"Ignoring" bug: shining dragon scale mail can only be ignored "this item only"

Thanks, fixed in development.

New builds up on the nightlies page and angband.live with the following changes:

• Use correct number of blows in deciding whether to attempt a shield bash (thanks PowerWyrm)
• Expand the useful section of the food range so that it is essentially the same as before
• Adjust effects at the top and bottom of the food range to be cleaner and more robust to changes in the data file
• Fix message order in shapechanges (ticket #2114)
• Add percentages to food value descriptions
• Stopped Drop All on the item menu from needing confirmation (request from Clearshade)
• Allow the 8th window in the SDL2 port to be opened without causing a crash (thanks EducatedNoob)
• Add reference to Once's Windows console compilation instructions to Makefile.win (actual instructions are here)
• Fix bug stopping rune of protection being cast on squares containing an object (thanks Ingwe)
• Fix ignore for Shining DSM (Ingwe again)
• Make stores always accept items with unknown runes in no-selling (#2080)
• Stop light being ignorable from the tval menu - makes no sense now that there are ego and artifact torches and lanterns (#2119)
• Drop ignored stolen items immediately, avoiding possible drop of something useful (#2126)

I'm pretty happy with food now, but let me know if there are more issues.

Just noticed that Protection from Fear isn't flagged in the character info, even when wearing items that say they provide it. This is still a few builds back, 4.1.3-465-g2a840212b, but I don't remember seeing anything about it the last couple of weeks.

Is the dungeon map as a spoiler?
 

Hi,

Some pages ago, Nick told that giving any hint about poisoining status could "spoil" the gameplay. Don't you think the full map, as implemented now, also contains a spoiler?

When you press M, it gets very easy to see the approximate size of the dungeon. I know we don't have those huge levels anymore (unless we tweak some txt files), but they still vary in size.

Why don't use, for the M command, the same idea of Fallout (3, New Vegas and 4), "scaling" the full map? This would work even for those that edit parameter files to generate larger dungeons. Initially, pressing M would assume we are in a small dungeon, stretching its boundaries as we explore it...

Just noticed, current high-elf ranger is 5'1" and 15 stone 5lb. That's quite short and beefy (fat). shouldn't they be tall and willowy?

A quick web search finds Salgant of House Harp, an overweight elf.
https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Salgant (Never mind the generic skinny-elf sketch)

He would make a good mid level unique, since he betrayed Numenor to Maeglin.

Another Ignoring Bug: I guess somewhere in the latest changes, a new ignoring bug was introduced. Ignoring a wooden torch, the only choices were: (a) this item only, or (b) all average lights. We lost ignore wooden torches. On purpose? I liked being able to ignore torches once @ had a lantern.

You can still ignore torches through the knowledge menu. This is inconvenient as a one-at-a-time model, but if you want to ignore a whole lot of things* at once, it is better.

* Say, all priest books.

Actually, not. A bog standard wooden torch is not an Ego item, so not in that menu, and while it is an "average" light, so is a lantern, so not in the Quality menu either. It's not inconvenient, it can't be done at all, at least until the bug is fixed or @ is in a position to ignore average lights.

Surely this still works:
1. Open knowledge menu ('~a')
2. Scroll down to Lights
3. Open submenu with right-arrow or 6
4. Toggle squelch with 's'

Just verified in 4.1.3

This doesn't work in master. It works on other things but not lights.

Is there a specific reason not to allow ignoring objects that can have egos by tval? At some point a warrior has enough str/dex & a good enough weapon to be ignoring all the weapons below a certain base dice for instance.

I am impressed that this got broken. The knowledge menu should be robust to changes in types of object.

This was a deliberate change, but maybe requires some more thought.

The issue is that now torches and lanterns can potentially be ego-items or (if you're playing with randarts) artifacts. So ignoring all torches was ignoring artifacts sometimes.

I guess the thing to do is to bring lights back into the "ignore by type" menu but put a special case in to avoid ignoring artifacts - does that sound correct?

You may need to have to separate ignoring menus, one for torches one for lanterns. I think you need to be able to ignore average torches without ignoring average lanterns. Then all should work the same as the other categories. No Ignore, Bad, Average, Good, Non-Artifact. As well as the Ego ignore by types of ego lights.

Nick-
Using the knowledge menu for ignore has *always* killed possible artifacts. (Ignore daggers, and you won't find any *thancs.) I am perplexed why torches deserve special treatment.

As far as I'm aware, you can't ignore daggers - you can only ignore object kinds which appear somewhere in the main ignore menu (before the quality and ego menus).

you can't ignore artifacts. The highest level of ignore is everything except artifacts. (apart from an artifactless birth option, if I recall).

Yeah, I just noticed that too - which means I just fixed a bug that didn't exist. Will revert :)

Yes, I just verified that is the case. It wasn't always so, however. You could ignore low-dice weapons when you got strong enough.

Are you talking about Vanilla? In all the years I've played this game, there's never been an ignore of artifacts, and when has there ever been an "ignore", or previously a "squelch", based on values in Vanilla? Maybe you're talking about a variant? Having an ignore based on values is something Fizzix tried to workout, if I recall, but never found a good implementation or interface, so the effort was shelved.

