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Posted by red_kangaroo, Jun 14, 2017 at 12:46 am
chaostrom wrote
Hum. Problem with that is that the skill factor completely overshadows any special properties of materials. Silver not being an idea material for a weapon, your choices would pretty much be limited to silver daggers.

That's why I suggest for mithril to also be considered a type of silver. Mithril comes from Tolkienian mythology and is called "true silver" there as one of its alternative names. We could even make silver harden into mithril.

Alternately, we could introduce better types of silver, eg. "moon silver".
Posted by red_kangaroo, Jun 13, 2017 at 10:30 am
It would be awsome if werewolves (and anything else with lycanthropy) had an aversion to silver (and maybe mithril, because mithril is "true silver" after all). Being struck by silver (mithril) weapon (or any item, really) could deal +50% damage to lycanthropes, while if they were wearing any silver equipment, it could occasionally sear them for small damage.

Similarly, vampires should have an aversion to sunlight. Either they could stop regenerating HP as long as they are above ground and outside during day, or they could take intermittent small damage to any uncovered body part (thus fully armored vampire would be immune to sunlight).
Posted by red_kangaroo, Jun 10, 2017 at 2:28 pm
Serin-Delaunay wrote
I think one's own errors always have a stealth bonus :>

Unfortunately.

Serin-Delaunay wrote
I'm under no illusions about Aslonians being heroes - he comes off as a racist slave-owning monarchist.

Then I achieved what I wanted!

Serin-Delaunay wrote
But compare this to how the game treats Attnamese slavery:
* The player character is a slave from New Attnam, whose daily life is described in detail at the start of the game.
* Several of them are shown onscreen.
* They talk to the player about their lives before and during the occupation, their opinions about the situation, their culture and interests, and each other.
* They have diverse social roles both before and during occupation.
* They can all be freed, and this happens because their masters are killed, not because their masters suddenly had a bright idea.

I wouldn't be in the slightest opposed to having a "Free slaves of Aslona" main quest one day.

Serin-Delaunay wrote
The problem here is similar to the problem with Aslonian slavery above. This evil isn't necessary to the plot, all it does is tell us about a powerful male character's values. In this case, a character we already knew was a monster, and it does that at the expense of including a marginalised character's voice, thoughts, and feelings in the game. Since it doesn't really add anything to the game, I think it would be more valuable to instead allow this character to speak.

I see. I'll do something with her.

Serin-Delaunay wrote
Making it more dense would only increase its power when used as a weapon material. That's why many weapons do more damage when made of adamant compared to valpurium. That might be OK if it's unwishable.

Requiring 150 INT is basically equivalent to making it unwishable. In normal play you can't get that high with dolphins or hats, in wizmode everything's wishable.

I'll make it unwishable, then, and we can use it as a special material for certain levels or uniques.

Serin-Delaunay wrote
What use do you see for liquid darkness? How could the player exploit it? It's not useful for the player to drink, monsters won't drink it voluntarily, and its effects when splashed on a creature might not be very helpful in combat. I guess it would be OK if it doesn't spawn in bottles, if it's used to decorate a unique level.

I was thinking about making a puddle under Petrus. But I may be overestimating its effects. I'll try and see if it would be OK in bottles.
Posted by red_kangaroo, Jun 10, 2017 at 4:00 am
Sorry for a delay in replies, too much stuff to do to school and work...

fejoa wrote
Might be time for some Stroustrup? Get a linux virtual machine and compile IVAN!

Yeah, I will have to try that. One day.

fejoa wrote
Other devfans will have more feedback, highly recommend advertising the changes in the forum, but expect to be slammed.

I wouldn't expect anything less.

So, there is a pull request over at GitHub where I added many lines for NPC replies, plus assorted minor stuff. Many thanks to fejoa and Serin-Delaunay for thorough reviews! If anyone else is interested, I'd like to know your thoughts, too.

fejoa wrote
I prefer the farmer to say "Luppliva", because it's a relic from the original devs.

I changed it to Modedr to make the world of Ivan feel more connected - once Mondedr is added, you would have already heard about it from NPCs, so it would feel like a true part of the world.

I can definitely change it back, though, and add some other line about Mondedr.

Serin-Delaunay wrote
Found this: (picture)

I'm not sure whether this is a complaint, but this line was removed/replaced by Migel Decos. Originally in Doc/Old there is a disceussion about punishers having cousins from New Attnam, which is quite strange for several of them at once. So, I replaced it with Migel Decos, a brother of Richel!

