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Messages - Glowie

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1
Off Topic / Re: Frozen Depth 1.02 released!
« on: September 03, 2007, 10:58 »
On a wholly unrelated note, I managed to kill the first boss. Dwarven Rangers wielding blessed copper flails with a blessed stunning willow bow ready to swap in for the win! :)

And I officially hate traps. Which gives me a thought. Glowie, have you considered giving players permanent, always active traits? For example, all classes get the same traits, but they get them in different orders. So while a Ranger might get Trap Sense (a trait that either gives you a bonus to dodging traps, or gives you a chance to see a trip before you trip it) at level 3 or so, a Fighter might not get the trait until level 9 or 10. The player doesn't choose the trait they receive, they get it automatically on level-up.

Back to the Frozen Depths!

Good work, that character seemed to have incredible luck in the first 10 floors.

Early in the development I had something like that in mind, but then decided that I've got enough different skills/potions/wands/accessories/dungeon feature effects to create. I thought I might run out of good ideas, I prefer no trait system to a small and bad trait system. Now that I've created the other things, I could consider the possibility of adding some kind of a trait system to make the trainings a bit different. I'll add this to the "Maybe" section of the to-do list. :)

2
Off Topic / Re: Frozen Depth 1.02 released!
« on: August 31, 2007, 06:50 »
Thanks for the comments again guys! A few things again:

Quite many new players have wondered how to loot the frozen corpses, you're not the only one. The reason why it's not just ',' like the pick up is because there might be an item on the corpse that you might not want to take for some reason. I'll add this info to the READ_THIS_FIRST in the next version, perhaps it helps a bit.

A potion can be very dangerous if you haven't identified it. The only time you should drink an unidentified potion is when you are in front of a certain death and a random healing potion can save you, or if you want to identify a potion by drinking it (I usually do this when I have >1 potions of the same type), be sure you're in a safe location. On the other hand, many potions can save your life in a tough situation.
And to Blade specifically, I noticed this too, there were too many evil potions compared to the good ones in the previous version. And luckily for the players, I removed some of the evil potions and added more positive effects. You may want to waste an identify on a potion if all your accessories are identified and you've got spare money/charges.

And last but not least, in DoomRL I, too, die way too often when I run through an "empty" place or don't pay enough attention to my hp. Yay for a low health message for DoomRL!

3
Off Topic / Re: Frozen Depth 1.02 released!
« on: July 24, 2007, 10:20 »
As an archer I usually save arrows and thrown weapons as much as I can in the first 10 levels and use melee, after that try to use thrown weapons first and then arrows when/if needed. You'll run out of arrows sooner or later if you use them all the time.

That anti save scum method of yours is quite interesting, Rabiat, though even that can be fooled if the player copies the scores file before the ID was written there or quits the program before the new data to the scores is written. Of course he would have to know that you use the scores file for this. I like that dangerous monster spawn rate, serves them right! ;)

Oh the cursing trap can curse thrown weapons. That's not intentional, I guess I wrote that part when I was a bit sleepy. For example Sages can't uncurse thrown weapons and thrown weapons can't be cursed or blessed when you find them. But for now I won't fix that, it's not like it hurts the player.

4
Off Topic / Re: Frozen Depth 1.02 released!
« on: July 24, 2007, 04:06 »
Like in many roguelikes, zapping a dry wand many, many times results in a last charge.

I far prefer IVAN's method whereby the last charge is extracted by simply breaking the wand, and that method is useful (given the right precautions, aka all the stuff you're hauling that is likely to be destroyed is safely stored away) even if you're using an attack wand (wand of striking/fireballs), though doing so is really only something you do out of desperation, mostly.  I can't imagine trying to get the last charge from a wand of frost bolt while something is busy attacking me, and needing to use those ID wands 20 times or so before I finally get that last charge of usefulness will be annoying.

That's not a bad alternative, but I don't think the difference is that big. Offensive wands are quite useless in both cases after they're dry, and getting the last charge from, say, identification wand isn't that annoying if you drop other wands and spam 'i' 'u'.

As for the prefixes: Weapon prefixes actually make a fair bit of sense to me so far.  Cold draining = kill something, and the warmth of the dead thing is drained into you; heart-seeking = increased chance of critical hits; regenerating = increased health regen while wielding; fiery = extra burn damage to frost critters, and I presume the inverse is frosty.  Potions, on the other hand.....  Speaking of which, why don't those miserly sages tell me what the pots do as well as what their names are? >:(

They were a lot worse in previous releases. I've tried to make them easier to understand, though there are still a few that don't make sense to everyone. At least you know the potion's effect after drinking it. Sages don't like sharing their infinite knowledge, they're very stingy. :P

Er, one last question: Scrolls you find on posts in the dungeon.. they don't show up too often, but if I read one of one type, and find another of the same type, will I recognize it, or is that always going to be a gamble?

