of randomized rune names, we see which runes are on which things, and then eventually we discover what the runes mean.

Good? Bad? Crazy?

[bio_hazard]

I like it. Did you mean like "squiggly rune", "blocky rune", "sinuous rune", "starburst rune" "hexagonal rune",

or did you mean actual runes (i.e. a single non-english character).

[flechette]

<snip>
Nevermind, I realized that all hard boots say they are covered to protect from fire >.>

Also, when inspecting Laterns it still says that they can be used to refill other laterns.

[Magnate]

<snip>
Nevermind, I realized that all hard boots say they are covered to protect from fire >.>

Also, when inspecting Laterns it still says that they can be used to refill other laterns.

Yes, I'm still seeking confirmation from takkaria on this. My expectation is that lanterns *are* supposed to refill other lanterns, and that the fact that they now can't is unintentional. But I want to check that takkaria didn't have some other reason for them not doing so.

[Magnate]

I haven't tried this yet, but I always imagined a system like the flavors, where we have a bunch of randomized rune names, we see which runes are on which things, and then eventually we discover what the runes mean.

Good? Bad? Crazy?

So would it list all the runes you haven't seen yet, or not? At the moment we only show runes you have seen and identified - this means that you know what they do, hence the use of real names rather than flavour names.

I can see that we could list the runes on an item in the Inspect screen, and thus distinguish between seen runes and known runes. We could then give them cool names, and list them on the menu like that.

Anyone want to come up with a list of about a hundred rune names?

[Nomad]

Anyone want to come up with a list of about a hundred rune names?

Couldn't you just use the randart/random name generator? Maybe add a third section to it: names are Tolkien based, scrolls are Latin based, runes could be something vaguely Norse/Germanic sounding? I could have a crack at putting together a list to seed the generator, if you like.

I think it's a cool idea, because it would help you get some idea of the power level of an un-ID'd item to see how many unknown runes it has on it.

[Magnate]

Couldn't you just use the randart/random name generator? Maybe add a third section to it: names are Tolkien based, scrolls are Latin based, runes could be something vaguely Norse/Germanic sounding? I could have a crack at putting together a list to seed the generator, if you like.

I think it's a cool idea, because it would help you get some idea of the power level of an un-ID'd item to see how many unknown runes it has on it.

Ok, I am quite liking this. Random rune names is an excellent idea, and yes we should be able to add them in a section at the end of names.txt with impunity.

I can easily see how to display the known and unknown runes in the Inspect screen. I can see how we display them in the knowledge menu. Do you think we should list all rune names, the way we list all object flavours? Personally I think that's bogus - I don't think you should know at the start of the game all the flavours that you'll ever see in the game. But maybe I'm missing something important?

I think people will want the known runes "translated" in the Inspect screen, so they don't have to remember what each one does. But I may be wrong - since the known info will be shown anyway.