Serin-Delaunay wrote
There is a lot of extra science talk experience in these changes. It's good that there are some female characters who can sci-talk (and that there are more female characters), but this looks like a pretty significant boost to early- and mid-game INT and WIS, and mid- and late-game CHA.

I will be very grateful for any thoughts on balance. I would like for more poeple to science talk with you, but as you say the numbers might need to be reduced.

Serin-Delaunay wrote
Some dialogue lines are direct quotes from pretty well-known sources, which isn't and shouldn't be where IVAN gets its humour from

I don't agree. I actually find it quite funny when I find a line that quotes something, but does not directly break the fourth wall. Some monsters already use quotes - just look at the invisible stalkers.

I can remove the most obvious ones, or those generally disliked.

Some quotes I added:

red_kangaroo wrote
"\"It is we who stand guard, our eternal watch shall not fail.\"",

"\"Avada Kedavra!\""

"\"Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast Light travels, it finds the Darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.\""

What do others think, do you mind quotes in NPC replies?

Serin-Delaunay wrote
Spelling / grammar / punctuation / style / consistency / sensitivity corrections

Thank you for those, no matter how many times I read something after myself, there are still errors remaining.

Serin-Delaunay wrote
I think this guy needs a complete rewrite; he doesn't subvert, parody or criticise anything, his "need help, civil war" schtick is very standard-fantasy, and his country's enslavement of goblins undermines IVAN's criticism of slavery (such as it is) because no-one else has any lines talking about it and none of the goblins in the game (even Guugzamesh) have any interesting lines.

We're talking about an emissary of Aslona.

Yes, the "need help, civil war" is a standard trope. Here I actually tried a subversion - the talk about slavery is deliberate, because Alsona is not necessarily a good kingdom endangered by evil Rebellion. It's not always a poor, good kingdom being stuck with too young and inexperienced ruler. I don't see the undermining of criticism of slavery - you're jumping to the conclusion that Aslonians are the heroes.

Serin-Delaunay wrote
A Legifer-aligned amulet makes sense for this character, but it's a really powerful item, and because she's outside the Cathedral it's easy to pile dangerous objects on the floor, kill her peacefully, and steal it. That's pretty unbalanced. Maybe this is more of a problem with the amulet of elemental protection than with her equipment, but I think she should have a less powerful amulet or be in a location where she's harder to kill.

Yeah, the amulet of elemental protection is maybe a bit too powerful, it offers more protection against all damage than the corresponding cloaks! Maybe we should nerf it a bit...

I don't think it's that easy to kill her peacefully, after all she's not exactly a pushover. If you kill her during a fight with the whole Attnam, I see no problem in you getting cool loot, as you will also get to the lamps in treasury and other items. If you somehow manage to kill her peacefully - well, that would be nearly an exploit, and I don't think we can catch all of those. It's the same as killing Petrus peacefully with mustard gas, of dissolving him peacefully in acid - how many players will actually thin about it or do it in normal game? When it's done as a challenge, why not, I like weird challenges. Only exploits too easy not to do (library book kicking, for example) need to go immediately. Exploits that need quite a bit of knowledge, skill and luck (eddy in treasury stealing) are fine by me.

If need be, she can get a different amulet, but I woudn't want to move her. She's a little secret for the players who like to explore to find.

Serin-Delaunay wrote
All of the hunters are vegetarians? No way, not in Attnam. You could make another configuration that has this line, and then have one hunter with that config. Or give it to the imprisoned hunter, but it makes even less sense for him. Or keep this line and give them a non-speaking line that shows them eating meat with their big lying mouth.

Why show it when you can let the players thin about it themselves? Maybe they really are all vegetarians, I mean, there are so many pineapples and bananas in the Cathedral... Or maybe they are lying, but we don't need to show this - let the players have their own opinion.

Serin-Delaunay wrote
Let's not have a lobotomised wife of Petrus in the game. She can have indignant speaking lines like all the other prisoners.

This is a very black comedy joke, but I see Petrus as seriously evil. When a citizen, even if it was his own wife, needs re-education... If you all are against it, I will definitely rework her.

Serin-Delaunay wrote
The elven ambassador and the orcish representative are much more interesting characters than the emissary of Aslona, and they have 4, 8, and 12 dialogue lines respectively. They should have more lines talking about their personal history and their countries' politics and relationships. Since the mistresses are all retconned to be elves, how do they relate to Lunethia?

I would love to add more lines evetually, I just don't have any yet. I would also like to place Lunethia into the Dark Forest dungeon, so that the player can physically visit it.

Serin-Delaunay wrote
Sapphires are not uncommon, so this will make it easier to gain favour with Valpurus and get free valpurium equipment. I don't know how much easier it'll be because that's not a strategy I normally use, but this is still a balance concern.

