2 Questions about 3.1.0

[Wraitheist]

First, thanks so much for maintaining the game! A lot of the changes that you implement are awesome and I love seeing an update like this. I have 2 questions:

1) Detect Object: I'm sitting around dl 1800 looking for stat potions and on my 4 or so trips to the surface, I'm yet to find a scroll or staff of detection objects in the dungeon or in any of the shops. Are these more rare now or have I just been unlucky? I didn't see anything about them in the patch notes (it's possible I missed it).

2) "The number of items that monsters drop has been reduced drastically."

Does this mean that monsters have a much lower chance to drop an item when killed or that the variety of items that they drop is diminished? I'm assuming the former. If that is accurate, I'm curious as to your reason for implementing this feature. One of the hardest things to wrap your head around as a newcomer to Angband is that, at least early on, the game is more about survival through evasion, rather than slaying every monster in your path. So is this change meant to drive that point home even harder or is it in response to the ease of getting great items at lower depths by hunting down certain monsters? I've only been below '4000 a few times, so that is mere speculation.

Thanks again for all of your hard work!

[takkaria]

Originally Posted by Wraitheist

First, thanks so much for maintaining the game! A lot of the changes that you implement are awesome and I love seeing an update like this. I have 2 questions:

1) Detect Object: I'm sitting around dl 1800 looking for stat potions and on my 4 or so trips to the surface, I'm yet to find a scroll or staff of detection objects in the dungeon or in any of the shops. Are these more rare now or have I just been unlucky? I didn't see anything about them in the patch notes (it's possible I missed it).

You've just been unlucky.

2) "The number of items that monsters drop has been reduced drastically."

Does this mean that monsters have a much lower chance to drop an item when killed or that the variety of items that they drop is diminished? I'm assuming the former. If that is accurate, I'm curious as to your reason for implementing this feature. One of the hardest things to wrap your head around as a newcomer to Angband is that, at least early on, the game is more about survival through evasion, rather than slaying every monster in your path. So is this change meant to drive that point home even harder or is it in response to the ease of getting great items at lower depths by hunting down certain monsters? I've only been below '4000 a few times, so that is mere speculation.

It means that generally, monsters drop fewer things; the variety is unchanged (well, more or less). The reason is because previous versions of Angband had what was termed TMJ—too much junk. Monster drops results in vast piles of loot that took ages to sort through and added lots of tedium to the game. V 3.1 makes an attempt to rectify this.

[Big Al]

Originally Posted by Wraitheist

1) Detect Object: I'm sitting around dl 1800 looking for stat potions and on my 4 or so trips to the surface, I'm yet to find a scroll or staff of detection objects in the dungeon or in any of the shops. Are these more rare now or have I just been unlucky? I didn't see anything about them in the patch notes (it's possible I missed it).

Treasure detection and object detection are merged into the same thing now (and called simply treasure detection) - I suspect that you were not just unlucky.

[Daniel Fishman]

Originally Posted by Big Al

Treasure detection and object detection are merged into the same thing now (and called simply treasure detection) - I suspect that you were not just unlucky.

Ah. That's a touch confusing as I, at least, think of "treasures" as detected by old Treasure Detection as a special case of objects, rather than the other way.

[Wraitheist]

Thanks for the responses. I am loving the new version. The only changes I'm not crazy about are the #s for the walls (is there an option to change that?) and the lower frequency of stat potions (which I saw may get changed). Again, nice job!

[Faust]

Originally Posted by Wraitheist

The only changes I'm not crazy about are the #s for the walls (is there an option to change that?)

See this post http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showpos...03&postcount=3