crawl-ref-discuss — General discussion and planning for crawl-ref

Re: [Crawl-ref-discuss] [DCSS 0011734]: crash on game start after updating to latest (98c7a59) trunk

[Kristoffer B. <kri...@gm...>]

Yes, I tried multiple (>~5) times, immediate bounce back to dgamelaunch
every time, until Napkin added the "press any key" prompt.

On Tue, Oct 23, 2018 at 3:28 PM DCSS Bug Tracker <ma...@cr...>
wrote:

>
> A NOTE has been added by advil.
> ============================================================================
>
> https://crawl.develz.org/mantis/view.php?id=11734
> ============================================================================
>
> Reported By:                TAS2012
> Assigned To:
> ============================================================================
>
> Project:                    DCSS
> Product Branch:             0.23 development branch
> Issue ID:                   11734
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Category:                   Bug Report
> Reproducibility:            always
> Severity:                   crash
> Status:                     new
> ============================================================================
>
> Date Submitted:             2018-10-23 11:55 CEST
> Last Modified:              2018-10-23 15:28 CEST
> ============================================================================
>
> Summary:                    crash on game start after updating to latest
> (98c7a59) trunk
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> </pre>Starting Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup 98c7a59...
>
> Crash caused by signal https://crawl.develz.org/mantis/view.php?id=6:
> Aborted
>
> We crashed! This is likely due to a bug in Crawl.
> Please submit a bug report at https://crawl.develz.org/mantis/ and
> include:
> - The crash report:
> /crawl-svn/morgue/TAS2012/crash-TAS2012-20181023-093600.txt
> - Your save file: /crawl-svn-98c7a59/saves/TAS2012.cs
> - A description of what you were doing when this crash occurred.
>
> /bin/crawl-svn: line 154: 32608 Aborted                 (core dumped)
> ${BINARY_NAME} $*
> --- any key to continue ---</pre>
>
> I had a game that had rested since 2018-10-19.
> When I tried to resume it today, I was asked if I wanted to update to
> latest trunk, answered yes, and then promptly got thrown out back to
> dgamelaunch.
> When I tried again to resume the game I momentarily could see "Starting
> [...] 98c7a59" and was then immediately bounced back.
>
> I contacted Napkin and thanks to the "any key to continue" being added to
> the script I could see what I have pasted above. I got copies of the
> crash-* and crash-recursive-* files.
>
> http://crawl.develz.org/morgues/trunk/TAS2012/crash-TAS2012-20181023-093600.txt
>
> http://crawl.develz.org/morgues/trunk/TAS2012/crash-recursive-TAS2012-20181023-093600.txt
>
> Napkin then moved my save to Sep 17 20:26 crawl-svn-440b721 and I tried to
> resume the game, without updating to latest trunk, and it seems to work
> fine.
>
> I then (sorry, maybe should have done this before, hope I didn't destroy
> the needed data) got a backup of the save file.
> https://crawl.develz.org/saves/dumps/TAS2012-440b721-181023-0943.tar.bz2
>
> I'll upload related files to mantis also.
> ============================================================================
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>  (0032715) advil (developer) - 2018-10-23 15:28
>  https://crawl.develz.org/mantis/view.php?id=11734#c32715
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I can't get the uploaded save file to crash when updating to current trunk,
> so it might have gotten fixed somehow, or there was an extra random factor
> to the crash, or it's compiler specific (I'm testing on mac/clang, which is
> different than CDO).
>
> Roughly, this was crashing when it tried to update some artifact's property
> list to allow a slot for harm (added in 0.23-a0-330-g6e662b0). The
> immediate crash looks like it failed to resize the property vector in
> `artefact_fixup_props`; I can't figure out why this would fail. The
> recursive crash is just because `debug_item_scan` is run during the crash
> handler and the original crash happened in the middle of
> `tag_read_level_items`, so the items are half-loaded and practically
> guaranteed to be corrupted. (In this case it's crashing exactly because the
> fixup didn't complete, but all the unlinked items are because of this as
> well I'm pretty sure. In the working save, the items listed as unlinked in
> the crash are on the ground.) So basically the recursive crash isn't the
> interesting part, just a complication of when the original crash happened.
>
> Do you know if this crash was deterministic on CDO? I.e. did you try to
> load it multiple times after the update with the same result?
>
> Issue History
> Date Modified    Username       Field                    Change
>
> ============================================================================
>
> 2018-10-23 11:55 TAS2012        New Issue
>
> 2018-10-23 11:55 TAS2012        File Added:
> TAS2012-440b721-181023-0943.tar.bz2
>
> 2018-10-23 11:57 TAS2012        File Added:
> crash-TAS2012-20181023-093600.txt
>
> 2018-10-23 11:57 TAS2012        File Added:
> crash-recursive-TAS2012-20181023-093600.txt
> 2018-10-23 12:43 TAS2012        Issue Monitored: TAS2012
>
> 2018-10-23 15:28 advil          Note Added: 0032715
>
>
> ============================================================================
>
>

[Crawl-ref-discuss] Welcome Edgar Bering to the team!

[gammafunk <gam...@gm...>]

Edgar Bering (ebering on IRC/github) has made many fine contributions over
the years, including a slate of recent work overhauling unrands, fixing
ally conversion, documenting our lua interface, and making ghost vaults.

He's agreed to join the team, so please give him a warm welcome if you
haven't already!

