User talk:Phol ende wodan

From NetHackWiki
Revision as of 14:06, 25 June 2021 by Umbire the Phantom (talk | contribs) (Elves and Iron)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Combat comment

I don't know if you noticed, but I did leave a comment on User talk:Phol ende wodan/Combat system overhaul. It's not a bunch of minor things, but seems to me a major (but likely fixable) problem. --Truculent (talk) 07:56, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

3.6.1 updates

I can use that template, sure, but I'm not certain whether my edits are complete, since I don't have the time or knowledge to do a full source dive. I'm just scanning the readme and Sourceforge commits and confirming what I can from the source. Should I wait until more users have had a look before updating the template? --Darth l33t (talk) 15:45, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Nah, if that were the case the templates would never get bumped at all. If there are inconsistencies discovered later, someone can fix them, but the nethack-361 template indicates that someone has looked at it with an eye to 3.6.1. --Phol ende wodan (talk) 15:47, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Orcus

I've made some further changes, particularly reordering things to be, well, closer to the way I had them. If you disagree please feel free to change them further, or we could discuss them here - I say here because if we do it on Talk:Orcus we'll have endless rambling interjections. Pinkbeast (talk) 14:18, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

One minor thing I'd add/change: it's better to mention digging as a way to get to the level below instead of levelporting, since this is generally a much more common resource. --Tone (talk) 15:10, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
I usually clear Gehennom upwards, so I suppose I think of that as the most common option (but on reflection that's just me). I've added the suggestion of digging down, though, since that's the easiest way to get from Orcustown to Orcustown+1. I should have thought of that; my mistake. Pinkbeast (talk) 15:26, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Can't access irc, rooms stay lit

Hi, For some reason my rooms are staying lit still. I made sure dark_room is true (it was already) but any tiles in rooms that are "lit" but not in vision look exactly the same as tiles that are in rooms and in vision. I tried with dark_room set to false as well. No change. Unsure what to do. It cost me two runs to accidentally hitting something (my pet and a priest, respectively) with a beam because I didn't realize I didn't see the whole line. I remember you said a parameter to change, I *thought* it was dark_room, but I can't access IRC right now (server connection keeps failing). Thanks, -Greg

Oops re link

Silly of me re link on cloak. (Distraction from waiting on COVID test result, possibly...) --Actual-nh (talk) 14:18, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Sorry - any idea which variant I'm thinking of?

I'm very sorry about that mistake re xNetHack - I'm quite certain that some variant or another did that, but evidently my interest in xNetHack resulted in my misremembering. -Actual-nh (talk) 22:38, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

No worries. I don't know of any variant that changes that formula, though arguably xNetHack is the most likely to at some point in the future as I do more to remove difficulty scaling on the player's level of various things. But I may not end up touching the actual monster generation formula because so much game balance rests on that. --Phol ende wodan (talk) 23:37, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
Understand. (One thought I've had is to base some experience level things - like the cost of protection - on, not current level, but the mean (rounding down) of the current level and the highest level you could get back to with a blessed potion of restore ability.) -Actual-nh (talk) 04:44, 25 December 2020 (UTC)
I figured out, I think, what I was misremembering - has xNetHack made changes in group size vs player level? -Actual-nh (talk) 03:52, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
Yes. In that group size no longer depends on experience level. https://github.com/copperwater/xnethack/commit/d57c49a7 --Phol ende wodan (talk) 02:16, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Beautiful song

Very nice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6rFN42JhM8 --Qt (talk) 00:58, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Recent instabilities...

Several things recently encountered:

1) Picking up zorkmids sometimes automatically turns itself off and requires an Options reset.

2) My most recent game had this behavior plus it no longer recognized the pickup_types option and ended with this: https://www.hardfought.org/userdata/e/every2/xnethack/dumplog/1608995512.xnh.txt

3) Looking at my inventory displayed zorkmids both at the top and the bottom of the listing.

--Jimeikner (talk) 19:18, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

All of those are potentially due to this bug, and should be fixed on hardfought now. Let me know if it continues happening. --Phol ende wodan (talk) 21:06, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

A disappointing "feature"...