I think Vanilla gets it about right in the balance between power and complexity. Tome's automatizer was extremely powerful, but it was also a mess to use.

Ingwe--
You had to pick and choose the weapons you wanted to ignore. Alas, there is no reasonable way to do something similar for armor types, because even very low base AC armor (such as soft leather boots!) has excellent artifacts, even in standarts.

As far back as 2.5.1, I don't remember ever having it squelch artifacts.

Squelch was added in 3.0.6

For kicks, or to relieve boredom more likely, I just read back through all the release notes for Angband versions on rephial. Nick, I must say, you've done an amazing amount of work in these past four years! Thank you!!! :D

3.0.8, when you and Andrew Sidwell did TONS of fantastic work improving the game! :D

Alas, so many changes happened *before* the game was refactored, so it is very hard to go back to tweak 3.0.x with just those changes that (say) Eddie Grove would like. Such are the wages of an engineering deficit.

Returned to Angband from a holiday elsewhere. Some comments for Nick on the new version:

1. New hunger mechanic. Sorry, no. I find it even more of a nuisance with the gorge effect.

2. Tunneling with shovel in inventory. Wonderful! :D

3. New damage rules. Interesting. This was the first time I ended up carrying a spare weapon. Normally I find it's too much of a hassle (+30% damage to dragons - meh), but now it felt that it was worth it (+200% damage to dragons - yes please!). Not convinced that the details are right, but it's going in the right direction.

4. New damage rules applied to ranged damage. Um. Needs work. Heavy Crossbow of Extra Might (x5) (+12,+18) <+1>, only does 29 damage/round with a normal bolt. Seems a bit pathetic. Maybe just double or triple all ranged damage?

5. Exp modifiers. Are High-Elf and Dunedain meant to be "easy" races, since they don't appear to get any exp penalty? Could cause difficulties for competitions.

6. This has probably been reported plenty of times, but there's still a bug with @ not stopping in time when running. For instance, my @ automatically moved onto a trap with 100% searching skill.

7. Please address the Rogue's thieving skill before 4.2. It was a lot of fun originally (though overpowered). Now it's basically worthless. :(

I've grown to like it and it's even better with the latest changes. It's nice to know how much each kind of food will fill up @'s stomach.

Though I feel Satisfy Hunger should take you to more than 49%. After all the description says "Magically renders you well-fed (but not satiated)." How about it takes you to 66%?

Is this the very latest version you're playing? It has changed a lot in the last couple of builds.

If (as I suspect) this is about the new percentage damage birth option, then I agree - it's fun, but needs lots of work.

I initially wanted to remove all XP modifiers, but was talked in to (essentially) keeping them for humans. Maybe High Elves and Dunedain should get a bigger modifier. It just seems like such a lame mechanic to me. What do others think?

Yep, that's still on my list of unfixed bugs. Is there any idea of when this tends to happen? Is it all the time?

What would you suggest? Is it just a matter of how difficult, or does it need some other dimension to it?

Changing the description is an easier fix :D

Heh. So if Full is 90% and Hunger is 15%, then "well-fed (but not satiated)" should be 2/3rds, or 65%. ;)

Crashing on Level Change
 

I started playing a necromancer with persistent levels and randarts twice now and have had the character crash when trying to go down or up levels, leaving me back at the beginning of that level. This is the latest nightly build windows version, and Angband.Live Sometimes taking a different stairs work, sometimes I'm stuck on a level or a deep descent works. At first I thought it was only unbuilt levels but it also crashed before trying to go back to town.

I don't remember which thread, but I think someone else posted this same issue a few weeks ago.

Eh - it does satisfy you. :-)

I do find now that slime molds have surpassed scrolls of Satisfy Hunger as the best weight-efficient food source. :)

Re: food. Latest build. The issue is that it increases the amount of uninteresting micromanagement. It's not hard to avoid getting @ overfed, but I'd rather concentrate on more fun parts of the game! I don't have strong views on the new percentage display - it's nice to see what different food does, but "Hungry" has more atmosphere.

Re: running bug. Just tested on Word-of-Recall. Yes, it appears that @ always takes an extra step when teleporting out of the dungeon while running. I guess this would be the same issue as with traps.

Re: rogue theft. I'll try to come up with something constructive. How sacred is the cow that says that the loot carried by uniques is determined by the dungeon level, rather than by their native depth? (In the context of theft, it's currently worth keeping Wormtongue alive and steal from him every time.)

Attachment 1736

Is a non-property artifact going to be a thing when playing randarts? This is a second one I've seen in just under two weeks. I can live with this, alright, it just seems a bit silly. :D

Managed to take a screenshot, hilarious red text.
"A gruesome software bug LEAPS out at you! Panic save..."

I would like to see a pre-game option to start stores close together, so that I don't have to waste useless time scurrying around the screen.

I would still like to see Non-Flammable Basic Spellbooks added as new items that could be found in the dungeon.