Re: [Crawl-ref-discuss] Welcome Aidan Holm to the team!

[Corin Buchanan-H. <co...@bu...>]

Welcome to the team, Aidan!

On 1/9/2018 9:09 AM, Aidan Holm wrote:
> Thanks everyone! I'm really enjoying working on crawl---the dev team 
> and community have been really easygoing, and the work has been 
> challenging but rewarding---so thank you!
>
> On Mon, Jan 8, 2018 at 8:42 AM, gammafunk <gam...@gm... 
> <mailto:gam...@gm...>> wrote:
>
>     Welcome, Aidan! I think Neil's message only arrived to must of us
>     just now, but welcome all the same!
>
>     On Fri, Dec 29, 2017 at 6:16 AM, Neil Moore <ne...@s-...
>     <mailto:ne...@s-...>> wrote:
>
>
>         Aidan Holm (aidanh on IRC, aidanholm on github) has been
>         making many
>         excellent contributions, especially (but not only) regarding
>         the SDL
>         tiles port and the menu system.  He has in a few short months
>         already
>         become the de facto expert on our SDL tiles interface.
>
>         Aidan has agreed to join the team so that maybe he doesn't
>         completely
>         dominate the list of unmerged pull requests :) Everyone give
>         him a warm
>         welcome!
>
>         --
>         Neil Moore, crawl-dev, ne...@s-... <mailto:ne...@s-...>,
>         ne...@cs... <mailto:ne...@cs...>
>
>         ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>         Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most
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>         <https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/crawl-ref-discuss>
>
>
>
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>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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>
>
> _______________________________________________
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Re: [Crawl-ref-discuss] Welcome Aidan Holm to the team!

[Aidan H. <aid...@gm...>]

Thanks everyone! I'm really enjoying working on crawl---the dev team and
community have been really easygoing, and the work has been challenging but
rewarding---so thank you!

On Mon, Jan 8, 2018 at 8:42 AM, gammafunk <gam...@gm...> wrote:

> Welcome, Aidan! I think Neil's message only arrived to must of us just
> now, but welcome all the same!
>
> On Fri, Dec 29, 2017 at 6:16 AM, Neil Moore <ne...@s-...> wrote:
>
>>
>> Aidan Holm (aidanh on IRC, aidanholm on github) has been making many
>> excellent contributions, especially (but not only) regarding the SDL
>> tiles port and the menu system.  He has in a few short months already
>> become the de facto expert on our SDL tiles interface.
>>
>> Aidan has agreed to join the team so that maybe he doesn't completely
>> dominate the list of unmerged pull requests :) Everyone give him a warm
>> welcome!
>>
>> --
>> Neil Moore, crawl-dev, ne...@s-..., ne...@cs...
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> ------------------
>> Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most
>> engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot
>> _______________________________________________
>> Crawl-ref-discuss mailing list
>> Cra...@li...
>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/crawl-ref-discuss
>>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> ------------------
> Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most
> engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot
> _______________________________________________
> Crawl-ref-discuss mailing list
> Cra...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/crawl-ref-discuss
>
>

Re: [Crawl-ref-discuss] Writing Contribution

[Joel O. Holmes-M. <joe...@gm...>]

Alright, thank you. Maybe you're right about the entry messages.

On 9 January 2018 at 04:16, Nicholas Feinberg <ple...@gm...>
wrote:

> Yep! The entry messages are in dat/database/miscname.txt, under the
> "welcome_spam" header.
>
> On 8 January 2018 at 05:15, Johanna Ploog via Crawl-ref-discuss <
> cra...@li...> wrote:
>
>> Not a dev, but you can find a lot of narrative stuff in
>> source/dat/database including monster/god speech, noisy weapons and
>> artefact names. Good additions to any of these are pretty much always
>> welcome.
>>
>> You can find the documentation for the monster speech syntax
>> in docs/develop/monster_speech.txt
>>
>> A long paragraph before you start the game could be annoying. (That seems
>> like something more appropriate to FAQ.txt, specifically A:goal)
>>
>> But does Crawl still have the single-line message at the start, and if
>> so, have those messages been outsourced?
>>
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Johanna (jpeg)
>>
>>
>> On 24 December 2017 at 01:37, Joel Holmes-Marler <
>> jm...@au...> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi there: I've just expanded the items and features' descriptions a bit
>>> on Github, and am now looking for other ways to write for the game.
>>>
>>> I was thinking of adding more monster speech, but can't find the
>>> directory for it. Could somebody point me in the right direction?
>>>
>>> I was also thinking of writing an introduction to the game after they've
>>> created their character but before the game has begun: something about the
>>> orb and why the character's after it. I could write a different one for
>>> each background if you wanted. Doing this would remove a bit of the mystery
>>> around the orb though, so I'd understand if you didn't want me to do that.
>>> If you do, I'm happy to write it up if someone can do the coding to add it
>>> into the game.
>>>
>>> If there's anything else you want me to write, just ask.
>>>
>>> Sincerely,
>>>
>>> Joel Marler
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>> ------------------
>>> Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most
>>> engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Crawl-ref-discuss mailing list
>>> Cra...@li...
>>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/crawl-ref-discuss
>>>
>>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> ------------------
>> Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most
>> engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot
>> _______________________________________________
>> Crawl-ref-discuss mailing list
>> Cra...@li...
>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/crawl-ref-discuss
>>
>>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> ------------------
> Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most
> engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot
> _______________________________________________
> Crawl-ref-discuss mailing list
> Cra...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/crawl-ref-discuss
>
>

Re: [Crawl-ref-discuss] Writing Contribution

[Nicholas F. <ple...@gm...>]

Yep! The entry messages are in dat/database/miscname.txt, under the
"welcome_spam" header.

