JLE Patch
Igenlode
death already (my Internet access consists of a 5-10 minute
upload/download session once per day, and remembering to do news
archive searches during this brief 'window' is a pain in the neck, so
I'm lazy and I haven't done it...)
But if, as I understand it, the JLE Patch is simply 'vanilla' Angband
tweaked to make play more balanced over the different phases of the
game, why shouldn't it be adopted as the default basis for future
versions of Vanilla? What are the advantages of, erm, 'vanilla' Vanilla
as opposed to the patched text files?
--
Igenlode
* Never assume malice when ignorance is a possibility *
Timo Pietilä
Igenlode wrote:
> But if, as I understand it, the JLE Patch is simply 'vanilla' Angband
> tweaked to make play more balanced over the different phases of the
> game, why shouldn't it be adopted as the default basis for future
> versions of Vanilla?
It changes too much. "Feeling" of the game doesn't stay same. But most
of it could be added immediately. Some of the monster changes are
welcome, for instance making dracoli/ch/sk deeper is a good change.
Timo Pietilä
--
A(2.9.2) C "Wanderer" DP L:17 DL:300' A-- R--- Sp w:LxBow(+4,+9)
A/Gu L/W/D H+ D c-- f PV+ s-(+) TT- d(+) P++ M+
C-- S+ I-(++) So+ B++ ac GHB- SQ RQ++ V+ F:Z Rod Stacking
Chris Kern
<Use-Author-Address-Header@[127.1]> posted the following:
>But if, as I understand it, the JLE Patch is simply 'vanilla' Angband
>tweaked to make play more balanced over the different phases of the
>game, why shouldn't it be adopted as the default basis for future
>versions of Vanilla? What are the advantages of, erm, 'vanilla' Vanilla
>as opposed to the patched text files?
Part of it is just a general resistance to change. There are people
who believe that Angband as we have it is in a pretty much completed
state, and that it does not need massive gameplay rebalancing.
Others think that the patch has not been tested sufficiently.
They are so easy to apply (no compiler needed) that people can choose
to play the old way or with the JLE patch on an individual basis.
I'm not sure why Robert has not added the text files, though.
Oh, and I want to see small levels too :-)
-Chris
Jonathan Ellis
Timo Pietilä wrote in message <3AEF2A26...@helsinki.fi>...
>
>
>Igenlode wrote:
>
>> But if, as I understand it, the JLE Patch is simply 'vanilla' Angband
>> tweaked to make play more balanced over the different phases of the
>> game, why shouldn't it be adopted as the default basis for future
>> versions of Vanilla?
>
>It changes too much. "Feeling" of the game doesn't stay same.
In what way does the "feeling" change for you, then? Do tell me,
assuming you've actually tried it yourself and aren't just repeating
what someone else has said. And which of the suggestions are "too much"
for you?
Jonathan.
Jens Baader
news:3aef28cf...@enews.newsguy.com...
> Part of it is just a general resistance to change. There are people
> who believe that Angband as we have it is in a pretty much completed
> state, and that it does not need massive gameplay rebalancing.
Robert himself is one of this ultraconservative folks (maybe just because
that means much less work for
him as a maintainer *g). I think he said he don't want to change vanilla
anymore just fix bugs and
maybe make a small interface tweak now and then. I don't think vanilla is
perfect and doesn't need
development anymore. Let's just look at the combat system - my big bad
half-orc warrior fights better
with a whip than with a long sword. This is totally unrealistic and nothing
but a bug in the system - whips
are *bad* weapons for fighting - no real warrior would use one instead of a
sword. It's no wonder
that variants like O, Ey, Z etc. tried to fix this. I could go one but it
wouldn't make no sense because this
discussion is already over. Right after Robert published his
"no-real-change-please" agenda some people
complained but Robert made clear that he wouldn't touch the basic gameplay
and got support from over
70% of the people here on this.
But there's no reason to be sad - we got EyAngband (which is a in my opinion
a better vanilla right now,
and it keeps getting better), Oangband (very popular, also under active
development) and Zangband (has
a really well designed webpage *fg). I'm sure someday vanilla will be dead
just as moria is now when it
stays freezed while the variants continue their development - if everyone
here only talks about O, Ey, Z,
etc. and we see a vanilla chardump just as often as a Zceband one when we
know it's time for a real
change.
John I'anson-Holton
You've come accross something that will be an eternal problem for
vanilla. Tweaking existing items/monsters you can probably get away
with relatively easy. Even seemingly innocuous additions to (or
deletions from) the lists will be met with fierce opposition from many
quarters.
As you and I have discussed, I've looked at your patch extensively for
inclusion in Kangband and ended up up doing so very selectively. In
many instances I agree with your changes wholeheartedly (particularly in
beefing up the Dragons). In some instances, I think the additions are
too much (this applies primarily to some of the new ego types which I
would prefer toned down somewhat). In some cases I just don't like your
changes simply because I don't like them.
For traditionalists, and I consider myself part of that group although
not a fanatic, removing monsters which have been in Angband for 10 years
(Tiamat for example) will be very hard to swallow.
In general you've done a truly fine job. Winning universal acclaim for
your patch however will never happen. Or at least I can't see it.
John
Joseph William Dixon
> Let's just look at the combat system - my big bad half-orc warrior fights
> better with a whip than with a long sword. This is totally unrealistic and
> nothing but a bug in the system - whips are *bad* weapons for fighting -
> no real warrior would use one instead of a sword.
Here's a simple fix since Vanilla doesn't have an artifact whip - rename
the whip to 'Light Club'. [wouldn't work in my own Gumband - the Light Club
of Entanglement would make little sense :]
As for the combat system - you get more blows (and thus more damage) with
lighter weapons because they're easier to maneuver with and recover from a
swing with... Just like in real life. The main problem is that you get
your damage bonus with each blow.
Solution: divide the damage bonus evenly by the number of blows - with
each blow, you only get a portion of the total damage bonus.
Assume +40 damage:
1 blow: #d# + 40
2 blows: #d# + 20 per blow
3 blows: #d# + 13 per blow [due to the way things are traditionally done
in the *bands, the remainder is lost]
4 blows: #d# + 10 per blow
5 blows: #d# + 8 per blow
6 blows: #d# + 6 per blow
7-8 blows: #d# + 5 per blow
9-10 blows: #d# + 4 per blow
11-13 blows: #d# + 3 per blow
14-20 blows: #d# + 2 per blow
21 blows: #d# + 1 per blow
[ZAng Warrior, level 45+, Earthquake weapon with +6 attacks, and two Rings
of Extra Attacks (+3), will have 21 blows per round :]
Of course, if this was done, either damage dice or the effects of
Slays/Brands would have to be increased dramatically. [I'd say that brands
and slays should have no multiplier - instead, with the above system, having
a brand or slay would let you include your total damage bonus on each blow,
like we have now]
--
"...there are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot
easily be duplicated by a normal, kindly family man who just comes into
work every day and has a job to do." [Terry Pratchett, "Small Gods"]
http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/~aa343/index.html
Peter Knutsen
Joseph William Dixon wrote:
>
> On Wed, 2 May 2001, Jens Baader wrote:
> > Let's just look at the combat system - my big bad half-orc warrior fights
> > better with a whip than with a long sword. This is totally unrealistic and
> > nothing but a bug in the system - whips are *bad* weapons for fighting -
> > no real warrior would use one instead of a sword.
>
> Here's a simple fix since Vanilla doesn't have an artifact whip - rename
> the whip to 'Light Club'. [wouldn't work in my own Gumband - the Light Club
> of Entanglement would make little sense :]
>
> As for the combat system - you get more blows (and thus more damage) with
> lighter weapons because they're easier to maneuver with and recover from a
> swing with... Just like in real life. The main problem is that you get
> your damage bonus with each blow.
No, the main problem is that a whip in Angband is useful even
against an opponent wearing armour.
Realistically, a whip should be pretty nasty against an opponent
wearing nothing but ordinary clothes, or an animal with normal
thickness hide. But as soon as the target starts wearing armour,
the whip damage should drop *real* fast.
As far as I can see, this distinction cannot be simulated at all in
the Angband combat engine. You need a much more detailed combat
system, such as the one in my homebrew RPG system FFRE (in fact I
just thought of an FFRE solution, while reading your post), one
which models the interaction of weapon with armour.
> Solution: divide the damage bonus evenly by the number of blows - with
> each blow, you only get a portion of the total damage bonus.
A better solution might be to limit the amount of damage bonus you can
get, so that a small weapon can only get so much bonus.
I mean, imagine a 20 ton dragon wielding a 5" dagger. Should the
dragon get the full damage bonus from its massive STR? Of course not.
Perhaps a limitation such that STR bonus damage can be no higher
than the maximum of the damage dice of the weapon?
A dagger is 1d4, so your STR damage bonus is capped at +4. A whip
is 1d6, so your STR damage bonus is capped at +6. This creates a
bigger incentive for using heavier weapons such as swords (2d5).
It's not a very good model, though. I'd say that strength is
in reality more useful if you wield a dagger (for stabbing in
particular) than if you wield a whip.
--
Peter Knutsen
Joseph William Dixon
> > Here's a simple fix since Vanilla doesn't have an artifact whip -
> > rename the whip to 'Light Club'. [wouldn't work in my own Gumband - the
> > Light Club of Entanglement would make little sense :]
> >
> > As for the combat system - you get more blows (and thus more damage)
> > with lighter weapons because they're easier to maneuver with and recover
> > from a swing with... Just like in real life. The main problem is that
> > you get your damage bonus with each blow.
>
> No, the main problem is that a whip in Angband is useful even
> against an opponent wearing armour.
That concern would be totally removed by a renaming, as I stated in my
first paragraph. [expansion on the idea: make the Whip a 5lb weapon called
a Club (1d6), since there currently is no Hafted weapon in the 4 to 10 pound
range, with a Light Club (1d4) or Cudgel (1d4) added to replace the Whip in
the 3lb slot]
Jens Baader
news:Pine.GSO.3.95.iB1.0.101...@halifax.chebucto.ns.ca.
..
> On Wed, 2 May 2001, Jens Baader wrote:
> > Let's just look at the combat system - my big bad half-orc warrior
fights
> > better with a whip than with a long sword. This is totally unrealistic
and
> > nothing but a bug in the system - whips are *bad* weapons for fighting -
> > no real warrior would use one instead of a sword.
>
> Here's a simple fix since Vanilla doesn't have an artifact whip - rename
> the whip to 'Light Club'.
A sword is still much better than a light club in real life.
> As for the combat system - you get more blows (and thus more damage)
with
> lighter weapons because they're easier to maneuver with and recover from a
> swing with... Just like in real life.
I don't think so. While you swing your whip I've already driven my sword
into
your heart. Whips aren't designed for killing enemies HTH but for beating
slaves
and animals to work. Some humans also use them as sex toys. Thinking about
that what about letting Farmer Maggot say "Oh yeah, beat me, beat me hard!"
or
something like that then you beat him with your whip ;-)
> Of course, if this was done, either damage dice or the effects of
> Slays/Brands would have to be increased dramatically.
I hope the effects of Slays/Brands will be increased 'cause this would make
the FF-like mystic warrior class I suggested for Ey possible ;-)
Chris Kern
posted the following:
>"Chris Kern" <ke...@grinnell.edu> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
>news:3aef28cf...@enews.newsguy.com...
>> Part of it is just a general resistance to change. There are people
>> who believe that Angband as we have it is in a pretty much completed
>> state, and that it does not need massive gameplay rebalancing.
>
>Robert himself is one of this ultraconservative folks (maybe just because
>that means much less work for
>him as a maintainer *g). I think he said he don't want to change vanilla
>anymore just fix bugs and
>maybe make a small interface tweak now and then. I don't think vanilla is
>perfect and doesn't need
>development anymore. Let's just look at the combat system - my big bad
>half-orc warrior fights better
>with a whip than with a long sword. This is totally unrealistic and nothing
>but a bug in the system - whips
>are *bad* weapons for fighting - no real warrior would use one instead of a
>sword. It's no wonder
>that variants like O, Ey, Z etc. tried to fix this. I could go one but it
>wouldn't make no sense because this
>discussion is already over. Right after Robert published his
>"no-real-change-please" agenda some people
>complained but Robert made clear that he wouldn't touch the basic gameplay
>and got support from over
>70% of the people here on this.
When did this scenario happen? I don't remember any of this. Robert
said that he would not make big gameplay changes without advice from
other people because he wasn't a good enough player to do that. I
don't recall him ever saying that he would never do any big changes,
or any sort of "70% support" thing.
-Chris
Chris Kern
<jia...@milbank.com> posted the following:
>You've come accross something that will be an eternal problem for
>vanilla. Tweaking existing items/monsters you can probably get away
>with relatively easy. Even seemingly innocuous additions to (or
>deletions from) the lists will be met with fierce opposition from many
>quarters.
This is why someone just needs to implement changes without consulting
the group. This worked for Ben in the past, and it should work for
Robert now :)
-Chris
Braeus
> That concern would be totally removed by a renaming, as I stated in my
> first paragraph. [expansion on the idea: make the Whip a 5lb weapon
called
> a Club (1d6), since there currently is no Hafted weapon in the 4 to 10
pound
> range, with a Light Club (1d4) or Cudgel (1d4) added to replace the Whip
in
> the 3lb slot]
>
Awww....it's a good idea...but I want to still have a whip in the game :(
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Big Bad Joe
<aa...@chebucto.ns.ca> drank a fifth of Old Crow and wrote:
>On Wed, 2 May 2001, Jens Baader wrote:
>> Let's just look at the combat system - my big bad half-orc warrior fights
>> better with a whip than with a long sword. This is totally unrealistic and
>> nothing but a bug in the system - whips are *bad* weapons for fighting -
>> no real warrior would use one instead of a sword.
>
> Here's a simple fix since Vanilla doesn't have an artifact whip - rename
>the whip to 'Light Club'.
How about a ReBar? Light, long, can deal a heck of a blow. (I once
got into a long, pointless debate of forgotten origin with a friend.
We were arguing the relative merits of a ReBar vs. a tire iron as a
weapon...we ended up favoring the ReBar as long as you have work
gloves; otherwise, the tire iron is better. Don't ask; I don't
remember).
Big Bad Joe
Matt Thrower
news:Pine.GSO.3.95.iB1.0.101...@halifax.chebucto.ns.ca.
..
> On Wed, 2 May 2001, Jens Baader wrote:
> > Let's just look at the combat system - my big bad half-orc warrior
fights
> > better with a whip than with a long sword. This is totally unrealistic
and
> > nothing but a bug in the system - whips are *bad* weapons for fighting -
> > no real warrior would use one instead of a sword.
As someone who's done a lot of unchoreographed combat re-enactment I would
suggest that this covers all the spectrum of light Angband weapons. Very few
people would choose to fight with a dagger instead of sword given the
choice. Tridents and spears are a different matter, see below.
> Here's a simple fix since Vanilla doesn't have an artifact whip - rename
> the whip to 'Light Club'. [wouldn't work in my own Gumband - the Light
Club
> of Entanglement would make little sense :]
>
> As for the combat system - you get more blows (and thus more damage)
with
> lighter weapons because they're easier to maneuver with and recover from a
> swing with... Just like in real life. The main problem is that you get
> your damage bonus with each blow.
This isn't entirely true. A good warrior can recover from a sword swing
almost as fast as someone with a dagger, becuase the weapon is properly
balanced. This is achieved by turning the recovery move back into an attack
striaght away, something you can't do with a badly-balanced weapon such as
an axe or a mace.
Ever since I learned how fighting actually worked, I've been wondering how
it could be incorporated more realistically into RPG's and CRPG's. What
really counts in combat, far more that the weight or damage potential of the
weapon, is it's length. The reason someone with a dagger is going to have a
hard time even against an axe wielder is simply that in order to close in
enough to hit his opponent, the dagger-bearer is gonig to leave himself
exposed to several blows from the axe as his closes, especially to his
vulnerable back. Realistically, the only way he can hope to win that fight
is to rush the axeman and hope. Spears are an interesting case in point. A
skilled spearman can keep anyone at spears length, making his weapon useless
unless he can close the gap. If that opponent can get past the spear tip
though, the spear becomes a useless weapon.
Well at the end of the day, on CRPG is realistic. After all, we're talking
about a lone warrior clearing out thousands of opponenets, so striving for
more realism in Angband seems a little odd to me. The primary advantage of
using a system such as suggested here is that it means people would have a
greater choice of weapons at their disposal, rather than eschewing all early
finds in favour of a dagger.
