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So, I was trashing mobs in the overworld with a new 7.0 char. A tough battle with two named at once gave me the Phial of Galadriel, and the Gloves, Cammithrin... Problem is, I'm a Ninja and abhor light... grrr, aargh... :p

Quote:
Originally Posted by debo View Post
Instant kills and randomized energy were emblematic of poscheng from the beginning and I would hate to see them go.

To be fair, randomized energy predates Chris, it was first added way back in Hengband. Randomizing it does remove the binary can-or-can't-be-double-moved-by-the-SoC in favor of a more graduated "more is better" scale, which is where resistances, free action, etc have all been moving. This is more in line with CRPG-style scaling stats and less in line with Angband's binary attributes.

Fwiw, I agree with Conker.

Version 7.0.1 is up in the usual spot. This release is a minor update, mostly because I am about to go online to access all the expected complaints about the 7.0 stuff ;) As with the last release, I'm not finished playtesting and still making considerable design changes. If this bothers you, wait for the 7.1 release which should happen sometime around Xmas ... I hope.

This release addressed a few 6.1 oook reports including:
[1] Problems with quests if monsters are summoned *after* the quest is completed. Fixed. Reports about the Vapor quest not working could not be reproduced. Is this still an issue? If you are on Linux (I think the OP was), try running in gdb and at least getting a backtrace (bt). Also, make sure you are running the correct executable. The build system builds into the src directory. Any executable at the root level was placed there by you, and therefore must be manually kept up to date by you. Also, on Linux at least, you can just run out of src (directories are set by configure).

[2] Minor complaints about message coloring ... weapons of sharpness.

[3] Request to look at mimic design ... I did, but haven't had a chance for playtesting. FYI, mimics are designed to be much weaker in mimicry than possessors. They can learn 5 forms, after all, and they are quite capable of success in their native form whereas the Possessor is hopeless without a current body. They should not be able to count on learning any specific form.

[4] Confusion about device design: In the old days, almost any player could get enough device skills to use (almost) any device. Skills were meaningless for mage types: You could probably do a Mighty Zombie Mage and not notice any decrease wrt devices. These days, *nobody* is above the device system... Well, perhaps a Devicemaster is, but then only in their speciality. And even in this case, race and personality choices matter, as does INT. Every player *might* find Magic Mastery useful.

Wrt devices themselves, the old system had each effect identical (and damage indexed to player level??!). The new system has variability in effectiveness, and I've gone ahead and taken a good hard look at this for 7.0.1. For example, Fire Balls start at around 65 damage, but can go all the way up to 370 damage! If you are in the habit of ignoring certain device types, you might want to rethink that approach. So while a Warrior can't use a wand of rockets, they might be able to snag some other device type that doesn't scale difficulty with power so aggressively. (Of course, warriors are *much* better off shooting.)

Check out the wizard commands ^A"3 and ^A"2 if you don't understand the current system and its design goals. And remember, devices should be considerably weaker than mage spells ... at least until the end game (where device skills really, really matter).

I've also continued to make minor gameplay adjustments, such as:
[1] FA helping with slowing effects from inertia as well as with recovery from being slowed.

[2] Random quest rewards are now 10 levels deeper than the current quest level, but there are fewer reward objects (You can get good stuff early).

[3] There is now more !Healing. _Healing is not required and never really was ... at least before the 6.0 monster additions. If you have it, of course, then it is very nice.

[4] Black Market now stocks object levels commensurate with player level. This is not realistic, of course, but is a nice balance change. For example, stocking OL50 for CL30 is a bit broken. On the other hand, the BM is no longer useless in the late game ... You can get OL70 and CL50.

[5] reduce_uniques no longer removes boss monsters or demigod parents.

[6] _Holiness removed. If you upgrade, it still works of course. You just can't find these any more.

[7] Nexus stat scramble replaced with something else. No spoilers, just play and see!

And remember, I still haven't seen any comments about 7.0. I'll adress those in the next release ...

This seemed to happen because the edit files for Vapor Quest and a few others--Sandworms, Mountain Shrine, and I think one other I can't remember--were somehow not making it in with the rest of the edit files when compiling for Linux. The problem was manually fixed for the server, but I don't know if there's something that stopping those files from being included with Linux compilations.

MITZE means installation, rather than compilation. The makefiles needed to be updated at some point when quests were changed, but weren't.

For what purpose was this done.

EDIT:
Okay, I read the commit log and while I agree that _Holiness is too strong for its depth, I still really like it as a staff effect.
I propose you keep it in since it has a great thematic set of effects.
You still have much better effects on staves, such as Genocide, Destruction, Banish, and the Storms.

Regarding the damage: I don't think 100 LOS damage is actually very good at all in PosChengband. Sure, it literally disintegrates hordes of orcs and early hounds, but as soon as I get deep enough to find good stuff like _Holiness or _Dispel Foo, I am probably sitting in an ASC, wailing at one monster a time as much as possible or blink-scumming lone uniques- stuff like that. And once the chaff has more than 400 or so HP, I can't clear them without burning all/most of my charges (though it is very nice to have this utility on a healing item for when a summon roll fills a wide open space with harmless low U/u etc..

Looking for and conserving healing and *healing* is the most fun part of the game so it was made longer

Oh, by the way, it would be fantastic if we could get those savefile headers with text descriptions of the character (Name, race, class, level, dungeon level, killed by) that V and FA have. Please.

That's just another step in turning the game into IVAN as MITZE calls the path PosChengband has followed