On 8 January 2018 at 05:15, Johanna Ploog via Crawl-ref-discuss <
cra...@li...> wrote:

> Not a dev, but you can find a lot of narrative stuff in
> source/dat/database including monster/god speech, noisy weapons and
> artefact names. Good additions to any of these are pretty much always
> welcome.
>
> You can find the documentation for the monster speech syntax
> in docs/develop/monster_speech.txt
>
> A long paragraph before you start the game could be annoying. (That seems
> like something more appropriate to FAQ.txt, specifically A:goal)
>
> But does Crawl still have the single-line message at the start, and if so,
> have those messages been outsourced?
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> Johanna (jpeg)
>
>
> On 24 December 2017 at 01:37, Joel Holmes-Marler <
> jm...@au...> wrote:
>
>> Hi there: I've just expanded the items and features' descriptions a bit
>> on Github, and am now looking for other ways to write for the game.
>>
>> I was thinking of adding more monster speech, but can't find the
>> directory for it. Could somebody point me in the right direction?
>>
>> I was also thinking of writing an introduction to the game after they've
>> created their character but before the game has begun: something about the
>> orb and why the character's after it. I could write a different one for
>> each background if you wanted. Doing this would remove a bit of the mystery
>> around the orb though, so I'd understand if you didn't want me to do that.
>> If you do, I'm happy to write it up if someone can do the coding to add it
>> into the game.
>>
>> If there's anything else you want me to write, just ask.
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> Joel Marler
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> ------------------
>> Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most
>> engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot
>> _______________________________________________
>> Crawl-ref-discuss mailing list
>> Cra...@li...
>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/crawl-ref-discuss
>>
>>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> ------------------
> Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most
> engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot
> _______________________________________________
> Crawl-ref-discuss mailing list
> Cra...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/crawl-ref-discuss
>
>

Re: [Crawl-ref-discuss] Writing Contribution

[Johanna P. <joh...@go...>]

Not a dev, but you can find a lot of narrative stuff in source/dat/database
including monster/god speech, noisy weapons and artefact names. Good
additions to any of these are pretty much always welcome.

You can find the documentation for the monster speech syntax
in docs/develop/monster_speech.txt

A long paragraph before you start the game could be annoying. (That seems
like something more appropriate to FAQ.txt, specifically A:goal)

But does Crawl still have the single-line message at the start, and if so,
have those messages been outsourced?


Cheers,

Johanna (jpeg)


On 24 December 2017 at 01:37, Joel Holmes-Marler <jm...@au...>
wrote:

> Hi there: I've just expanded the items and features' descriptions a bit on
> Github, and am now looking for other ways to write for the game.
>
> I was thinking of adding more monster speech, but can't find the directory
> for it. Could somebody point me in the right direction?
>
> I was also thinking of writing an introduction to the game after they've
> created their character but before the game has begun: something about the
> orb and why the character's after it. I could write a different one for
> each background if you wanted. Doing this would remove a bit of the mystery
> around the orb though, so I'd understand if you didn't want me to do that.
> If you do, I'm happy to write it up if someone can do the coding to add it
> into the game.
>
> If there's anything else you want me to write, just ask.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Joel Marler
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> ------------------
> Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most
> engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot
> _______________________________________________
> Crawl-ref-discuss mailing list
> Cra...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/crawl-ref-discuss
>
>

Re: [Crawl-ref-discuss] Welcome Aidan Holm to the team!

[gammafunk <gam...@gm...>]

Welcome, Aidan! I think Neil's message only arrived to must of us just now,
but welcome all the same!

On Fri, Dec 29, 2017 at 6:16 AM, Neil Moore <ne...@s-...> wrote:

>
> Aidan Holm (aidanh on IRC, aidanholm on github) has been making many
> excellent contributions, especially (but not only) regarding the SDL
> tiles port and the menu system.  He has in a few short months already
> become the de facto expert on our SDL tiles interface.
>
> Aidan has agreed to join the team so that maybe he doesn't completely
> dominate the list of unmerged pull requests :) Everyone give him a warm
> welcome!
>
> --
> Neil Moore, crawl-dev, ne...@s-..., ne...@cs...
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> ------------------
> Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most
> engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot
> _______________________________________________
> Crawl-ref-discuss mailing list
> Cra...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/crawl-ref-discuss
>

[Crawl-ref-discuss] Welcome Aidan Holm to the team!

[Neil M. <ne...@s-...>]

Aidan Holm (aidanh on IRC, aidanholm on github) has been making many
excellent contributions, especially (but not only) regarding the SDL
tiles port and the menu system.  He has in a few short months already
become the de facto expert on our SDL tiles interface.

Aidan has agreed to join the team so that maybe he doesn't completely
dominate the list of unmerged pull requests :) Everyone give him a warm
welcome!

-- 
Neil Moore, crawl-dev, ne...@s-..., ne...@cs...

[Crawl-ref-discuss] Writing Contribution

[Joel Holmes-M. <jm...@au...>]

Hi there: I've just expanded the items and features' descriptions a bit on
Github, and am now looking for other ways to write for the game.