I would like the ability to order my own inventory.

I REALLY WANT the default order of arrows to have SEEKER arrows come AFTER MITHRIL arrows, rather than the reverse, which makes no sense to the usual order of weakest on top.

Really would like more powerful & useful mushrooms to be found deep in the dungeon.

Too many wolf-type creatures appear in the game. Later in the game, they are just a constant minor irritation, as they can't kill you but they are just always there, forcing you to go around killing them so they don't clutter your path or stop you from resting, etc.

Why do the stores contain huge multiples of items no one is ever going to buy a multiple of at all?

Oh, I forgot, I would like an ignore option that would allow me to ignore dragon scale mails by type. After a certain point in the game, I will have no use for red dragon, blue dragon, etc. scale mails, even with an ego, but might still have an interest in the more exotic dragon scale mails even without an ego. As it is, there is no flexibility in terms of ignoring dragon scale mails.

If you could provide a save file (and randart file if you're playing with randarts) that would be really helpful.

Thanks for all the other comments, they will be considered. One small other note - Satisfy Hunger setting food level to 50% was intended, to make actual food more valuable. Maybe it should be called Alleviate Hunger.

If you're going to do stuff like this, please make HUNGER OFF a pre-game option, because unless you want to challenge yourself with ironman, the whole hunger thing is nothing but a pain in the ass. Why anybody would want to make people have to deal with it even more than they already do is beyond me.

I have to agree with the push for the spell/scroll to take @ to 66%. It makes sense to me that Elven waybread is the best, but I also think the other magical hunger mechanic should be a better option than rations (which I think of as MREs, they get you by, but not the tastiest things) and certainly should be better than slime molds. Slime molds having a better benefit/weight ratio than the magical scroll just doesn't seem right.

I still think the race xp modifiers have value, or else there's just not much reason to play less powerful races.

That would be convenient. Except for comps (where the rule is you must start with the original savefile, not rebirth, so everyone is on a level playing field), I find myself quit/rebirthing until I get a favorable town layout.

Exactly. If the Race XP modifications are removed, then the humans need to be given some bonuses/advantages or it won't make much sense. There needs to be a penalty somewhere for playing a high elf, etc.

Yeah, you know something's wrong when someone is motivated to do multiple restarts just in order to play the game.

Attached. Hope that is what you need.
I'm playing a separate one without persistent levels, seems to run smoothly.

I disagree, "is weaker" is as much a reason as "is stronger". Though for the most part I'm fine with it either way (xp penalties or no xp penalties).

I can understand that viewpoint, having won with every race/class combination (before the new classes were added), but apart from challenges for experienced players I doubt new players will be playing those without the experience penalties that balanced things out a bit. Nonetheless, like you, I'm fine with it either way.

I don't think XP modifiers have value, because I don't think that's the right way to weight one race over another. I think they should all have the same XP progression, and they should each have specific advantages and disadvantages (hopefully roughly in balance) that make them appeal differently to different players' styles of play.

Not sure if this has been fixed since, but I'm looking at Sphara's necromancer win and the lantern of shadows says "intensity 3 light"

Apparently it has (although I don't recall when) - I just generated one and it behaved correctly.

Thanks, that was very helpful. Bug found and fixed - your savefile should work fine now. I assume no-one was really playing persistent levels, because this bug was completely disastrous :)

Since it was introduced I like to play persistent without WOR and it feels more "real". If I can't defeat an OOD unique, or a can't get into a walled pit, I go back later. I also stash hoards of good randarts, Life potions and Mass Banish and go back for them before the Morgoth battle.

Thanks for all the cool stuff you've done to Angband. I just registered to post about this bug but I've played since Moria.
I'm psyched to play the final version of a Necromancer.

I should have said - your savefile will work fine in the next build, which should be out soon.

New builds up on the nightlies page and angband.live with the following changes:

• Lights back on the ignore by type menu as before
• Fix to bug which made an extra step get run sometimes, particularly into traps and after recall
• Fix horrendous crash bug in the persistent levels birth option
• Bugfixes and improvements to the necromancer Command spell, including:
  • Better descriptions of objects dropped by commanded monsters
  • Fix to a bug which crashed the game every time a monster with acid, electric or poison melee attacked another monster
  • Added a command to release a commanded monster ('r')
  • Improve messages
  • List valid monster commands if an invalid one is entered
  • Fix a bug causing crashes when a monster tried to inflict another with melee paralysis
• In-game helpfiles gutted to just leave basic command and symbol lists

Note that the full help files are now in the docs directory, and are in .rst format - so fairly human-readable and even better browser-readable. They are also here. Note also that the help files have not been updated beyond 4.1.3; that will happen soon (and before 4.2 release).

In this last build I cant pick up money when a monster is in LOS, and some keystrokes are ignored in some situations I cant figure out.

Regarding XP penalty question
 

Why not consider something like what FAAngband did?

FAAngband has no XP penalty at all but the races like high elf start in a more dangerous part of the game, facing higher level monsters from the outset? These races also start with better weaponry to balance out but it's still very challenging.

