New version of v4

[Magnate]

IIRC randarts are still buggy because the power calculations are keyed towards the old +to-hit/dam system. So they see e.g. Narthanc with (+40, +60) and think it's Godslayer, generating an equivalently powerful randart in its place.

That's fixed in the version Old Coach is playing (the one announced in this thread). The randart generator is arthritic, but it now copes with all of fin/prow, pval slays and multiple pvals. Coach's randart is quite tame for one that has aggravate.

Absorption is in monster.txt, though it looks like fizzix didn't update the docs at the top of the file. The I: line in each entry has, in order, the following fields: speed, HP, vision range, evasion, absorption, alertness. Giant yellow scorpions have absorption of 15, so you should have been damaging them consistently with 53 average damage/blow.

Not without critical hits he won't have been. The 53 includes crits, and I think non-critical base damage is quite a lot lower. I am thinking that crits might need to be capped after all.

[Magnate]

Ok, just posting some known bugs in this current version, to save people reporting them. They'll be fixed when the archery fixes are released.

1. Inspecting ammo damage shows you loads of slays that neither the launcher nor the ammo have. This is because it's erroneously applying all the melee slays from weapon, rings, etc. Your missile attacks do not actually have these slays.

1b. Inspecting ammo says "It brands your melee attacks with..." or "It causes your melee attacks to slay ..." - this is caused by a single missing parenthesis, which somehow slipped past the compiler.

2. Melee attacks sometimes say "you burn" or "you freeze" when you don't actually have those brands. This is because the monster has HURT_FIRE or HURT_COLD, and it's not checking for the brand. (Ooops.)

3. Rings of the dog have <+0> in their description, when their pval is actually -2. The new pval display code displays only the highest pval (and a short ellipsis if there's more than one) - but it assumes that the highest pval isn't negative. Ooops.

1b, 2 and 3 are all fixed in 9feb8de, which will be available from the buildbots soon. #1 is actually very tricky, because of the way that slay pvals either affect archery (launchers and ammo) or melee (everything else). Still working out how to fix this, and it's tied up with the overall archery fixes - whether archery is going to use any different mechanics etc. Sorry for the ongoing delay.

[PowerWyrm]

Also, I found this artifact longsword on lvl 10, and it has a TON of flags (+1 to every stat, speed, resistances, light, see invis, free action, a couple slays, and a lot more). How does the RAND_Art generator work? Should I be seeing something this awesome at such a low level?

Also, the sword has "aggravates nearby monsters". I have never used a weapon with this attribute before, but I can't really tell much of a difference with my dwarven warrior of the monster behavior when I am wielding it. How does aggravate actually work?

Thanks!

The response is in your second part. Sometimes the randart generator generates a really powerful randart, and adds aggravation to balance it. If it was an artifact long sword, then it was probably based on Ringil's template, which already has a high power.

[Derakon]

If it was an artifact long sword, then it was probably based on Ringil's template, which already has a high power.

Base types for randarts have nothing to do with the standarts they were built from (with the exception of jewelry, I think). You can find Bladeturner in bow form or Ringil as a pair of boots.

[Magnate]

Base types for randarts have nothing to do with the standarts they were built from (with the exception of jewelry, I think). You can find Bladeturner in bow form or Ringil as a pair of boots.

... and in modern versions (3.2.0 onwards IIRC) inspecting a randart will tell you what it's based on.

[Old Coach]

That's fixed in the version Old Coach is playing (the one announced in this thread). The randart generator is arthritic, but it now copes with all of fin/prow, pval slays and multiple pvals. Coach's randart is quite tame for one that has aggravate.Not without critical hits he won't have been. The 53 includes crits, and I think non-critical base damage is quite a lot lower. I am thinking that crits might need to be capped after all.

Aside from some minor tweaking with the crit system, I think that it is balance fairly well. My CL 26 warrior just spent a good amount of time bashing a Mithril Golem at DL 26. It was hard to do damage without a crit. Took lots of swings, but it felt about right. I imagine that a mage would just have to walk away from this battle. Much better flavor wise than before when you could just grind up a golem with your whip or bow and arrow.

Speaking of crits, IMHO crits should be more spectacular and less frequent than they are now. Angband is such a long game that you are swinging tens of thousands of times. Crit hits are pretty normal for high level fighter types.

If you put in a cap for crits, would it be possible to leave it off for the warrior? Maybe it is my DND background coming through, but I always thought that the Warrior class should be afforded a higher level crit than other classes when in melee. I am not sure how hard it would be to code. I guess that the ranger should get the *SUPERB* crit for ranged attacks and the rogue could get *SUPERB* for thrown. Where have I played a game like that before? Ahhh. Wizardry 7 and 8.

Anyway, I think the absorption armor is balance pretty good for warriors up through lvl 26.

[jevansau]

Running the latest version there seems to be something wrong with brands/slays.
I'm not sure if it is just a display problem or not, but using:
Sapphire Great Hammer of Slay Evil (8d1) (+48,+46) <+50..>
+1 strength, tunneling.
Slays animals (x1.48), evil creatures (x1.50).
Branded with frost (x1.48).
Provides protection from blindness.
Can be destroyed by acid, fire.

Combat info:
Receives 10% of your finesse score, 90% of your prowess score.
1.2 blows/round.
2.4x damage multiplier.
Average damage/round: 25.2 vs. normal creatures, 35.4 vs.
creatures made of stone, 40.5 vs. animals, 40.7 vs. evil
creatures, 40.5 vs. creatures not resistant to cold.