I was thinking of adding more monster speech, but can't find the directory
for it. Could somebody point me in the right direction?

I was also thinking of writing an introduction to the game after they've
created their character but before the game has begun: something about the
orb and why the character's after it. I could write a different one for
each background if you wanted. Doing this would remove a bit of the mystery
around the orb though, so I'd understand if you didn't want me to do that.
If you do, I'm happy to write it up if someone can do the coding to add it
into the game.

If there's anything else you want me to write, just ask.

Sincerely,

Joel Marler

[Crawl-ref-discuss] Suggestion for syntax with skill rises

[DS L <dsl...@gm...>]

The messages accompanying the rise of 3 skills
(Fighting/spellcasting/armour)
should show when a palpable increase has happened in HP max, Mana max or AC

*Your Fighting skill increases to level 7!*

becomes


*Your Fighting skill increases to level 7 & your feel more endurable*
*Your Spellcasting skill increases to level 7 & your feel more powerful*
*Your Armour skill increases to level 7 & your AC went up by one*

[Crawl-ref-discuss] Small change to display convention

[DS L <dsl...@gm...>]

You finish taking off your +0 hat
You finish putting on your +0 Helmet

to

You finish taking off your +0 hat (j)
You finish putting on your +0 Helmet (m)

By showing the inventory location slot,
you save the player the need to press i
again after this.

Re: [Crawl-ref-discuss] Too many inventory items these days, meld some

[Corin Buchanan-H. <co...@bu...>]

I'm not yet convinced that the potion of power idea is an improvement 
over separate !brilliance/agility/might. What I like about the current 
situation is 1) if you're in a bad situation and need a combat boost, 
whether to drink !might or !agility isn't always clear, and even if you 
plan to use both, doing so in the wrong order can be costly. Merging the 
potions would mean you would always get both benefits, which in turn 
means that benefit:cost ratio of using a turn to quaff it would be 
significantly higher. There's a bit of power creep here as well as a 
decision removed.

2) Having them separated means that players who don't use Trog should 
consider how to make good use of !brilliance, because (as many have 
pointed out) it's not as easy to make use of as the other two potions. 
It's been argued that the effect isn't big enough to make it worth the 
cost of creating situations where expensive magic is available only with 
the aid of !brilliance, but my experience is that there are a fair 
number of level 6-9 spells that are valuable even if cast only a couple 
dozen times over the course of the game and that using !brilliance to 
make them available can be a fairly decent tool across a variety of 
builds. It's possible that in most of these situations there's an easier 
way to get sufficient power to make these situations safe -- train more 
melee, train more defenses, train for a lower-level spell in a different 
school --  but after trying it several times I've found it's reasonably 
often a strong option. Merging the potions would essentially remove this 
option, as burning both !might and !agility to enable spellcasting alone 
would very rarely be a good choice.

The arguments from simplicity (two less items to worry about and two 
less inventory slots) have some appeal to me, but I think the arguments 
from choice (one strong choice rather than three less strong choices) 
miss the mark because this would result in fewer meaningful decisions 
rather than more.

Corin

On 5/31/2017 3:34 AM, Johanna Ploog wrote:
> > !resist is also a very inelegant (bad?) design, for similar reasons!
>
> I would argue that !resist is an awesome potion precisely because it's 
> powerful and rare, which forces you to make decisions: If you really 
> only need, say, FR _right now_ (but badly!), you'd "waste" all the 
> other resistances the potion would also grant. Thematically, combining 
> all resistances also works.
>
> I agree that including stat boosts as well might be too much. Taken to 
> the extreme you could merge !resist + !healing + !power into a single 
> "escape dire situation" one.
>
> However, I don't see anything wrong with merging the stat boost 
> potions into a single one to follow the !resist example.
>
>
> On 31 May 2017 at 02:26, Nicholas Feinberg <ple...@gm... 
> <mailto:ple...@gm...>> wrote:
>
>     !resist is also a very inelegant (bad?) design, for similar reasons!
>
>     On 30 May 2017 at 17:24, David Ploog <dp...@ma...
>     <mailto:dp...@ma...>> wrote:
>
>         On Tue, 30 May 2017, Nicholas Feinberg wrote:
>
>             If you want to reduce inventory item types to reduce
>             inventory pressure, I
>             would strongly consider just removing types, rather than
>             combining them
>             willy-nilly.
>
>
>         I wouldn't think that combining !might, !agility, !brilliance
>         is willy-nilly: use of the latter is quite disjoint from the
>         first two. Next, these are *good* items (like many
>         consumables), because they create good decisions. I believe
>         that a combined potion would produce a very similar type of
>         choice, at reduced inventory cost.
>
>             Is a potion with three different unrelated effects really
>             a good design,
>             something that would be added to the game on its own
>             merits? Or is it just
>             an appeal to crawl's history?
>
>
>         I can resort to hyperbole as well: why does !resist provide a
>         bunch of different effects (but not MR+)? Surely we should
>         have !rF+ etc.
>
>
>         David
>
>         ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>         Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most
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>
>
>
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>     <mailto:Cra...@li...>
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>     <https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/crawl-ref-discuss>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most
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>
>
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> Cra...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/crawl-ref-discuss

Re: [Crawl-ref-discuss] Too many inventory items these days, meld some

[David P. <dp...@ma...>]

On Tue, 30 May 2017, Nicholas Feinberg wrote:

> !resist is also a very inelegant (bad?) design, for similar reasons!