Here are some suggestions:
- let the weaker races start with better weapons, maybe something they inherited.
- let the weaker races start with more gold at the beginning. Let the high elves, etc start no more than with 100 gold whereas a human get 1000 which would be enough for a bow plus hand weapon, etc
- let the stronger races have a specific vulnerability. Maybe high elves are inheritantly vulnerable to poison or cold, say 10 to 15%?

Just some thoughts.

(1) Something has gone a little strange with the messages for objects on walkover. The first time @ walks over an object, a message appears regarding the object, however, thereafter one must actually use the look or inspect commands to see what the object is. For example, during melee, one might not have time to pick up an object dropped by a monster, so leave it on the floor until battle is over. Previously, you could walk over those dropped objects and the message would say what it was. Now, nothing, not even that you've walked over an object. You have to check and recheck to make sure you didn't miss something. EDIT: Apparently this happens when there is any other monster in sight. FURTHER EDIT: Also failed several times to pick up ammunition inscribed with "=g" when running over it, have to backtrack and then the ammo is retrieved. Are all these unintended consequences of the "run one too far bug fix"?

(2) While the stripped down command help files are fine, I find it difficult to understand how a newbie is supposed to glean that the stealing command is "+" "alter grid".

(3) Not sure stealing is working. After dozens of attempts for a 16th level Dunadan Rogue to steal from Wormtongue, all he does is shout everytime and wake things up. Not one success in dozens of tries. Maybe just extremely unlucky, but I doubt it.

I think we must first agree on what the goal is.

1. The stronger races are easier to play, and hence more newbie-friendly.
2. All races offer a comparable difficulty, hence the stronger races must be nerfed somehow.

Both 1 and 2 are legitimate goals, but they lead to opposite directions. It's a political decision.

An intermediate solution is:

3. The stronger races have drawbacks, but they are drawbacks which matter more to experienced players than to newbies.

The old idea of having an experience penalty fits well with 3. Maybe the XP penalty just needed to be adjusted rather than eliminated? Or maybe the XP penalty doesn't seem like a drawback to newbies, but it's actually harmful because the more time you spend in the game, the more likely you are to die (as diving teaches), and then it must be eliminated?

OK, looks like my fix to the running bug has broken pickup. I'll try to get a fix up soonish, but it will probably be a day or two.

On stealing: Uniques are harder to steal from; sleeping monsters are easier to steal from; your stealing skill depends on stealth and DEX; and heavier items are harder to steal. There are three outcomes - success, failure (monster wakes), and complete failure (monster wakes and shouts). If you're getting repeat complete failures, you're not ready to steal from Wormy yet. Good point about the command list.

I'm currently studying the theft mechanic in detail and will hopefully report on it in a few days.

As things stand, a level 16 Dunadan Rogue with no extra stealth bonuses, normal speed and with Dex below 18/50 wouldn't be able to steal even a ring from a sleeping Wormtongue. The maths gets in the way. (Might just pull it off if you slow monster the chap.)

Here are my answers/opinions/feelings on a few of the points that have been brought up recently. I'm trying for the most part to progress the discussion rather than finish it; that said, at some point discussion over the form of 4.2.0 will cease (and I guess discussion on the form of 4.2.1 will start...).

This pretty much sums up my feelings. The argument was made - and accepted by me - that for Humans their only real advantage was their relatively lower XP requirements, which is why all other races now have an XP modifier of 120. I think there is an argument for increasing the XP modifiers for Dunedain and (especially) High-Elves further still, but I'm not sure I'm entirely convinced by it. My feeling is that there is no reason for equivalence between races (and please note this is an Angband comment, I'm not being a bigot).

All that said, I do think that having one race strictly better than another (ie no relative disadvantages) is probably not desirable. Given that High-Elves are almost strictly better than Elves (Elves have better disarming skill), I'm probably OK with increasing the High-Elf modifier a bit. Dunedain I would leave where they are - while they are strong, their lack of infravision is a notable disadvantage compared to most other races. I also think it's actually a good thing to have some races which are more new-player friendly.

The intent of the food changes is to make food a more integrated part of the game, rather than a dull mini-game which (aside from warriors) gets sidelined quickly. So, philosophically, food should be something enjoyable, and a well-fed character should be better equipped to face danger in some sense. The flip-side to this is that a character that doesn't eat, but rather just magically removes their hunger, should not get the same benefits as a character that eats actual food.

Now I think that the food system as it is in current master has gone some way toward this goal, but could still use some improvements. My current thoughts are:

• Ranger's Satisfy Hunger spell should instead be something like Foraging, and should give a better food value
• A greater variety of food should become available, with varying benefits

I'm a bit reluctant to include extreme optimisations for players who have won a lot. I'd rather spend my time on improvements for the average player, and I figure if you really want this enough you can hack the game yourself :)

This is a nice idea in some respects, but I feel that having to watch out for your town book supplies is one of the prices a spellcaster pays. Maybe if they were deep and rare enough - how do others feel?