Having said that, I've noted from some of the CD's on here that more
advanced warrior types seems to migrate on to using artefact weapons later
in the game no matter what happens. I presume (my highest char was only
level 28) this is becuase once you've got a good strength, you can get
almost as many hits with a heavy weapon than with a light one. If that's the
case it's actually a mirror of real life. A novice warrior is going to have
a hard time using a sword, and will likely start out with a dagger or knife.
Jens Baader
> When did this scenario happen?
When Robert announced that he would be the new Angband maintainer.
> I don't remember any of this. Robert
> said that he would not make big gameplay changes without advice from
> other people because he wasn't a good enough player to do that. I
> don't recall him ever saying that he would never do any big changes,
> or any sort of "70% support" thing.
Maybe my memory is tricking me but I'm quite sure he said that he
didn't plan to make any real changes to the vanilla gameplay.
Just bugfixing/little tweaks and maybe a small feature every few years
but no fundamental changes (like a better combat or magic system - or even
just a new class).
I'm also quite sure that kind of conservativism was well liked by the
most people here maybe just because they weren't new features that
were liked by most people at this time (there was a discussion if vanilla
should adopt O's combat model - and it seemed that many people really
didn't like the idea).
Maybe someone has the old posts but it's not really intresting what
someone said in the past. Fact is that no real development is happen to
vanilla IMHO. Just look at Ey, O, or Z if you want to know what I mean
with development.
Timo Pietilä
Jonathan Ellis wrote:
>
> Timo Pietilä wrote in message <3AEF2A26...@helsinki.fi>...
> >
> >
> >Igenlode wrote:
> >
> >> But if, as I understand it, the JLE Patch is simply 'vanilla' Angband
> >> tweaked to make play more balanced over the different phases of the
> >> game, why shouldn't it be adopted as the default basis for future
> >> versions of Vanilla?
> >
> >It changes too much. "Feeling" of the game doesn't stay same.
>
> In what way does the "feeling" change for you, then?
I don't even start with monsters. Changing anything in that region
changes feeling (which isn't nessesary a bad thing).
For items:
First of all, getting resistances becomes easier with your patch with
one exception: Confusion. You removed confusion resist from Thorin,
BalanceDSM, ChaosDSM and Blades of Chaos and that is *BIG* change. This
change penalties priests big time. It forces priest to wear either
helmet with res confusion with amulet of ESP or helmet with ESP with
Amulet of Magi. Or normal gear with that palantir that aggravates (which
is IMHO HUGEMEGAMONDO penalty).
Or wearing Rohirrim, Caspanion or Isildur whole game unless of course
you are lucky enough that you find Dal-i-thalion, Totila or Eonwe. It
basically renders most bodyarmors useless crap because you *need*
confusion resist more than anything.
With priest I *loved* Celeborn for it's activation and Thorin/Celeborn
was one of my favorite armor combos. Removing confusion resist from
Thorin forces player to use helmet with confusion resist if he wants to
use Celeborn and that means use of AoESP which forces to lower WIS. Not
good at all.
It hurts other classes too but not that much.
New amulets are too powerful (sustenance, resistance, ESP, Magi) making
artifact amulets even less attractive than they were before. Arkenstone
has changed its activation to much weaker one. New lightsource/amulet
(don't know which one, haven't found it yet) Palantir has that
activation with huge other values + aggravation. Palantir is too much.
Rings of power have been boosted, and that is good thing but boosting is
made in the way I don't like. Just giving them all ESP and boost to to
hit and to dam would have been enough. In next version of game I also
suggest that those activations in rings of power should be changed so
that elven rings consentrate on preservation and healing.
>Do tell me,
> assuming you've actually tried it yourself and aren't just repeating
> what someone else has said. And which of the suggestions are "too much"
> for you?
Too much is Himring, Amulet of sustenance and resistance, Gil-Galad and
too many items granting speed bonus. Pain is giving a resistance which
is too much. Shield of preservation is better than Anarion.
Too little is Hammerhand which is still as useless as ever...Actually it
is even more useless than before because of new and improved artifact
helmets, Thancs are still weak and paur... gauntlets are still useless.
That said, it is a good patch but it should stay that way and not make
it directly into vanilla. Most of it should, though. Especially new and
improved helmets and most creatures.
Timo Pietilä
--
A(2.9.2) C "Wanderer" DP L:17 DL:350' A R--- Sp w:LxBow(+6,+9)
Eric Bock
>
> Let's just look at the combat system - my big bad half-orc warrior fights
> better with a whip than with a long sword. This is totally unrealistic and
> nothing but a bug in the system - whips are *bad* weapons for fighting -
> no real warrior would use one instead of a sword.
A whip isn't such a bad weapon... a whip can be used to entangle arms or
weapons, or reach around shields, putting the opponent at somewhat of a
disadvantage; an average whip would be five to six feet long, while the
average sword is only half that. Angband's hitpoint system considers that
disadvantage to be part of the damage done, since hitpoints cover fatigue
and preparedness along with actual physical damage.
Also, a whip meant for fighting is different from the common leather
whip. It might have nasty barbs, sharp pieces of metal, or weights, for
example. There are also 'chain whips' which are just a series of hinged
metal rods, like this:
http://home1.gte.net/fannin/shaolin/chainwhip.jpg
The end of a whip can travel very quickly; imagine getting hit with that.
--
/* Eric */main(s,i,j,k,c){char*p=malloc(s=1),*a=p+(*p=i=j=k=0)/* Bock */
;while(~(*a=getchar())&&(++a-p<s||(a=(p=realloc(p,s+s))+s)&&(s+=s))||(*a
=0));for(a=malloc(s=1),*a=0;(c=p[i])&&(c=='+'&&++a[j]||c=='-'&&--a[j]||c
=='>'&&(++j<s||(a=realloc(a,s+s))&&memset(a+s,0,s)&&(s+=s))||c=='<'&&j--
||c=='.'&&~putchar(a[j])||c==','&&~(a[j]=getchar()))|!strchr("><.,",c);i
++)while((c=='['&&!a[j]||c==']'&&a[j])&&(k+=(p[i]=='[')-(p[i]==']'))&&p[
i+=c/* Brainf*** */=='[']&&(/* worse than */i-=c==']'/* this sig! */));}
Robert Ruehlmann
news:2001050120392...@nym.alias.net...
> This is possibly a silly question, and may well have been discussed to
> death already (my Internet access consists of a 5-10 minute
> upload/download session once per day, and remembering to do news
> archive searches during this brief 'window' is a pain in the neck, so
> I'm lazy and I haven't done it...)
>
> But if, as I understand it, the JLE Patch is simply 'vanilla' Angband
> tweaked to make play more balanced over the different phases of the
> game, why shouldn't it be adopted as the default basis for future
> versions of Vanilla? What are the advantages of, erm, 'vanilla' Vanilla
> as opposed to the patched text files?
I think Jonathan Ellis did a great job on the JLE patch. The main reason
that it isn't included in Angband yet is that I check every single change
and decide if I like it or not. That takes a while ...
I'm about 1/3 done with the monster changes and so far I followed the JLE
patch in most cases. The main differences at the moment are in the monster
descriptions. I simply don't like some of the new ones. I've also tried
not to include any new references to possible Tolkien-trademarks in the
descriptions, just to be on the safe side.
Some, but not all, of the changes to objects and additions to ego-items have
been applied (like poison branded weapons/ammo). The additions to artifacts
and objects are not in yet, since I still have to decide if I'll support
compatibility with randart savefiles.
--
Robert Ruehlmann ( r...@angband.org )
"Thangorodrim - The Angband Page" : http://thangorodrim.angband.org/
Visit the #angband chat channel at irc.worldirc.org
Matthias Kurzke
>
> Jonathan Ellis wrote:
>
>> Timo Pietilä wrote in message <3AEF2A26...@helsinki.fi>...
>>
>>>
>>> Igenlode wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> But if, as I understand it, the JLE Patch is simply 'vanilla' Angband
>>>> tweaked to make play more balanced over the different phases of the
>>>> game, why shouldn't it be adopted as the default basis for future
>>>> versions of Vanilla?
>>>
>>> It changes too much. "Feeling" of the game doesn't stay same.
>>
>> In what way does the "feeling" change for you, then?
>
>
> I don't even start with monsters. Changing anything in that region
> changes feeling (which isn't nessesary a bad thing).
>
> For items:
>
> First of all, getting resistances becomes easier with your patch with
> one exception: Confusion. You removed confusion resist from Thorin,
> BalanceDSM, ChaosDSM and Blades of Chaos and that is *BIG* change. This
> change penalties priests big time. It forces priest to wear either
> helmet with res confusion with amulet of ESP or helmet with ESP with
> Amulet of Magi. Or normal gear with that palantir that aggravates (which
> is IMHO HUGEMEGAMONDO penalty).
> Or wearing Rohirrim, Caspanion or Isildur whole game unless of course
> you are lucky enough that you find Dal-i-thalion, Totila or Eonwe. It
> basically renders most bodyarmors useless crap because you *need*
> confusion resist more than anything.
>
That (the difficulty in getting confusion resist) is one of the great
things about the patch. Plus the hard time you have getting ESP. It'S
just that there's some harder choices to make, and not so many
no-brainers. Ain't it great that even after finding Thorin and
Dor-Lomin, you still care for helmets and are usually forced to swap
around a bit? Once I had a JLE-patch almost-winner that preferred Gondor
to Dor-Lomin for CONF resist reason. These scenarios never happen otherwise.
I could agree with giving BalanceDSM the res conf again, but NOT Thorin.
The weakening of Thorin is - to me- one of the central points of the
patch. Remember, Chaos and Confusion resistance were separated, but
without JLE patch, this only affects Permanence, Aman, and Elvenkinds.
There must be a way to balance it out for Priests, too. I know that JLE
prefers playing Mages (I only played successful Rogues and Rangers in
V+JLE) and so his design might not be optimal for priests. But that can
be amended... I think this patch can still change :-)
As for the question of too powerful egos - I agree on the Shields of
Preservation.
To the monsters: I think JLE's monster list is pretty great. Some things
are a matter of personal taste, of course (like giving INSULT to anyone
but Orfax) but I don't see any reason to oppose the dragon changes, or
the demons.
What will make it into official Vanilla is, fortunately, something which
isn't decided by any democratic process, but just by the MAINTAINER
HIMSELF. If Robert decides to take out Maggot - well, the
traditionalists will cry, and talk about it for years afterwards, but
they will get used to it. (Like it is with player ghosts - for me,
Angband has never had player ghosts because I started with 2.8.0.
There's still people complaining about this change). And I hope Robert
does indeed change Angband a bit. (A long time ago, people thought of
variants as "experiment fields" for inclusion in Angband. I don't think
all experiments have failed.)
Matthias
Matthias Kurzke
> "Igenlode" <Use-Author-Address-Header@[127.1]> wrote in message
> news:2001050120392...@nym.alias.net...
>
>> This is possibly a silly question, and may well have been discussed to
>> death already (my Internet access consists of a 5-10 minute
>> upload/download session once per day, and remembering to do news
>> archive searches during this brief 'window' is a pain in the neck, so
>> I'm lazy and I haven't done it...)
>>
>> But if, as I understand it, the JLE Patch is simply 'vanilla' Angband
>> tweaked to make play more balanced over the different phases of the
>> game, why shouldn't it be adopted as the default basis for future
>> versions of Vanilla? What are the advantages of, erm, 'vanilla' Vanilla
>> as opposed to the patched text files?
>
>
> I think Jonathan Ellis did a great job on the JLE patch. The main reason
> that it isn't included in Angband yet is that I check every single change
> and decide if I like it or not. That takes a while ...
>
> I'm about 1/3 done with the monster changes and so far I followed the JLE
> patch in most cases. The main differences at the moment are in the monster
> descriptions. I simply don't like some of the new ones. I've also tried
> not to include any new references to possible Tolkien-trademarks in the
> descriptions, just to be on the safe side.
>
Very good, although I don't think adding Eol and Maeglin will create any trouble... :-)
> Some, but not all, of the changes to objects and additions to ego-items have
> been applied (like poison branded weapons/ammo). The additions to artifacts
> and objects are not in yet, since I still have to decide if I'll support
> compatibility with randart savefiles.
Hmmm, if staying compatible with randarts means NO CHANGE AT ALL
FOREVER, then it's not a good thing. Couldn't you just change a line or
two in the randart code so it's incompatible anyway? Plus, the people
who play with randarts are generally well aware that savefile
compatibility isn't forever...
Matthias
Jonathan Ellis
Timo Pietilä wrote in message <3AEFCB76...@helsinki.fi>...
>
>
>Jonathan Ellis wrote:
>>
>> Timo Pietilä wrote in message <3AEF2A26...@helsinki.fi>...
>> >
>> >
>> >Igenlode wrote:
>> >
>> >> But if, as I understand it, the JLE Patch is simply 'vanilla'
Angband
>> >> tweaked to make play more balanced over the different phases of
the
>> >> game, why shouldn't it be adopted as the default basis for future
>> >> versions of Vanilla?
>> >
>> >It changes too much. "Feeling" of the game doesn't stay same.
>>
>> In what way does the "feeling" change for you, then?
>
>I don't even start with monsters. Changing anything in that region
>changes feeling (which isn't nessesary a bad thing).
>
>For items:
>
>First of all, getting resistances becomes easier with your patch with
>one exception: Confusion. You removed confusion resist from Thorin,
>BalanceDSM, ChaosDSM and Blades of Chaos and that is *BIG* change. This
>change penalties priests big time. It forces priest to wear either
>helmet with res confusion with amulet of ESP or helmet with ESP with
>Amulet of Magi.
Indeed. Dor-Lomin *and* Thorin together are no longer a
nearly-unbeatable combination. ESP is NOT, by the way, a necessity. Nor,
as Werner Baer points out from one of his own winner posts, is confusion
resistance.
>Or normal gear with that palantir that aggravates (which
>is IMHO HUGEMEGAMONDO penalty).
Funny, I've never found aggravation to be all that actually bad.
>Or wearing Rohirrim, Caspanion or Isildur whole game unless of course
>you are lucky enough that you find Dal-i-thalion, Totila or Eonwe. It
>basically renders most bodyarmors useless crap because you *need*
>confusion resist more than anything.
>
>With priest I *loved* Celeborn for it's activation and Thorin/Celeborn
>was one of my favorite armor combos. Removing confusion resist from
>Thorin forces player to use helmet with confusion resist if he wants to
>use Celeborn and that means use of AoESP which forces to lower WIS. Not
>good at all.
Erm... Amulet of Magi plus Celeborn, and helmet of your choice?
Confusion resistance is *easier* to get - if you're willing to give up
the constitution boost from Carlammas or the Necklace of the Dwarves.
>New amulets are too powerful (sustenance, resistance, ESP, Magi) making
>artifact amulets even less attractive than they were before. Arkenstone
>has changed its activation to much weaker one.
Should the extremely powerful and beneficial power of Clairvoyance
be available to the player from a common item with *no* penalty? (And
yes, the Arkenstone *is* common, at deep depths - never mind the
so-called "rarity 50", *everyone* finds it sooner or later.)
>New lightsource/amulet
>(don't know which one, haven't found it yet) Palantir has that
>activation with huge other values + aggravation. Palantir is too much.
The other values are hardly "huge": +2 to two stats is considerably
less than most late-game artifacts. A couple of useful resistances, but
balanced with aggravation... I note you call Aggravation a huge penalty,
which I don't find it to be.
>Rings of power have been boosted, and that is good thing but boosting
is
>made in the way I don't like. Just giving them all ESP and boost to to
>hit and to dam would have been enough. In next version of game I also
>suggest that those activations in rings of power should be changed so
>that elven rings consentrate on preservation and healing.
I didn't actually think of giving ESP to the Rings of Power. That
actually might be a good idea, instead of one or more of the resistances
they get...
>Too much is Himring, Amulet of sustenance and resistance, Gil-Galad and
>too many items granting speed bonus. Pain is giving a resistance which
>is too much. Shield of preservation is better than Anarion.
Glaive of Pain's resistance is, well, *fear* resistance. Hardly
much, in fact it's the least of all powers. You can get it from Potions
of Heroism, which can be bought in the shops. I thought it had to have
*something* at least to come under the heading of "It has hidden
powers", and this was the least and most useless thing I could give it.
Warriors don't need the resistance, other classes are as likely to be
using other weapons.
Himring was, let's remember, designed for OAngband. A body armor
which provides *none* of the four basic resists *nor* confusion? You've
got to make sacrifices elsewhere to wear it. Which was part of the point
of it, both in the original OAngband and here. Its AC is also *low*.
Shield of Preservation - I can't remember whether it resists the
basic four (I put out one version with that), but it shouldn't - as I
decided on later reflection and playtesting. Without them, it's only
disenchantment and a couple of sustains, but NOT the basic four. And not
better than Anarion, though you might want it as a swap item. This was
one of those mistakes that got away...