Wielding a silver longsword while being crowned doesn't produce a silver Excalibur. Apparently just the vanilla version instead. Aw. Haven't had a chance to test it with the "watery tart" yet though...

——Jimeikner (talk) 15:44, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, this is very intentional and a silver Excalibur will never be possible. I'm not sure it's even possible in any variant that has object materials. Artifacts in xNetHack are always one specific material, and Excalibur's is iron. --Phol ende wodan (talk) 20:52, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
Alas, as I feared. Thanks for the response... --Jimeikner (talk) 21:07, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Am I reading the xNetHack page correctly re XP/XL?

Just checking - am I reading the xNetHack page correctly (and it being correct, I assume) that xNetHack is using the FIQHack progression? Otherwise, a new column is needed for the Experience Level tables. Thanks! -Actual-nh (talk) 01:11, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Yeah I saw the edit and it looks fine, I checked exper.c and it's consistent with that table (thought FIQHack might have changed it at some point but it hasn't). --Phol ende wodan (talk) 01:19, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Pickaxes...

While I know that pickaxes can ruin a weaponless conduct, does xnh consider them to be tools or weapons. And if weapons, are they edged or blunt. Just trying to sort out some materials choices... --Every (talk) 21:50, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

I haven't really changed much about pickaxes. Like vanilla, they're weapon-tools and thus break weaponless conduct if you hit with them. However, xNetHack will warn you if you're about to break weaponless conduct (with any weapon, not just pickaxes) if you are not a beginner. Also like vanilla, both the dwarvish mattock and pick-axe are blunt weapons, which you can find for any weapon by looking it up in the encyclopedia. Not sure that the bluntness matters though; I haven't implemented a mechanic that would make it matter. --Phol ende wodan (talk) 22:29, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
So, if a pickaxe is considered blunt by the game, then a gold or platinum pickaxe would receive a +2 damage bonus but a wooden pickaxe would not suffer a -1 damage bonus? --Every (talk) 23:46, 9 March 2021 (UTC)
Oh right, yeah, that. Correct. --Phol ende wodan (talk) 00:18, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, sort of vague and confusing terminology. I think bladed/non-bladed might be better... --Every (talk) 01:41, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
Piercing/slashing/blunt damage is defined by vanilla; I haven't changed that much at all. --Phol ende wodan (talk) 20:21, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
BTW, any idea why the dwarvish mattock is considered a weapon and not a weapon-tool (at least in vanilla)? -Actual-nh (talk) 01:53, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
Nope, but it certainly does chunky enough damage. --Phol ende wodan (talk) 20:21, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Encyclopedia re materials

How about Kipling for "cold iron"? -Actual-nh (talk) 17:51, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Saved! Thanks for the suggestion, any help I can get on finding quotations for things the encyclopedia doesn't cover is much appreciated. I'm also going to put this on the SpliceHack etherpad because cold iron is actually a separate material there. --Phol ende wodan (talk) 20:21, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
Excellent! I am very happy to also be (potentially) helping out SpliceHack. -Actual-nh (talk) 21:27, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Hungry

In a full year of playing xNetHack I have never found a single ring of Slow Digestion. Is it just my bad luck or have the probabilities been jiggled? --Every (talk) 23:29, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Ring probabilities are uniform, so no change there. I think it's just coincidence. --Phol ende wodan (talk) 21:21, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Scale Merge

Tried this for the first time and seems to have worked. I now have yellow-scaled +4 mithril elven ring mail. But it threw this exception:

obfree: deleting worn obj(78: 536870912) Program in disorder. Saved as suggested. Current game for AlleyOop on hardfought... --Every (talk) 17:42, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Cannot reproduce this. 78 is YELLOW_DRAGON_SCALES and 536870912 is the worn mask for I_SPECIAL. I can't figure out how it got there. Any other information to share on the circumstances? Had you previously used those scales to polymorph into a dragon? --Phol ende wodan (talk) 23:44, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
Ah, I messed up the first time by attempting to use the vanilla technique. I subsequently spent several hundred turns as a yellow dragon beset by footrices. But after a more careful reading of the changes, I used the prescribed xnh method with the same scales... --Every (talk) 00:00, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
Additionally, is it possible to wish for a specific type of dragon scales? Say, gray dragon scales with no enchantment specified that could then be melded to existing armor? And if so, can the resulting composite armor then be further enchanted? --Every (talk) 18:59, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
I think you should try thoroughly reading the xNetHack article. --Umbire the Phantom (talk) 20:57, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

