another one IVAN fork (build: 2025, Apr 18)

btw. hiccups state does nothing for now. i have the ideas for hiccups effect:
1. failing to read the scroll (maybe with some undesirable magic effect).
2. spill some fluid on drinking.
3. drop the bottle on drinking (and it shatters).
4. change the direction of magic wand shot.

also. "scroll of hiccups" (or wand of hiccups). cursed wizards will fail their spellcasting, sirens will be unable to sing properly.

Yeah... Same as fighting any high-tier dark mage. Or get an army of pets.


They can be killed without protection, but you need to only ever take on 1 siren, always have water ready for sipping, so they cannot knock you out, and ideally dual-wield so you can disable them quickly. If 2+ sirens catch up to you or your water runs out, you are dead.


IIRC there is a comment somewhere in the code that magpies' AI broke down catastrophically when the player was invisible, so they were made to see invisible.


Nice!

One more effect might be a 10% chance to mispronounce a prayer, resulting in the punishment instead of the boon.

yeah. but still, the chance for their song to succeed is high, so if PC doesn't instakill them… so i felt that some protection would be nice. 2-3 sirens are still a threat, so it doesn't change much: you'll still want to fight them one by one. this is mostly so i could switch weapons, or avoid dual-wielding, and still have better chances. otherwise they are quite easy to get rid of, of course, by the time PC need to deal with them.

i believe that it should work as expected. magpie AI already deals with the case where no neighbours found, so it should be ok. i refactored the visibility check a little, though: this could be the case why old code failed. at least i've seen no problems yet.

oh, thank you! i tend to forget about gods system all the time! yes, this is great too. so far i have those possible effects:


1. failing to read the scroll (maybe with some undesirable magic effect).
2. spill some fluid on drinking.
3. drop the bottle on drinking (and it shatters).
4. change the direction of magic wand shot.
5. activating a trap: drop it down, and it traps you (the mine explodes).
6. throwing something changes the direction, like for wands.
7. One more effect might be a 10% chance to mispronounce a prayer, resulting in the punishment instead of the boon.
8. (undecided yet) maybe increase the chance to miss with the attack? …and increase critical chance too, just to give some effect PC may want.
9. spellcasters sometimes fail their spells, siren fails their songs.

btw: are you all throwing useless items away too instead of simply dropping them? free expirience!

2 and 3 sound good. If drinking from a bottle would that mean only half the contents are consumed and if drinking from a vial none of the contents are consumed?

love the wand idea, with an appropriately fancy sounding name.

k8I doesn't have vials, so one problem less. and yes, i think that 300-600 ml will be spilled/dropped. drinking from cans will prolly use half of a can, and the other half will be spilled (and the can dropped sometimes).

as for the wand name… i'm all ears!

by the way… i believe that we made the game less "adaptive" with all new golems and such. `game::CalculateNextDanger ()` updates danger map one monster config at a time. this was prolly done to speed up the game (the updater is called on each turn), but i don't think that it matters much today. yet more monsters means slower danger map recalculation, and hence slower "spawn autoleveling".

this may not be a problem, but i think that we should make updates a little faster. i tried to update all monster configs at a time instead. this mostly processes all zombies, skeletons and golems in one step, so full update is ~150 turns instead of ~600. let's see how this will affect the game.

maybe we should switch to "fixed update rate" instead, so added monsters will not matter anymore. i.e. let's say that the whole danger map should be updated in 100 turns, and process enough monsters on each step. or maybe update the whole danger map on each turn, but smooth the changes, so all monsters will be updated, but not with a sudden bumps.

this needs more investigation, because i don't fully understand how danger caluclations work. maybe we can even completely throw the danger map away: it looks like it was created mostly for speed reasons. our CPUs are fast enough these days. it is used in `BalancedCreateMonster()`, but maybe we can simply simulate the fights, as the updater does instead. i will prolly implement this as a hidden debug option and check.