I never actually ended up wearing an Amulet of Sustenance or
Resistance, even with a winner.
I've never actually *found* the shield of Gil-galad. But given the
importance you ascribe to confusion resistance, I would have thought
that you wouldn't believe another shield without either (a) confusion,
(b) the basic four, or (c) poison resist, was too powerful...
>Too little is Hammerhand which is still as useless as ever...Actually
it
>is even more useless than before because of new and improved artifact
>helmets, Thancs are still weak and paur... gauntlets are still useless.
Not if you find them early, or (in the case of the gauntlets) with
a priest, paladin or warrior. Anyway, I often end up wearing Hammerhand
through stat gain if I find it early. Sometimes afterwards (I actually
wore it to 2500' in preference to Thranduil once recently - I needed the
constitution and hadn't found either Cambeleg or Carlammas, both of
which I usually want for their CON bonus. I was prepared to do without
ESP.) I'd hardly call +3 to all physical stats "useless"... Maybe if it
sustained them as well, so as to make it superior to Crowns of Might at
least?
The more people come up with interesting ideas, the more
discussion, the better... :-)
Jonathan.
Timo Pietilä
Matthias Kurzke wrote:
> That (the difficulty in getting confusion resist) is one of the great
> things about the patch. Plus the hard time you have getting ESP. It'S
> just that there's some harder choices to make, and not so many
> no-brainers. Ain't it great that even after finding Thorin and
> Dor-Lomin, you still care for helmets and are usually forced to swap
> around a bit? Once I had a JLE-patch almost-winner that preferred Gondor
> to Dor-Lomin for CONF resist reason. These scenarios never happen otherwise.
I would agree if that change wouldn't force priest to wear AoMagi. Maybe
add confusion resist for one of the lesser cloaks would do the trick. Or
make Amulet of Priesthood (or something like that) with max +6 bonus to
wis and resist confusion and maybe sust wis. Thorin needs some weakening
so as a change it is good but for removed confusion resists something
should be put in to compensate and not all of those should be helmets.
I also didn't like easiness of getting other resists in JLE patch. It's
way too easy to get nether resist for example. This isn't zangband after
all. Vanilla *should* be hard to win and main thing in vanilla to
achieve that hardness is lack of resources.
For monsters I liked all of them. They change feeling, but in right way
I would say.
Timo Pietilä
--
A(2.9.2) C "Wanderer" DP L:17 DL:350' A-- R--- Sp w:LxBow(+6,+9)
Robert Ruehlmann
news:3AEFE2B8...@gmx.de...
> Robert Ruehlmann wrote:
<snip>
> > Some, but not all, of the changes to objects and additions to ego-items have
> > been applied (like poison branded weapons/ammo). The additions to artifacts
> > and objects are not in yet, since I still have to decide if I'll support
> > compatibility with randart savefiles.
>
> Hmmm, if staying compatible with randarts means NO CHANGE AT ALL
> FOREVER, then it's not a good thing. Couldn't you just change a line or
> two in the randart code so it's incompatible anyway? Plus, the people
> who play with randarts are generally well aware that savefile
> compatibility isn't forever...
Savefile compatibility with randarts doesn't mean "no change at all
forever".
It means that I'll have to change the savefile format to include all
artifact properties when randarts are enabled. That would provide savefile
compatibility from this version on. To make this work for existing
savefiles means that I have to release one version (2.9.3 for example) that
has this changed savefile format but doesn't change the artifacts (else the
generated randarts would be different). Everybody who wants to import an
old (pre-2.9.3) savefile with randarts has to convert it with this version.
After it went through 2.9.3 it has the new savefile format and the randarts
are independent of any changes to the artifact list. Lots of work, not
nice, but gets the job done.
The second option is to say "no savefile compatibility with randarts". That
would be much easier for me and I already warned about that in the 2.9.2
docs.
Option number three ... drop randart support completely. I liked the
feature when I just had to add the patch and didn't have to worry about
balance, savefile compatibility, and fixing bugs in it. But now randarts
simply give me headaches.
ATM it looks like I'll go with number 2 and add a hint of number 3 to the
docs ("use at your own risk, don't complain about balance, ..."). But I'm
still tempted to rip randarts out completely and make my world a happier
place. :-)
Robert Ruehlmann
news:3aefc716$0$9337$9b62...@news.freenet.de...
>>> because that means much less work for
>>> him as a maintainer *g). I think he said he don't want to change
>>> vanilla anymore just fix bugs and
>>> maybe make a small interface tweak now and then. I don't think vanilla
>>> is perfect and doesn't need
>>> development anymore. Let's just look at the combat system - my big bad
>>> half-orc warrior fights better
>>> with a whip than with a long sword. This is totally unrealistic and
>>> nothing but a bug in the system - whips
>>> are *bad* weapons for fighting - no real warrior would use one instead
>>> of a sword. It's no wonder
>>> that variants like O, Ey, Z etc. tried to fix this. I could go one but
>>> it wouldn't make no sense because this
>>> discussion is already over. Right after Robert published his
>>> "no-real-change-please" agenda some people
>>> complained but Robert made clear that he wouldn't touch the basic
>>> gameplay and got support from over
>>> 70% of the people here on this.
>>
I think the old post is still interesting, since it still describes my
goals for Angband development. I've added some additional goals in the
meantime, like security, but the things mentioned in the post are
still valid. So please go to http://groups.google.com/ , enter 'Angband'
as the search term and the relevant post will come up as the first hit
(it's magic - and using the word about Angband 45 times in a single post).
I mentioned that I didn't plan any big gameplay changes because I'm
"not a very good Angband player" (let's just say I suck) and that I
"will have to rely on the comments of Angband veterans" for such changes.
Fortunately there are many of these here in r.g.r.a, so over time the
game balance will be optimized (like it's happening with the JLE patch).
About huge changes like OAngband combat or a "new magic system" ...
It's unlikely that I'll ever do these things. IMHO that would turn
Angband into "yet another variant". Angband with OAngband combat would
be OAngband without all the other nice OAngband features, it would cease to
be Angband.
I think Angband shouldn't be the "UberVariant". My goals are more in
the direction of making Angband easier to customise. The *_info.txt
files are only one part of this, making things like combat or the magic
system more modular is another. All that may finally lead to a game
where you can say "I take the Angband menu with OAngband combat, some rune
based magic, and the mystic class from EyAngband ... Would you like a Tk
interface with that?" :-)
Timo Pietilä
Jonathan Ellis wrote:
> >For items:
> >
> >First of all, getting resistances becomes easier with your patch with
> >one exception: Confusion. You removed confusion resist from Thorin,
> >BalanceDSM, ChaosDSM and Blades of Chaos and that is *BIG* change. This
> >change penalties priests big time. It forces priest to wear either
> >helmet with res confusion with amulet of ESP or helmet with ESP with
> >Amulet of Magi.
>
> Indeed. Dor-Lomin *and* Thorin together are no longer a
> nearly-unbeatable combination. ESP is NOT, by the way, a necessity. Nor,
> as Werner Baer points out from one of his own winner posts, is confusion
> resistance.
For priest it is. Priests rely on 0% failure and lots of healing to
survive. They need confusion resist more than any other class, even
mages can cast GoI and then hit monster confusion or not. Priests
cannot.
ESP lesser so, but it is nice to have and if you don't get it it changes
feeling of game too much IMHO.
> >Or normal gear with that palantir that aggravates (which
> >is IMHO HUGEMEGAMONDO penalty).
>
> Funny, I've never found aggravation to be all that actually bad.
I play stealthy characters. It's one of my skills. I once counted
stealth one of the most important attributes of characters.
> >Or wearing Rohirrim, Caspanion or Isildur whole game unless of course
> >you are lucky enough that you find Dal-i-thalion, Totila or Eonwe. It
> >basically renders most bodyarmors useless crap because you *need*
> >confusion resist more than anything.
> >
> >With priest I *loved* Celeborn for it's activation and Thorin/Celeborn
> >was one of my favorite armor combos. Removing confusion resist from
> >Thorin forces player to use helmet with confusion resist if he wants to
> >use Celeborn and that means use of AoESP which forces to lower WIS. Not
> >good at all.
> Erm... Amulet of Magi plus Celeborn, and helmet of your choice?
> Confusion resistance is *easier* to get - if you're willing to give up
> the constitution boost from Carlammas or the Necklace of the Dwarves.
Priest wouldn't wear Carlammas or Dwarwes anyway. Ingwe maybe. Priest
needs Wisdom bonus and that is not easy to come about. Couple of
helmets, HA:s and AoWis. That's all. If you don't want ESP then crown of
Gondor is definitely the one, but I want it. It's essential for my
tactics and removing availability of it changes game feeling *A LOT*.
> >New amulets are too powerful (sustenance, resistance, ESP, Magi) making
> >artifact amulets even less attractive than they were before. Arkenstone
> >has changed its activation to much weaker one.
>
> Should the extremely powerful and beneficial power of Clairvoyance
> be available to the player from a common item with *no* penalty? (And
> yes, the Arkenstone *is* common, at deep depths - never mind the
> so-called "rarity 50", *everyone* finds it sooner or later.)
So you just force players to carry potions of enlightement. Big deal.
Clairvoiance isn't *that* big bonus, but detection is almost useless
unless it has *really* fast recharge rate. After all you need to do
enlightement/clairvoyance only once/level.
Priest/paladins couldn't care less. With Godly Insights priest/paladins
have access to both as prayers.
> >New lightsource/amulet
> >(don't know which one, haven't found it yet) Palantir has that
> >activation with huge other values + aggravation. Palantir is too much.
>
> The other values are hardly "huge": +2 to two stats is considerably
> less than most late-game artifacts. A couple of useful resistances, but
> balanced with aggravation... I note you call Aggravation a huge penalty,
> which I don't find it to be.
Those couple of useful resistances is what I call huge. They are now
available for equipment slot that didn't have any before.
> >Too much is Himring, Amulet of sustenance and resistance, Gil-Galad and
> >too many items granting speed bonus. Pain is giving a resistance which
> >is too much. Shield of preservation is better than Anarion.
> Glaive of Pain's resistance is, well, *fear* resistance. Hardly
> much, in fact it's the least of all powers. You can get it from Potions
> of Heroism, which can be bought in the shops. I thought it had to have
> *something* at least to come under the heading of "It has hidden
> powers", and this was the least and most useless thing I could give it.
> Warriors don't need the resistance, other classes are as likely to be
> using other weapons.
It just feels wrong for Pain. This is IMHO.
> Himring was, let's remember, designed for OAngband. A body armor
> which provides *none* of the four basic resists *nor* confusion? You've
> got to make sacrifices elsewhere to wear it. Which was part of the point
> of it, both in the original OAngband and here. Its AC is also *low*.
AC is least in my preference list. Nether and poison are high.
> Shield of Preservation - I can't remember whether it resists the
> basic four (I put out one version with that), but it shouldn't - as I
> decided on later reflection and playtesting. Without them, it's only
> disenchantment and a couple of sustains, but NOT the basic four. And not
> better than Anarion, though you might want it as a swap item. This was
> one of those mistakes that got away...
Himring, Crown of magi (or Dor-Lomin), Shield of Preservation, AoMagi
-combo gives you:
Basics, confusion, chaos, nether, poison, disenchantment, hold life,
sust STR, sust DEX, sust CON, sus INT, ESP, FA, See-Inv.
Only thing you now need is stats and speed. You still have boots,
gloves, cloak, light source, both ring slots and both weapon slots to
get those. For mage, ranger and rogue I hardly can figure easier and
better combo. For priest that is not good because it forces player to
use AoMagi.
> I never actually ended up wearing an Amulet of Sustenance or
> Resistance, even with a winner.
Thats one more slot for basic resistance. I don't like it. AoSustenance
is very good for endgame. I have many times wondered how to get sust all
with Thorin. It would be answer for that question.
> I've never actually *found* the shield of Gil-galad. But given the
> importance you ascribe to confusion resistance, I would have thought
> that you wouldn't believe another shield without either (a) confusion,
> (b) the basic four, or (c) poison resist, was too powerful...
Hmm... I didn't notice that it didn't give all basics... That is not too
bad. It's base item is also rare so it won't be too common.
> >Too little is Hammerhand which is still as useless as ever...Actually
> it
> >is even more useless than before because of new and improved artifact
> >helmets, Thancs are still weak and paur... gauntlets are still useless.
>
> Not if you find them early, or (in the case of the gauntlets) with
> a priest, paladin or warrior. Anyway, I often end up wearing Hammerhand
> through stat gain if I find it early.
I also wear it unless I have found crown of might (+3) or item with ESP
before it.
> ESP.) I'd hardly call +3 to all physical stats "useless"... Maybe if it
> sustained them as well, so as to make it superior to Crowns of Might at
> least?
That is why I say it is useless. Crowns of might (+3) are superior to
it. If you add sust STR, DEX, CON to it it becomes a lot better item.
Timo Pietilä
--
A(2.9.2) C "Wanderer" DP L:17 DL:350' A-- R--- Sp w:LxBow(+6,+9)
Windsor Williams
<9coohs$3v5$1...@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk>:
>
>Timo Pietilä wrote in message <3AEFCB76...@helsinki.fi>...
>>
>>
>>Jonathan Ellis wrote:
>>>
>>> Timo Pietilä wrote in message <3AEF2A26...@helsinki.fi>...
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >Igenlode wrote:
>>> >
[mich snipped]
>>Or normal gear with that palantir that aggravates (which
>>is IMHO HUGEMEGAMONDO penalty).
>
> Funny, I've never found aggravation to be all that actually bad.
I have to agree with Jonathan, here. Just about any of the items
that have AGGRAVATE are well worth using anyway. It isn't _that_
big of a penalty, really. Maybe if you otherwise have awesome
stealth and are getting a big advantage from first attacks?
[much more snippage]
>>Too little is Hammerhand which is still as useless as ever...Actually
>it
>>is even more useless than before because of new and improved artifact
>>helmets, Thancs are still weak and paur... gauntlets are still useless.
>
>
> Not if you find them early, or (in the case of the gauntlets) with
>a priest, paladin or warrior. Anyway, I often end up wearing Hammerhand
>through stat gain if I find it early. Sometimes afterwards (I actually
>wore it to 2500' in preference to Thranduil once recently - I needed the
>constitution and hadn't found either Cambeleg or Carlammas, both of
>which I usually want for their CON bonus. I was prepared to do without
>ESP.) I'd hardly call +3 to all physical stats "useless"... Maybe if it
>sustained them as well, so as to make it superior to Crowns of Might at
>least?
I have to agree that Hammerhand needs a boost -- I found it early
in my current game (around 900 feet) and it has sat in my home ever
since. (I lucked into a Helm of Telepathy at 750 feet. Found another
at 2100, interestingly.) I just found a crown of might +3 and seriously
considered selling Hammerhand -- kept it for the Nexus Resist, as a
possible swap item.
Really, though, Hammerhand needs to be stronger somehow. Nexus resist
versus three sustains and free action -- Crowns of Might (at least the
+3 kind) are arguably superior.
> The more people come up with interesting ideas, the more
>discussion, the better... :-)
Side comment: someone elswhere in this discussion mentioned nether
resist as being too easy to get with the patch -- my current character
must disagree! I haven't found it (I'm at 2150, diving slowly), and
I've got almost everything else. Actually (pauses for thought), I _do_
have everything else, although not in one wearable set. But it is all
available, except for Nether. And I need it badly! I have been getting
hammered on EXP, particularly from nether bolt casters -- at one point
recently, I was down over 350K of EXP!
Oh well...something will turn up, assuming I survive. Really, I should
not complain, given the run of luck this character is having:
Thorin
Glaive of Pain
Durin
Aglarang
Caspanion
Colluin
Boots of Speed (+3)
Ring of Speed (+8)
all within the last 4 trips into the depths! Remember I'm only at 2150;
I don't think I've ever had a comparable run with a character before,
in such a short period of time.
Windsor
Timo Pietilä
Windsor Williams wrote:
> all within the last 4 trips into the depths! Remember I'm only at 2150;
> I don't think I've ever had a comparable run with a character before,
> in such a short period of time.
Not having nether resist at 2000+' is normal. Even for JLE patch. But in
normal vanilla you might not *see* one with whole game. I have won
several times without it or even seeing it. It's easily doable. There is
only two monsters in normal vanilla that needs to be killed and breathe
nether: Azriel and Cerberus. In JLE-patch Cerberus is replaced with much
nastier Carcharoth, but the count stays the same. Nether does only 550
points of damage and even with resist it still can do 471 points of
damage so you are not much safer with it than without it.