It's always a gamble. There must always be a risk when there's a possibility of something good to happen.


I think the wraith's imbalance actually makes it interesting, but I'm OK with losing it if I'm not supposed to be scumming.

You are NOT supposed to scum. All scummers shall burn in the Roguelike Hell for all eternity in their miserable afterlife!

5
Off Topic / Re: Frozen Depth 1.02 released!
« on: July 23, 2007, 13:33 »
Thanks, Glowie!

I was always trying to kill this Wraiths as soon as i see them by activating Warrior's strength, Critical strike and Accurate fighting style. If you are lucky enough, you have a chance to kill them by 1 or 2 attacks without getting hit. I thought that they are like walking death - they have little chance to hit, but if they hit you with their hand of DOOM, you have a great chance to die instantly.))

Haha, great way of killing them, though their chance to hit is as good as any other monster's at that level, so they were VERY deadly walking deaths.

Two questions: is there are anything good in that you are  "closer to the Goddess"? I had read scroll and it said that i'm now "closer to the Goddess".))
Second one: is there are anything good in sacrificing armor, weapons and clothings to the Goddess, or she takes only money, wands, potions, and valuables

Being closer to the Goddess is my mysterious way of telling the player that he just got a bit of piety without having to sacrifice anything. There's nothing else in that.

Ammunition is the only thing that doesn't increase your piety when sacrificed. Weapons, clothing and pieces of armor increase piety, but it's a lot less than what, for example, valuable things give. The amount of piety you get when you sacrifice an item is the same as the amount of gold you get when you sell the item.

(like all woman)).

Haha!

6
Off Topic / Re: Frozen Depth 1.02 released!
« on: July 23, 2007, 08:09 »
Is that update just for Rabiat or can we all download it? :)

Of course you all can download it, Rabiat just mentioned that he's checking the site, so I thought I'd let him know it's out. :)

7
Off Topic / Re: Frozen Depth 1.02 released!
« on: July 23, 2007, 06:53 »
So, the wand DOES work on a weapon IF it has a special property?  Like, you can click on each weapon, like a geiger counter, and when it gets a spike you lose a charge?  Really?  Because I kinda like that mechanic in general for identification wands...

Nope, it doesn't work like that. You can't identify weapons and pieces of armor if you don't know their B/C/U statuses. That means you have to wear them first (or zap a wand of curse detection) and thus reveal the prefix. After that you can use the wand of greater identification on the already identified piece of equipment to reveal more info about the prefix. The prefix names are sometimes quite mysterious, so this way you can find out what they mean.

Also, after several tries I finally managed to reach level 10 where that boss killed me.  I could probably kill him easily, but I'll need to make better use of wall destruction, and possibly wands of detection if I can find them..  Is there any way to recharge wands, by the way, or are they useless once they run dry?

I'm sure you can kill the boss soon enough if you think of a plan or happen to find a good wand. Wands aren't completely useless after they run dry, though sometimes you may want to sell them. Like in many roguelikes, zapping a dry wand many, many times results in a last charge. Also there is a shrine event that can recharge a random wand, but that's not very reliable.

And to Rabiat: I've updated the zip file on the website now, you can venture deeper into the caves now.

8
Off Topic / Re: Frozen Depth 1.02 released!
« on: July 22, 2007, 12:21 »
I just wanted to say that as a fan of IVAN, a game where dual-wielding in the long run beats wielding a single weapon and (debatably) beats two-handers, that I find it disappointing that it seems like you can never hit twice in a row while wielding two weapons; you can miss twice in a row, you can miss first and hit second, and you can score a hit on your first try, but you'll never get two hits.  This is bad because it really, really weakens dual-wielding.  Maybe that's the point, and the only reason you'd ever dual-wield is because of the x% increase in chance to hit, but what's the point when as a human warrior I start with better 2H skill anyway?  But I'm hoping this is just an oversight. ;)

Congratulations, you're the third person to notice this bug. If you read my previous reply to Rabiat, you know about the silent fix I'm going to make, and this bug will be fixed then. I play the game quite fast and don't bother reading the messages, so this bug managed to get in the release. Thanks for posting this, though. You might have been the first one to report it, you never know. :)

And about IVAN and its dual wielding. I don't really know anything about IVAN, but I think dual wielding, two-handed weapons and 1 handed + shield should all be viable options.