I think we have quite incompatible concepts of elegance! Perhaps it is 
worthwhile working out the differences.

In my world, consumables can get by with almost everything: as long as 
they're useful in certain cases, the limited access will do the rest.

Some items that have been added over the years: fog, fear, summoning, 
lignification. All of these feel like good design to me.

As you know, I'm about decision making. Consumables have an easy time with 
that. But there are nuances: I think the recent change from the three 
mutation potions (!mutate, !benemut, !curemut) to just a single potion not 
only reduced item types, but it actually improved choice making. It's 
still not perfect but you do have to compare your !mut stack against your 
current mutation set (with its good and bad sides) and evaluate. Much 
better than what it used to be.

This is why I think talking about individual items, and perhaps if/how 
they could be combined, is a good way forward. By contrast:

>> On Tue, 30 May 2017, Nicholas Feinberg wrote:
>>
>> If you want to reduce inventory item types to reduce inventory pressure, I
>>> would strongly consider just removing types, rather than combining them
>>> willy-nilly.

Apart from the willy-nilly which I've said enough about, I am afraid that 
this is unpractical: it probably just won't work because of the usual 
chain: discussion, disagreement, nothing happens.

In DCSS, we have *added* a few item types (rods, elemental evokers, 
scarves). We have never outright removed one.

To end on a constructive note: I could imagine (in the sense, I could've 
made this proposal) the following:

* combine !might and !brilliance into one potion
* give !agility also a Stealth bonus

My reasoning is that current !might and !brilliance have almost orthogonal 
use cases. We can combine them into one, making them rarer and providing 
exactly the same interesting decisions as now with one less item.

To me, !agility is the odd one out, as it seems to be more defensive. I am 
not a very good player, but that's my experience. Giving it a thematically 
fitting Stealth boost would open new use cases.

(And I believe that !res should give MR+ but that's for another day.)

Cheers,
David

Re: [Crawl-ref-discuss] Too many inventory items these days, meld some

[Johanna P. <joh...@go...>]

> !resist is also a very inelegant (bad?) design, for similar reasons!

I would argue that !resist is an awesome potion precisely because it's
powerful and rare, which forces you to make decisions: If you really only
need, say, FR _right now_ (but badly!), you'd "waste" all the other
resistances the potion would also grant. Thematically, combining all
resistances also works.

I agree that including stat boosts as well might be too much. Taken to the
extreme you could merge !resist + !healing + !power into a single "escape
dire situation" one.

However, I don't see anything wrong with merging the stat boost potions
into a single one to follow the !resist example.


On 31 May 2017 at 02:26, Nicholas Feinberg <ple...@gm...> wrote:

> !resist is also a very inelegant (bad?) design, for similar reasons!
>
> On 30 May 2017 at 17:24, David Ploog <dp...@ma...> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 30 May 2017, Nicholas Feinberg wrote:
>>
>> If you want to reduce inventory item types to reduce inventory pressure, I
>>> would strongly consider just removing types, rather than combining them
>>> willy-nilly.
>>>
>>
>> I wouldn't think that combining !might, !agility, !brilliance is
>> willy-nilly: use of the latter is quite disjoint from the first two. Next,
>> these are *good* items (like many consumables), because they create good
>> decisions. I believe that a combined potion would produce a very similar
>> type of choice, at reduced inventory cost.
>>
>> Is a potion with three different unrelated effects really a good design,
>>> something that would be added to the game on its own merits? Or is it
>>> just
>>> an appeal to crawl's history?
>>>
>>
>> I can resort to hyperbole as well: why does !resist provide a bunch of
>> different effects (but not MR+)? Surely we should have !rF+ etc.
>>
>>
>> David
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> ------------------
>> Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most
>> engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot
>> _______________________________________________
>> Crawl-ref-discuss mailing list
>> Cra...@li...
>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/crawl-ref-discuss
>>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> ------------------
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> engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot
> _______________________________________________
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> Cra...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/crawl-ref-discuss
>
>

Re: [Crawl-ref-discuss] Too many inventory items these days, meld some

[Nicholas F. <ple...@gm...>]

!resist is also a very inelegant (bad?) design, for similar reasons!

On 30 May 2017 at 17:24, David Ploog <dp...@ma...> wrote:

> On Tue, 30 May 2017, Nicholas Feinberg wrote:
>
> If you want to reduce inventory item types to reduce inventory pressure, I
>> would strongly consider just removing types, rather than combining them
>> willy-nilly.
>>
>
> I wouldn't think that combining !might, !agility, !brilliance is
> willy-nilly: use of the latter is quite disjoint from the first two. Next,
> these are *good* items (like many consumables), because they create good
> decisions. I believe that a combined potion would produce a very similar
> type of choice, at reduced inventory cost.
>
> Is a potion with three different unrelated effects really a good design,
>> something that would be added to the game on its own merits? Or is it just
>> an appeal to crawl's history?
>>
>
> I can resort to hyperbole as well: why does !resist provide a bunch of
> different effects (but not MR+)? Surely we should have !rF+ etc.
>
>
> David
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> ------------------
> Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most
> engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot
> _______________________________________________
> Crawl-ref-discuss mailing list
> Cra...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/crawl-ref-discuss
>

Re: [Crawl-ref-discuss] Too many inventory items these days, meld some

[David P. <dp...@ma...>]

On Tue, 30 May 2017, Nicholas Feinberg wrote:

> If you want to reduce inventory item types to reduce inventory pressure, I
> would strongly consider just removing types, rather than combining them
> willy-nilly.