Just avoid nether breathers. After all, those nether breaths are not any
worse than Black Reavers manastorms and against manastorm there is no
resist. Against nether bolts/balls it would be convenient to have nether
resist but it is no way necessary. That is part of the addictive values
of vanilla. You have to use non-perfect gear to win this game.
Timo Pietilä
--
A(2.9.2) C "Wanderer" DP L:17 DL:350' A-- R--- Sp w:LxBow(+6,+9)
Chris Kern
<timo.p...@helsinki.fi> posted the following:
>I also didn't like easiness of getting other resists in JLE patch. It's
>way too easy to get nether resist for example. This isn't zangband after
>all. Vanilla *should* be hard to win and main thing in vanilla to
>achieve that hardness is lack of resources.
I disagree with this completely. The fact that it is hard to get
resists does not make Angband hard to win, it just makes it take a
long time because you have to sit at these "key depths" (like 1000',
2000', 3500') and wait and wait and wait for certain resists to pop
up. This is my least favorite thing about Angband.
-Chris
Joseph William Dixon
> First of all, getting resistances becomes easier with your patch with
> one exception: Confusion. You removed confusion resist from Thorin,
> BalanceDSM, ChaosDSM and Blades of Chaos and that is *BIG* change.
Those items haven't had a use for the RES_CONF flag in years ever since
RES_CHAOS began protecting from Confusion effects & damage.
--
Joseph William Dixon
> I have to agree that Hammerhand needs a boost --
The Gumband version adds the Susts to Str, Dex and Con, plus a random high
resistance. IMHO, that's boost enough. :)
Jens Baader
news:9cp03i$esasv$1...@ID-24895.news.dfncis.de...
> I think Angband shouldn't be the "UberVariant". My goals are more in
> the direction of making Angband easier to customise. The *_info.txt
> files are only one part of this, making things like combat or the magic
> system more modular is another. All that may finally lead to a game
> where you can say "I take the Angband menu with OAngband combat, some rune
> based magic, and the mystic class from EyAngband ... Would you like a Tk
> interface with that?" :-)
Sounds great, but you really shouldn't discard gameplay dev totally. Don't
get me
wrong I don't want V to become a big bad *band (like Z or Pern) but you
really
should look over to the V-based variants sometimes and see how they change
the
game and if these changes are a general improvement (and not just 'some nice
feature')
then you should really think about adopting them to V IMHO.
Jens
Jens Baader
> The second option is to say "no savefile compatibility with randarts".
That
> would be much easier for me and I already warned about that in the 2.9.2
> docs.
Don't care about savefile compatibility - there's no need for it. I think
most
people will agree.
> Option number three ... drop randart support completely.
No, no, no! Randomness is a key feature of roguelikes. More Randomness
means higher replay value (can't wait for random uniques showing up - planed
in Ey).
> But I'm still tempted to rip randarts out completely and make my world a
happier
> place. :-)
How cares about you? - The game is more important than your well-being ;-)
Joseph William Dixon
> "Robert Ruehlmann" <r...@angband.org> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
> news:9cotae$enrbe$1...@ID-24895.news.dfncis.de...
> > The second option is to say "no savefile compatibility with randarts".
> > That would be much easier for me and I already warned about that in the
> > 2.9.2 docs.
>
> Don't care about savefile compatibility - there's no need for it. I think
> most people will agree.
I agree - true, savefile compatability should be preserved as much as
possible for bug-fix releases, and compatability between platform ports of
the same release is also a good thing, but not bringing in major changes
just because it might break old savefiles is a *bad* thing, IMHO.
And the preservation of *old* savefiles (ie, 2.8.x and earlier), should be
the last thing on anyone's mind... I mean, how often is it that someone
finds an old 2.4.x/2.5.x/2.6.x/2.7.x/2.8x character and are unable to finish
that character with the version it's from (or a version soon after, if
there were bugs in that old version)?
Igenlode
> > > Let's just look at the combat system - my big bad half-orc warrior
> > > fights better with a whip than with a long sword. This is totally
> > > unrealistic and nothing but a bug in the system - whips are *bad*
> > > weapons for fighting - no real warrior would use one instead of a
> > > sword.
and later:
> While you swing your whip I've already driven my
> sword into your heart. Whips aren't designed for killing enemies HTH but
> for beating slaves and animals to work.
If anyone has seen the Burt Lancaster-directed film 'The Kentuckian' -
Lancaster's one and only venture as an actor-director, with indifferent
results - the one scene that really sticks in your mind from that long
slow film is the whip-fight.
Lancaster's character, Eli Wakefield, is forced into what is almost a
duel with the bullying, domineering father of the boy who has been
tormenting his son; and there is no doubt almost from the start that he
is pitifully out-matched. He can't even get near the other man, who
mocks him, disarms him, and cuts him to the bone with the metal-tipped
lash of his snaking whip. The punishment is dealt out in almost sadistic
detail, and it is made pretty clear that when Eli's girl intervenes - by
moving a cart forward in order to trap the tip of the lash - she does so
in order to save his life, even at the cost of subjecting him to the
humiliation of being not only defeated but rescued by a woman.
Whips have the same advantages and disadvantages as polearms. A man with
a sword or a knife can't get close enough to inflict any damage; he can
be tangled and flung across the ground, and he will be lucky to hang
onto his weapon without being blinded, as his hands and face are
subjected to the biting agony of the lash. But if he can get within
range, the whip becomes almost useless. It is also of little avail
against multiple opponents.
--
Igenlode
* He who loses his temper has lost the argument *
DarkGod
>
> "Robert Ruehlmann" <r...@angband.org> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
> news:9cp03i$esasv$1...@ID-24895.news.dfncis.de...
> > I think Angband shouldn't be the "UberVariant". My goals are more in
> > the direction of making Angband easier to customise. The *_info.txt
> > files are only one part of this, making things like combat or the magic
> > system more modular is another. All that may finally lead to a game
> > where you can say "I take the Angband menu with OAngband combat, some rune
> > based magic, and the mystic class from EyAngband ... Would you like a Tk
> > interface with that?" :-)
>
> Sounds great, but you really shouldn't discard gameplay dev totally. Don't
> get me
> wrong I don't want V to become a big bad *band (like Z or Pern) but you
--
-----------------------+----------------------------------------------
DarkGod comes from | Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards
the hells for YOU ! :) | because they are subtle and quick to anger.
-----------------------+----------------------------------------------
Pe W Olorin YSo L:50 DL:696 A+++ R+++ Sp++ w:Mage Staff of Mana(240%)
Pe*/M(Km)(Cr)(NH) D H- D c++ f- PV s- TT- d++ P++ M+ C- S++ I+++ So++
B/-
ac- GHB- SQ+ RQ V+++ F:Mage playing Mage-like(see Pernangband Sorcerors)
Chris Pollard
"Igenlode" <Use-Author-Address-Header@[127.1]> wrote in message
> > > On Wed, 2 May 2001, Jens Baader wrote:
> > > > Let's just look at the combat system - my big bad half-orc warrior
> > > > fights better with a whip than with a long sword. This is totally
> > > > unrealistic and nothing but a bug in the system - whips are *bad*
> > > > weapons for fighting - no real warrior would use one instead of a
> > > > sword.
> [snip]
>
> and later:
> > While you swing your whip I've already driven my
> > sword into your heart. Whips aren't designed for killing enemies HTH but
> > for beating slaves and animals to work.
>
<snip>
> Whips have the same advantages and disadvantages as polearms. A man with
> a sword or a knife can't get close enough to inflict any damage; he can
> be tangled and flung across the ground, and he will be lucky to hang
> onto his weapon without being blinded, as his hands and face are
> subjected to the biting agony of the lash. But if he can get within
> range, the whip becomes almost useless. It is also of little avail
> against multiple opponents.
Whips are certainly not as useful against a heavily armored opponent, since
they have no ability to hurt through armor, do they? It could be possible
for a very trained user to entangle and then kill with another weapon, or
strangle perhaps, and it would be difficult to approach them, but with the
weapon basically unable to hurt the enemy it would tend to make the battle a
short-range brawl/knife/on the ground fight.
> --
> Igenlode
>
> * He who loses his temper has lost the argument *
Chris Pollard
Chris Pollard
Adding on to my other post, whips also can't be used en masse as part of a
military formation, unlike the traditional use of polearms. This is not
relevant in one on one combat, though.
> Igenlode
>
> * He who loses his temper has lost the argument *
Chris Pollard
William Tanksley
>"Joseph William Dixon" <aa...@chebucto.ns.ca> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
>> Here's a simple fix since Vanilla doesn't have an artifact whip - rename
>> the whip to 'Light Club'.
>A sword is still much better than a light club in real life.
Don't count on it! A light club (well, a stick) can be grabbed at either
end, while a sword only has one handle. The stick will take a few more
blows to kill, but only the first blow matters (after that the former
sword-wielder is stunned). A sword wielder has to be trained against
sticks to be effective against them -- and it's a LOT cheaper to train and
equip a stickfighter than a swordfighter.
>> As for the combat system - you get more blows (and thus more damage) with
>> lighter weapons because they're easier to maneuver with and recover from a
>> swing with... Just like in real life.
>I don't think so. While you swing your whip I've already driven my sword
>into your heart. Whips aren't designed for killing enemies HTH but for
>beating slaves and animals to work.
True. Whips can smash and entangle (and work at a greater range than
swords), but Angband doesn't model any of that. I can think of some
changes to make it, but I don't want to think about balancing any of them
-- and anyhow, few of them matter outside of the arena.
In general I agree with you, of course -- I think, furthermore, that
properties intrinsic to the weapon, such as damage dice, should be more
important than properties the player can change, such as enchantment. My
position is more tenuous than yours; OAngband proves that I have a case,
but other variants have proven very effectively that this is not the ONLY
way to solve the problem.
--
-William "Billy" Tanksley
Jens Baader
news:3AF07D99...@ifrance.com...
> And whats bad about Pern or Z ?
Nothing(*) but they're quite different games IMO. ('big bad' should mean
feature loaded etc.).
(*) Pern still doesn't prompt if you get one of those f***ing fates. Sorry,
I don't want to read all the millions
of messages that I get during the game - I want to walk fast through boring
levels and be able to bash
at enemies without checking every message. Why not just enforce that the
user have to hit the space
key (for example) so that you aren't in the danger to miss (deadly) fates
(maybe just as an option).
But that's just my personal problem with Pern (no turning off quick messages
is no solution for me - tried it - hate it)
I tried to 'fix' it myself but my compiler (lcc-win32) puts out so many
errors and warnings (even at the
lowest warning level) then I try to compile the PernAngband source that
I've given up (I'm just a C newbie).
The Zangband source compiles without any problems...
Apart from this I like Pern - it's really funny sometimes and surley
outstanding in the *band pack.But right
now I can't really play it 'cause of the clash between my playing style and
Pern's fate style :-(
DarkGod
fate
aare a minor feature, they dont happen that frequently and all but one
of them are harmless and the one that isnt is rare and now with the new
version
much better).
Also for the messages, I added meesage coloring a few mins ago, naturaly
fates
got it fo you'll get a big bright message.
Jens Baader
> Ahah, your not playing PernAngband because of a minor feature ?
The problem is that this 'minor feature' can kill me. I don't want to lose
promising characters to it.
> Also for the messages, I added meesage coloring a few mins ago, naturaly
> fates
> got it fo you'll get a big bright message.
I would still need to monitor all messages (something I really don't like to
have to). If fates don't
happen that often what's the problem of including a waitkey? (I think that's
one line of code).
Please! *Please*!
Jens (how will send Dark God a letter bomb if the next Pern release doesn't
contain this waitkey)
Timo Pietilä
Chris Kern wrote:
> long time because you have to sit at these "key depths" (like 1000',
> 2000', 3500') and wait and wait and wait for certain resists to pop
> up. This is my least favorite thing about Angband.
1000' is FA and 2000' is poison resist. What is 3500'? You can go beyond
1000' without FA with char that has good saving throw and distance
attack. (with troll warrior you need FA, with hobbit priest you don't).
Beyond 2000' you need to avoid poison breathers without resist (mages
don't need to stop here if they have found resistances). Also RoPoison
resist is pretty common and I usually find several during stat gain.
At 3500' I don't know what you are talking about. Chaos resist?
Confusion? (this is needed much earlier IMHO). Maybe speed. You need
speed at certain point (at least +10 before unique angels).
Trick is to be able to survive beyond those points without all resists.
It's fun.
Timo Pietilä
Joseph William Dixon wrote:
>
> On Wed, 2 May 2001, Timo Pietilä wrote:
> > First of all, getting resistances becomes easier with your patch with
> > one exception: Confusion. You removed confusion resist from Thorin,
> > BalanceDSM, ChaosDSM and Blades of Chaos and that is *BIG* change.
>
> Those items haven't had a use for the RES_CONF flag in years ever since
> RES_CHAOS began protecting from Confusion effects & damage.
That's the point. Chaos doesn't protect against confusion effect or
damage in vanilla angband. That is why those items did get confusion
resist in first place. Res Chaos have been giving res conf too and it is
now separated.
Kieron Dunbar
> been applied (like poison branded weapons/ammo). The additions to artifacts
> and objects are not in yet, since I still have to decide if I'll support
> compatibility with randart savefiles.
Personally speaking, I'd much rather include the 2.9.2 info files with a note
explaining to people to finish any game with randarts with them before
switching to the new versions. Or even have the game choose those files
automatically by having two possible settings for ANGBAND_DIR_EDIT and
ANGBAND_DIR_DATA, marking those save files as needing 2.9.1-style files and
clearing the flag when a new game is started in order to use the new versions
of everything from there on.
kwaheri, Kieron (reverse username to reply)
Bryan Majerle
main-win.c) . No error but about 300 warning with VC6++
--
Andres Zanzani
Rimini, Italy
Try Easyband: http://web.tiscalinet.it/majerle
"Jens Baader" <nos...@nospam.com> ha scritto nel messaggio
news:3af08deb$0$9336$9b62...@news.freenet.de...
Chris Kern
<timo.p...@helsinki.fi> posted the following:
>
>
>Chris Kern wrote:
>
>> long time because you have to sit at these "key depths" (like 1000',
>> 2000', 3500') and wait and wait and wait for certain resists to pop
>> up. This is my least favorite thing about Angband.
>
>1000' is FA and 2000' is poison resist. What is 3500'?
Chaos resist, supposedly. I think some also recommend +10 speed
there.
>Trick is to be able to survive beyond those points without all resists.
>It's fun.
Perhaps :-)
I tend to go really quickly except for a few really slow spots (stay
at stat gain a lot, etc.)
-Chris
Joseph William Dixon
> > Those items haven't had a use for the RES_CONF flag in years ever
> > since RES_CHAOS began protecting from Confusion effects & damage.
>
> That's the point. Chaos doesn't protect against confusion effect or
> damage in vanilla angband.
When did that happen?
Joseph William Dixon
> > been applied (like poison branded weapons/ammo). The additions to
> > artifacts and objects are not in yet, since I still have to decide if
> > I'll support compatibility with randart savefiles.
>
> Personally speaking, I'd much rather include the 2.9.2 info files with a
> note explaining to people to finish any game with randarts with them
> before switching to the new versions.
Better yet, tell them to finish their character in 2.92 and save space in
the new version's archive - not everyone has a broadband, or even 56k
connection, after all.
Werner Baer
Chris Kern <ke...@grinnell.edu> wrote in message
news:3af1621d...@enews.newsguy.com...
> >Chris Kern wrote:
> >
> >> long time because you have to sit at these "key depths" (like 1000',
> >> 2000', 3500') and wait and wait and wait for certain resists to pop
> >> up. This is my least favorite thing about Angband.
> >
> >1000' is FA and 2000' is poison resist. What is 3500'?
>
> Chaos resist, supposedly. I think some also recommend +10 speed
> there.
I don't think chaos resist is really necessary in V.
Just avoid Balance and Chaos Wyrms.
And waiting at 3500' for +10 speed sounds plain silly.
Speed rings are rare at 3500', but common as dirt at 4000'.
Just dive, and avoid big uniques until you found some.
And to the Angels mentioned somewhere:
Either Gabriel or Azrael are often among the last few uniques
in my games, depending on class and equipment.
You don't have to kill anything at the first sight.
Werner.
Werner Baer
Jonathan Ellis <jona...@franz-liszt.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:9coohs$3v5$1...@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk...
> Should the extremely powerful and beneficial power of Clairvoyance
> be available to the player from a common item with *no* penalty?
I would like to see the object detection removed from Clairvoyance.
But that is beyond the possibilities of such a patch.
> (And
> yes, the Arkenstone *is* common, at deep depths - never mind the
> so-called "rarity 50", *everyone* finds it sooner or later.)
