[Announce] FrogComposband 7.1.salmiak released
 

Get your copy of FrogComposband 7.1.salmiak here, with the source code, precompiled Windows full game (without the source code) and precompiled Windows executable. (Windows users who download the .exe should also download the source code, but not the full game, which would be superfluous. Windows users who download the full game won't need to download any other files.)

As usual, savefiles are unidirectionally compatible; you can safely use old savefiles in 7.1.salmiak, but you can't use 7.1.salmiak savefiles in older versions.

Many thanks to all players and feedback providers, keep it up! I do hope to have a changelog one day that doesn't have page after page of "fixed such and such bug", but please don't ever stop reporting them :)

Good luck everybody, have fun, and don't die!

The way to achieve this is to make your changelog a summary of changes :D

The next changelog will just say "various minor tweaks and code improvements" :)

What do you mean by "Changed the power of confusion effects, they should now at least resemble the claimed powers?" Did some of the confusion spells not use the displayed power?

Thanks for the new release @Sideways, looking forward to all the changes!

Yes, confusion effects frequently had misleading powers. I mentioned this in our earlier discussion :)

So no option to back to the 87% to 117% systenn?

87-117% meant something intuitively. 0-76 Means NOTHING to those who don't know the code. Like me.

Id much rather have a life rating % because its more intuitive. I don't care if I'm seeing +/- 0.5% of what the true value is.

which is why old players like my are switching it back in options.

displayed by default

it can be changed in the options menu

Edit: Also hurrray for lilac! Graphics of the future. Good work as always.

That the 87-117% scale seems more intuitive is the other reason (besides accuracy) why I made it not be the default, because this is an area where people's intuition tends to lead them completely astray. Every other time I see new players intuitively get the wrong idea or hear established players repeat popular misconceptions, it's something related to life ratings.

Some of the common myths about life ratings I keep hearing again and again include:
- A life rating multiplies the player's HP. [It doesn't multiply anything, though in the special case of a CL 50 player it is reasonable to think of it as multiplying 245 HP, a fraction of the total.]
- Life ratings are affected by the player's race, class and personality, and/or the race/class/personality HP multipliers shown at character creation are connected to life ratings in some other way. [Nope; the multipliers and the life rating are unrelated and don't even operate on similar scales.]
- Items with +Life or -Life on them have at least something to do with life ratings. [Nope; they affect an unrelated CON-based HP multiplier and operate on different scales.]
- The average life rating on the percentage scale is 100%, or it's 102% because that's half-way between 87 and 117. [It's higher than 102%, and would be very close to 103% without rounding effects (such as 117.9% being displayed as 117%) dragging it down.]
- There are 31 possible life ratings, all of them equally likely. [Only in Oposband. Frog/Pos/Compos technically have more than 700 possible life ratings, 77 of which are functionally distinct, and not all are equally likely.]
- Life ratings and life points are somehow connected, and/or life point drain drains the life rating, and/or life ratings can be drained in some other way, and/or life points are sometimes called a life rating. [Nope.]

Not all of these misconceptions are entirely the fault of the percentage scale; the average being off-center is mystifying on any scale, and some of the others also have to do with awkward terminology (which I have tried to improve); but the percentage scale is the leading culprit. The option to switch back to it is there so old players can stick with what they find familiar and are used to estimating "good", "bad" and "meh" with; but please use it responsibly and knowing what it actually means.

(The practical meaning of the 0 to 76 scale shouldn't be that unintuitive: a life rating of 76 will eventually give you 76 more HP than a life rating of 0, before accounting for the various multipliers. At any rate, I don't think that's less intuitive than "a life rating of 117% will eventually give you [30% of 245] more HP than a life rating of 87%, before accounting for the various multipliers"...)