chris PosChengband Maintainer

Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 702

[Announce] Poschengband 5.0.1 Released



Now, what changed this release?



Gameplay Changes:

[1] Confusing Lights has been toned down. Seriously, that was crazy before

[2] OK, it was a bit too easy to win with devices, so I made Rockets come slightly later and have higher casting costs. Tiamat got a new reward to celebrate this change.

[3] Grow Mold no longer spams Death molds.

[4] Big change to Archery multipliers and ranges. I never liked the Chengband changes, and some inspection showed that Short Bows and Light Crossbows were too powerful, since they retained the faster shooting rate. In fact, Short Bows are the most damage effective, being even more effective than Heavy Crossbows, which is a bit silly. Ranges have been restored and multipliers reduced, but not all the way to Hengband levels (e.g. Short Bows are now 2.50x). If you are upgrading, your Short Bow and Light Crossbow multipliers will be reduced.

[5] The Birth Autoroller is now a bit more generous. You *can* do two 17s if you are greedy. Or 3 16s. Or 16, 16, 15, 15 even ...

[6] Added option to display range to target. This is mostly for Warlocks, who have extremely gimped targetting ranges, and often need to know when monsters are in range. The option is called display_distance and the range will show up in the monster list for visible monsters, as well as when using the target and look commands.

[7] Jewelry drops from dungeon guardians, quest rewards and DROP_GREAT are no longer insulting in the early game. For example, one of my players got a Barbarian Talisman with -2 Int and nothing else! No more!!

[8] no_wilderness: Playing with this option means you forgo stat gains from dungeon guardians. To compensate, you will gain a chosen stat for each random quest completed (i.e. DL6, DL12, DL24 etc quests in Angband)



Class Playtesting Changes:

[1] Samurai and Mystics no longer automatically concentrate to charge their power. It's annoying to do this by hand, but you don't always want or need the supercharge.

[2] Rune-Knights get reduced benefits from Clarity and Great Clarity.

[3] Tweaked Book of Shadows for Burglary rogues.

[4] Mystics can browse powers to display effective damage

[5] Leprechauns no longer have mana, but instead use gold for their powers. Also, they no longer need quite so much gold to receive various bonuses. They also have a new power called Hoarding.

[6] Giants were a bit silly in the start, being quite weak. I changed their stat allocation so they start stronger, but gain strength less quickly. They are also more stupid, less wise, and quite clumsy.

[7] I playtested a Balrog and found the casting costs a bit too high.

[8] Warrior's Sword Dancing is *much* easier. But still fairly useless ... sigh.

[9] Fixed Magic Eater's regeneration rate for ego regen devices. It was quite a bit too fast before. I finally playtested to completion and found this build strong, but acceptable ... and fun

[10] Magic Eaters: Object display now shows the regen rate.

[11] Magic Eaters: Auto detect traps and Auto ID now work.

[12] Scouts were tweaked, with a few new abilities. It took surprisingly little to make this class fun for me to play, though I haven't played all the way thru yet. Try sniping with the Arrow of Bard some time!

[13] Warlocks: I'm in the middle of playtesting. Angels lose Invulnerability and get Crusade instead (untested). Various warlock pacts offer thematic ways to gain Economical Mana (e.g. Undead Warlock can use the Stone of Death). New abilities added ... But I'm still working on Warlocks, so more to follow.

[14] Evil Priests: Since good priests have an affinity for Life magic, evil priests get a bonus to Death magic. Also, why all the qualms about edged weapons if your evil god delights in bloodshed? Icky weapons, and Bless Weapon are only for good priests (Basically, one never played evil priests before, since Healing is so powerful. Now, perhaps, there will be some more reason to choose the dark side?)

[15] Draconian Metamorphosis: As a Monk, your postures will now effect your innate dragon attack deadliness. I would have playtested this change more, but got squished by Hastur shortly after CL35!



Bug Fixes:

[1] Fixed Barbarian Talisman in the Tengu and Death Swords quest.

[2] Brand Fire/Poison spells weren't giving appropriate resistances.

[3] Fixed Object Lore problem with Ego activations.

[4] Fixed SegFault when viewing Cheat Options.

[5] Doppelganger Samurai/Mystics now decay supercharged mana correctly.

[6] Fixed themed jewelry drops (e.g. Archers should drop rings of archery).

[7] Fixed AI Bug with Shoot posture. Monsters with this AI can now melee if the player is adjacent.

[8] Crossbowmaster's Overdraw was adding +0.01x to the multiplier, rather than +1.00x. (Trifling, I know ...)

[9] Vulnerability to fear no longer removes the player's chances of saving. It was fun to die thanks to my Cloak of Cowardice, and probably deserved as well, but players deserve some chance!



Reported Issues:

[1] Fixed gold exploits with the Rune-Knight

[2] Doppelgangers need to repaint the effect list after stopping mimicry



Minor Tweaks:

[1] Glove encumbrance is displayed in the status list.

[2] Fix message spam for characters that auto Clear Mind. Turn off disturb_minor to remove these messages. (I use disturb_minor quite a bit for message suppression).

[3] Monster Recall now includes the max depth when necessary.

[4] Staves of Identify now come in larger sizes. I've seen them up to 70 charges! You should no longer need to carry 2 in the end game.