Except my last warrior winner :-)
> Glaive of Pain's resistance is, well, *fear* resistance. Hardly
> much, in fact it's the least of all powers.
When playing with monster AI, having fear resistance is
IMO a penalty. No more monsters casting fear more than once.
> >Too little is Hammerhand which is still as useless as ever...
> I'd hardly call +3 to all physical stats "useless"... Maybe if it
> sustained them as well, so as to make it superior to Crowns of Might at
> least?
Several of my winners used Crown of Might, since they needed
the stats. Adding the sustains to Hammerhand sounds very useful.
To Timo:
>
> > Indeed. Dor-Lomin *and* Thorin together are no longer a
> > nearly-unbeatable combination. ESP is NOT, by the way, a necessity. Nor,
> > as Werner Baer points out from one of his own winner posts, is confusion
> > resistance.
>
> For priest it is. Priests rely on 0% failure and lots of healing to
> survive. They need confusion resist more than any other class, even
> mages can cast GoI and then hit monster confusion or not. Priests
> cannot.
I had 2 winners without confusion resist in the late game.
But both were hobbits; with a high saving throw, confusion
becomes much less dangerous. One was a priest, and the other
one was a pure spellcaster mage without GoI.
With high speed and stealth, you can usually kill things like
bronce dragon flies before they wake up. Bronce dragons get
teleported away. IIRC one of the most dangerous uniques
was the Cat Lord.
> Priest wouldn't wear Carlammas or Dwarwes anyway. Ingwe maybe. Priest
> needs Wisdom bonus and that is not easy to come about. Couple of
> helmets, HA:s and AoWis. That's all.
Caspanion + Thranduil + HA/Blessed is usually enough.
Werner.
Chris Kern
<aa...@chebucto.ns.ca> posted the following:
>On Thu, 3 May 2001, Timo Pietil=E4 wrote:
>> > Those items haven't had a use for the RES_CONF flag in years ever
>> > since RES_CHAOS began protecting from Confusion effects & damage.
>>=20
>> That's the point. Chaos doesn't protect against confusion effect or
>> damage in vanilla angband.
>
> When did that happen?
2.8.5, I think? maybe 2.9.0. In any case, as it stands now there is
no purpose except when dealing with Elvenkind armors. All artifacts
that had Resist Chaos have been given added Resist Confusion.
-Chris
Jonathan Ellis
Werner Baer wrote in message <9cs2ft$fepb5$4...@ID-46949.news.dfncis.de>...
>> Glaive of Pain's resistance is, well, *fear* resistance. Hardly
>> much, in fact it's the least of all powers.
>
>When playing with monster AI, having fear resistance is
>IMO a penalty. No more monsters casting fear more than once.
So, it doesn't overbalance the Glaive, all it does is give it
*something* that shows up on "it has hidden powers" which you get when
it's Identified but un-*Identified*: otherwise, it has NO hidden powers.
>> >Too little is Hammerhand which is still as useless as ever...
>
>> I'd hardly call +3 to all physical stats "useless"... Maybe if it
>> sustained them as well, so as to make it superior to Crowns of Might
at
>> least?
>
>Several of my winners used Crown of Might, since they needed
>the stats. Adding the sustains to Hammerhand sounds very useful.
>
>To Timo:
>>
>> > Indeed. Dor-Lomin *and* Thorin together are no longer a
>> > nearly-unbeatable combination. ESP is NOT, by the way, a necessity.
Nor,
>> > as Werner Baer points out from one of his own winner posts, is
confusion
>> > resistance.
>>
>> For priest it is. Priests rely on 0% failure and lots of healing to
>> survive. They need confusion resist more than any other class, even
>> mages can cast GoI and then hit monster confusion or not. Priests
>> cannot.
My mages do not use GoI. And, if mages don't use GoI, then
late-game priests are already superior to mages: they have better attack
spells (Orb of Draining, which is resisted by NOTHING, Dispel Evil,
Annihilation, etc. And all of these far cheaper than the mage's only
useful attack spell which is Mana Storm.) They also have the best
defensive spell in the game: Glyph of Warding. To have 0% fail on a
2000-point Heal spell as well is overkill, plain and simple.
Priests DO NOT NEED 0% fail on Heal, any more than Mages need it
for anything. True, they need some kind of 0% fail healing power, but
potions of Healing are available, and should be plentiful.
0% fail-rates are, like Confusion Resistance and ESP, a
*convenience* and not a *necessity*: the same is true of 18/200
constitution. If the endgame is survivable with 800 hit points (which
has been proven by the existence of winners who were hobbit mages and
rogues: not many, true, but they exist), then you DON'T NEED to have
enough constitution bonuses to push your hit points over 1200... By the
way, my first ever vanilla priest winner (a dwarf) was wearing Caspanion
for confusion resistance, with Thranduil, Celeborn, Necklace of the
Dwarves as a combination. Didn't have 18/200 constitution or 18/200
wisdom, but a barrage of Orbs of Draining and a nice layout of Glyphs of
Warding did for both Morgoth and Sauron. Cantoras also fell to the Orb.
Jonathan.
Matthias Kurzke
<r...@angband.org> wrote:
>
>Option number three ... drop randart support completely. I liked the
>feature when I just had to add the patch and didn't have to worry about
>balance, savefile compatibility, and fixing bugs in it. But now randarts
>simply give me headaches.
>
>ATM it looks like I'll go with number 2 and add a hint of number 3 to the
>docs ("use at your own risk, don't complain about balance, ..."). But I'm
>still tempted to rip randarts out completely and make my world a happier
>place. :-)
>
drop them, too -- not because of the incompatibility, but because I've
added a couple of object flags and rebalancing the randart code would
be beyond me...
Randarts are something that isn't easy to adapt for variants... but
this doesn't have to stop it being an option in Vanilla.
Matthias
Graaagh the Mighty
<aa...@chebucto.ns.ca> sat on a tribble, which squeaked:
> Assume +40 damage:
>
> 1 blow: #d# + 40
> 2 blows: #d# + 20 per blow
> 3 blows: #d# + 13 per blow [due to the way things are traditionally done
>in the *bands, the remainder is lost]
> 4 blows: #d# + 10 per blow
> 5 blows: #d# + 8 per blow
> 6 blows: #d# + 6 per blow
> 7-8 blows: #d# + 5 per blow
> 9-10 blows: #d# + 4 per blow
>11-13 blows: #d# + 3 per blow
>14-20 blows: #d# + 2 per blow
> 21 blows: #d# + 1 per blow
>
>[ZAng Warrior, level 45+, Earthquake weapon with +6 attacks, and two Rings
>of Extra Attacks (+3), will have 21 blows per round :]
>
> Of course, if this was done, either damage dice or the effects of
>Slays/Brands would have to be increased dramatically. [I'd say that brands
>and slays should have no multiplier - instead, with the above system, having
>a brand or slay would let you include your total damage bonus on each blow,
>like we have now]
Interesting idea. But I think it can be improved:
* Total damage is multiplied by fraction of blows that hit, and
applied once for the entire round of attacks.
* Fix inflation of monster hit-points rather than make damage dice too
much bigger.
--
Bill Gates: "No computer will ever need more than 640K of RAM." -- 1980
"There's nobody getting rich writing software that I know of." -- 1980
"This antitrust thing will blow over." -- 1998
Combine neo, an underscore, and one thousand sixty-one to make my hotmail addy.
Graaagh the Mighty
<REMOVETHISSPAMPROTE...@cramersystems.com> sat on a
tribble, which squeaked:
>As someone who's done a lot of unchoreographed combat re-enactment...
IOW you've been in a lot of fights...:-)
[Stuff about weapon length]
This can be modeled in Angband. Give weapons bonuses to hit and AC
proportional to length. This makes it harder to hit the guy who has a
longer weapon, but easier when your weapon is the longer.
Graaagh the Mighty
sat on a tribble, which squeaked:
>No, the main problem is that a whip in Angband is useful even
>against an opponent wearing armour.
>
>Realistically, a whip should be pretty nasty against an opponent
>wearing nothing but ordinary clothes, or an animal with normal
>thickness hide. But as soon as the target starts wearing armour,
>the whip damage should drop *real* fast.
>
>As far as I can see, this distinction cannot be simulated at all in
>the Angband combat engine. You need a much more detailed combat
>system, such as the one in my homebrew RPG system FFRE (in fact I
>just thought of an FFRE solution, while reading your post), one
>which models the interaction of weapon with armour.
It can be modeled. Whips get a large deficit to-hit as standard. Keep
them from being enchanted using scrolls over (+0, +15) as well,
instead of the usual limits, (+15, +15).
Reworking the armor system might work too. Give armor class three
dimensions: resistance to penetration and resistance to damage, along
with dodge. Weapon to-hit gets two dimensional: plus to hit and plus
to penetrate. Dex improves plus to dodge and plus to hit; str improves
plus to penetrate and damage. Heavier weapons get minuses to hit;
blunter weapons and lighter ones get minuses to penetrate. Shields
give resistance to penetration; armor gives less such but also
resistance to damage. Magical armors give resistance to dodge. An
attack can do four things: miss entirely, hit and not penetrate to no
effect, hit and not penetrate doing blunt trauma, or hit and
penetrate. Only sharp weapons can do the latter, and they can inflict
cuts. Sharp weapons that penetrate do full damage; the opponent's
armor's damage resistance isn't involved. Hits that don't penetrate
get damage resistance applied. Whips do little damage to begin with so
a decently armored opponent isn't hurt at all. A dagger doing less
damage judging by its dice may hurt that opponent more because it has
a chance to penetrate the armor.
Some suggested base values, (to hit, to penetrate, damage), [dodge,
block, protect]:
whip: (+0, never, low)
dagger: (+0, +0, low)
warhammer: (+0, never, moderate)
spiked mace: (+0, -10, moderate) -- spikes improve odds to penetrate
from zero to merely low.
sword: (+0, +0, moderate)
sword of sharpness: (+0, +10, moderate)
mace of disruption: (+0, -10, large) with automatic hit and penetrate
versus undead
scythe of slicing: (+0, +10, large)
lance: (-much, +much, +much)
polearm: [+0, +5, +5] (+0, never, moderate) -- parrying
shields: [+0, varies, varies]
soft leather: [+0, low, low]
hard leather: [+0, low, moderate]
chain mail: [+0, moderate, high]
plate mail: [+0, high, high]
cloak: [+0, low, low]
shadow cloak: [some, low, low] -- magical dodge
cloak of vulnerability: [+0, -much, +0]
DSM: [+0, high, high]
Mystic: [high, low, low]
Novice warrior: [+0, moderate, moderate]
Novice mage: [low, +0, +0]
Titan: [+0, high, moderate]
Dragon: [+0, high, high]
Vortex: [moderate, -much, +0] -- Vortices are easy to penetrate, they
suck things in!
Skeleton: [low, low, low]
Zombie: [low, low, moderate] -- resistance to damage.
Orc: [low, moderate, low]
Troll: [0, moderate, low]
Air Elemental: [insanely high, 0, 0]
Ants, beetles: [+0, moderate, low]
Basilisk: [+0, moderate, high]
Making high-level bolt spells avoidable depending on Dodge would be
nice. We could address missile weapons and spells as follows:
Most bolts: (+20, +20, whatever) -- hit and penetrate a lot.
MM: (always hits, always penetrates, low)
mana bolt, lightning bolt: (+20, always penetrates, whatever)
acid bolts: (+20, +20, whatever) but armor damage when blocked.
ball spells/breaths: (always hits, usually never penetrates, varies)
with more damage; acid balls and breaths
and mana storms damage armor if blocked.
Blocked just means armor's PV counts against
the damage, which is still ferocious with mana
storm.
shards breath: (+20, +20, whatever) -- hello? shards?
Armor damage from acid would affect second and third values. They
would not be reduced below zero.
Magic spells for defense (e.g. for Tenser's) could be made more
interesting:
Dodge Mastery -- moderate level, +40 to dodge.
Mystic Shield -- moderate level, +40 to block and protection.
GoI -- high level, +100 to block and protection.
To make some stats more interesting, besides Dex affecting the + to
dodge, Con might affect the + to protection, improving the ability to
withstand blunt trauma. The plus to HP is protection versus damage
period; the plus to protection would be additional help versus blunt
trauma, like having a naturally tougher hide.
>A better solution might be to limit the amount of damage bonus you can
>get, so that a small weapon can only get so much bonus.
Keep this up and you'll re-invent [O] combat :-) That's exactly what
the %Deadliness thing is -- the damage bonus is effectively scaled by
the base damage dice.
>Perhaps a limitation such that STR bonus damage can be no higher
>than the maximum of the damage dice of the weapon?
Better yet, using the above system, STR gives a bonus + to penetrate
on all weapons except whips and such that have no penetrating
capability whatsoever, and a + to damage on blunt weapons only, or at
least a much smaller one on sharp ones.
Graaagh the Mighty
<r...@angband.org> sat on a tribble, which squeaked:
>I've added some additional goals in the meantime, like security...
Security?
Security is rather a trivial matter in designing an app that doesn't
open network sockets.
About all you have to do is make it so it doesn't have to be run
'setuid root' on multi-user systems.
Steven Fuerst
>
> On Wed, 2 May 2001 14:55:03 +0200, "Robert Ruehlmann"
> <r...@angband.org> sat on a tribble, which squeaked:
>
> >I've added some additional goals in the meantime, like security...
>
> Security?
>
> Security is rather a trivial matter in designing an app that doesn't
> open network sockets.
>
> About all you have to do is make it so it doesn't have to be run
> 'setuid root' on multi-user systems.
While not running as root- the game must be run with permissions higher
than the normal players. This is because you want the scorefile to not
be modifiable by the player, and to be modifiable by the game. Also, it
is nice if the savefiles are not modifiable by the player directly.
(That prevents some simple ways to cheat.)
The current game accomplishes this by running as 'games'. Any program
which uses capabilities that the normal user doesn't have must think
about security.
Steven
Graaagh the Mighty
a tribble, which squeaked:
>The end of a whip can travel very quickly; imagine getting hit with that.
The end of a whip can briefly exceed the speed of sound.
Graaagh the Mighty
sat on a tribble, which squeaked:
>I don't think chaos resist is really necessary in V.
>Just avoid Balance and Chaos Wyrms.
But they drop such good kit when you kill them.
Besides, there's the little matter of Chaos Hounds and Chaos Beetles.
The former will be draining your xp and making you hallucinate, and
doing not too shabby damage while they're at it. The latter just plain
does shitloads of damage, and it's *fast* too!
>And to the Angels mentioned somewhere:
>Either Gabriel or Azrael are often among the last few uniques
>in my games, depending on class and equipment.
>You don't have to kill anything at the first sight.
No, but you don't dare so much as step into LOS of them without +10
speed. +12 if uniques get the +/-2 thing, which they shouldn't IMO.
Graaagh the Mighty
<jona...@franz-liszt.freeserve.co.uk> sat on a tribble, which
squeaked:
> Indeed. Dor-Lomin *and* Thorin together are no longer a
>nearly-unbeatable combination. ESP is NOT, by the way, a necessity. Nor,
>as Werner Baer points out from one of his own winner posts, is confusion
>resistance.
Confusion resistance, like so many "non-essentials", is the logical
choice to make from a restricted set. Here are some:
2000':
Poison resist | Resistances | Detect all and flee often
(mage or Colluin) (RoDetection or mage)
Confusion resist | High saving throw
(Can't melee Titans)
Note: Colluin activates for resistance; Drolems don't show on ESP or
any of the weaker detections except the spell detect monsters, which
mages get.
Note 2: Warriors can't do much to Titans except in melee, as they
can't do enough damage with attack items other than weapons (ignoring
genocide and *destruction*) and can't hit them with missiles through
all their escorts/summons. Moreover they can't get high enough saving
throw and lots of things cast confusion/brain smash/etc. The former
means they can't attack Titans at all; not so bad, but the latter
renders the resist essential for warriors at 2000'. It's also
extremely desirable for others, though not as essential.
3000':
Chaos resist
No way around this one, unless you read a scroll of teleport level
whenever you see a multihued 'Z'.
Note 3: Fleeing the level often is not a viable alternative to a
resistance when preserve is off. A resistance is priceless if it
reduces *at all* the situations you'd otherwise teleport level in. Of
course this is why nobody plays preserve off anymore -- it makes nexus
resist critical insread of weak, but it's mainly only found on very
weak items that you'd rather not use in the late game.
> Funny, I've never found aggravation to be all that actually bad.
Warriors might not mind it. Spellcasters better stock up on restore
mana potions. Not to mention healing.
> Erm... Amulet of Magi plus Celeborn, and helmet of your choice?
>Confusion resistance is *easier* to get - if you're willing to give up
>the constitution boost from Carlammas or the Necklace of the Dwarves.