so i implemented "fixed rate updates". it seems to affect UT difficulty a little, but it is hard to say for sure. anyway, i am trying to find a good rate. the old was 870 (this is the total number of all possible monsters), but i thing that something around 200 should be better.

yet it is really hard to tell if this matters much. i've seen sirens in UT several times with powerful gear (lucky me . this is prolly right, because IVAN shouldn't be easy, and UT was way too easy. yet the more you play, the less effect update rate has — mostly because you're sticking to your gears. so i will prolly make updates even faster (150, or even 100).

experimenting shows that update rate 100 feels way more like IVAN. the game is both more interesting (new monsters appears earlier), and harder. still fair, though. somehow i feel that 50-60 will be even better. that is, i feel like i'm playing real IVAN again — the game which doesn't forgive lazyness and unawareness, doesn't forgive mindless rushing. i am now dying in UT again… which is good. because i used to go through UT in "brains off" mode. it was 1 death per 5-8 success runs to Attnam. now its 3-4 death to 1 success (and mostly because i'm not thinking good enough). yay.

i recommend the same change to vanilla: make IVAN gre… em… bad motto.


p.s.: this may help with low-level golem infestation on UT too. fast golem recalculation should quickly move most weak golems out of the list. vanilla has even more golems (i disabled golems for most new materials), so vanilla update rate is even slower, i believe.

also, for some reason the game doesn't update the list in wilderness. i don't understand why. i will prolly remove that condition (updater doesn't need "real map", i believe).

added "attack flash": fighting monsters will flash for a while (they will be rendered with a solid color). i think that it is funnier than vanilla icons. if the player attacks a monster, only monster will flash. if the monster attacks the player, the player will flash too, in a different color. this way it is quite clear who attacked who.

i am not fully happy with the implementation (and 32x32 monsters are not flashing properly yet), but most of the time it works. it's hard to show the animation, so wait for the new build and check by yourself.

thanks to vanilla for the idea, btw.

the static picture. here, the skeleton attacks the player. attacker is white, victim is red. when the player attacks somebody, the player is not flashing — because it is annoying, and you know that you just attacked. also, this way it is easier to see that you are being attacked.

also, i restored screenshot keybind, so no more x2 screenshots.

more stupid ideas: sound propagation and stealth kills.

the idea is that the monsters should be attracted by the sound of battle. the sound should propagate with some floodfill algorithm, not with simple range checks. this way, fighting in a room with all doors closed will muffle the sound, so less monsters will hear it.

also, this opens the way to stealth kills. if PC will use a dagger, for example, and kill somebody in a closed room without windows, and there are no other team members inside, and it was insta-kill — other team members will not turn hostile. i.e. nobody heard anything, nobody seen anything, no reason for hostility. this might be a special kind of attack with increased crit chance, but with heavier retallation too. not very useful mechanic as of now, but could be useful for new quests.


just to make myself clear: i am throwing ideas here, but i don't know when, or even if they will be implemented. most of them are in issue tracker, so i can choose some idea to work on if i feel it. also, i want to get some feedback on the ideas too. of course, it is hard to say something without a way of trying the thing in the game, but… you might spot see something i missed (like hiccups effect for praying, for example), or suggest some way to improve things. it is about 7 or so active people here, i believe, and this is the ideal number for such kind of development.

I don't think those are stupid ideas at all, especially not with Enner already in the picture. We also have some environmental awareness already, such as seeing mines go off even in unexplored areas, tracking blood trails, and such. Sound propagation seems like a natural addition.