Hm, I didn't think about this. I wished to make a gem for each (lawful) god as follows:

Valpurus diamond
Legifer  ruby
Atavus   emerald
Dulcis   sapphire
Seges    topaz
Sophos   amethyst

Hardened from amethyst to diamond. (Not completed yet, some gems are still missing.)

Serin-Delaunay wrote
(RE: psypher)

This is going to make the endgame even more unbalanced. 95 INT is basically equivalent to 50 INT and little luck/persistence. This effectively boosts the equipment damage and AV values of any high-int character by about 50%, and the only disadvantage compared to Valpurium is it's inflexible. Valpurium equipment is already overpowered, and this would just make matters worse. Also, there's nothing made of psypher in the whole game, so its existence is even more secret than GEF.

This could be a useful addition to the game if some items or terrain features were added made of psypher (probably in ToX?) and you did one of these two things:

* Make it unwishable and don't let any other wishable material (black granite) upgrade to it.
* Lower its strength to 400 or below and find another way to differentiate it from black diamond.

I would love to have a special material for Mortifer, just as Valupurus has one, and psypher is quite nice for that, I think. It needs a nerf, though.

What about one (or several) of these:

* It could be unwishable (or maybe require something like 150 Int?).
* I would leave it at being super-strong, but maybe we could make it as dense as adamant? Super stong and super heavy.

SPOILER ALERT. Click here to see text.
I was thinking about mirrored psypher armor of great health +6 for ToX, just like the valpurium sword +10 in GC.


Serin-Delaunay wrote
Liquid darkness can probably be added to the bottle spawn rate.

It actually is rather powerful, IMO, that's why it's not spawned right now. I was thinking about is as a special material for some unique level, but if you find it OK for it to be found in bottles, why not?

Serin-Delaunay wrote
I'm not sure about ommel blood; it's ten times more acidic than anything else already present in the game. This could be seriously unbalanced when used to coat acid-proof weapons or left as a trap on the floor; sulphuric acid is already strong enough to immobilise a veteran guard very quickly.

It'll need some gameplay testing to make sure it's not unbalanced, and even then it probably shouldn't spawn freely (only in a fountain on the Elpuri or ghost level, for instance).

It should definitely not spawn freely! It's very powerful, it should be found only in specific special areas, or everyone will be dissolving Petrus.

fejoa wrote
The bum character gives the player lots of advice. Again, run by the forum to gauge the appropriateness.

Here are the lines you can hear from a bum in Attnam. I wanted a NPC that gives some slightly obscure, but still useful clues to new players:

SPOILER ALERT. Click here to see text.
    50, /* rumors, more to come */
    "\"Once I ate a resurrected banana and gosh, was it tasty!\"",
    "\"I met an angel once. She fixed my arm. Lovely lady, she was.\"",
    "\"Don't eat too much, my mama told me, or you'll grow fat and clumsy.\"",
    "\"I've heard that unicorns taste weird. Not that I would know first-hand.\"",
    "\"Tweraif? Yeah, I heard about it from a guy... What was his name again? Oily Orpiv, I think.\"",
    "\"I once saw an apprentice dark mage polymorph his small chest and spill all his stuff. I would have laughed, but I didn't wanna be turned into a dark frog.\"",
    "\"I've heard you can fetch a nice iron arm from the dwarves of Kharaz-arad.\"",
    "\"I once tried to pet a hedgehog and got my hand all screwed up. Tried it next time with a gauntlet, and let me tell ya, it takes the sting from their spines!\"",
    "\"You ever thrown a bone to a doggie? I love the way it makes them happy.\"",
    "\"You know what I've heard? That intellectuals can get harder. Har har har.\"",
    "\"All those priests can say so many weird and foreign words... I betcha gods love listening to wise words!\"",
    "\"You know how to best get a discount in a shop, eh? Use your charms, dummy! Har har!\"",
    "\"My dad was an adventurer, years ago. Died in some damp cave. I hope no other bloody adventurer found his bones and took all of his stuff.\"",
    "\"That doctor who had to run from here, he said to me once that mutant flesh is not good for your body form. Eh, I say when you have nothing else...\"",
    "\"You came through that scary underwater tunnel, right? I've heard it's deeper than it seems. Sounds spooky, eh?\"",
    "\"I hate zombies! Dead things should stay dead and not try to bite you. I was bitten once, in the Cellar, and my arm got all inflamed and necrotic.\"",
    "\"You know how people talk about the genies locked in old oil lamps? Tavern stories and wishful legends, I tell ya!\"",
    "\"One cossack once told me about an old guy named Xinroch. He lived and died long ago, but he lost his favourite sword, so he came back.\"",
    "\"Some cossack once told me about a guy named Xinroch who can be at several places at once! And to top it off, he's dead! Yeah!\"",
    "\"I've heard that only the dead can be safe around an enner beast! I say when you're dead, it's no longer of concern what's around you, eh?\"",
    "\"The Cathedral has impenetrable defenses with its four Cardinals scanning the thoughts of everyone, they say. Well, they still get their stuff stolen by kobolds, har har har! Those little midgets are so dumb no thoughts can be read from them! Har har!\"",
    "\"My mama told me you only need a wand of polymorph and some rocks to make a fortune. Eh, never held a wand in my hands, so what can I know?\"",
    "\"Those bananas are dangerous, I tell ya! You eat one, you drop that peel-thingy and then someone goes and slips on it, cracking their skull open!\"",
    "\"Let me give you a word of advice - next time you get drunk, don't let the bottles lying on the ground. Broken bottles are a pain in the foot, if you know what I mean.\"",
    "\"I got attacked by a kobold one night, but I blocked his spear with my lantern and then beaten him to death with it.\"",
    "\"Mistresses love a good whipping, you say? Eh, I got whipped once and let me tell ya, there's nothing to love about it.\"",
    "\"I've heard from a friend that you can enchant a pair for the price of one, if you know what to do. Sounds like a bargain to me, har har!\"",
    "\"I've heard from a friend that enchantments can be broken and you have to repair them. Eh, magic is weird.\"",
    "\"My mama always told me, don't eat people, it's indecent. I'd say more like evil, but she always knew best.\"",
    "\"I tried to pray once and it worked! So I said to myself, once is good, twice is better, right? Then I got smote. I guess gods don't like pestering, right?\"",
    "\"Some priest once told me that Law and Chaos mix like cats and dogs. That's bad, right?\"",
    "\"Some priest once told me that gods can be quite jealous of their worshippers. I guess that's why thay can't stay each other?\"",
    "\"When my mama took me to an altar for the first time, she made me kneel down there. It makes the gods happy, she said.\"",
    "\"I knew a guy who had this altar in his home and kept pushing his fingers down his throat and vomiting all over it! He said it was an offering for some Scabies, but ew!\"",
    "\"There was this arch-magic-guy some years back running around with a wand of resurrection. Those lucky bastards he raised where so grateful he quickly amassed an army of followers! Then he attacked Attnam and got promptly massacred.\"",
    "\"Someone once told me that necromancy is not for vegetarians. Well, they have to work with meat, I guess?\"",
    "\"They say necromancy sows Chaos into your heart. I say you have to already have some Chaos in you to even try using necromancy.\"",
    "\"Only time I ever ate a fortune cookie, it said: 'When aflame, douse yourself by a water from a fountain.' Why the Dark Gods would I be aflame in the first place?\"",
    "\"I used to drink from the fountains, because it's free, but then I got all sick, so it's not always healthy. Now I drink vodka.\"",
    "\"I've heard those fountains are connected by pipes large enough for a man to fit into! You wouldn't want to get suckud inside, right? Har har!\"",
    "\"One mage once told me that wet clothes and electricity don't mix well. Eh, it's not like I know what an electricity is, but wet clothes are uncomfortable.\"",
    "\"One mage once told me that metal armor and electricity don't mix well. I have neither armor, nor electricity, so I don't care.\"",
    "\"One mage once told me not only gods can wield thunder in their hands. I told her that's a blasphemy and she should burn at a stake.\"",
    "\"One mage once told me that careless use of lightning can leave you in a shock. I think she was making fun of me.\"",
    "\"You ever tried hitting someone with an iron gauntlet on? That packs a punch!\"",
    "\"I remeber an execution where a noble tried to get around his punishment with an amulet of life saving. But as they cut his head off, the amulet fell from the stump of his neck! We had a good laugh about it! What a moron!\"",
    "\"You know about floating eyes? There's one of those buggers around the Cathedral all the time. Take just a single look at them and they will knock you out cold. But when it's dark... Har har!\"",
    "\"You know about floating eyes? I was told eating them can make your mind go haywire. You'll start hearing voices and seeing things. Just like voda, I say! Har har!\"",
    "\"Stupid good-for-nothing kobolds! You can't even eat them without being knock out cold.\"",
"\"Do you know of any good way of getting rid of a tapeworm? I tried drinking some acid the last time. It worked, but the heartburn was awful.\"";


fejoa wrote
Have you thought about designing a totally new dungeon?