Ugh. Spellcasters *need* every con point they can squeeze out of their
kit.
> Should the extremely powerful and beneficial power of Clairvoyance
>be available to the player from a common item with *no* penalty? (And
>yes, the Arkenstone *is* common, at deep depths - never mind the
>so-called "rarity 50", *everyone* finds it sooner or later.)
It is deep is it not? The monsters at that depth are exceedingly nasty
are they not? Vaults are common at that depth are they not?
> I've never actually *found* the shield of Gil-galad. But given the
>importance you ascribe to confusion resistance, I would have thought
>that you wouldn't believe another shield without either (a) confusion,
>(b) the basic four, or (c) poison resist, was too powerful...
Umm, shields with poison resist don't exist in stock [V]. IIRC you can
get it in [V] only from body armors, *one* cloak (Colluin), rings, and
*one* weapon (and one that has pansy-ass damage to boot).
> Not if you find them early, or (in the case of the gauntlets) with
>a priest, paladin or warrior.
You meant:
Not if you find them early, AND (in the case of the gauntlets)
with a priest, paladin or warrior.
of course.
Graaagh the Mighty
sat on a tribble, which squeaked:
>I had 2 winners without confusion resist in the late game.
>But both were hobbits; with a high saving throw, confusion
>becomes much less dangerous. One was a priest, and the other
>one was a pure spellcaster mage without GoI.
So they not only had huge saving throw, they could kill Titans at a
distance, and everything else that hits to confuse. These are
basically the *only* two race/class combos that can play without
confusion resistce IMHO. Making anyone else do without it is stringent
enough to deserve to be called a challenge game -- BalsaMan maybe,
light and very flexible, no strength of will. :-) If anyone wins with
a BalsaMan warrior before 3001, I'll eat my modem.
Add one unique than resists everything and hits to confuse and a pure
spellcaster mage without rconf is f00ked too, unless they are lucky
enough to stumble onto Raal's.
Bahman Rabii
> reduces *at all* the situations you'd otherwise teleport level in. Of
> course this is why nobody plays preserve off anymore -- it makes nexus
Phah! Speak for yourself. I almost always keep preserve off.
The only time I turn on preserve is when I am playing a variant like
Zangband which generates tons of lesser vaults without reducing the
chance of them being 'special'. This leads to every level getting a
special feeling for no real reason, which is a gaint PITA.
--
Bahman Rabii
bah...@topped-with-meat.com
http://www.consume.org/Oangband
Graaagh the Mighty
<aa...@chebucto.ns.ca> sat on a tribble, which squeaked:
> I agree - true, savefile compatability should be preserved as much as
>possible for bug-fix releases, and compatability between platform ports of
>the same release is also a good thing, but not bringing in major changes
>just because it might break old savefiles is a *bad* thing, IMHO.
Agreed.
In fact, bug-fixing and feature-adding should be *orthogonal*.
Amazingly, Microsoft is doing OK in that area, continuing to release
fixes for serious (i.e. security-affecting) bugs in Win98 while
pushing Win2K and WinME.
To that end a changed version numbering should be adopted (generally
in software design):
old new meaning
3.0 3a 3rd version
3.1 3b Bug-fix to 3rd version
4.0 4 4th version
Of course, if a bug is found in 3.1 that happens to exist in 4.0 too,
it should be fixed in both, producing 3.2 and 4.1.
This more cleanly separates the meanings frequently assigned to major
and minor version numbers now. In particular, 3a is 3 with bugs fixed
or minor tweaks made to the interface or something, but the core is
the same. If it's a word processor, the spell check might have a
bigger built-in dictionary but it doesn't use a radically new engine.
If it's a game, the gameplay is unchanged and untested options have
not been added.
This gets significant when savefiles and documents are involved. A
major new version of a game should probably be savefile incompatible
with the prior one. A major new version of a word processor should be
able to convert a previous version's document files, but subject to
some caveats -- notably its own output won't be guaranteed to be
readable in the older version, and the formatting might not be exactly
preserved. (If you want something stronger in the way of backward
compatibility you use TeX or HTML...then older versions can render it,
but it might not be exactly preserved, e.g. CSS features in HTML 4.x.)
With Angband, 3x and 3y would be savefile compatible, and 3x and 4y
would not.
Timo Pietilä
Chris Kern wrote:
> >> That's the point. Chaos doesn't protect against confusion effect or
> >> damage in vanilla angband.
> >
> > When did that happen?
>
> 2.8.5, I think? maybe 2.9.0. In any case, as it stands now there is
> no purpose except when dealing with Elvenkind armors. All artifacts
> that had Resist Chaos have been given added Resist Confusion.
For a reason. Separating Chaos and Confusion from each other changed
game balance and those resist were added so that change would be as
small as possible. Now in JLE-path is tweaking with game balance and it
is removing major portion of confusion sources (biggest change was
taking it out from Thorin) and adding them only to headgear and AoMagi.
That is not good IMO.
Timo Pietilä
--
A(2.9.2) C "Wanderer" DP L:20 DL:750' A-- R--- Sp w:LxBow(+9,+9)
Timo Pietilä
Jonathan Ellis wrote:
> >To Timo:
> >>
> >> > Indeed. Dor-Lomin *and* Thorin together are no longer a
> >> > nearly-unbeatable combination. ESP is NOT, by the way, a necessity.
> Nor,
> >> > as Werner Baer points out from one of his own winner posts, is
> confusion
> >> > resistance.
> >>
> >> For priest it is. Priests rely on 0% failure and lots of healing to
> >> survive. They need confusion resist more than any other class, even
> >> mages can cast GoI and then hit monster confusion or not. Priests
> >> cannot.
>
> My mages do not use GoI. And, if mages don't use GoI, then
> late-game priests are already superior to mages: they have better attack
> spells (Orb of Draining, which is resisted by NOTHING, Dispel Evil,
> Annihilation, etc. And all of these far cheaper than the mage's only
> useful attack spell which is Mana Storm.)
Mages have genocide and mass genocide. Those are easy ways to completely
avoid nasty monsters and clear vaults. Mage also has very early MM which
isn't that bad even later. But you are right, mages spells should be
rebalanced. Currently priests have much better attack spells. I also
think that enchanting weapons/armor should be mages job, not priests.
> Priests DO NOT NEED 0% fail on Heal, any more than Mages need it
> for anything. True, they need some kind of 0% fail healing power, but
> potions of Healing are available, and should be plentiful.
If you remove 0% failure you have broken priestly playing style. Mages
and priests should *both* be able to run using *only* spells/prayers.
That is why mage spells should be changed pretty completely. GW-angband
has done great job on this. Before adding your patch I would rebalance
some *much* *more* severe balance issues. Mages are currently warriors
with steroids.
> 0% fail-rates are, like Confusion Resistance and ESP, a
> *convenience* and not a *necessity*:
Hell, wearing weapon is convenience and spellbooks are convenience. Even
missile weapon is convenience, not necessity. *Everything* is
convenience. Point is what is *wanted* convenience and what is not.
You can win without artifacts or without spellbooks with ranger (I have
won with bookless hobbit ranger, with your patch I can probably win with
bookless, artifactless hobbit ranger). Or without missile weapon with
mage/priest and probably with warrior and paladin too. Or without melee
weapon with mage/priest. Or without
nether/chaos/sound/disenchantment/nexus/shard resist with any class.
Even basic resists are not necessity is you have resistances with mage.
Lev could probably win without armor playing mage.
> the same is true of 18/200
> constitution. If the endgame is survivable with 800 hit points (which
> has been proven by the existence of winners who were hobbit mages and
> rogues: not many, true, but they exist),
Agreed. I never said that 18/200 CON is necessity. 18/200 on spell
casting stat is not necessity either, but without it you cannot rely on
spells. That is why removing capability to get 18/200+ on spellcasting
stat is *bad*. It forces priests/mages to play more like warriors. IE.
it makes things *worse* not better.
> then you DON'T NEED to have
> enough constitution bonuses to push your hit points over 1200... By the
> way, my first ever vanilla priest winner (a dwarf) was wearing Caspanion
> for confusion resistance, with Thranduil, Celeborn, Necklace of the
> Dwarves as a combination. Didn't have 18/200 constitution or 18/200
> wisdom
Caspanion +3 Thranduil +2 Dwarf +2 Priest +3 = 18/200 WIS. You did have
18/200 WIS. Caspanion +3, Dwarves +3, Dwarf +2, Priest +0 = 18/180 CON.
With Cambeleg 18/200 (you did find cambeleg, did you?). And with shield
of resistance you don't have any reason to wear Celeborn unless you meet
disenchanters. Or are you confusing Celeborn to Anarion?
Dwarf priest is almost as good as High-Elf mage. It's my favorite, but I
have played with all other races too. Half-Troll priest is serious fun
and my first priest winner was gnome.
Or did you mean that you used Caspanion as swap-item and weared Celeborn
most of time. Dangerous. Very dangerous. You didn't have confusion or
poison resist most of time (or con or wis). If you needed Caspanion to
get confusion resist you probably didn't have Thorin (I assume that your
first winner was in normal vanilla, not patched one). That means you had
Shield of resistance and wearing Celeborn is convenience of having
genocide activation and disenchantment resist, nothing more.
Robert Ruehlmann
news:3af236e7...@news.primus.ca...
> On Wed, 2 May 2001 14:55:03 +0200, "Robert Ruehlmann"
> <r...@angband.org> sat on a tribble, which squeaked:
>
> >I've added some additional goals in the meantime, like security...
>
> Security?
>
> Security is rather a trivial matter in designing an app that doesn't
> open network sockets.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but security is *not* a trivial matter for
Angband. You have a highly overrated opinion of your own knowledge.
That Angband doesn't open any network connections just means that we don't
have to worry about remote attacks. But local exploits (where the attacker
already has access to the system) have to be taken into account for any
non-trivial app. And there are enough possibilities for such attacks to
make a grown man cry.
> About all you have to do is make it so it doesn't have to be run
> 'setuid root' on multi-user systems.
"root exploits" (attacks on programs that run 'setuid root') are only the
tip of the iceberg. Any program that runs with privileges other than that
of the user calling it, has to make sure that the user can't abuse these
additional privileges. Angband usually runs 'setgid games' (or worse
'setuid games' in many older installations) on multi-user systems so an
exploit could grant the attacker additional rights. And that might allow
new exploits, that again allow even more exploits, ...
And there are other forms of attacks that don't even need a setuid/setgid
program. If a program writes to a world-writeable directory (like /tmp or
lib/user on an incorrectly set up Angband installation) then special care
has to be taken.
An attacker can perform a "symlink attack" and trick the program into
following a link and overwriting files of the user running the program.
Opening the important document you have been working on for several weeks
and discovering that it suddenly contains a list of your Angband macros is
something that only the attacker will find funny. And count on it - your
last backup will either be ancient or be overwritten too.
Or the attacker can create a file that is automatically loaded by the
program (like some of the *.prf files in Angband). If another user runs
Angband and this file is loaded then several abuses are possible. If the
program has a vulnerability in the *.prf file loading routines then the
attacker can gain access to the system as the user who started Angband. Or
perform a "denial of service" attack by writing junk to the file so users
only get an error message when starting the program. Or a prankster can
scramble the option settings, macros, keymaps, colors, and character
settings of the user. Or ...
Additional info can be found in my "Angband Security Guide" at:
http://thangorodrim.angband.org/development/security.txt
Angband security is *not* trivial for developers, especially since proving
that a program is secure is basically impossible and new forms of attacks
may be discovered at any time. But I hope my work makes it trivial for the
admins and users to enjoy the game and to be afraid of the monsters in the
dungeon instead of the cracker working from his basement.
--
Robert Ruehlmann ( r...@angband.org )
"Thangorodrim - The Angband Page" : http://thangorodrim.angband.org/
Visit the #angband chat channel at irc.worldirc.org
Timo Pietilä
Graaagh the Mighty wrote:
>
> On Wed, 2 May 2001 03:12:25 -0600, Eric Bock <eb...@uswest.net> sat on
> a tribble, which squeaked:
>
> >The end of a whip can travel very quickly; imagine getting hit with that.
>
> The end of a whip can briefly exceed the speed of sound.
Depends on whip. Not that kind of whip what Eric Bock is describing. But
it can go pretty fast anyway.
Skylar Thompson
Except in the JLE patch, where some of the artifacts that had rchaos and
were given rconf to compensate the change in rchaos have had rconf removed.
--
--Skylar Thompson (sky...@attglobal.net)
`All that is gold does not glitter/Not all who wander are lost
The old that is strong does not wither/Deep roots are not reached by the frost
From the ashes a fire shall be woken/A light from the shadows shall spring
Renewed shall be blade that was broken/The crownless again shall be king.'
Jonathan Ellis
Timo Pietilä wrote in message <3AF25DD4...@helsinki.fi>...
>
>
>Chris Kern wrote:
>
>> >> That's the point. Chaos doesn't protect against confusion effect
or
>> >> damage in vanilla angband.
>> >
>> > When did that happen?
>>
>> 2.8.5, I think? maybe 2.9.0. In any case, as it stands now there is
>> no purpose except when dealing with Elvenkind armors. All artifacts
>> that had Resist Chaos have been given added Resist Confusion.
>
>For a reason. Separating Chaos and Confusion from each other changed
>game balance and those resist were added so that change would be as
>small as possible. Now in JLE-path is tweaking with game balance and it
>is removing major portion of confusion sources (biggest change was
>taking it out from Thorin) and adding them only to headgear and AoMagi.
>That is not good IMO.
confusion resistance. Ever heard of Rohirrim, Isildur, Caspanion - the
three most common artifact armors? And, I believe, Soulkeeper as well.
It's only when wearing Celeborn or Belegennon that you don't have
confusion resistance from your armor. In other words, if you want a
genocide activation, or the ability to phase-door every two moves, you
pay for it elsewhere...
And your comments in another thread about priests being able to win
with *only* spells and prayers doesn't hold water. Everyone needs
potions and scrolls. Do you expect mages to have spells to Heal
themselves? If not, then they too need healing potions. Why should
priests, alone among all classes, be able to survive without potions and
scrolls? 0% fail is no big deal - this game is MEANT to have risks. If
you want a risk-free game, play Patience with cards.
(I personally wouldn't mind seeing a total end to 0% fail entirely,
say a minimum 1 or 2%: you're not a god, after all... 0% fail is for
those things which can be used up permanently, i.e. potions and scrolls.
Wands, staffs, rods and the player's mana can all be recharged or
regenerated, and this is why there is no 0% fail on wands, staffs or
rods.)
What I *would* like to see is characters getting more mana up to
18/200, not up to 18/180.
Jonathan.
Timo Pietilä
Jonathan Ellis wrote:
> And your comments in another thread about priests being able to win
> with *only* spells and prayers doesn't hold water. Everyone needs
> potions and scrolls.
What I meant was priests do not need to melee or use missile weapons
after first few levels. I thought that was obvious to reader. Apparently
it wasn't.
Scrolls and potions are magical means too. And priest really doesn't
need scrolls or potions after certain point. Only for last battle you
need potions of restore mana.
> (I personally wouldn't mind seeing a total end to 0% fail entirely,
> say a minimum 1 or 2%: you're not a god, after all... 0% fail is for
> those things which can be used up permanently, i.e. potions and scrolls.
> Wands, staffs, rods and the player's mana can all be recharged or
> regenerated, and this is why there is no 0% fail on wands, staffs or
> rods.)
This is someting I totally and utterly disagree. 0% failure for mages
and priests for low level spells/prayers should exist. For them casting
low level spells should not be any harder than walking. (IE. 0,00001 %
failure)
It looks like you *want* to make priests and mages warriors in steroids.
0% failure is *only* advantage for priest over paladin.
> What I *would* like to see is characters getting more mana up to
> 18/200, not up to 18/180.
Smoothed mana curve. Agreed.
It looks to me that you don't like critics. I don't like all of your
changes in your patch and you seem to have hard time accepting that
somebody doesn't like all of your work. I don't like what you did to
Thorin & co. Period.
I'm afraid that Robert would import your patch unedited to vanilla and
that is why I'm telling that not everybody likes what you have done.
Vanilla should change slowly. It is only way you can guarantee that
severe balance issues don't get created. Other thing is to *correct*
current balance issues like mage spells. GoI is too powerful, lack of
decent attack spells, enchanting items should belong to mages etc. Your
patch doesn't correct things (except few minor things). It just changes
them.
Timo Pietilä
Jonathan Ellis wrote:
> >For a reason. Separating Chaos and Confusion from each other changed
> >game balance and those resist were added so that change would be as
> >small as possible. Now in JLE-path is tweaking with game balance and it
> >is removing major portion of confusion sources (biggest change was
> >taking it out from Thorin) and adding them only to headgear and AoMagi.