This is do-able, but time-consuming and likely to open a can of bugs. Is this something other people want?

Currently everything is ordered by cost (and note that ammo is in reverse order to all other gear); mithril arrows are immune to fire and acid damage, which ups their value. This is how the game has always done it, but again I'd be open to change if there's sufficient demand.

What sort of thing are you thinking of?

The monster changes for 4.2 have possibly made these guys a bit more interesting (read dangerous).

Atmosphere :)

Also, from 4.1 there are 5 categories of DSM for ignore - basic (Red, Blue, White, Black, Green), multi (Multi-Hued), High (Gold, Shining, Law, Chaos), balance and power.

This is a good summation. As for ideas for 3, how about if more powerful races had a lower level cap? Like, you topped out at level 40 for a high-elf and level 50 for a human, and everyone else was somewhere in-between? Newbies will die before the level cap becomes relevant. The biggest problem of course is that this limits spell access for full casters; a lot of the really class-defining spells would be unavailable to high-elves if we used the numbers I suggested. But both the level caps and the spell levels could be tweaked.

Fireproof town spellbooks as a moderately rare/deep thing are a good idea IMO. They serve a similar quality-of-life improvement as finding Rods of Recall vs. ?WoR. Maybe have them start appearing from around dlvl50?

Just dropping by to say that ctrl+dir changing from attack in direction to steal from monster (or make a trap) when you play a rogue is something that annoys me about O/S (playing an S rogue atm). It actually completely overwrites the funtionality so you can no longer do it at all and if your muscle memory fires you end up waking everything up accidentally. By the way Nick if you ever go back to FA, ctrl+dir attacking doesn't work at all there which is a bummer.

I actually highly recommend Vanilla implement an "attack in direction" command like composband did, which can be targeted with *t. If you aren't next to the targeted monster then you move towards it, this provides a very simple and predictable auto-fight command macro which you can use to clear weak monsters by just hitting a single key.

New builds up on the nightlies page and angband.live with the following changes:

• Fix the bug I introduced fixing the running bug
• Fix a couple of vaults which were allowing corridors to connect to them with no door (thanks Sphara)
• Start updating the help files
• Use 's' for stealing from monsters instead of overloading the alter ('+') command (thanks clouded)

Is it considered "correct" to have disconnected levels? I have one that isn't technically disconnected (maybe), but in practice it is because it's connected only by the permanent walls of a vault. I don't really mind this, but I couldn't remember whether this wasn't supposed to happen or not.

http://www.chud.net/images/Screensho...2010-46-42.png

http://www.chud.net/images/Screensho...2010-47-10.png

My opinion on non-flammable shop spell books is they aren't necessary.
To me, each immunity has a Second-Best reason for seeking it. Non-flammable books would mitigate the Second-Best reason for Fire Immunity.


My food opinion:
I loved (because it was so easy) 4.1.3 getting Slow Digestion and never worrying about food except to eat an occasional Elvish Waybread. 66 gold from starting equipment and I wouldn't think about it again.

That said, what I've seen in 4.2 seems good. At least there'll be no hunger deaths.

Someone mentioned "better mushrooms". Perhaps they mean better versions of the same stuff that feeds longer and sustains benefits longer? I'm usually happy enough as I gain more Inherent Speed that spells, food, and effects last longer, relatively speaking. But it could be real nice to have really-long-lasting when you can't find that resist confusion or ESP item.

And/Or add ones meant for unique resists: Time, Gravity, Water, Aether?

It's been a thing since the beginning. The game assumes that vaults are walkable. I suspect that breaking that assumption would make it significantly harder to place vaults in levels, and thereby de facto make vaults more rare.

So, looking through the 13 remaining bugs/tasks before 4.2 release, I came to #2118 and thought "that should be straightforward". And it probably is. But.

As a consequence of looking at what is needed to fix the bug, it became apparent to me that the correct thing to do is a major modification to the command system, and looking into that has showed me some shortcomings in the UI code...

So I will probably be vanishing down this rabbit hole for some time, and emerging with the codebase improved (and hopefully a fix for #2118). Which means 4.2 (which I was hoping to get out the door soonish) will probably be delayed a bit. Which gives everyone more time to argue the important issues like XP modifiers and food :)

That makes sense. As I said, I don't really mind the behavior; by the time you get far enough to be encountering large vaults on a regular basis you typically have enough mapping and digging options that you aren't going to miss out on much anyway.

On stealing - issues and recommendations. Findings of the Rogue @s committee. Executive summary.


1.
Issue:
Stealing is too difficult. Moreover
(i) Stealing should be worthwhile, so there should be some chance to steal an item off a high level opponent;
(ii) Defeating monsters should be more rewarding than stealing, so it should remain difficult to steal several items off opponents.

Recommendation:
In the code for calculating the chance of stealing (monster_reaction and skill_steal) change
monster_reaction = guard / 2 + randint1(MAX(guard / 2, 1));
monster_reaction += obj->weight / 10;
to
monster_reaction = guard / 4 + randint1(MAX(guard / 2, 1));
monster_reaction += obj->weight / 20;

The detailed computations can be made available (...if people don't have enough maths in their lives).