9
Off Topic / Re: Frozen Depth 1.02 released!
« on: July 22, 2007, 05:52 »
Rabiat, did it ever let you identify a weapon?  I thought the wand of ID was just for potions or wands.  That was the impression I got, at least.  I wanted to use it to see if something was cursed, but it never let me select them.  Perhaps another item is in order for such an ID.

I never got far enough to see the dust cloud.  They sound like a pain.

Great, you managed to post while I was writing a reply to Rabiat. Anyway, there IS a wand that identifies B/C/U statuses of weapons, pieces of armour and clothing.

10
Off Topic / Re: Frozen Depth 1.02 released!
« on: July 22, 2007, 05:50 »
Seriously though, I never liked animated objects, such as animated swords, rolling boulders or dust clouds, in any Roguelike (golems are the exception). Somehow they're just too artificial, and not as gratifying to slice. Of course it's a matter of taste, but I always disliked the Hall of Blades in Crawl for example.

On the other hand, finally beating a 'tough dust cloud' after fleeing upstairs and restoring health four or five times did feel like an achievement. :) These monsters with extra toughness, speed or experience modifiers are nasty.

Strange, I've never had problems with artificial monsters, if it bleeds, kill it! (And all monsters in FD bleed, even the metallic ones. Odd, eh?). Those superior monsters are meant to be very hard later on. It's sometimes wiser to flee from them and continue to the next floor if you aren't sure if you can beat them.

Quote from: Glowie
It is supposed to happen, and DisaffectedBeta's explanation is exactly what I was thinking while creating it.

His explanation is what came to mind when it happened. That was the only 'strange' behaviour I could think of. On the whole I think the game behaves very well, and I haven't seen any obvious bugs (except maybe some minor grammar issues such as missing articles and singular/plural mismatches).*

Yeah I know there are those missing articles and singular/plural mismatches, but I found it useless to add a lot of code to detect whether an item or a monster starts with a vowel or a consonant. It doesn't make the messages incomprehensible. Unfortunately there are a few bugs, and you just found one aswell. I'm planning to quietly release a new .exe, which fixes a few annoying or nearly critical bugs. The next version isn't coming out any time soon, so I don't want a flawed version to be the newest one.


At times it's hard to guess a weapon's class, or its stats. I mostly just go by the inventory list order, or the equipment asterisk. Also I've noticed that there are several weapon skills, but I haven't found a list of those. Could you give a short explanation on this, or would that be spoiling?

Usually the weapon stats are pretty straightforward. A crude bronze weapon is better than a copper weapon, but worse than a non-crude bronze weapon. Sometimes blessed crude weapons are better than uncursed non-crude weapon though. Unfortunately you just have to check whether a weapon is 1 handed or 2 handed by unequipping the previous weapon and looking at the available weapons list. By the way, the asterisk only appears if there's a better item of same weapon class. For example, if you find a bronze 2 handed weapon, and you're wielding a copper 1 handed weapon, the asterisk doesn't appear. But if you find a 1 handed bronze weapon, it appears.

Uhm, the weapon skills shouldn't be mysterious, it just means how well you can handle a certain weapon type. Press '@' to see your character's stats, including the weapon skills. For example, twohanded weapon skill increases occasionally when you use two-handed weapons, and it increases the damage and chance to hit slightly with those 2H weapons. Did I understand your question correctly?

Edit: I just had a very successful run with another dwarf fighter cut short by a wraith. This thing punched me so hard that my health dropped from around 40 to -98 in a single hit! Not fair! :(

* Come to think of it, there's two more things. You can pick up small bombs after throwing them. I expected them to explode and disappear, even if this is the standard behaviour for thrown weapons. Also, I found a Wand of Greater Identification which didn't work all the time, even though it had charges left. It just refused to ID one of my unidentified weapons, but allowed me to select another item to identify. I have no idea why this happened.

Holy cr*p! I'm sorry about that Wraith death, that was a bug. For some reason I've mixed the Wraith's minimum damage and health, which means that it's damn weak, but insanely deadly. I'll fix this in the silent update I mentioned. I'll add a news message on FD's site when the update is uploaded. Getting to floor ~40 is very good playing though!

Haha, I never thought of that when I added the small bomb's name. I'll change it, it really doesn't make sense. Who would throw bombs that don't explode? :)

Wand of Greater Identification doesn't identify weapons. It identifies accessories, other wands and potions. You can use it on already identified weapons that have a prefix to learn more about the prefix though.

And I replied to DisaffectedBeta's post in a private message. (Lazy me).

Thanks for the feedback Rabiat!