> >That is not good IMO.
> There are a few items that are not headgear that still have
> confusion resistance. Ever heard of Rohirrim, Isildur, Caspanion - the
> three most common artifact armors? And, I believe, Soulkeeper as well.
Those are all body armors. Thorin was only shield giving confusion
resist. And those are not most common. They are just most used just
because confusion resist (and Caspanion for poison).
> It's only when wearing Celeborn or Belegennon that you don't have
> confusion resistance from your armor. In other words, if you want a
> genocide activation, or the ability to phase-door every two moves, you
> pay for it elsewhere...
I might want to wear Arvedui. or Thalkettoth. or Hithlomir. Those are
now total crap because lack of confusion resist sources.
Ever tried to play artifactless game? You added confusion resist to
AoMagi and that is good change and added one ego helmet (serenity) with
it. But you also removed it from BalanceDSM, ChaosDSM and Blades of
chaos. Standard artifactless game setup has crown of magi/telepathy with
Shield of resistance and BalanceDSM. With artifactless priest you
*REALLY* need AoWis. Without artifacts only AoWis, helmets of
wisdom/lordliness and Holy Avengers/blessed weapons give Wisdom bonus.
And you might want to wield Westernesse for STR, DEX and CON bonus. That
leaves only AoWis and helmet. And if you want ESP your only sources are
headgear and blessed weapons. That makes AoWis even more wanted.
If you need AoWis and you are playing artifactless game you have exactly
3 sources for confusion resist that always have it. BronzeDSM, PDSM and
helmet of serenity. If lucky you might find elvenkind/permanence/Aman
with conf resist but I wouldn't count on it. At least Blades of Chaos
are granted to appear sooner or later. That leaves you with blessed
weapon with ESP for probably your only possible source of ESP and with
probably really crappy damage/round.
This is *NOT GOOD*. If you want BalanceDSM resist same that Balance
Dragon breathes *ADD* confusion breath to Balance Dragon breath weapons.
Don't take is off from that armor. Or add confusion resist to AoWisdom.
Or make AoPriesthood with it and + to wisdom.
Timo Pietilä.
Jonathan Ellis
Timo Pietilä wrote in message <3AF2962D...@helsinki.fi>...
>
>
>Jonathan Ellis wrote:
>
>> And your comments in another thread about priests being able to
win
>> with *only* spells and prayers doesn't hold water. Everyone needs
>> potions and scrolls.
>
>What I meant was priests do not need to melee or use missile weapons
>after first few levels. I thought that was obvious to reader.
Apparently
>it wasn't.
>
>Scrolls and potions are magical means too. And priest really doesn't
>need scrolls or potions after certain point. Only for last battle you
>need potions of restore mana.
If you want to give priests and mages the ability to rely on spells
only, and discourage them from using weapons, they need more mana than
they have right now, which implies use of either Restore Mana potions or
a Staff of the Magi. Otherwise, your character needs a weapon. Which is
not necessarily a bad thing, depending on how you view the class.
Gandalf, after all, wielded Glamdring, and fought orcs with his sword as
much as with his spells (as we see in The Hobbit, in the goblin mines,
standing with Thorin, the pair of them wielding "Biter and Beater", and
it was with Glamdring that he killed the Great Goblin.)
>> (I personally wouldn't mind seeing a total end to 0% fail
entirely,
>> say a minimum 1 or 2%: you're not a god, after all... 0% fail is for
>> those things which can be used up permanently, i.e. potions and
scrolls.
>> Wands, staffs, rods and the player's mana can all be recharged or
>> regenerated, and this is why there is no 0% fail on wands, staffs or
>> rods.)
>
>This is someting I totally and utterly disagree. 0% failure for mages
>and priests for low level spells/prayers should exist. For them casting
>low level spells should not be any harder than walking. (IE. 0,00001 %
>failure)
>
>It looks like you *want* to make priests and mages warriors in
steroids.
>0% failure is *only* advantage for priest over paladin.
I always wondered why it is that Paladins get access to *all* the
Priest spells anyway, given that Rangers and Rogues don't get access to
all the mage spells. And no, I don't want to make priests and mages
warriors-on-steroids. I just happen to think that 1% failure is
survivable for a pure spellcaster, even using spells to kill monsters
with: and have proved it to my own satisfaction with at least one mage
(without GoI) and one priest winner in the past. (One could consider the
chance of failure to be that something distracted the character during
casting: a distraction can happen any time, and depends on outside
factors rather than purely on the character - factors such as, for
instance, being in a fight, and being distracted by having to dodge a
blow.)
In any case, AD&D-style priests have always been much less averse
to melee than mages, and their spells were largely meant to supplement
melee (including preparing before it, and healing up after it). True,
they had some attacking prayers as well, but these were the exception
rather than the rule.
>> What I *would* like to see is characters getting more mana up to
>> 18/200, not up to 18/180.
>
>Smoothed mana curve. Agreed.
>
>It looks to me that you don't like critics. I don't like all of your
>changes in your patch and you seem to have hard time accepting that
>somebody doesn't like all of your work. I don't like what you did to
>Thorin & co. Period.
My apologies, if that's the impression I give. It's not that I
don't like critics, it's that I do like to explain why I did what I did,
and justify myself. I think we'll have to agree to differ on that
particular subject, of Thorin, Zarcuthra and chaos/confusion resistance.
(Alternatively, I could say that if I don't like critics, then
neither do my critics like *their* critics... :-)
>I'm afraid that Robert would import your patch unedited to vanilla and
>that is why I'm telling that not everybody likes what you have done.
>Vanilla should change slowly. It is only way you can guarantee that
>severe balance issues don't get created.
Indeed. This is why I provided a list of documented changes so
people could pick and choose - e.g. one item or one monster at a time.
It's a list of suggestions, which are all open to debate, either in a
large-scale concept (Prfnoff's "I don't like the idea of cursed items
that provide bonuses as well as penalties", or your "I don't like
removing confusion resistance from some of the
chaos-resistance-providing items) or in the minutiae ("I think monster
XXX should have power YYY and not power ZZZ").
> Other thing is to *correct*
>current balance issues like mage spells. GoI is too powerful, lack of
>decent attack spells, enchanting items should belong to mages etc. Your
>patch doesn't correct things (except few minor things). It just changes
>them.
These things are things that I can't do in info-txt files,
obviously - such as change spells around. I would, however, like to see
mages with more decent non-resistable attack spells. In particular, they
could lose some of the "duplicate" spells: Recharge 2 is a prime
candidate for replacement IMHO (with Recharge 1 being improved to be as
good as Recharge 2 currently is now, so that recharging wands becomes
practical for a low-level mage.) This would leave a slot open in
town-spellbook 4 for a useful attack spell. Another candidate for
replacement is one of the two Genocide spells: preferably that in
"Sorcery And Evocations", leaving Genocide available only in the dungeon
spellbooks.
If these two spells were removed, then a couple of useful attack
spells (say, one bolt/beam and one ball, both of them not resisted by
many or any creatures: my own favourite spell from variants is
ZAngband's "Doom Bolt" from the Chaos realm) could be put into the town
spellbooks for mages to use. Balanced, preferably, so that the
damage-per-mana-point cost was slightly less effective than the
elemental spells, but the damage-per-casting was more effective: so one
could do damage to the monsters reasonably quickly, but it would cost
more mana to do so - so if you didn't *need* to do the damage fast (e.g.
because of what it could do to you), and the monster you were facing was
not resistant to an element, it would be more effective to use your
elemental spell instead. Keleks could lose a couple of its less
effective spells (Detect Enchantment, etc.) for a couple of more
powerful attack spells - finally going up to something that allows mages
to do a cheap, easily repeatable 250-300 points of damage per turn for a
reasonably long time without running out of mana. Raal's Tome of
Destruction spells should be *powerful* - which is true only of Mana
Storm at the moment. Maybe Mass Genocide should belong more in Raals
than Keleks, making both the Genocides less easy to come by?
Jonathan.
Timo Pietilä
Jonathan Ellis wrote:
>
> Timo Pietilä wrote in message <3AF2962D...@helsinki.fi>...
> >It looks to me that you don't like critics. I don't like all of your
> >changes in your patch and you seem to have hard time accepting that
> >somebody doesn't like all of your work. I don't like what you did to
> >Thorin & co. Period.
>
> My apologies, if that's the impression I give. It's not that I
> don't like critics, it's that I do like to explain why I did what I did,
> and justify myself. I think we'll have to agree to differ on that
> particular subject, of Thorin, Zarcuthra and chaos/confusion resistance.
> (Alternatively, I could say that if I don't like critics, then
> neither do my critics like *their* critics... :-)
Well, you might be right, I have been pretty offensive. I will calm down
now.
:-)
> > Other thing is to *correct*
> >current balance issues like mage spells. GoI is too powerful, lack of
> >decent attack spells, enchanting items should belong to mages etc. Your
> >patch doesn't correct things (except few minor things). It just changes
> >them.
> These things are things that I can't do in info-txt files,
> obviously - such as change spells around.
Obviously. I'm not blaming you for not doing it. I could blame Robert,
but he has done a great job this far and I don't feel like blaming
anybody. These this just needs to be corrected.
> I would, however, like to see
> mages with more decent non-resistable attack spells. In particular, they
> could lose some of the "duplicate" spells: Recharge 2 is a prime
> candidate for replacement IMHO (with Recharge 1 being improved to be as
[snip good suggestions]
Have you looked at GW-angband? You should try it. I think Greg Wooledge
originally did his variant just to balance things up, not to add shiny
new features. He has done *great* job at mage spells. Shock wave is my
favorite.
Dawnmist
> Let's just look at the combat system - my big bad
> half-orc warrior fights better
> with a whip than with a long sword. This is totally unrealistic and nothing
> but a bug in the system - whips
> are *bad* weapons for fighting - no real warrior would use one instead of a
> sword.
I always envisioned the whips being used as barbed whips - with edges
that caught in armour, and tore at the skin, etc. As such, when applied
with skill, you could almost "peel" your opponent out of their armour,
and could certainly find all the gaps for the throat, elbows, underarms,
etc. Being nice and flexible, they could get into all sorts of areas,
and the barbs would *really* hurt :-)
Cheers,
Dawnmist.
--
The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds, and the
pessimist fears this is true.
Chris Kern
<timo.p...@helsinki.fi> posted the following:
I don't think that the designers should necessarily take into account
things like artifactless games. IMO the designer should take into
account only the way the game is meant to be played, with the full set
of objects. An artifactless game is an external challenge a player
selects for himself. I don't think the maintainer has any requirement
to make it easy for such games.
-Chris
Werner Baer
Graaagh the Mighty <inv...@erehwon.invalid> wrote in message
> So they not only had huge saving throw, they could kill Titans at a
> distance, and everything else that hits to confuse.
You don't have to kill a single Titan to win the game.
> Add one unique than resists everything and hits to confuse and a pure
> spellcaster mage without rconf is f00ked too, unless they are lucky
> enough to stumble onto Raal's.
A pure spellcaster mage can't win without Raals.
Gabriel is already too tough for magic missiles
(at least with monster AI on, like me)
But these uniques can be avoided until you're at 4800'.
There the chances increase much to find it in a lesser vault.
Werner.
Werner Baer
Graaagh the Mighty <inv...@erehwon.invalid> wrote in message
> >I don't think chaos resist is really necessary in V.
> >Just avoid Balance and Chaos Wyrms.
>
> But they drop such good kit when you kill them.
Not that much better than the elemental wyrms.
> Besides, there's the little matter of Chaos Hounds and Chaos Beetles.
> The former will be draining your xp and making you hallucinate, and
> doing not too shabby damage while they're at it.
Teleport other, if the group is too large.
Small groups can be killed with fire bolts/balls without
any problem (i'm just at that stage)
> The latter just plain
> does shitloads of damage, and it's *fast* too!
But it's rare, too.
I had games where i didn't meet any.
Now, it was worse back in old days, when summon uniques
with no uniques left summoned Jabberwockys instead
(not greater undead).
> >And to the Angels mentioned somewhere:
> >Either Gabriel or Azrael are often among the last few uniques
> >in my games, depending on class and equipment.
> >You don't have to kill anything at the first sight.
>
> No, but you don't dare so much as step into LOS of them without +10
> speed. +12 if uniques get the +/-2 thing, which they shouldn't IMO.
Usually you have ESP in that depth. Otherwise, detect
like paranoid.
Werner.
Joseph William Dixon
> This is *NOT GOOD*. If you want BalanceDSM resist same that Balance
> Dragon breathes *ADD* confusion breath to Balance Dragon breath weapons.
> Don't take is off from that armor. Or add confusion resist to AoWisdom.
> Or make AoPriesthood with it and + to wisdom.
Balance Drakes & Wyrms breathe Sound, Shards, Chaos and Disenchantment.
They don't breathe Confusion.
--
"...there are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot
easily be duplicated by a normal, kindly family man who just comes into
work every day and has a job to do." [Terry Pratchett, "Small Gods"]
http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/~aa343/index.html
Joseph William Dixon
> I don't think that the designers should necessarily take into account
> things like artifactless games. IMO the designer should take into
> account only the way the game is meant to be played, with the full set
> of objects. An artifactless game is an external challenge a player
> selects for himself. I don't think the maintainer has any requirement
> to make it easy for such games.
...which is why most of the best powers and abilities (except for Speed,
of course) are on the artifacts, and only reluctantly doled out to
non-artifacts.
Jonathan Ellis
Joseph William Dixon wrote in message ...
On Fri, 4 May 2001, Timo Pietilä wrote:
>> This is *NOT GOOD*. If you want BalanceDSM resist same that Balance
>> Dragon breathes *ADD* confusion breath to Balance Dragon breath
weapons.
>> Don't take is off from that armor. Or add confusion resist to
AoWisdom.
>> Or make AoPriesthood with it and + to wisdom.
> Balance Drakes & Wyrms breathe Sound, Shards, Chaos and
> Disenchantment. They don't breathe Confusion.
On this particular issue of Balance DSMs and confusion resistance:
It should be noted that Chaos Resistance still *does* protect from being
confused as the result of a chaos attack. But Balance Drakes and Great
Wyrms do not breathe confusion: they breathe the same breaths as Law and
Chaos dragons combined. The resists of a Balance DSM should be the same
as its breaths: the same with a Chaos DSM. By the way, I have little
compunction about running around chaos-hound depth without chaos resist,
as long as I have confusion resist, a lot of fast damage capability, and
access to +10 permanent speed plus temporary speed. (Anti-summoning
corridor, chaos hounds see you one at a time, get one round for each of
your rounds, many won't breathe at all before they die.) Chaos is more
destructive in ZAngband where it can destroy objects.
I would, however, like to see the damage caps for Chaos and Law
dragon breaths equalised: instead of 600/500/400/400
(chaos/disen/sound/shards), it really ought to be evened out at, say,
500/500/500/500 IMHO, to suggest an even balance at least between Law
and Chaos (which are NOT necessarily equated with Good and Evil.) All
this IMHO of course... :-)
Can anyone come up with any reason for making Chaos specifically
*not* protect against confusion from non-chaos sources? The only reason
I can think of for this is that there should exist some *non-random*
items which have Chaos resistance but NOT Confusion - this is something
I am attempting to suggest, although some people may disagree with my
suggestions as to *which* these items should be. If there are no such
items, there there is no reason for this separation to exist: similarly,
there is no reason for a separate flag for Resist Fear to exist, if no
non-random items are to have it.
If anyone can postulate any other reasons for these changes being
made, I for one would be interested to hear them...
Jonathan.
Matthias Kurzke
<jona...@franz-liszt.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>
>Joseph William Dixon wrote in message ...
>On Fri, 4 May 2001, Timo Pietilä wrote:
>>> This is *NOT GOOD*. If you want BalanceDSM resist same that Balance
>>> Dragon breathes *ADD* confusion breath to Balance Dragon breath
>weapons.
>>> Don't take is off from that armor. Or add confusion resist to
>AoWisdom.
>>> Or make AoPriesthood with it and + to wisdom.
>
>> Balance Drakes & Wyrms breathe Sound, Shards, Chaos and
>> Disenchantment. They don't breathe Confusion.
>
> On this particular issue of Balance DSMs and confusion resistance:
>It should be noted that Chaos Resistance still *does* protect from being
>confused as the result of a chaos attack.
Does it? It seems to me that's not true.