A slight monmax_difficulty change possibility

If the dungeon and player level add up to an odd number, round toward the dungeon level. -Actual-nh (talk) 18:37, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Penalty for quest leader's death

I am somewhat confused as to why, if one's alignment has changed such that one can't do the quest without killing the quest leader, this would make one's new deity upset; see Talk:Quest#Killing_your_quest_leader for more discussion. Could you clarify this? Thanks! -Actual-nh (talk) 00:10, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

Because ugangr is a single stat and the game doesn't track different gods' opinions of you differently. Such a feature may eventually come to xNetHack but isn't currently planned. Additionally, it would be a cop-out if alignment change were a get out of jail free card for something as heinous as killing the quest leader.
One could possibly handwave this as all gods deeply respecting the quest leader (after all, the quest leader is compatible with two or even all three gods for many roles). --Phol ende wodan (talk) 16:00, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
Point. I was thinking of counterbalancing it by, if the new deity wasn't angered, having luck time out to something like -10 or -20, reflecting your old deity being even more mad at you (and perhaps the new deity not doing as much to protect you from said old deity as they might otherwise). -Actual-nh (talk) 16:07, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Munged Quest Map

Current xnh Caveman quest failed to properly generate (apparently some problem with Lua). Quest leader, altar etc are there but the map looks like something from Gehennom. The two downstairs are kind of interesting though. The victim is Cavefolk on hardfought. I have a screen capture if that would be of help... --Every (talk) 21:47, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

I pushed a fix to this that was deployed to hardfought midday yesterday; if you loaded the caveman home level before that, it would have crashed as you described. --Phol ende wodan (talk) 16:00, 1 June 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for the response. I had taken a peek briefly several days earlier so I guess I'm stuck with it... --Every (talk) 16:13, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Containers getting unlocked by intelligent monsters

Hi. I'm not seeing that in the 3.7.0 commits (and there's one that rather contradicts it); is it something the (core) devs have confirmed is definitely going to happen? The container and stash pages were conflicting; I apologize if I fixed the conflict incorrectly. -Actual-nh (talk) 21:56, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Looks like they cannot currently unlock containers, so my edit to stash was wrong. I blame variants in which they can unlock containers. However, I would consider the jury out on what will happen in 3.7.0; the commit you linked was specifically to address soldiers in the Castle carting around the wand of wishing chest (and possibly getting it smashed in the drawbridge), but this comment indicates that monsters should ideally be able to unlock and loot containers on the floor like the player can. --Phol ende wodan (talk) 23:19, 15 June 2021 (UTC)
Understand! I've tried to clarify the situation a bit. -Actual-nh (talk) 00:02, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Elves and Iron

The current combination of no displacement and iron hatred are brutal on elven rangers. I have a graveyard full of elven corpses to attest to that. Essentially, not only can everything see where you are but can also deal the functional equivalent of poison damage near and far. Since materials and material-hatred seem well ingrained into xnh, I would like to suggest this balancing factor for elven rangers: Simply let them generate with a +2 cloak of displacement like the other races... --Every (talk) 15:56, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Noted! I'll consider it. --Phol ende wodan (talk) 11:43, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
Thanks! Possible racial conducts aside, I have long assumed the faded pall was a nerf on the superior starting elven gear and damage. No nerfs needed with iron hatred on the menu... --Every (talk) 13:07, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
Because it effectively is, given the vanilla code for elven PCs states as much in u_init.c. --Umbire the Phantom (talk) 14:05, 25 June 2021 (UTC)