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adom-admin
04-05-2010, 02:54 PM
Ok, to get back into ADOM development we need a hand from you. Please respond on this thread to the question "Which bugs are the most important ones to be fixed in the next ADOM release?" - after reading the latest blog post on iADOM (http://www.adom.de/blog/2010/04/05/adom-in-2010-iadom/).

Pleae note that we currently are not looking for feature requests as the bog post explains. The next version will integrate with the iPad UI and it will fix pressing bugs (which will trickle down into new releases for the other platforms), nothing else for now.

Please be as specific as possible by linking bug fix requests with entries from the bug database, important discussions about the bugs and whatever else might help to get us up to speed.

Thanks,

Thomas

meh
04-05-2010, 03:40 PM
It's a bit ambiguous what constitutes an important bug. Some can have a big impact, but are easily avoided once you are aware of them.

One bug that I'd like to see fixed is the generation of random artifacts. The bug report http://www.adom.de/adom/report.php3?ident=4546 contains some detailed information about it. Some of that is based on reverse engineering, but I'm sure that's OK in this circumstance.

Alucard
04-05-2010, 03:54 PM
Let's see..

Items sometimes generated with the wrong identified state (notably ingots and Khelevaster's spellbooks) cause crashes (http://www.adom.de/forums/project.php?issueid=10)
"Uberjackal" effect (http://www.adom.de/adom/report.php3?ident=4995) where summoned creatures and pre-existing monsters, notably jackals, wolves, and chaos servants, get too much stronger by the end game.
Monsters entering blind rage and attacking themselves (http://www.adom.de/adom/report.php3?ident=4990)
The Skilled talent crashes the game (http://www.adom.de/adom/report.php3?ident=4983)
Piety overflow (http://www.adom.de/forums/showthread.php?t=9644&highlight=piety+overflow) allows you to go super negative then wrap to super positive relations with a god
As in the post before, several artifacts can't be generated

Albahan
04-05-2010, 04:11 PM
The 'good learner' talent supposedly gives ~40% increase in exp instead of 2%
Also, the 'speedy greater moloch' has ended at least one of my potential ultra PC's http://www.adom.de/adom/report.php3?ident=2850
In addition, though I'm not sure its actually a bug, I've heard of mobs like rats being able to pick up moloch armor which seems to me to be a bit odd
Oh and one last one, bats being able to see in the dark but not invisible http://www.adom.de/adom/report.php3?ident=3761

coppro
04-05-2010, 05:13 PM
The fact that save files can spontaneously become unloadable.
The fact that ADOM being tied to a commercially-locked device that not all of us have would be bad.
The fact that there are lots of silly things you need to avoid to prevent crashes.
The fact that Unicorn works backwards.
The fact that some talents variously don't work as advertised, don't work at all, or crash.

Grey
04-05-2010, 06:06 PM
I think the most pressing ones have been mentioned... Ingot/Khelly crash is the worst by far. A few others:

-Elementalist level 6 class power (fire resistance) does not work
-Death on a Monday from low HP is still possible (though exceedingly rare)
-Bug in score calculation leads to incredibly high score if the merchant's guild owes you money
-Monsters give double xp when invisible even if the player can see invis
-Dragons drop double the amount of gold they pick up (highly exploitable)
-both good and great learner talents give a bugged bonus to xp
-stat training from herbs/corpses/Garth is based on currently modified stats instead of base stats (leading to abuse of sickness and starvation to pump stats artificially high)
-door traps set off by enemies will attribute kills to the player
-several Mad Minstrel songs added in the latest version don't display properly (in particular the long R Howard poem and the two songs starting "Whether champion" and "Fire - fierce" (the latter two have their stanzas split up))

Sorry I don't have direct links to any specific reports or further details - these are simply things which are common knowledge to the community.

Grey
04-05-2010, 06:16 PM
Er, also, really less important, but Waldenbrook will happily give good money for dwarven child corpses. And the cat lord doesn't mind you cooking and eating kitty corpses in front of him. And feeding beggars burb roots, poisoned meat and even the corpses of other beggars is considered a pure and lawful act.

Just, y'know, in case you wanted to change some of the funnier elements in the game...

adom-admin
04-05-2010, 06:28 PM
The fact that save files can spontaneously become unloadable.
The fact that ADOM being tied to a commercially-locked device that not all of us have would be bad.
The fact that there are lots of silly things you need to avoid to prevent crashes.
The fact that Unicorn works backwards.
The fact that some talents variously don't work as advertised, don't work at all, or crash.