11
Off Topic / Re: Frozen Depth 1.02 released!
« on: July 17, 2007, 14:25 »
But I must admit I expected a somewhat more samaritan attitude from a sage. ;)

Hey, it's not easy to make a living when you're immobilized deep in a frozen cave complex. ;)

Since you're here: I noticed something strange, which might or might not be a bug. I was fighting a snow(?) crocodile, and was immobilized by its attack. After I killed it, I remained immobilized for some 10-15 turns. I expected to be released from its grip as soon as I killed it. Is this supposed to happen?

It is supposed to happen, and DisaffectedBeta's explanation is exactly what I was thinking while creating it. Though the more technical explanation is that I don't know whether a monster or an event immobilized the player, so I can't remove the ailment after the monster is killed. Of course I could do this, but I was too lazy since I was able to make an explanation for the current way and I had more important things to improve.

Quote from: DisaffectedBeta
Is it possible to throw potions?

There is one potion that is throwable (you throw it by using it), but you have to identify it first, otherwise the poor character tries to drink the potion.

And about those descriptions. I thought about this when I started creating the monsters, but in the end I decided that it takes too long to write a description for 150 monsters. The descriptions would of course increase atmosphere and explain some of the special skills a bit better. Also descriptions would allow stranger names for monsters... But for now I think I'll just rename monsters when I can. Though I loved your description of the walking bomb. :)

12
Off Topic / Re: Frozen Depth 1.02 released!
« on: July 17, 2007, 04:06 »
Thanks for the positive comments guys. It has been interesting to watch as new players discuss about various aspects of the game. I'll comment a few things here and there, feel free to ask anything if you have a question.

I know that it's only mine opinion, but i like to listen to The Cure when playing it, this music fits this game.))

I like to listen to power metal while playtesting it.

One more thing: this game was won without savescumming only 1 time ever.)) I have won it only WITH savescumming just to see, what will be in the end. Very funny thing happens when you kill final boss on dlvl 50.))

I'm very unlucky with sages. I sometimes travel 10-20 levels without finding any sage or Goddess shrine. Anyway, imho they are not sages, no wise man will be standing still and buying used weapons and armors deep in the frozen caves.))

Save scumming is evil, Blade! Just don't spoil the ending.

About the sages, many of you seem to complain either about the rarity or the costs. I can assure you that the costs are rather balanced, you just have to sell all useless items and spend the money wisely. It's true that you don't always find a sage in levels 1-10, but if you don't, you usually find an altar, which is enough to keep you alive till you find a sage in 10-20. I won't comment a lot on the "capitalist" attitude of sages, I'll just say that I didn't come up with a better name and that gameplay goes over realism. ;)

I just did a couple of test runs and really enjoyed it. The cold setting is done very nicely, perhaps with the exception of some monsters that don't really fit the atmosphere. I'd prefer to see only cold-themed monsters in this setting.

I would prefer only cold-themed monsters, heat-themed monsters and those that can survive there with, for example, clothing, but it's rather difficult to create that many different, but interesting monsters and try to get them diverse enough without breaking the theme of the monster. I've been changing the monster names and special skills in every version so far, trying to get a bit better atmosphere every time, but this change requires a lot of time.

Learning new skills seems to require quite a bit of experience. I haven't had the opportunity to learn a single skill in any test run so far.

Learning skills quickly requires planning. If you check the desired skill's requirements before starting the game, you can get it very quickly, though that means you have to pick a bit less useful stats as well.

After playing a dwarf fighter a couple of levels, bashing monsters with a cursed bow stuck to his hands, not being able to afford an uncursing spell is pretty frustrating. That sage was so lucky my wand of frostbolt ran out of charges. :)

Dwarven fighters don't use bows. ;)

You had the cursed bow thing too?  It was actually a cursed bow incident that lead me to scumming!

Be strong and don't scum, that way you'll learn faster how to stay alive in the depths.

Being a noob at the game I was carrying around lots of extra clothing in my inventory, which I don't think is necessary.

Carrying extra equipment is far from useless, if your current equipment breaks and you don't have anything to replace it, you're in trouble deeper in the game. Also, you should sell all extra stuff to get as much money as possible.

Yeah, the asterisk thing is nice, although sometimes it's a bit misleading.  If there's a higher class of item, but you have a blessed item of a lower class, sometimes the blessed item has the same statistics.  So, while the class of the item gets it the asterisk, you really don't need to change (and risk getting cursed).

Can you pick things up piecemeal when they're in a ground stack?  I haven't figured out how yet.