From Angband 2.9.2's spells2.c, slightly edited for brevity
/* Chaos -- many effects */
case GF_CHAOS:
{
if (fuzzy) msg_print("You are hit by something strange!");
if (p_ptr->resist_chaos)
{
dam *= 6; dam /= (randint(6) + 6);
}
if (!p_ptr->resist_confu)
{
/* confuse the player */
}
if (!p_ptr->resist_chaos)
{
/* induce hallucination */
}
if (!p_ptr->resist_nethr && !p_ptr->resist_chaos)
{
/* reduce experience */
}
take_hit(dam, killer);
break;
}
Note that res_chaos protects against the XP-draining effect of chaos,
but not against the confusion effect. IMHO this is an oversight; of
course chaos resistance should protect against the side effects of
chaos. When chaos resistance implied confusion resistance, this was no
problem. Now it's IMHO a bug (and the relevant line should be
if (p_ptr->resist_confu || p_ptr->resist_chaos)
so chaos res DOES protect against its side effects.)
Does anyone else think this is a bug?
[snip]
>
> Can anyone come up with any reason for making Chaos specifically
>*not* protect against confusion from non-chaos sources? The only reason
>I can think of for this is that there should exist some *non-random*
>items which have Chaos resistance but NOT Confusion - this is something
>I am attempting to suggest, although some people may disagree with my
>suggestions as to *which* these items should be. If there are no such
>items, there there is no reason for this separation to exist: similarly,
>there is no reason for a separate flag for Resist Fear to exist, if no
>non-random items are to have it.
> If anyone can postulate any other reasons for these changes being
>made, I for one would be interested to hear them...
>
It was a "Hack" in Ben's eyes?
Matthias
Igenlode
>
> "Igenlode" wrote in message
> news:2001050221172...@nym.alias.net...
>
> > Whips have the same advantages and disadvantages as polearms. A man
> > with a sword or a knife can't get close enough to inflict any damage;
> > he can be tangled and flung across the ground, and he will be lucky to
> > hang onto his weapon without being blinded, as his hands and face are
> > subjected to the biting agony of the lash. But if he can get within
> > range, the whip becomes almost useless. It is also of little avail
> > against multiple opponents.
>
> Whips are certainly not as useful against a heavily armored opponent,
> since they have no ability to hurt through armor, do they? It could be
> possible for a very trained user to entangle and then kill with another
> weapon, or strangle perhaps, and it would be difficult to approach them,
> but with the weapon basically unable to hurt the enemy it would tend to
> make the battle a short-range brawl/knife/on the ground fight.
As Eric Bock pointed out in article <_bQH6.4$Fw4....@news.uswest.net>,
a metal-tipped fighting whip is essentially one or more dagger blades
striking very hard and fast, in a manner hard to defend against. I doubt
you could do much damage to a fully-armoured knight with one, though I
suppose one could visualise magical bonuses to-hit and to-damage
enabling the weapon to slice through steel as well as flesh; but a whip
can be used both to hurt and to kill.
(Hang it all, even a cat-o'-nine-tails - little more than a wet rope's
end - can kill an unarmoured man, given the chance of enough strokes.
Ask the Royal Navy... 'Flogging round the Fleet' was almost invariably
fatal.)
What you *can't* do is stab an enemy to death, or smash in his head
(though you might easily cut his throat). A whip is a slashing weapon
rather than a thrusting weapon - think cutlass, not smallsword. (A poor
analogy, I admit, but it serves to illustrate the essential contrast in
technique.)
A whip is a light weapon that requires more skill than strength. I'd say
that Angband gauges it fairly accurately at one-and-a-half times the
damage of a dagger, though the cat-o'-nine-tails is probably over-rated
(and basically pointless in game terms. Has any character *ever* used
one?).
All I'm trying to do is to question the repeated statement that it is a
weapon that cannot kill - one 'basically unable to hurt the enemy'.
--
Igenlode
The Yellow God forever gazes down
mormegil
<timo.p...@helsinki.fi> writes
[about fear res]
>It just feels wrong for Pain. This is IMHO.
I dunno, if I was wielding the GoP (aka the Glaive of Angel Slaying) I'd
feel pretty fearless :-)
m.
--
mormegil
William Tanksley
>On Wed, 2 May 2001 14:55:03 +0200, "Robert Ruehlmann"
>>I've added some additional goals in the meantime, like security...
>Security?
>Security is rather a trivial matter in designing an app that doesn't
>open network sockets.
I understand why you're saying that, but it's really important that people
who don't understand security try not to talk about it.
Most people haven't been educated in security. Most of the people who
have been educated in it aren't qualified to implement it.
--
-William "Billy" Tanksley
William Tanksley
>inv...@erehwon.invalid (Graaagh the Mighty) writes:
>> reduces *at all* the situations you'd otherwise teleport level in. Of
>> course this is why nobody plays preserve off anymore -- it makes nexus
>Phah! Speak for yourself. I almost always keep preserve off.
*Definitely*! Preserve off is the only way to play!
>The only time I turn on preserve is when I am playing a variant like
>Zangband which generates tons of lesser vaults without reducing the
>chance of them being 'special'. This leads to every level getting a
>special feeling for no real reason, which is a gaint PITA.
Yes, agreed. Also, I've never felt safe in those fancy variants -- there
are too many things that can happen to make you leave a level.
>Bahman Rabii
--
-William "Billy" Tanksley
Julian Lighton
Matthias Kurzke <mku...@gmx.de> wrote:
>On Fri, 4 May 2001 20:13:26 +0100, "Jonathan Ellis"
><jona...@franz-liszt.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>> If anyone can postulate any other reasons for these changes being
>>made, I for one would be interested to hear them...
>>
>It was a "Hack" in Ben's eyes?
I'm probably to blame. :)
In amongs the patches I sent Ben that became the basis of 2.8.5, there
was one icky little bit in the character flag display to correctly
display confusion resist if you had chaos resist. He probably
decided it was easier and cleaner to split the two.
--
Julian Lighton jl...@fragment.com
"I only kill to know I'm alive." -- Ministry
Graaagh the Mighty
<sfu...@physics.usyd.edu.au> sat on a tribble, which squeaked:
>While not running as root- the game must be run with permissions higher
>than the normal players. This is because you want the scorefile to not
>be modifiable by the player, and to be modifiable by the game. Also, it
>is nice if the savefiles are not modifiable by the player directly.
>(That prevents some simple ways to cheat.)
These considerations only apply if there's one central install,
instead of every user having their own scorefile. (Cheating is a
non-issue without a central scorefile of course.)
In that case, you make the scorefile writable to 'games' and the game
setuid 'games' or something. Give 'games' no privileges except the
ability to read world-readable stuff and the ability to write the
scorefile, and even if someone hacks the game somehow and manages to
crack 'games' or run arbitrary code as 'games', the worst they can do
that they couldn't do before to subvert the system is trash the
Angband scorefile. Hardly a root compromise...
Graaagh the Mighty
sat on a tribble, which squeaked:
>Now, it was worse back in old days, when summon uniques
>with no uniques left summoned Jabberwockys instead
>(not greater undead).
Uh, what are Jabberwockys? Because [V] 2.9.x don't have them.
>> No, but you don't dare so much as step into LOS of them without +10
>> speed. +12 if uniques get the +/-2 thing, which they shouldn't IMO.
>
>Usually you have ESP in that depth. Otherwise, detect
>like paranoid.
Knowing they're there before LOS wasn't what I was talking about.
Having to flee the level when you find them, is.
If you don't dare be in LOS of them *ever* you can't use teleport
away. Since they're unique, you also can't use genocide.
Graaagh the Mighty
sat on a tribble, which squeaked:
>You don't have to kill a single Titan to win the game.
No, but you might want to (Greater Titans have drop_good), and you do
have to face the Cat Lord eventually -- if you avoid him like the
plague, you can bet your asteroids Morgoth will summon him up right
next to you and he'll hit to confuse before you get another move.
Graaagh the Mighty
on a tribble, which squeaked:
>/* Chaos -- many effects */
>case GF_CHAOS:
>{
> if (fuzzy) msg_print("You are hit by something strange!");
> if (p_ptr->resist_chaos)
> {
> dam *= 6; dam /= (randint(6) + 6);
> }
> if (!p_ptr->resist_confu)
> {
> /* confuse the player */
> }
> if (!p_ptr->resist_chaos)
> {
> /* induce hallucination */
> }
> if (!p_ptr->resist_nethr && !p_ptr->resist_chaos)
> {
> /* reduce experience */
> }
> take_hit(dam, killer);
> break;
>}
>
>Note that res_chaos protects against the XP-draining effect of chaos,
>but not against the confusion effect. IMHO this is an oversight; of
>course chaos resistance should protect against the side effects of
>chaos.
Stranger yet is that nether resist protects against xp drains from
chaos according to the above!
>Does anyone else think this is a bug?
Yes.
Graaagh the Mighty
<r...@angband.org> sat on a tribble, which squeaked:
[Deleted some material, including an unwarranted personal attack.]
>"root exploits" (attacks on programs that run 'setuid root') are only the
>tip of the iceberg. Any program that runs with privileges other than that
>of the user calling it, has to make sure that the user can't abuse these
>additional privileges. Angband usually runs 'setgid games' (or worse
>'setuid games' in many older installations) on multi-user systems so an
>exploit could grant the attacker additional rights. And that might allow
>new exploits, that again allow even more exploits, ...
Given that the only privilege the game needs above and beyond what the
user running it has is the ability to write the scorefile, the only
exploit a hole in angband allows in a proper multiuser installation is
trashing the shared scorefile. That's rather trivial, IMO.
>And there are other forms of attacks that don't even need a setuid/setgid
>program. If a program writes to a world-writeable directory (like /tmp or
>lib/user on an incorrectly set up Angband installation) then special care
>has to be taken.
The program author can't really take responsibility for its behavior
when incorrectly installed.
>Or the attacker can create a file that is automatically loaded by the
>program (like some of the *.prf files in Angband).
Central .prf files, of course, should not be world-writable.
Chris Kern
<aa...@chebucto.ns.ca> posted the following:
>On Fri, 4 May 2001, Chris Kern wrote:
>> I don't think that the designers should necessarily take into account
>> things like artifactless games. IMO the designer should take into
>> account only the way the game is meant to be played, with the full set
>> of objects. An artifactless game is an external challenge a player
>> selects for himself. I don't think the maintainer has any requirement
>> to make it easy for such games.
>
> ...which is why most of the best powers and abilities (except for Speed,
>of course) are on the artifacts, and only reluctantly doled out to
>non-artifacts.
I'm not sure whether or not you consider this a good thing or a bad
thing :-)
I just feel that maintainers should make a game, and balance it the
way it was intended to be played. If you try to balance the game for
all the ways people choose to play them, you're going to end up with a
mish-mash that really doesn't follow one "vision". If you're going to
balance things for artifactless players, then how about ironman
balance? What if a player chooses to play with no armor (or only 4
pieces of armor at a time)? Do we have to make sure that the player
can get all his resists in only 4 armors?
Trying to support self-made variations on the game like this changes
the game for everyone. Whether or not this is a good thing is open to
debate, but I think it is bad.
-Chris
Julian Lighton
Graaagh the Mighty <inv...@erehwon.invalid> wrote:
>On Fri, 04 May 2001 15:06:02 +1000, Steven Fuerst
><sfu...@physics.usyd.edu.au> sat on a tribble, which squeaked:
>
>>While not running as root- the game must be run with permissions higher
>>than the normal players. This is because you want the scorefile to not
>>be modifiable by the player, and to be modifiable by the game. Also, it
>>is nice if the savefiles are not modifiable by the player directly.
>>(That prevents some simple ways to cheat.)
>
>These considerations only apply if there's one central install,
>instead of every user having their own scorefile. (Cheating is a
>non-issue without a central scorefile of course.)
Yeah. That's sort of the point.
>In that case, you make the scorefile writable to 'games' and the game
>setuid 'games' or something. Give 'games' no privileges except the
>ability to read world-readable stuff and the ability to write the
>scorefile, and even if someone hacks the game somehow and manages to
>crack 'games' or run arbitrary code as 'games', the worst they can do
>that they couldn't do before to subvert the system is trash the
>Angband scorefile. Hardly a root compromise...
Given that the person who is also root plays Angband, it is not at all
hard to turn a 'games' compromise into a 'root' compromise, even if he
never runs Angband as root. (It's harder if the program's setgid
games, and the group does not have write access to the game binary,
but it's still potentially possible, unless Angband's handling of all
the files that it does need to be able to write to (saves, high
scores, prefs, etc.) is secure.)
And, if anybody were to make Angband playable by anybody over the
internet, (somebody does) Angband's allowing _any_ sort of user-level
access would be decidedly risky.
--
Julian Lighton jl...@fragment.com
"Don't tell me now, that there is nothing more
There is a how, just like there is a door" -- Savatage
Julian Lighton
Graaagh the Mighty <inv...@erehwon.invalid> wrote:
>On Fri, 4 May 2001 18:46:25 +0200, "Werner Baer" <werne...@gmx.de>
>sat on a tribble, which squeaked:
>
>>Now, it was worse back in old days, when summon uniques
>>with no uniques left summoned Jabberwockys instead
>>(not greater undead).
>
>Uh, what are Jabberwockys? Because [V] 2.9.x don't have them.
What are they teaching in school nowadays?
Jabberwocky
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought---
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
--
Julian Lighton jl...@fragment.com
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Eric Bock
> In article <3af4a7c3....@news.primus.ca>,
> Graaagh the Mighty <inv...@erehwon.invalid> wrote:
> >On Fri, 4 May 2001 18:46:25 +0200, "Werner Baer" <werne...@gmx.de>
> >sat on a tribble, which squeaked:
> >
> >>Now, it was worse back in old days, when summon uniques
> >>with no uniques left summoned Jabberwockys instead
> >>(not greater undead).
> >
> >Uh, what are Jabberwockys? Because [V] 2.9.x don't have them.
>
> What are they teaching in school nowadays?
Unfortunately schools' teachings are being interfered with by such things
as 13375p33k. 'Jabberwocky' and other famous writings are falling by the
wayside, perhaps because they have become tedious to those who read 1337.
Fortunately there is a translation. Hopefully this will help someone who
might otherwise have difficulty reading it :)
http://www.users.qwest.net/~ebock/j4bb3rw0x0r.txt
--
/* Eric */main(s,i,j,k,c){char*p=malloc(s=1),*a=p+(*p=i=j=k=0)/* Bock */
;while(~(*a=getchar())&&(++a-p<s||(a=(p=realloc(p,s+s))+s)&&(s+=s))||(*a
=0));for(a=malloc(s=1),*a=0;(c=p[i])&&(c=='+'&&++a[j]||c=='-'&&--a[j]||c
=='>'&&(++j<s||(a=realloc(a,s+s))&&memset(a+s,0,s)&&(s+=s))||c=='<'&&j--
||c=='.'&&~putchar(a[j])||c==','&&~(a[j]=getchar()))|!strchr("><.,",c);i
++)while((c=='['&&!a[j]||c==']'&&a[j])&&(k+=(p[i]=='[')-(p[i]==']'))&&p[
i+=c/* Brainf*** */=='[']&&(/* worse than */i-=c==']'/* this sig! */));}
Chris Kern
Mighty) posted the following:
>On Fri, 4 May 2001 18:46:25 +0200, "Werner Baer" <werne...@gmx.de>
>sat on a tribble, which squeaked:
>
>>Now, it was worse back in old days, when summon uniques
>>with no uniques left summoned Jabberwockys instead
>>(not greater undead).
>
>Uh, what are Jabberwockys? Because [V] 2.9.x don't have them.
Chaos Beetles used to be called Jabberwockys in older versions.
-Chris
Graaagh the Mighty
sat on a tribble, which squeaked:
>In article <3af4a7c3....@news.primus.ca>,
>Graaagh the Mighty <inv...@erehwon.invalid> wrote:
>>On Fri, 4 May 2001 18:46:25 +0200, "Werner Baer" <werne...@gmx.de>
>>sat on a tribble, which squeaked:
>>
>>>Now, it was worse back in old days, when summon uniques
>>>with no uniques left summoned Jabberwockys instead
>>>(not greater undead).
>>
>>Uh, what are Jabberwockys? Because [V] 2.9.x don't have them.
>
>What are they teaching in school nowadays?
[Snip Lewis Carol quotes]
Not the literature Jabberwocky, the Jabberwocky that Werner claimed
existed in frog-knows or something.
Timo Pietilä
Graaagh the Mighty wrote:
> [Snip Lewis Carol quotes]
> Not the literature Jabberwocky, the Jabberwocky that Werner claimed
> existed in frog-knows or something.
It existed in 2.7.9 IIRC. Maybe even later. Anyway before Ben made his
monster cleaning stuff. (changed colors, removed some monsters, renamed
others etc.)
Timo Pietilä
--
A(2.9.2) C "Wanderer" DP L:22 DL:600' A-- R--- !Sp w:LxBow(+9,+9)