I'm not so sure about tying stealth kills to just sound though. I mean sure, it's kinda ridiculous how the entire town instantly knows the moment you attack someone, but managing a stealth kill in plain sight of someone else not triggering a hostile reaction seems just as silly.

yeah, i haven't made myself clear, sorry. of course, i mean that nobody should see you too. it is "nobody can see you, nobody can hear you" situation.

also, that "instant knowledge" should not be instant too. the witness should scream, and other teammates will hear that scream, and scream too. so if you managed to kill several people in a distant cabin fast enough, you're clear.

another thing that annoys me a lot: monsters not hunting for good equipment. it's fun to see that the monster could equip something if it stepped on the square with random movement, but it will never go for food or gear even if it sees it.

i'm trying to change that: in monster random movement AI, the monster should check if it sees something interesting, and go there. so if it sees some good gear — the monster will go there and pick it up. if it sees some food, it will go and eat. doing so in random movement code will not disrupt other AI activities, and will make monsters more intelligent. also, there will be more reasons to not throw away good gear — monsters will definitely pick it up if they'll see it.

but i will prolly block all monsters except bunnies from going for carrots, otherwise there would be almost no chance for a carrot to survive.

in the future, some very intelligent monsters might remember where they seen some gear, and go there if they managed to lost their current gear.

lol. forgot some checks, so shopkeeper bought half of the shop from himself. he has money, and he is allowed to take shop items… bingo!

and new god idea. wait, wait, don't throw your daggers at me! listen what i have to say first, please!

it is well-known fact that IVAN world has very advanced banking system. i mean, you don't have to carry any coins around, and there is no way to steal coins from NPCs. even their dead bodies don't have coins on them. what it means? it means that there is no cash in IVAN world, only bank records! if you need to buy or sell something, you just say: "sim-salabim, transfer N money from account A to account B".

i'm happy with that system, and i see no reason to introduce any kind of coins to the game.

now, The Bank Corporation seems to be at least a semi-god: it is everywhere, and can be accessed via kind of pseudo-pray. right? why don't allow the player to pray to The Bank Corporation to get a loan? this is the only kind of prayer you can do to TBC, but it fits to "Pray" command, i believe.

you pray to TBC, asking for some sum of money, and they may provide it to you. max sum might be like `(your gold + your equipment price) * some value`, or something like that. of course, there is no free lunch, so you have daily payments from now on. and if you miss several daily payments, or don't have the loan sum when it's time to return it, TBC will send bank guards after you. they are like angels for other gods. if you manage to kill them, TBC will wait a little, and send more guards. also, you now have to pay for killed guards and their equipment too.

what do you think about this idea?

This could be Mellis, the god of money. He already can give you some pocket money, but making him give you much more money, but as a loan, sounds quite interesting.

Yeah, I think this would be an interesting tweak to the way tht Mellis' prayer works. He could give the player a big loan and then slowly take his money back.

I wonder what One-eyed Sam would end up with.

yes, but i want The Bank Corporation to be the separate entity. i have some other plans for them too, but i need more time to make things less… foggy.

heh. maybe one day i'll remove that check and see what she will choose. not that she really needs anything to tear anybody apart, tho…


p.s.: i am quite happy with "pickup AI". i mean, it seems to work: hungry monsters run for nearby food, humanoids run for items they can equip. the more Int monster have, the further it is ready to run (up to LOS distance).

forgot one check, and poor mistress (actually, very rich mistress tried to eat banana lump from the shop. as monsters don't picking up food, she couldn't. so she moves one square away, then notices the bananas, moves to them, fails to eat them, moves one square away, notices the bananas…

maybe i should teach the monsters to pick up the food in shops first…

Add plenty of corny dialog and ship it. Divine banking, i freaking love it.

thank you! i have some bigger plans on this later — like more features, and even its own quest line. but it's reserved for the far future. for now only what i described, yeah. and some surprises if you'll die with the bank debt…

playing with "item-collecting" monsters if more fun, but harder too. i never realised how dumb they are: they often spawned near good equipment, and don't bother to pick it up.

also, more heavy metal sirens with skull helmets. maybe i should add a special kind of song for them…

hm… with "finder AI" the game drifts back to "nintendo hard" territory. i used to relaxed playing — just rushing into monsters… and now it doesn't work anymore. also, i used to simply throw away things i don't need… DON'T! those bastards WILL pick them up! now it's IVAN i love!

How about making the banking the church of Mellis? I really don't think there should be another god when Mellis is already the god of commerce.