Aside: If you are viewing changes to the git repository, you might want to use the --ignore-all-space option. My editor (QtCreator) has an option to clean up whitespace for the entire file as you make changes. Mostly this is the removal of trailing spaces, but it also makes sure the file ends on a blank line to avoid compiler warnings on certain platforms. Another release of PosChengband (5.0.1) is available in the usual spot. This is just a playtesting release with a few major gameplay changes, but no new classes have been added (I've committed myself to playtesting all the Chengband classes until I am satisfied before adding new stuff. At the moment, I'm working on Warlocks and have tested the Spider (fun!) and Hound pacts, and like them both.) I should also mention that I haven't accessed the internet since the last release, which was a bombshell change to object lore. So I haven't had a chance to see or address all the problems. I'll respond to those for 5.0.2Now, what changed this release?Gameplay Changes:[1] Confusing Lights has been toned down. Seriously, that was crazy before[2] OK, it was a bit too easy to win with devices, so I made Rockets come slightly later and have higher casting costs. Tiamat got a new reward to celebrate this change.[3] Grow Mold no longer spams Death molds.[4] Big change to Archery multipliers and ranges. I never liked the Chengband changes, and some inspection showed that Short Bows and Light Crossbows were too powerful, since they retained the faster shooting rate. In fact, Short Bows are the most damage effective, being even more effective than Heavy Crossbows, which is a bit silly. Ranges have been restored and multipliers reduced, but not all the way to Hengband levels (e.g. Short Bows are now 2.50x). If you are upgrading, your Short Bow and Light Crossbow multipliers will be reduced.[5] The Birth Autoroller is now a bit more generous. You *can* do two 17s if you are greedy. Or 3 16s. Or 16, 16, 15, 15 even ...[6] Added option to display range to target. This is mostly for Warlocks, who have extremely gimped targetting ranges, and often need to know when monsters are in range. The option is called display_distance and the range will show up in the monster list for visible monsters, as well as when using the target and look commands.[7] Jewelry drops from dungeon guardians, quest rewards and DROP_GREAT are no longer insulting in the early game. For example, one of my players got a Barbarian Talisman with -2 Int and nothing else! No more!![8] no_wilderness: Playing with this option means you forgo stat gains from dungeon guardians. To compensate, you will gain a chosen stat for each random quest completed (i.e. DL6, DL12, DL24 etc quests in Angband)Class Playtesting Changes:[1] Samurai and Mystics no longer automatically concentrate to charge their power. It's annoying to do this by hand, but you don't always want or need the supercharge.[2] Rune-Knights get reduced benefits from Clarity and Great Clarity.[3] Tweaked Book of Shadows for Burglary rogues.[4] Mystics can browse powers to display effective damage[5] Leprechauns no longer have mana, but instead use gold for their powers. Also, they no longer need quite so much gold to receive various bonuses. They also have a new power called Hoarding.[6] Giants were a bit silly in the start, being quite weak. I changed their stat allocation so they start stronger, but gain strength less quickly. They are also more stupid, less wise, and quite clumsy.[7] I playtested a Balrog and found the casting costs a bit too high.[8] Warrior's Sword Dancing is *much* easier. But still fairly useless ... sigh.[9] Fixed Magic Eater's regeneration rate for ego regen devices. It was quite a bit too fast before. I finally playtested to completion and found this build strong, but acceptable ... and fun[10] Magic Eaters: Object display now shows the regen rate.[11] Magic Eaters: Auto detect traps and Auto ID now work.[12] Scouts were tweaked, with a few new abilities. It took surprisingly little to make this class fun for me to play, though I haven't played all the way thru yet. Try sniping with the Arrow of Bard some time![13] Warlocks: I'm in the middle of playtesting. Angels lose Invulnerability and get Crusade instead (untested). Various warlock pacts offer thematic ways to gain Economical Mana (e.g. Undead Warlock can use the Stone of Death). New abilities added ... But I'm still working on Warlocks, so more to follow.[14] Evil Priests: Since good priests have an affinity for Life magic, evil priests get a bonus to Death magic. Also, why all the qualms about edged weapons if your evil god delights in bloodshed? Icky weapons, and Bless Weapon are only for good priests (Basically, one never played evil priests before, since Healing is so powerful. Now, perhaps, there will be some more reason to choose the dark side?)[15] Draconian Metamorphosis: As a Monk, your postures will now effect your innate dragon attack deadliness. I would have playtested this change more, but got squished by Hastur shortly after CL35!Bug Fixes:[1] Fixed Barbarian Talisman in the Tengu and Death Swords quest.[2] Brand Fire/Poison spells weren't giving appropriate resistances.[3] Fixed Object Lore problem with Ego activations.[4] Fixed SegFault when viewing Cheat Options.[5] Doppelganger Samurai/Mystics now decay supercharged mana correctly.[6] Fixed themed jewelry drops (e.g. Archers should drop rings of archery).[7] Fixed AI Bug with Shoot posture. Monsters with this AI can now melee if the player is adjacent.[8] Crossbowmaster's Overdraw was adding +0.01x to the multiplier, rather than +1.00x. (Trifling, I know ...)[9] Vulnerability to fear no longer removes the player's chances of saving. It was fun to die thanks to my Cloak of Cowardice, and probably deserved as well, but players deserve some chance!Reported Issues:[1] Fixed gold exploits with the Rune-Knight[2] Doppelgangers need to repaint the effect list after stopping mimicryMinor Tweaks:[1] Glove encumbrance is displayed in the status list.[2] Fix message spam for characters that auto Clear Mind. Turn off disturb_minor to remove these messages. (I use disturb_minor quite a bit for message suppression).[3] Monster Recall now includes the max depth when necessary.[4] Staves of Identify now come in larger sizes. I've seen them up to 70 charges! You should no longer need to carry 2 in the end game.Aside: If you are viewing changes to the git repository, you might want to use the --ignore-all-space option. My editor (QtCreator) has an option to clean up whitespace for the entire file as you make changes. Mostly this is the removal of trailing spaces, but it also makes sure the file ends on a blank line to avoid compiler warnings on certain platforms.