Various bugs and gameplay quirks

[Susramanian]

Thanks for a great game. I can't wait to see Tome4 finished. Hopefully I can speed the process; here are various bugs and gameplay quirks I noticed running Windows 7. Spoilers ahead for those of you worried about that.







I managed to get to the orc ambush with a dunadan sword/shield fighter. He died almost immediately from the archers. My next play through was a mage, and it took a lot of tries to get one to survive long enough to feel even sort of safe. Once the mage got going, though, it was much, much easier than the fighter. Mages are *powerful*. I wiped out the orc ambush after preparing heavily for it. Anyway, list of issues on my two play-throughs:

The popup window you get when you mouse over your character appears at weird times. I don't use the mouse at all, but I had the window popping up over my fighter whenever I stepped on a square that I had killed a monster on.

When telepathy is active, default targetting often chooses monsters that are out of line of sight.

I have made hotkeys of ctrl-keypad7 and ctrl-keypad8. The game does not differentiate between them.

For large inventories, non-letter symbols toward the end don't register when you try to use/drop/whatever the item by typing the symbol. You have to scroll to them or use the mouse.

Keypad5 for staying in place does not display items you are standing on. Running into a wall does, however.

After selling something, the sold item (now in the store's inventory) stays selected. If you're trying to sell a bunch of things, this adds a great many keystrokes and also results in accidentally buying a lot of things before you get used to it.

Some dialogs, like entering quantities of objects, won't accept a keypad enter. The keypad enter works for most things, though.

Sustained spells have to be recast in order to take advantage of increases to spell power. This can also be exploited.

Sense doesn't detect traps in a useful way. It shows you the traps for a single turn, just like the monsters, but then they go away until you blunder over them.

Feathered Wind doesn't seem to help against any traps I've found, despite the description. It also doesn't reduce incoming archer damage, though maybe it reduces the frequency of the hits. I couldn't tell.

I'm having a hard time making chain lightning useful. There seems to be some strangeness about how it decides to chain to secondary targets that involves line of sight. It's useless in corridors, for example. Never hits more than one.

I've lost two characters to accidentally targeting them with an offensive ability. One actually shield-pummeled himself to death. This seems unlikely, and definitely wasn't fun.

Teleport has no minimum range, resulting in some botched escape attempts.

Stone Wall makes insubstantial walls. Enemies (and the player character) walk right through them. I haven't tested to see if they break line of sight for ranged attacks.

Displacement shield seems to have no effect. I never once saw it redirect any damage.

Turning Feather Wind on or off doesn't change encumbrance status, even if you fall below or rise above the encumbrance limit. For example, if you have FW turned on and you're lugging around way more stuff than you could normally, you can turn FW off and keep moving around freely. Until you pick something else up, anyway.

Running into a wall uses a turn.

During a long game save, I hit the shift key. It turned the screen white and after the save was done, the shift was stuck on.

After killing the whole orc ambush, I tried to use the < and got this message: "There is no way out of this level here." I had to teleport to the mage town to get out. After finishing the quest it became clear that I was supposed to have gotten mugged and lost the staff. I suppose that not killing all the orcs results in some sort of plotty exit from the ambush where they take the staff and you crawl off to Minas Tirith. I'm not sure. My first try against the orcs went badly with my fighter: almost instant death. My mage obliterated them. I guess we're supposed to do something in between.

Selecting the Staff of Absorption in a store closes the shopping dialog.

Probability travel works on the world map if you have it on when you access the world map, though you can't cast it.

During character creation, it says that the important stats for berserkers are strength and constitution, and the important stats for fighters are strength and dexterity. Is that intended? I couldn't see much of a use for dex on my fighter.

Early in the game, I frequently saw artifact rings and potions in the stores. Of course I couldn't afford them. Later, when I could afford them, they never reappeared. This doesn't feel like chance. I saw them a *lot* early on. In fact, the very first store I went into with my very first character had a Blood of Life for sale. With my mage winner, I can't get any of them to appear now.