2.
Issue:
In the mid and late game there is no way of preparing @ for stealing off particularly tough targets through the use of limited consumables.

Recommendation:
Introduce a "Mushroom of Shadows", or some other consumable, that gives +10 Stealth for 50 turns and that can be found in the dungeon from early on. It will be useful to all characters for looting vaults, and to thieves for stealing. If desired, it can have negative side effects, such as Fear. Stat drain is not recommended as non-rogues will then not use this consumable.



3.
Issue:
It is currently desirable to keep weak uniques alive and repeatedly steal from them throughout the Angband journey.

Recommendation:
Either
(a) Do not generate unique monsters significantly deeper than their native depth, e.g. native depth + 30 (so no Wormtongue below 1900'),
or
(b) Give loot to (unique) monsters purely based on their native depth and not on current dungeon depth.

Note: this will have side-effects for all other players.

Vote of thanks to the committee.

I would actually like to see the maths. The current idea is the monster has a natural "protectiveness" which ranges between guard/2 and guard; so I'd probably rather rewrite what guard is so the code makes more sense later.

I like this idea a lot.

I think the side-effects are unacceptable. What does the committee think of the (slightly clunky) solution of keeping track of all unique thefts, and increasing their protectiveness each time an attempt is made to steal?

Ok, will do later today (UK time).

This would still not solve issue 3 - it would still be worth keeping Wormtongue alive and farm him for loot at 4950'.

The other options considered by the committee were:

(c) Do not give monsters/uniques that are significantly deeper than their native depth any artifacts. (But this equally has side effects.)

and

(d) Keep track of the number of items carried by unique monsters. In other words, each time an item is stolen the total number of drops decreases in all future incarnations of this unique. So if you've already stolen from Wormtongue, then he will have an empty inventory forever after. (This feels clunky, but does not have side effects for other @s.)

Another idea to make stealing more interesting, you could make certain things ONLY available through theft.

Maybe it's special consumables, scrolls or potions that would give the would-be thief a huge benefit later in tough battles.
Or you could steal something that you can then embed in an armor that gives it extra bonuses (which would be a lot more work to make possible I'm sure.

This would give thief a real benefit over playing other classes.

Suggestion 36: Introduce a virtue system. Player receives a message "How dishonourable!". This should have no in-game effect, just the warm fuzzy feeling of being a bad bad hobbit. The only honourable path should be to murder wormtongue for his loot.

Suggestion 47: Allow wormtongue to carry objects such as: death molds, scroll mimics & potions of death. Bonus pts if he cackles evilly about traps.

Suggestion 56:Wormtongue hires body guards. Next time you see him he has 1 extra mean mercenary for every object you steal.

More seriously maybe the way drops work in general isn't the best? Wormtongue dropping great at lvl 8 seems fine. When he drops great at dlvl 40 & drops a depth 24 great, I'm still unsure why the game is rewarding you for not killing him till he is way too easy. Why does a blue yeek on dlvl 100 drop depth 51 objects? That one is not as bad as it is probably still trash, but it's possible that how drops_great interacts with this stuff is not the best?

The current mechanic for stealing compares @'s "steal skill" (Skill) to the monster's defensive "monster reaction" level (Defense), adjusted by the weight of the item being stolen (Weight). To be successful one currently needs

Skill - Weight > Random[Defense/2, Defense],

where Random[A,B] denotes a random integer in the interval [A,B]. A failed attempt at a theft normally results in the monster waking up, which doubles their Defense value and makes further attempts futile. Thus, to have a decent chance to steal an item

@ needs (Skill - Weight) to be approximately (Defense*3/4).

For instance, this means that it is worth having a stab at stealing, but that @ is very unlikely to steal everything that a higher level monster has. In particular, defeating a monster will give higher rewards than theft.

What follows is a list of Skill values and Defense values for typical rogues and for sleeping monsters. For the sake of clarity, I will use the following slightly simplified formula compared to what's actually implemented:

Defense = MonsterLevel + MonsterSpeed/2 (for sleeping uniques),
Skill = Stealth + ToHitBonus(Dex) + PlayerSpeed*3/8,
Weight = Item weight in lb.

Formally, PlayerSpeed currently adjusts the monster Defense value rather than @'s Skill level, but that makes it harder to visualise what's going on. (The chosen factor 3/8th comes from the 1/2 in MonsterSpeed and the 3/4 in the second formula for the estimate of "reasonable stealing".) ToHitBonus(Dex) is, if I read the file right, +3, +4, +6, +10, +15 for Dex 18, 18/50, 18/100, 18/150 and 18/200, respectively.

Here is what typical hobbit rogues will have as their Skill values (with the simplified formula); bonuses refer to Stealth. Other rogues will have slightly lower skill due to lower stealth and dex.