I get messages like:
You hit Ufthak of Cirith Ungol
You hit the Hill orc
You hit the green worm mass
You hit the Cave spider
You hit the Zombified human
You freeze the Rock lizard
You freeze the Black mamba
You hit the Giant white mouse
You freeze the Large grey snake
You hit the fruit bat
You hit the Cold hound.

Not absolutely sure, but it looked like freeze was the only applied brand and the slays were never applied.

Still, otherwise it actually seems fairly balanced. Looking forward to the new archery.

Regards,
Jonathan

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Maybe it is my DND background coming through, but I always thought that the Warrior class should be afforded a higher level crit than other classes when in melee. I am not sure how hard it would be to code. I guess that the ranger should get the *SUPERB* crit for ranged attacks and the rogue could get *SUPERB* for thrown. Where have I played a game like that before? Ahhh. Wizardry 7 and 8.

Ey and Fay work exactly like this. Warrior, Rogue, and Ranger get their critical value for melee/thrown/archery multiplied by two. They are the only classes that can get superb criticals.

We also have Felpurrs and Rattikins, straight from Wizardry, I think.

[Derakon]

I generally prefer to have the game not have special class-based rules in it. If you want warriors to have better crits than other classes, then that should be an outgrowth of the way the crit code works and the way stat and skill growth works for warriors vs. other classes.

How often is your level-26 warrior seeing crits?

[Prismatic]

I generally prefer to have the game not have special class-based rules in it. If you want warriors to have better crits than other classes, then that should be an outgrowth of the way the crit code works and the way stat and skill growth works for warriors vs. other classes.

How often is your level-26 warrior seeing crits?

The game already has special class-based rules (who can use what spells), so I don't personally have an issue with warriors getting perks for fighting.

I am curious as to the rate of criticals though, I haven't played v4 much and not at all since finesse/power were added.

[Old Coach]

A few issues in my build that I noticed:
whips have a finesse modifier of 70 and prowess of 10. Should it be 90 and 10? all the other weapons add to 100.

Maul has finess of 80 and prowess of 20. Should this be the other way around?

I found a randart, beaked axe of Finglion. It shows:

"Receives -1% of your finesse score, -1% or your prowess score.
0.9 blow/round
0.9x damage multiplier."
Average damage 6.2 per swing.
This item has no obvious curses. I tried to wield it to see what would happen against a stone troll.

I can kill a troll, but it takes a while. Also, after I swing the first time, if I continue to try to swing without taking any other actions, the game does not progress. I don't swing, the monsters don't take their turns, nothing happens. In short, when I push the arrow to direct my @ into the T, nothing happens at all. I have to back up or perform another action in order to take another swing, and for the monsters to get their turns. This is the first time I have seen this bug, and have looked at a LOT of weapons.

I'll look at my crit numbers soon.

[Derakon]

A few issues in my build that I noticed:
whips have a finesse modifier of 70 and prowess of 10. Should it be 90 and 10? all the other weapons add to 100.

Intentional on my part, though others may disagree with my reasoning. Whips suck as weapons for killing people.

Maul has finess of 80 and prowess of 20. Should this be the other way around?

That, however, is a bug. Good catch.

I found a randart, beaked axe of Finglion. It shows:

"Receives -1% of your finesse score, -1% or your prowess score.
0.9 blow/round
0.9x damage multiplier."

No idea what's going on here. Sounds like the artifact didn't properly inherit balance and heft from the Beaked Axe base type. The bugginess you saw regarding being unable to take a blow probably has to do with breaking the assumption that it doesn't take more than 100 energy to take 1 blow; normally this should never happen.

[Magnate]

Intentional on my part, though others may disagree with my reasoning. Whips suck as weapons for killing people.

That, however, is a bug. Good catch.

No idea what's going on here. Sounds like the artifact didn't properly inherit balance and heft from the Beaked Axe base type. The bugginess you saw regarding being unable to take a blow probably has to do with breaking the assumption that it doesn't take more than 100 energy to take 1 blow; normally this should never happen.

This is a very interesting bug - Coach, do you have a savefile with that randart? Better still, do you have the randart.log file?

@jevansau: yes, there may well be a bug in improve_attack_modifier(), the function that picks which brand or slay to apply. Again, if you can post a savefile with that weapon, we can try to debug it.

Thanks for the feedback folks. I don't have a problem with warriors having more or better crits than other classes (and ditto rangers for archery crits), but like Derakon would prefer this as a natural consequence of the system rather than hard-coded limits for other classes. There's still plenty of room to play around with the mechanics to achieve this.

[jevansau]

It doesn't seem to be just that weapon - that one was applying the brand some of the time - others don't seem to apply Bands or slays at all.

I've attached the savefile - the original weapon referred to is sitting at home.

Regards,
Jonathan

[Old Coach]

I found a RANDart that is a morning star with base damage 3d6. Is there a flag (or rune) that gives the weapon the additional die of damage or is it based off of an artifact? They are usually 2d6.

With CL 28 warrior I am getting crit hits about 40% of the time. Most of them are good, with a logical decrease in frequency down to the fairly rare "*SUPERB*". 40% is still a little too frequent for my liking, since I assume this value will only increase as my prowess and finesse increase with level and better equipment.

I have a ring of Fire that brands weapons. It appears to be working with my weapon. Do ring brands stack their power with the weapon's brand? I have yet to find a firebrand weapon (since picking up the ring) to test this.

Trying out the new shockbolt graphics. whenever a double height monster is on the screen, it's top half gets carried over whenever the screen shifts. Is this a common problem or an artifact of my system.

Thanks, as always!