My fighter found quite a few random artifacts before dying at the ambush. My mage never found any except the fixed artifacts. Probably just chance.

The boss of Amon Sul appears in a special room that doesn't always connect with the rest of the level. It took me a long time and multiple characters to figure out the problem. Finally I just made sure that I had Dig by the time I reached the bottom. Compounding the problem, it seems the game will only generate the boss once. If you leave the level without killing him and come back, he won't be there. This needs a fix badly.

The quest "An Apprentice Task" remains in the list of uncompleted quests after you complete it.

Default targeting is too sticky. For example, it's annoying to try to cast Dig on the wall in front of me and have the default target be a spot halfway across the dungeon in the wrong direction.

Thanks again. This is the most Angband-fun I've had in a long time. It's good to see ToME moving in new and interesting directions.

[Shoob]

Sense doesn't detect traps in a useful way. It shows you the traps for a single turn, just like the monsters, but then they go away until you blunder over them.

actually, it is a display thing (still an error though imo) you cant run over the traps if you detect them

Feathered Wind doesn't seem to help against any traps I've found, despite the description. It also doesn't reduce incoming archer damage, though maybe it reduces the frequency of the hits. I couldn't tell.

yeah, I noticed that ranged defense didnt help me out at all, I got hit just as much with that as without that.

After killing the whole orc ambush, I tried to use the < and got this message: "There is no way out of this level here."

yep, noticed that too, the stairs can be bugged I have also died in there too, which is not supposed to happen.

Running into a wall uses a turn.

technically it isnt running into a wall, but moving into a wall, running would result in nothing I think. I do like this as it makes it easier to rest for now.

[darkgod]

Thanks for a great game. I can't wait to see Tome4 finished. Hopefully I can speed the process; here are various bugs and gameplay quirks I noticed running Windows 7. Spoilers ahead for those of you worried about that.

Thanks!
First let me say I am deeply impressed you managed to do all that in 4 days !
You are an incredibly better player than I am!
You managed to kill Ukruk ? he has got over 16k life !

ANyway thanks for all that, I wont respond to all, mostly some are just "*nod* Ill fix it"

I managed to get to the orc ambush with a dunadan sword/shield fighter. He died almost immediately from the archers. My next play through was a mage, and it took a lot of tries to get one to survive long enough to feel even sort of safe. Once the mage got going, though, it was much, much easier than the fighter. Mages are *powerful*. I wiped out the orc ambush after preparing heavily for it. Anyway, list of issues on my two

Yes that's why they need unlocking

The popup window you get when you mouse over your character appears at weird times. I don't use the mouse at all, but I had the window popping up over my fighter whenever I stepped on a square that I had killed a monster on.

yeah it's kind of dumb :/

Sustained spells have to be recast in order to take advantage of increases to spell power. This can also be exploited.

I supposed I could force them off and on again but it would be weird.

Feathered Wind doesn't seem to help against any traps I've found, despite the description. It also doesn't reduce incoming archer damage, though maybe it reduces the frequency of the hits. I couldn't tell.

It increases ranged defense so yes reduces hits.

Teleport has no minimum range, resulting in some botched escape attempts.

Ohh good idea!

Displacement shield seems to have no effect. I never once saw it redirect any damage.

All shield (and time prison) let the game say "foo damages you for X damage", the shield acts after it.

After killing the whole orc ambush, I tried to use the < and got this message: "There is no way out of this level here." I had to teleport to the mage town to get out. After finishing the quest it became clear that I was supposed to have gotten mugged and lost the staff. I suppose that not killing all the orcs results in some sort of plotty exit from the ambush where they take the staff and you crawl off to Minas Tirith. I'm not sure. My first try against the orcs went badly with my fighter: almost instant death. My mage obliterated them. I guess we're supposed to do something in between.

Yes the game is not expecting you to survive ... :<
Now please tell me how you did it !
Taking care of all the little orcs ok with some fireflashs and so on.
But Ukruk ? *Oh I see I did not make him stun/freeze immune*
You froze him to death ?

