Even more thoughts on v4

[Derakon]

Given that that weapon does a minimum of 172 damage per shot, and easily does over 300 (light slay and a bit of damage from the bolt), no, I wouldn't say that's excessively overpriced. It's a hugely powerful crossbow.

[flechette]

Noticed that a 'Blackrock Heavy Crossbow of Power (x4) (+22, +42)' that I sold to the weapon store was being sold back for a fairly large 337988 gold. The only properties are of Power (x2), of Slaying (x2), Blackrock, and Journeyman's. Does this seem a little skewed somewhere, either in damage or item cost? I have a save (with enough gold to buy it back if need be) if anyone wants to take a look.

[Derakon]

The "excellent" and "splendid" pseudos are functionally useless now. What I've taken to doing with my characters is inspecting each item from the ground. If it doesn't have any useful recognizable properties, nor any unrecognized properties, it just gets squelched.

[Estie]

Started a warrior, http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=12126

I find the playing very unpleasant, with the inflation of (mostly useless) affixes which all have to be identified (well, maybe they dont have to if they are really useless, but not knowing what is out there, I feel compelled to do it anyway).
If the point of introducing flavours for weapon and armour mods was to reduce the chore of lategame id, as it is now its worse than ever.

Changing the big egos around, possibly randomizing, or allowing new properties in places where they werent possible before is great, but really, is +1 to tunneling on a weapon worthy of its own ego ?
If there is to be a "dwarven" weapon ego, give it + tunneling all right, but add + str, con, infravision, slay orc and giant and make it _rare_. Having 90% of weapons found be "excellent" and "superb" when most of them would more aptly be described as "utter junk" makes for great disappointment.

Not knowing what the plans are, if indeed there are any, I stop here; but I wont play that warrior any further unless someone really wants me too.

[flechette]

Thanks myshkins! The fix for texts in dumps seems to be working

[myshkin]

I should note that I have tentative fixes for both the missed artifacts bug and the chardump bug. I'm waiting for comment from the rest of the devteam before committing, though, as the first is a little dodgy and the second is outright ugly.

These fixes (thanks to Blubaron for a better solution to the second) are now in v4-master, and the latter is also in master. They should be in the dev builds soon.

[myshkin]

Thanks for your comprehensive notes and feedback. A number of the bugs you found have already been fixed, and others are in train. In particular, noz and Blubaron have found the chardump bug (which is in vstrnfmt in z-form.c, if anyone is interested), and are working on a fix. Once that's fixed I can start to try and trace the bizarre missed-artifacts bug. Nobody's reported that in V, which tells me a lot, but it will help if I can look at the data on the missed artifacts.

I should note that I have tentative fixes for both the missed artifacts bug and the chardump bug. I'm waiting for comment from the rest of the devteam before committing, though, as the first is a little dodgy and the second is outright ugly.

[andrewdoull]

That'd be because Magnate made speed much more expensive after people complained that it was too easy to buy speed items. I'm not sure what the solution is here; perhaps Escaping and Teleport items should be considered "bad" items (due to the panic / random-teleport aspects) and thus unsalable? Is that even possible?

The solution is to separate out attack speed from movement speed, and have rings of escaping only modify movement speed.

(You'd probably also want spellcasting, archery and item using speed to be separate as well).

[buzzkill]

Sometimes I think young dragons could use a boost, or be found a bit earlier

How about this, what if young dragons were occasionaly paired with a few baby dragons, a family. I'm also thinking of dragon eggs for some reason. Are dragons born of eggs?

[Antoine]

Yes, I have also lost many characters to them. I did not mean to imply that they are not dangerous, but that seeing one can prepare you for what dragons you can find deeper.

Sometimes I think young dragons could use a boost, or be found a bit earlier

A.

[relic]

Er ... they're also quite tough for their depth. I've lost numerous characters to baby dragons, so I think there's definitely a place for them.

Yes, I have also lost many characters to them. I did not mean to imply that they are not dangerous, but that seeing one can prepare you for what dragons you can find deeper.

[Magnate]

Maybe not if we are all veterans, but I remember the first time I ever saw a baby dragon, a red one I think, at around 500 feet. Then I had very little idea of what monsters there were, but that baby red dragon gave me a hint of what one might find deeper in the dungeon. So for new players they might be "helpful".

Er ... they're also quite tough for their depth. I've lost numerous characters to baby dragons, so I think there's definitely a place for them.

[relic]

off tangent: do we need baby dragons? I'm not sure, but the speed discussion made me think of it.

Maybe not if we are all veterans, but I remember the first time I ever saw a baby dragon, a red one I think, at around 500 feet. Then I had very little idea of what monsters there were, but that baby red dragon gave me a hint of what one might find deeper in the dungeon. So for new players they might be "helpful".

[buzzkill]

Yes, I do. More HP at this stage doesn't significantly change their difficulty; it just prolongs the fight. Increasing their speed makes a clear difference between them and the baby/young dragons. Though it might be overdoing it; we'll see.

Aren't Ancients only at +10. I though that +5 was a nice step up for Matures.

off tangent: do we need baby dragons? I'm not sure, but the speed discussion made me think of it.

[Derakon]

Yes, I do. More HP at this stage doesn't significantly change their difficulty; it just prolongs the fight. Increasing their speed makes a clear difference between them and the baby/young dragons. Though it might be overdoing it; we'll see.