I have, I was actually thinking about doing a completely redesigned Dark Forest. This is one of the reasons why an elven ambassador appears in the Cathedral - a clue that there is a place called Dark Forest. I will not yet give details, but there will be Lunethia, a lost mansion in the woods and a reason why there is a schizm between the elven sirens of Dulcis and elven mistresses of Nefas.

I will definitely take you up on your offer once I get around to making the base levels.
Posted by red_kangaroo, Jun 6, 2017 at 2:17 am
Now I don't know whether it was mentioned here before, but akin to lycanthropy and vampirism, it would be interesting to have a zombie status effect (zombie plague? zombification?).

Basically, it would work as a (bit worse?) leprosy, optionally also making your character greener (just lke normal monsters are made greener while zombified). Unlike normal leprosy, the leprosy-like rotting from zombifcation could be stalled by eating raw flesh. You would also have no upper food limit while in zombie state - any food that would bring you to Satiated would be wasted and you could still eat more, because of your ravenous hunger for raw flesh.

You would also be immune to decapitation and de-groin-tion, making torso you only vital body part, and whenever you would pick up a body part you are missing (not necessarily yours), the game would ask you if you want to attach it.

This state should be exclusive with the other two, just like the other two (lycanthropy and vampirism) are. You would also not become zombified after being bitten by a zombie (too strong), maybe by drinking a special elixir.

Your stats would suffer badly, but you would be very hard to kill. This state would be very bad whenever you are not fighting, because without raw flesh, you would become weaker and weaker. If a fight, it might be very beneficial.
Posted by red_kangaroo, Jun 5, 2017 at 4:15 pm
Serin-Delaunay wrote
Is it really worth adding a whole material property/game rule just to let creatures evade ESP when you could add an item that does the same thing in a way that's more consistent with the existing game rules?
Does the BlockESP flag prevent creatures from using ESP, or just being detected? Why?
About 1 in every 41 plain helmets are tin (no other headgear is generated as tin), and by the time the player has high enough INT to use ESP reliably almost every humanoid NPC will reject tin helmets because there are better options strewn around the dungeon floor. Will players ever fail to detect a threatening NPC because they found a tin helmet?
Does this change add more depth or more complexity?

You probably would not like NetHack. I love it and I love this change to tin helmets.

There is already a specific and quite useless code in IVAN to make banana peels resurrectable. And it is awsome. Why? Because of the incredible thought, work and love that went even into such a small detail. Also, this change is already mentioned in Doc/Old as one of planned features by the original dev team, so it's quite awsome to be finally implemented!
Posted by red_kangaroo, Jun 5, 2017 at 2:32 am
fejoa wrote
Downside is, I don't think players would notice the difference from before.

In this case, I would vote for 100% reduction. Players will notice, plus you still take damage to torso and groin, so enner will not really become harmless.
Posted by red_kangaroo, Jun 4, 2017 at 2:03 pm
Serin-Delaunay wrote
Sound damage reduction from full helmets makes sense if it's not 100%,

I do concur it might be lowered a bit, even though protecting just head is rather OK as you will still take heavy damage to other body parts.

Serin-Delaunay wrote
but I'm not too happy with the ESP protection from tin headgear.

I love it! I would love if more materials had special properties, so sometimes even a mundane or low-tier material could be preferable for its unique properties.

Serin-Delaunay wrote
and looking at the PR I can't see any way for players to discover the feature in-game.

Yeah, no way in the PR, but there are already mechanics in the game that are quite obscure and impossible to tell from in-game. People will eventually discover it and be amazed. That's the most awsome thing on all roguelikes - how many hidden coll mechanics you can find, because you are not guided around and instructed about every mechanic like in most other games. Just look at this thread how awsome and obscure things people found in IVAN, eventually.

I suggest we add a line of dialogue somewhere that would enlighten the player about tin hats a bit, to make it easier for them. Which reminds me I have to take a look at the hint guy NPC I was writing dialogue for.
Posted by red_kangaroo, Jun 4, 2017 at 1:55 pm
fejoa wrote
I suggest we simply implement some more conditions within the case statesments,

Hm, okay, I'll try that.

If I may bother you further, here I slightly changed priest::BeTalkedTo to allow for various replies for different priests based on char.dat

I just wonder what is the difference between humanoid::BeTalkedTo and character::BeTalkedTo, how does its function differ?
Posted by red_kangaroo, Jun 4, 2017 at 10:35 am
Cool!

I wonder if it will be worth it to carry a tin helmet around for mages...

Also I still think full helmets should dlightly (cca -5%) decrease your Per. Otherwise they are too easily better than normal helmets.