Yeah, the asterisk thing indeed doesn't take into account the B/C/U statuses of the items, so you may want to use blessed items a bit longer than you normally would.

You can't pick up only 1 item from a stack, but you can drop them one by one.


Thanks for playing and commenting guys! I appreciate all comments. And thank you Blade for creating this thread. ;)

13
Or imagine 2 player cooperative Doom. Maaaaan ;) .

I'm not sure if you meant DoomRL or the original Dooms, because the original Dooms can be played in co-op mode with a friend.

Aside from that, I just wanted to say that Kornel's idea about the shared world and bloody scrolls with dying messages is fantastic! I think it could work really well and show the true potential of network roguelikes. I can already imagine dozens of players fighting in the same shared world while chatting on IRC or leaving scrolls for each other in the town. It could also bring the roguelike community a bit closer together. Definitely worth a try if you ask me!

14
Berserk! / Re: Berserk! 0.8 - Release Candidate 1
« on: January 14, 2007, 04:14 »
Thanks for this great update Kornel! I like the Endless mode very much.

This was my first try with the new version, I survived almost 5 days. Unfortunately the Nightmare's damage was a bit higher than I expected so I died with 2 fairy dusts. I ran out of weapons of mass destruction and there was a huge horde of B's, M's and N's behind me when I died.

-- Berserk! (0.8 RC 1) Post Mortem -----------------------------------

  Character name  : Glo
  Game type       : Endless
  Nights survived : 5
  Monsters killed : 407

  STR: 12  DEX: 12  END: 12  WIL: 14
  Speed: 107  HP: -8/110  EN: 27/130
  Base damage: 1d6+7  Weight: 12

-- Weapons left ------------------------------------------------------

  FairyDust (2)

-- Kills (407) -------------------------------------------------------

  53 bulldemons
  258 beasts
  11 mandagores
  24 nightmares
  60 hunters
  1 monster

-- Skills (5) --------------------------------------------------------

  Running (level 3)
  Sweep attack (level 2)

-- Messages ----------------------------------------------------------

 The nightmare hits you!
 You miss the nightmare.
 The nightmare hits you!
 You miss the beast.
 The beast hits you!
 The mandagore hits you!
 The bulldemon hits you!
 The nightmare hits you!
 You die!...
 Press <Enter>

-- Achievements ------------------------------------------------------

  Max kills in one turn    : 9
  Longest killing sequence : 11 kills in 3 turns.
  Survived for             : 1929 turns
  Died on                  : Fields
  Reason of death          : killed by a nightmare


I didn't find this Doppleganger bug, but I did find a very minor cosmetic bug. When you're selecting the stats and scroll down to Willpower and then back up, the 'y' from the word recovery (willpower's description) isn't cleared. And that was the only bug I found.

Quote
Please comment and help with the following
-- Berserk! manual update -- see another thread
-- Balance of the Skills and Statistics
-- How easy/hard is Endless mode
-- How long can one go in Endless, and does it get boring before death ;]

-I was a beta tester so I don't need the manual, but I guess some info about the skills would be useful.
-The stats seem to be balanced, I didn't try the new skills yet.
-The Endless mode's difficulty is quite good for me. The amount of tough monsters is quite high in the end though.
-It's not boring at all! I think 5th night is survivable, but after that the amount of tough monsters is way too high. At least for me.

Would you like to consider increasing the stat gains after the more difficult nights? +1 seems quite low after, say, fourth night. I just put them to willpower to see the effect immediately.

Anyway, good work and keep that up. :)

15
Announcements / Re: Move IRC Channel to WorldIRC?
« on: November 28, 2006, 11:50 »
The majority of the roguelike channels are on WorldIRC? That's bullshit!

If your "roguelike channel" means all channels that have something to do with the roguelike genre, you don't seem to know the amount of roguelike channels on IRC. Check the QuakeNet's roguelike channels for example, there are roguelike channels there. Then check a few popular servers more. You'll see that there are many large and active channels scattered across IRC. It's not just WorldIRC. Who likes Angband and its successors anyway. (The last sentence is not a flame bait, don't eat it!)

I'd like to hear some good reasons before moving. Is there something on WorldIRC that QuakeNet can't provide? Of course moving is a good thing for those who hang on WorldIRC, but there are those who don't want to add new servers to their favorites. I know I didn't want it before #RGRD, but I couldn't change that.

I guess I'd keep visiting #DoomRL even if it moves, but I don't see it as a positive thing. Maybe I'd boycott it for a while if you can't think any good reasons to move. I didn't like adding a new server to my favorites when #RGRD was formed, WorldIRC, yuck. Who suggested this anyway?

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