Skill 10 - Level 1 Dex 18
Skill 15 - Level 10 Dex 18/50 Cloak of Stealth +3
Skill 20 - Level 20 Dex 18/100 Boots of Stealth +2 Ring of the Mouse +3
Skill 25 - Level 25 Dex 18/120 Boots of Stealth +2 Ring of the Mouse +4 Ring of the Mouse +2
Skill 30 - Level 30 Dex 18/150 Cloak of Stealth +3 Ring of the Mouse +4 Defender +3
Skill 35 - Level 35 Dex 18/200 Cloak of Stealth +3 Ring of the Mouse +4 Speed +8
Skill 40 - Level 40 Dex 18/200 Cloak of Stealth +3 Elf Shield +2 Speed +24
Skill 45 - Level 45 Dex 18/200 Cloak of Stealth +3 Elf Shield +2 Trickery +2 Speed +32
Skill 50 - Level 50 Dex 18/200 Cloak of Stealth +3 Elf Shield +2 Trickery +2 Elf Boots +4 Speed +32
Skill 55 - Level 50 Dex 18/200 Nimloth +3 Colannon +2 Elf Shield +2 Trickery +2 Elf Boots +4 Speed +40
Skill 60 - Level 50 Dex 18/200 Nimloth +3 Holcolleth +3 Hithlomir +3 Elf Shield +2 Trickery +3 Elf Boots +4 Speed +40
Skill 65 - Level 50 Dex 18/200 Defender +4 Belthronding +1 Luthien +3 Hithlomir +3 Elf Shield +2 Trickery +3 Elf Boots +4 Speed +48

Here are the Defense values for typical sleeping monsters (with the simplified formula and using the appropriate modification for non-uniques), followed by the range [A,B] to which Skill-Weight is compared:

0 [ 0.. 1] Maggot, Small kobold, Acolyte
10 [ 5.. 10] Wormtongue, Bullroarer, Druid
20 [10.. 20] Lugdush, Boldor, Mage
30 [15.. 30] Beorn, Mim, Vrock
40 [20.. 40] Lokkak, Lorgan, Ancient Blue Dragon
50 [25.. 50] Kavlax, Queen Ant, Elder Vampire
60 [30.. 60] Balrog of Moria, Shelob, Great Hell Wyrm
70 [35.. 70] Fundin, Smaug, Fury
80 [40.. 80] Thuringwethil, Osse
90 [45.. 90] Feagweath, Maeglin
100 [50..100] Lungorthin, Huan
230 [115..230] Morgoth (awake)

These values don't match well. Remember that it should be easier to steal something than to defeat the monster in battle. The hobbit rogue with skill level 50 described above can probably already take on Morgoth - there is no point in trying to steal from Maeglin by this stage, let alone from the Balrog of Moria, for whom Skill-Weight might actually match 3/4 Defense. The level 20 (skill 20) rogue ought to have a decent chance to pinch something from Beorn (defense 30), and the level 40 (skill 40) rogue, with preparation, from Lungorthin. Personally, I'd like the superhobbit (skill 65 + mushroom) to have a 5% chance to steal Grond from Morgoth - just because it will be fun. :D

Finally, the Weight penalty is quite brutal. Uniques appear to only carry equipment and ammo. A lot of (most?) equipment weighs >15 lb, resulting in almost guaranteed failure and the monster waking up.

I'm inclined to agree with this. "Monsters drop better items when you encounter them deeper in the dungeon" works OK when "better" mostly just means "you have a slightly higher chance to get a useful consumable out of that troll." But for monsters like Wormtongue, whose drops are already scaled to be likely useful at native depth? Improving the drop when Wormtongue is deeper in the dungeon is frankly pretty silly.

I seem to recall at some point that uniques also got an artificial boost in their drop quality (i.e. the game explicitly says "is this monster a unique? OK, then boost their drop quality"). That makes this issue even worse.

I'd be in favor of changing it so that unique drop quality is always the unique's native depth. Your reward for killing them later is that you get an easier fight, no more and no less.

You can then fix the stealing issue by forgetting about it! If players want to scum a low-level unique for easily-stolen items, then that's on them; they could as easily scum dlvl20 for easily-found floor items.

@Derakon--
I think you are overthinking this. The chances of Wormtongue dropping something useful after dl 30 or so are exceedingly slim anyway, far less than even a scroll of acquirement. A single "excellent" (DL+10)/2 item just doesn't have much value at depth. The value of delaying killing Wormtongue already becomes negative very quickly after around DL 20. The issue is fundamentally that you shouldn't be able to use him as a piggy bank by stealing a large number of ego items. It seems that the solution should be other than special pleading on drop quality.

Saving Throws?
 

Hello all. I just registered after playing angband on and off for a couple years, (never with much success :rolleyes:) but I've been wondering if saving throws need to be reworked. It seems rather weird that you have just as much a chance of saving against one of Morgoth's spells as you would against a novice priest or something like that. Maybe it would be more interesting if harder opponents (or better spellcasters?) were harder to save against. This might be a nightmare to rework though. Keep up the good work with the game though Nick!