I wouldn't think that combining !might, !agility, !brilliance is 
willy-nilly: use of the latter is quite disjoint from the first two. Next, 
these are *good* items (like many consumables), because they create good 
decisions. I believe that a combined potion would produce a very similar 
type of choice, at reduced inventory cost.

> Is a potion with three different unrelated effects really a good design,
> something that would be added to the game on its own merits? Or is it just
> an appeal to crawl's history?

I can resort to hyperbole as well: why does !resist provide a bunch of 
different effects (but not MR+)? Surely we should have !rF+ etc.

David

Re: [Crawl-ref-discuss] Too many inventory items these days, meld some

[Nicholas F. <ple...@gm...>]

If you want to reduce inventory item types to reduce inventory pressure, I
would strongly consider just removing types, rather than combining them
willy-nilly.

Is a potion with three different unrelated effects really a good design,
something that would be added to the game on its own merits? Or is it just
an appeal to crawl's history?

On 30 May 2017 at 17:08, David Ploog <dp...@ma...> wrote:

> On Tue, 30 May 2017, Alex Jurkiewicz wrote:
>
> I like the idea of having fewer potions with broader use cases. It will
>> make deciding when to use a potion much harder.
>>
>> Rather than offering the player two levels of quaff menu (which this
>> proposal seems to do), I suggest changing potions to apply ALL the effects
>> at once. A potion of power would give might, agi and brill. Etcetera...
>>
>
> Agreed to both. I think that's a good idea.
>
>
> (Inventory pressure also doesn't present interesting choices: there are
>> always enough "strategic" items in a player's inventory which can be
>> dropped without concern. It just makes the player backtrack more, which is
>> a tedious activity.)
>>
>
> Inventory pressure *could* provide interesting choices. In Crawl it
> doesn't, because you can stash items for later. In this sense, the limit of
> 52 items is a crutch. However, I am absolutely against allowing unlimited
> inventories. (Once possible, everyone will carry everything that might be
> remotely sensible to carry which is basically: everything. Browsing through
> the inventory list would be that much more painful.)
>
> If you want to solve this problem, then it would be necessary to dig
> deeper, I am afraid. One solution is a tough clock (such as Crawl has), but
> I'm sure that a branched dungeon layout like Crawl's forbids that.
> Another approach to force decisions is something I mentioned before: items
> dropped or left on the ground disappear.
>
> However, I think the best course is to slowly combine items. This will
> reduce inventory pressure little by little, too.
>
> Cheers,
> David
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> ------------------
> Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most
> engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot
> _______________________________________________
> Crawl-ref-discuss mailing list
> Cra...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/crawl-ref-discuss
>

Re: [Crawl-ref-discuss] Too many inventory items these days, meld some

[David P. <dp...@ma...>]

On Tue, 30 May 2017, Alex Jurkiewicz wrote:

> I like the idea of having fewer potions with broader use cases. It will
> make deciding when to use a potion much harder.
>
> Rather than offering the player two levels of quaff menu (which this
> proposal seems to do), I suggest changing potions to apply ALL the effects
> at once. A potion of power would give might, agi and brill. Etcetera...

Agreed to both. I think that's a good idea.


> (Inventory pressure also doesn't present interesting choices: there are
> always enough "strategic" items in a player's inventory which can be
> dropped without concern. It just makes the player backtrack more, which is
> a tedious activity.)

Inventory pressure *could* provide interesting choices. In Crawl it 
doesn't, because you can stash items for later. In this sense, the limit 
of 52 items is a crutch. However, I am absolutely against allowing 
unlimited inventories. (Once possible, everyone will carry everything that 
might be remotely sensible to carry which is basically: everything. 
Browsing through the inventory list would be that much more painful.)

If you want to solve this problem, then it would be necessary to dig 
deeper, I am afraid. One solution is a tough clock (such as Crawl has), 
but I'm sure that a branched dungeon layout like Crawl's forbids that.
Another approach to force decisions is something I mentioned before: items 
dropped or left on the ground disappear.

However, I think the best course is to slowly combine items. This will 
reduce inventory pressure little by little, too.

Cheers,
David

Re: [Crawl-ref-discuss] Too many inventory items these days, meld some

[Alex J. <al...@ju...>]

I like the idea of having fewer potions with broader use cases. It will
make deciding when to use a potion much harder.

Rather than offering the player two levels of quaff menu (which this
proposal seems to do), I suggest changing potions to apply ALL the effects
at once. A potion of power would give might, agi and brill. Etcetera...

(Inventory pressure also doesn't present interesting choices: there are
always enough "strategic" items in a player's inventory which can be
dropped without concern. It just makes the player backtrack more, which is
a tedious activity.)

