Halls of Mist 1.3.2

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Yay, 1000th post!

Also yay, Halls of Mist 1.3.2 is here!

• Windows executable
• OS X executable, courtesy of Darin (see here for some help)
• 64-bit Linux executable (runs fine on Debian and Ubuntu)
• Source.

I'm now using Mercurial, which makes coding faster and more enjoyable. The source package is actually a zipped Mercurial repository, meaning that it includes a hidden .hg folder. Halls of Mist doesn't have an online repository yet, but if you want to contribute patches, we can easily work something out.

Derakon, thanks for recommending Mercurial! It's also perfect for many of my non-coding projects, and there's a lovely book that makes learning Mercurial a breeze.

I'm too tired at the moment to create a change list that makes sense... A couple of notes will have to do for now. I just want to get this more polished Halls of Mist out, quickly!

Notable changes:

• Lots of bugfixes. I combed through all reports here on oook, and I think I managed to fix everything (?).
• Lots of balance problems fixed. Most importantly, Spellswords and Absorb Hit tuned down. Semi-spellcasters have less mana.
• Mist phantasms start appearing sooner, and they are always awake.
• All torches have only 2000 turns of fuel, like the basic Wooden Torch. Torches are somewhat lighter.
• The Circle of Knowledge abilities -- Identify Pack and Fully Identify - always work, but you need to spend two identify points to use them. Also, the weak Scroll of Lore is gone, and Scroll of Identify is back. (It is quite expensive, though.)
• You become acclimatized to the Mist when you spend multiple dungeon levels underground. When you take the stairs down in the dungeons, you receive a randomly chosen skill bonus to Perception, Spell Save or Stealth. You can only get each bonus once -- after three down staircases in the dungeons you are have gone "native" and have the full bonuses. If you return to the surface you lose the bonuses. (Basic idea by Derakon.)
• Berserk Rage now heals 45% of wounds + 15 hits, makes you immune to fear, gives free action and extra blow, and doubles thrown damage. That's all. (Free Action was Magnate's idea.) Rage doesn't gives bonuses to hit anymore; to compensate, Bless and Heroism give bigger bonuses.
• 'R'esting now waits for 50 turns or until you are fully healed. Hit the button repeatably if you need to. (Thanks, buzzkill.)
• All resistance bonuses are capped at 60%. With temporary bonuses they can rise up to 90%. No weird exceptions.
• The maximum stack size is now 30.

A big thank you to everybody who has provided feedback! Without it, Halls of Mist wouldn't be half as good a game.

[Derakon]

Originally Posted by Mikko Lehtinen

Derakon, thanks for recommending Mercurial! It's also perfect for many of my non-coding projects, and there's a lovely book that makes learning Mercurial a breeze.

Hooray, I'm not the only one here who likes Mercurial! I'm glad you're finding it useful, and indeed, source control can be used for more than just coding projects.

Congrats on the new release, and on your 1000th post.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Originally Posted by Mikko Lehtinen

• Mist phantasms start appearing sooner, and they are always awake.
• All torches have only 2000 turns of fuel, like the basic Wooden Torch. Torches are somewhat lighter.
• 'R'esting now waits for 50 turns or until you are fully healed. Hit the button repeatably if you need to. (Thanks, buzzkill.)

I want to highlight these three innocent little changes. I may have got the two clocks, torches and mist phantasms, balanced right in this version: tight enough, but not depressingly tight.

• Healing takes time. It's a good idea to be tactically alert at every fight, even against monsters that are not life-threatening, just to conserve your hitpoints.
• Unlike in Angband, it's not an automatic decision to heal to full hitpoints after every battle. You heal at the same speed when you're walking around the dungeon.
• Unlike in Angband, you can't just keep escaping tough fights, heal to full, and then try your luck again. Well you can keep this up for some time, but there will be consequences.

The clocks have an interesting interaction with the Ironband-inspired mana system, where you only regenerate mana between dungeon levels. Using spells to kill monsters often saves time! On the other hand, you'll want to conserve enough mana to be prepared for tough situations. Even mages will want to fight hand-to-hand sometimes just to save mana, even if healing takes lots of precious time... You must focus on the overall situation on the dungeon level and make your decisions based on that.

Well, the clocks and the mana system affect the gameplay a lot. I'm aware that some people won't like the pressure, but me and other folks will get a lot more tactical enjoyment out of the game.

[buzzkill]

This all sounds wicked awesome, but I'm really into something else right now. I think I'll have have to burn myself out on that first, cause switching back and forth between the two worlds would be tough (and then there's that new ToME release, a third world... so many options).

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Play other games for a few months, and there could be another version of Mist.

I still need to rebalance melee weapons so that your damage per turn improves more steadily. Like many players have said, at the moment finding a good weapon depends too much on luck.

I'm alternating between playing Epilogue and Halls of Mist myself. I seem to be getting better at Epilogue and worse at Mist: I just keep dying.

[T-Mick]

Very nice! Good to see everything cleaned up.

[ekolis]

I found a "statue of Regan the Human Spellsword" on a pedestal in the dungeon. I couldn't seem to do anything with it, though. Are these statues just for decoration? And can I get a statue of my characters to appear in my future games?

[Mikko Lehtinen]

You get a statue for winning. If you worship a goddess, your statue appears near her altar. Regan (ewan's character that won the last Mist comp) didn't care that much for religion, so she appears alone.

They're essentially just blocks of stone, at least for now.

Edit: If you ever manage to kill the Duke, let me know! I do keep an eye on the Halls of Mist ladder here on oook.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

I forgot to mention some changes that might be important for survival.

Proficiencies Recover, Escape, Berserk happen instantly, without taking a turn.

Cure wounds potions don't cure poison anymore. Might be a nasty surprise.

Inspecting a healing, heroism or berserk potion tells you exactly what it does. Generally I want the inspect command to give the player perfect information.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Like before, Darian compiled an OS X version, thanks! Added the download link to the first post.

The work is progressing for the next version. I have rebalanced melee weapons for smoother damage/level progression. Now I'm adjusting rarity for all other kinds of items so that all item types are just as common on every dungeon level. You get different items on different dungeon levels, but the sum of the commonities is always the same.