I dunno what the final decision on this is, but I strongly feel that there is something wrong with the speed model for shapechange of other monsters. When a Maia of Manwe turned into a shardstorm, it was utterly helpless. At normal speed, it barely got in 2 more moves after changing. (Note: I am playing an old version, but I don't think this has been fully addressed either way.)

Poslikes (Pos, Compos, Frog etc.) keep track of how many items you've stolen from each unique during the game (and also how many items you've stolen from each monster), so you can never steal more items from a monster than it would drop anyway, and the stolen items are deducted from the eventual drop.

Not sure how this would play with V's stealing mechanics, haven't tried the new V yet.

For a time, you had them ordered in descending cost order, which made great ammo be fired first before the bog standard ones, unless one made a conscious choice (with all the added keystrokes), so thank you so much for when you changed it to reverse order. However, my point of view is that damage would be a better metric than cost. That is their true value to @. A normal mithril ammo may be worth more gold (but not really, when one plays no-selling), than seeker ammo, but it doesn't do as much damage. I end up inscribing ammo (f0=g, f1=g, f2=g, ... f9=g) to "correctly" order ammo in terms of damage, from low damage to high.

+1 to this.
I don't remember the exact number, but I also saw magical pebbles coming before iron shots, although the pebbles had more than 2x damage compared to the shots. Is that reasonable from pricing perspective?

speaking personally, having seeker arrows fire before mithril arrows by default made more sense to me, since seeker arrows are more likely to break or be destroyed through attrition it made sense to use them first, while you still had them, rather than chipping away at your mithril while monster breaths chipped away at a pile of seeker arrows.

I was asking to myself: why digging is hurting my blackguard? I just saw the code and found the reason: the new digging code makes you quietly wield the digger for the digging boost, so I lose the CON boost my main weapon has.

It's not a bug, it's a bit funny actually.

Keep on with the changes Nick! I'm enjoying playing the game again thanks to your work.

Sky Dragon should bite to electrify, surely?

Out of rabbit hole, nothing really needed doing after all, #2118 fixed. Back to bugfixing and tidying up stuff like the stealing issue.

This (after looking at how compos does it) is now the plan. In full, then:

• Stealing to become a bit easier
• New mushrooms of shadows to increase stealth temporarily
• Unique thefts will be tracked and their drops reduced

These changes will be in the next build, which will break savefiles.

One miniscule suggestion: could high elves, at character generation, not be 8 ft tall?

Feedback
 

I've been trying for a while to score an ironman win with a ranger gnome, kobold and hobbit. Still no win, but enjoyable games. I find the game clearly more difficult than previous version but not in a stupid way. Mostly, I die from attrition. It's not one fight that kills, it's the lack of free consumables. Also I am very happy about the Create Arrows spell. It means I can concentrate on bows after the initial 30 levels(ish).

Two things:
* In 20+ games I think I've found one (1) scroll of teleportation.
* Wand of darkness - does it really hurt foes? how would I know? lore has no knowledge about resistance for darkness

New builds now up on the nightlies page and angband.live, with the following changes:

• Fix to looking at targeted monsterd so a single space shows the item the monster is standing on (if any), rather than potenitally several
• Overhead and minimap views now work properly
• Fixes to stealing suggested by Voovus:
  • Stealing is a bit easier
  • New (deepish) object, Mushroom of Shadows, which gives a +10 stealth boost for a short time
  • Thefts are tracked throughout the game, and stealing successfully from uniques will reduce their drops when killed

As forewarned upthread, this build breaks savefiles.

What'd be really cool is if examined squares just showed a list of everything on the square.
Then pick a letter to see details of the object/monster/(terrain or trap)

Edit:

To do this, you would have to make special purpose listing code that packaged things into proper objects:
Static arrays of:
* Function pointers for suitable lore
* Printing object/monster/etc description (and color)
The menu list would be structs consisting of pointers into the table plus a pointer to the object itself. (You'd really only want to make the function table a singleton object.)

Thank you. I'm really looking forward to trying it out. Just finished off a Morgoth, so it's perfect timing too. ;)

Spotted two minor bugs:
"Witch" has wrong plural form ("2 witchs").
Wand of darkness appears to do no damage, while claiming that it does (unless it's meant for particular types of monsters that are specifically vulnerable to darkness damage, a la light damage).

Boo hoo - nasty savefile standart/randart bug
 

Tired of losing all my games, I loaded my last (dead) character, said NO to immediate restart, then changed settings from randarts to standarts and then started. And for sure, things went better all the way and just now I had managed to get a short bow of power AND a nice artifact cutlass. Except it was a random artifact! I verified that the =setting was for standards (y) then quit the game to zip the savefile and the randart file for a bug report. Hmmm, there is no randart file. Odd. Restart the game and... crash due to not finding the randart file. Back to rolling up another weak ironman ranger...

First one is actually fixed in the latest build too. Second I need to check.

OK, will follow this up.

Newest build seems to have a save game bug: unique monsters appear to come back from the grave when loading a game (all marked as alive in monster memory). :eek:

Got suspicious after killing Maggot's fifth dog...

Yep, confirmed. Will get a fix out when I work out what's gone wrong.