On Wed., 31 May 2017, 6:29 am Kristoffer Björkman, <
kri...@gm...> wrote:

> On Tue, May 30, 2017 at 2:08 PM, DS L <dsl...@gm...> wrote:
>
>> also... years ago.... some potion colours were more likely to signify
>> certain potion types. In the early game, a black speckled potion was more
>> likely to be a bad one (mutation, degeneration) than a glowing pink potion.
>> I kinda preferred that.
>>
>
> That seems to promote [classic nethackish] spoiler knowledge, a direction
> that seems contrary to the intention of DCSS. Or am I misinterpreting the
> suggestion?
>
> /Kristoffer
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most
> engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot
> _______________________________________________
> Crawl-ref-discuss mailing list
> Cra...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/crawl-ref-discuss
>

Re: [Crawl-ref-discuss] Too many inventory items these days, meld some

[Kristoffer B. <kri...@gm...>]

On Tue, May 30, 2017 at 2:08 PM, DS L <dsl...@gm...> wrote:

> also... years ago.... some potion colours were more likely to signify
> certain potion types. In the early game, a black speckled potion was more
> likely to be a bad one (mutation, degeneration) than a glowing pink potion.
> I kinda preferred that.
>

That seems to promote [classic nethackish] spoiler knowledge, a direction
that seems contrary to the intention of DCSS. Or am I misinterpreting the
suggestion?

/Kristoffer

Re: [Crawl-ref-discuss] Too many inventory items these days, meld some

[Robert B. <bur...@gm...>]

A lot of these combinations seem anti-thematic and add gameplay complexity.
Other than a select few items whose use dictates a followup-menu, most
items in crawl are simple to use/consume. I don't think its wise to add
another set of items whose use requires a followup menu.

If there is a large problem with the 52 inventory slots being too limiting,
it would be more wise to fix the actual problem (limited inventory address
space using alphabetical identifiers).

Regards,
Robert Burnham

On Tue, May 30, 2017 at 7:08 AM, DS L <dsl...@gm...> wrote:

> Your typical adventurer has too many item types occupying his 52 inventory
> slots.
>
> So... Im a bit ashamed as it was myself who suggested the potion of
> resistance, and the potions of might/agility/brilliance.
> Now, I suggest a change.
> Some consumables, when expended will then offer a choice to the player.
>
> 1) Scroll of holy word and scroll of silence are combined as...
> Scroll of sound and silence.
> When used it will offer
> a) Silence
> b) Holy word
> c) noise...yes noise
>
> 2) Potion of Brilliance, Agility, Might, resistance are now combined as...
> Potion of enhancement
> When used it will offer:
> a) Brilliance (Int)
> b) Agility (Dex)
> c) Might (Str)
> d) Elemental Resistance
>
> 3) Potion of cancellation and potion of magic are now...
> Potion of power and purity
> which will offer when used:
> a) Magic power
> b) Purification of the aura
>
> **** LUNCHBOX IDEA ****
>
> also... years ago.... some potion colours were more likely to signify
> certain potion types. In the early game, a black speckled potion was more
> likely to be a bad one (mutation, degeneration) than a glowing pink potion.
> I kinda preferred that.
>
> It was myself who suggested runes shouldn't be a physical item with a
> weight (.aums.)
>
> Now Im suggesting food follow these changes
> 1) Food items when picked up goto an alternate universe inventory (like
> rune-list)
> 2) Food items cannot be dropped from the player inventory normally,
> because they don't exist there, nor can they be seen there.
> 3) When the player presses e for eat,
> the game menu offers up the alternate inventory (lunchbox) which offers
> a-z (thats 26 possible slots which is enough for all existing food items
> and the potion of porridge)
> ... so the player can press e, then a-z to eat an item.
> ... or press e then D then a-z to drop a food item
> 4) from this sub-menu the player can drop food items or choose to consume
> a food item.
> 5) So... you can re-introduce all the minor distinctions of olden
> crawls... individual grapes, pizza slices.... etc etc.
>
> also... it is possible to implement a quiver which contains ammo types...
> this is because todays crawl has many odd ammo types (silver, penetration,
> exploding etc) . they each take up an inventory slot, and therefore cost a
> wand in the extended game. I recall avoiding ammo just to hold more wands.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> ------------------
> Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most
> engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot
> _______________________________________________
> Crawl-ref-discuss mailing list
> Cra...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/crawl-ref-discuss
>
>

[Crawl-ref-discuss] Too many inventory items these days, meld some

[DS L <dsl...@gm...>]

Your typical adventurer has too many item types occupying his 52 inventory
slots.

So... Im a bit ashamed as it was myself who suggested the potion of
resistance, and the potions of might/agility/brilliance.
Now, I suggest a change.
Some consumables, when expended will then offer a choice to the player.

1) Scroll of holy word and scroll of silence are combined as...
Scroll of sound and silence.
When used it will offer
a) Silence
b) Holy word
c) noise...yes noise

2) Potion of Brilliance, Agility, Might, resistance are now combined as...
Potion of enhancement
When used it will offer:
a) Brilliance (Int)
b) Agility (Dex)
c) Might (Str)
d) Elemental Resistance

3) Potion of cancellation and potion of magic are now...
Potion of power and purity
which will offer when used:
a) Magic power
b) Purification of the aura

**** LUNCHBOX IDEA ****

also... years ago.... some potion colours were more likely to signify
certain potion types. In the early game, a black speckled potion was more
likely to be a bad one (mutation, degeneration) than a glowing pink potion.
I kinda preferred that.

It was myself who suggested runes shouldn't be a physical item with a
weight (.aums.)