During character creation, it says that the important stats for berserkers are strength and constitution, and the important stats for fighters are strength and dexterity. Is that intended? I couldn't see much of a use for dex on my fighter.

Dex raises chance to hit and defence (to not get hit).
A maxed str/dex fighter with a shield and shield wall/last stand can get nearly impervious to most blows.

Early in the game, I frequently saw artifact rings and potions in the stores. Of course I couldn't afford them. Later, when I could afford them, they never reappeared. This doesn't feel like chance. I saw them a *lot* early on. In fact, the very first store I went into with my very first character had a Blood of Life for sale. With my mage winner, I can't get any of them to appear now.

i'll check the code, they *should* but safe though.

The boss of Amon Sul appears in a special room that doesn't always connect with the rest of the level. It took me a long time and multiple characters to figure out the problem. Finally I just made sure that I had Dig by the time I reached the bottom. Compounding the problem, it seems the game will only generate the boss once. If you leave the level without killing him and come back, he won't be there. This needs a fix badly.

Damned .. grmf ...

Thanks again. This is the most Angband-fun I've had in a long time. It's good to see ToME moving in new and interesting directions.

[/quote]
Thanks !
But damn you! I though I had time to implement the next parts of the game ... you ruined my hopes !

[Susramanian]

I went into the encounter hasted, invisible, and with regen active. Then I kept pushing back Ukruk with Tidal Wave. He never reached me. Tidal wave, Flame, Tidal Wave, Flame, etc. Also, I was level 24. I spent a long time at the bottom of Tol Falas gaining levels because I was so afraid of getting killed by the ambush again.

[darkgod]

Even thou you dont actually die ?

Anyway I see how you could manage it yes thanks! Had enough mana to keep up ?
I'll probably give him some ranged attacks, or Rush ..

But yes I need to figure out a way for the rare players that are able to vanquish this encounter.
And to forbid things like Teleport: Angolwen in some places.

Anyway, well done sir!

[Susramanian]

Thanks

The only time I saw the ambush before that I *did* die. It didn't take me to Minas Tirith or anything. Just game over. So I was very afraid of it with my mage.

I used Manaflow once during the fight. I also had a +4 mana/turn ring. And my Tidal Wave and Flame were maxed out and did a ton of damage, so I didn't have to cast them too many times.

[darkgod]

Ah yes
I have found a ring with +3 life/turn on my mage currently, makes things good

You have how much +% fire/cold damage from equipment ?

[Susramanian]

I don't use any equipment with +% elemental damage. I have a staff of wizardry with 36 spellpower, though. And my arcane power is maxed out. I think my spellpower was about 100 for the orc ambush. I'll experiment with elemental damage rings to see how I like them, but I doubt I'll want to replace my +4mana/turn ring. It's amazing. I almost never run out of mana.

Oh, I've been playing around with new spells. I never touched Disruption Shield until recently, because the description made it sound awful. After playing with it a little, I see I was sort of right. The explosion aspect of DS makes the spell a deathtrap. Just to test it, I turned on DS and ran around in front of a skeleton mage and let him zap me. When my mana got low from his attacks, I teleported away and rested back to full mana. DS never got turned off, since it never ran out of mana. Then, finally, I let myself run out of mana and the DS went off like an A-bomb. Instadeath! It was actually pretty fun But it did its job; I didn't take a single point of damage until the thing exploded.

Displacement Shield, on the other hand, I still can't get to work. Never seen it absorb or transfer a single point of damage.

[Jaorin]

The troll boss has the same problem. He is only generated once.

[darkgod]

Ohh I see do you :
* enter the boss level
* leave the boss level
* come back a few hundred turns later ?

[Jaorin]

Something like that. I've run into him too early while I'm leveling and gotten out of the level until I'm strong enough to face him. After that he is strangely absent.

[darkgod]

Ahh then I know the problem I'll fix it