That was only moderately helpful :-) Let's see point by point:


As far as I know save file become unloadable either due to upgrades to a new version (because it can be extremely difficult to keep savefile compatibility and I never intended to spend time on that) or when the game crashes.

ADOM will not become locked to a commercial device. As mentioned in the blog post all bug fixes trickle down to the other platforms. As would most improvements save for some special "commercial only ones". Which would never have been implemented in the free version in any case. So you don't lose anything.
Be more specific about the silly things. That might serve to get them fixed.
What about the unicorns?
And please be more specific about the talents... although I suspect that the other postings already contained the most important ones.

Albahan
04-05-2010, 06:36 PM
The fact that ADOM being tied to a commercially-locked device that not all of us have would be bad.

I believe the opposite.
Although, I am admittedly no fan of Apple I believe that only good things will come from this. First of all it brings TB back to ADOM, which may (hopefully) also give him motivation to then work more on JADE. After reading the Blog post he seems to be very excited about this idea and as he said "re-invigorated" which can only mean good things for this community, including new versions of ADOM which gets me excited.

IGB
04-05-2010, 06:37 PM
* kick robbing bug - http://ancardia.wikia.com/wiki/Kick_robbing
* naming the unseen bug - the 'n'ame command can be used to detect invisible monsters
* free healing bug - walking against a wall gives a free healing, monsters do not get to act
* decreasing the turn counter bug - when quitting during picking up a pile of items the turns counter gets decremented
* exchanging gold bug - dipping gold into a blessed potion of exchange crashes the game
* integer overflow bug - especially exploitable is piety overflow, with dragon gold doubling can produce negative pile of gold which crashes the game
* the candle birthsign is way too overpowered compared to others

Al-Khwarizmi
04-05-2010, 06:41 PM
I think Alucard mentioned most of the most important ones. Khelly bug, ingot bug, and "Skilled" are the most important because they crash the game. Piety overflow I would also rate as quite important, because it is an easy and cheap exploit. But let me mention some more that haven't been mentioned:

- Darkness does not work as normal on door squares. A monster standing on a dark door square always sees the player.
- It is possible to rob some shops without getting noticed by the shopkeeper by digging the walls, putting items in a corner of the store, and then kicking them diagonally. The shopkeeper can blatantly see you doing this and won't notice. You can see more info about this bug on: http://ancardia.wikia.com/wiki/Kick-robbing
- Background corruption only increases once, on day 90. Correct me if I'm wrong but I have seen here that it was supposed to increase again on day 180, etc. If it is so, this would be an important bug since the game is not as difficult as planned :)
- Fireproof blankets work better if you are doomed in the Tower than if you are not doomed.
- I don't know if this is a bug or an intended feature, but in the Casino, you can play as long as you wish with a slot machine without getting any corruption. Perhaps it was intended, but I feel there should be a downside to putting a paperweight on top of the space key and getting millions on the slot machines.
- I'm sure some more experienced (or scummy) player will be able to complete this, but I think there is a really abusive exploit with the monk's circular kick. Something like that when there is a pet adjacent to you, the circular kick takes no turns at all and you can repeat it indefinitely without the monsters being able to do anything. I don't remember the details of this one, can anyone elaborate?

I don't have an iPad so sadly I won't build that version (I'd be willing to pay for ADOM, but not for the iPad...); but I hope everything goes well, and we can enjoy the bugfixes in regular ADOM! :)

Nezur
04-05-2010, 06:51 PM
Game-crashing bugs


Mindcraft and corrupting monsters (http://www.adom.de/forums/project.php?issueid=11)
Unholy aura interaction with nonhostile NPCs (http://ancardia.wikia.com/wiki/Known_Bugs)
Companions (http://www.adom.de/forums/project.php?issueid=49), particularly berserking (http://ancardia.wikia.com/wiki/Known_Bugs) ones, apparently


Edited to include:

Other bugs I deem nontrivial


During character naming, it is possible to modify various other values too (http://www.adom.de/forums/showthread.php?p=48306)




- I'm sure some more experienced (or scummy) player will be able to complete this, but I think there is a really abusive exploit with the monk's circular kick. Something like that when there is a pet adjacent to you, the circular kick takes no turns at all and you can repeat it indefinitely without the monsters being able to do anything. I don't remember the details of this one, can anyone elaborate?