Now Im suggesting food follow these changes
1) Food items when picked up goto an alternate universe inventory (like
rune-list)
2) Food items cannot be dropped from the player inventory normally, because
they don't exist there, nor can they be seen there.
3) When the player presses e for eat,
the game menu offers up the alternate inventory (lunchbox) which offers a-z
(thats 26 possible slots which is enough for all existing food items and
the potion of porridge)
... so the player can press e, then a-z to eat an item.
... or press e then D then a-z to drop a food item
4) from this sub-menu the player can drop food items or choose to consume a
food item.
5) So... you can re-introduce all the minor distinctions of olden crawls...
individual grapes, pizza slices.... etc etc.

also... it is possible to implement a quiver which contains ammo types...
this is because todays crawl has many odd ammo types (silver, penetration,
exploding etc) . they each take up an inventory slot, and therefore cost a
wand in the extended game. I recall avoiding ammo just to hold more wands.

[Crawl-ref-discuss] DCSS May 2017 feedback from longtime player

[DS L <dsl...@gm...>]

Hello,

I am a longtime player of dungeon crawl, from the old days where
transmuters could tunnel and you could drop 1 gold piece around the orcish
mine entrance  to fool orcs into picking them up.

) Monster damage max is too high... I get one hit killed too much these
days... Orc warlords who whack for 50+ in one hit... I think its too high.
Forces a very cowardly way of playing. Dying to snapping turtles...oh god.
Let huge hits do crippling damage , same way .quasits. do temp damage to
dexterity. If you get whacked hard hard, and you need to punish the player,
do that. Do you remember when hill giants could whack you in the head and
confuse for a round or two? That was great.

) HP/MP/MR/Str/Int/Dex gains upon levelling up.
Its odd that if you take two level 27 humans, the only difference would be
the STR/INT/DEX scores, as everything else follows a precise formula.
However each 3 to 5 levels, a random stat increase is given
to...personalise each character? Odd...
I suggest that upon each level up, the player character is offered three
packages
A) choice one
B) choice two
C) choice three
each package would have a combo of hp/mp/mr/str.int/dex...
so... you could choose to maximise some quality .
you might get guys with high hitpoints and almost base str/dex/int

) Gnolls... well its odd you still have them in, as you guys removed the
mountain dwarf and high elf, which where fantasy staples (supported by and
perpetuated by) popular media nowadays...
Its odd to me Gnolls can smell treasure but not monsters?
Its odd to me you guys have three tribals (Hillorc/kobold/gnoll) all three
from the Lord of the rings or Dungeons & dragons universe, but 1 dwarf. 1
elf. odd

) Demigods... same as they used to be, the most unmagical race.
Uninteresting.  once suggested they be like demonspawn. The current demigod
is... a big golem. Do something. Demigods are quite lacking in interest

) Alligator running... odd to make a stumpy legged critter so fast. If
anything... give bovine (yaks) a charge ability... kinda like when you guys
let the boulder beetle turn into a ball and ram you? Dunno if thats still
the case, but that was very cool.

) An artifact creation...once.
I suggested this years and years ago...
still a good idea...
Allow the player to turn a non artefact item into a bright white artefact.
Consider... the player spends much of the game with a weapon he pumps
enchant scrolls into to make it +9.
Then he abandons it for a white artefact because it has resist fire, +5
int, blink.
at some point, there should be an anvil where he can transform his +9
demonsword into a white artefact which keeps its +9, but gains some random
affixes. Like diablo.

) Weapons have ignore armour datafield.
I offered this idea years ago, still good.
Weapon types should ignore X armour from the target.
Of course if the target has 0 armour, it would do nothing.
Maces should have a high armour penetration.

Re: [Crawl-ref-discuss] Possible dates for feature freeze and tournament

[gammafunk <gam...@gm...>]

There were no problems seen with that general release timeframe based on
dev discussion, so we went with feature freeze on the 17th and the release
on the 24th, with the tournament starting on Friday 26th.

http://crawl.develz.org/wordpress/upcoming-0-20-release-and-tournament

We are now in feature freeze, so it will only be bugfix commits for the
next week. I'll be contact admins about getting the branch hosted, for
those not checking this mailing list.

David, any console change will probably have to wait for 0.21 since no one
has made a patch for the change. As I understand things, the default OS X
terminal can't render darkgrey without changing settings. It may be that
having a prominent warning in non-darkgrey is a good option. This is
something that could reasonably get committed during feature freeze, but I
have other higher priority bugs/issues to worry about myself.

-gammafunk

On Thu, May 11, 2017 at 4:37 PM, gammafunk <gam...@gm...> wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> It's a good time to think about the 0.20 release. We could aim for a
> feature freeze starting the 19th with a tournament a week later starting on
> the 26th, or we could do the freeze on the 26th and start the tourney on
> the 2nd. I'd lean towards the earlier date since that's more convenient for
> me, but either will work for my running the tournament and coordinating
> release.
>
> Two major unresolved issues are Gnolls and Wu Jian, both of which have
> been disabled for stable. They are still playable in trunk but the plan is
> to not included them in 0.20 in their current state. They would continue
> development in trunk after the tournament if they remain disabled in 0.20,
> of course.
>
> Floodkiller is working on a locked low-stat version of Gnolls that may be
> ready soon, but I'm not sure that we have enough time to play-test them
> before the freeze. The changes for Wu are much more tentative, so I'm
> fairly certain that god won't be ready for 0.20, however that could
> certainly change.
>
> I have some content I'll be pushing before the freeze (mostly transporter
> vaults) and some bugfixes to get to, but nothing that would hold up the
> release. If any devs have any major issues they think are unresolved or
> have opinions about the release time-frame, please reply!
>
> Best,
>
> -gammafunk
>