The monk circular kick bug on the wiki list (http://ancardia.wikia.com/wiki/Known_Bugs)

IGB
04-05-2010, 08:21 PM
* polemarms typo - the talent selection screen says "Affinity with polemarms"
* "You feel the anger of Order brewing" - reading tracts, this one is used twice, appearently once instead of "You feel the anger of Balance brewing."
* The the djinni is gone - one "the" is superfluous
* -foo- is hit by the the acidic glob! - again, one more 'the'
* The sky is filled blazing stars - missing 'with'
* There are more typos in monsters descriptions but i can't remember exactly where

These are not critical but should be very easy to fix.

JellySlayer
04-05-2010, 08:32 PM
Here's the ones that I know of that I feel are serious detriment to the game (rather than just inconvenience or preferences):


Aforementioned Khelly crash and ingot bugs.
Aforementioned berserking monster (particularly the annoying berserking companion crash)
Circle kick bug (using circle kick or all around attack with a non-hostile next to you will give the message "Are you sure you want to kick the -foo-" if you say no, you still kick all other creatures around, at no turn penalty. Basically lets you kill anything you can hit with a kick.)
Skilled talent bug
There are a few rare bugs with scrolls of item destruction. I believe if you have 4 (of differing status) in your inventory and nothing else you get an infinite loop.
Dipping gold into a potion of exchange crashes the game
Aforementioned dragon doubling and piety overflow bugs.
A few NPCs (Gaab'Baay for sure... I think there's a few others) will crash the game if they step on a trap.
PCs with high swimming skill use more energy to move while in water than PCs without it.


Things I'd really love to see fixed:

Monsters that do not see invisible do not react to invisible PCs casting bolt spells or using wands
Monsters that do not see in darkness will stand around and let themselves get clobbered.
Most monsters have no resistance to blindness, confusion, stun, or paralysis. This includes the orb guardians and Andor Drakon.
PCs can dip up to 19 rings at once into a potion of exchange, leading to the possibility of generating a wish engine that gives unlimited wishes.
The metallurgy skill appears to have little-to-no practical effect on gameplay.
I think there's a few more, but that's all I can think of off the top of my head.



?What about the unicorns?

I believe the Unicorn starsign actually makes it easier to change alignment rather than harder to as it claims.

Nezur
04-05-2010, 08:46 PM
PCs can dip up to 19 rings at once into a potion of exchange, leading to the possibility of generating a wish engine that gives unlimited wishes.


I think this is especially important in your 'would love to see' section.

Laukku
04-05-2010, 08:52 PM
PCs can dip up to 19 rings at once into a potion of exchange, leading to the possibility of generating a wish engine that gives unlimited wishes.

A good solution: Make the djinni destroy the ring he comes from instead of turning it into a brass ring. The djinni would like to destroy its former prison, no? ;)

zasvid
04-05-2010, 10:01 PM
Several bugs related to identification:
* some/most amulets don't autoidentify even if a character knows them already (e.g. you identified a glass amulet as an amulet of light, but you'll keep finding glass amulets instead of amulets of light)
* some pieces of armor do autoidentify despite the fact that most don't - metal boots, dragon-leather gauntlets, gauntlets of peace, metal girdles (e.g. I've found "metal boots [96]", I identified it as "mithril boots [-1,+2] [96s]" and I won't find "metal boots [96s]" in the same game again, I'll see right off the bat their stats, even if they are different)

da1edwin
04-05-2010, 10:41 PM
Several bugs related to identification:
* some/most amulets don't autoidentify even if a character knows them already (e.g. you identified a glass amulet as an amulet of light, but you'll keep finding glass amulets instead of amulets of light)
* some pieces of armor do autoidentify despite the fact that most don't - metal boots, dragon-leather gauntlets, gauntlets of peace, metal girdles (e.g. I've found "metal boots [96]", I identified it as "mithril boots [-1,+2] [96s]" and I won't find "metal boots [96s]" in the same game again, I'll see right off the bat their stats, even if they are different)

Well gauntlets of peace autoidentify because they are autocursing.

JellySlayer
04-05-2010, 10:49 PM
A good solution: Make the djinni destroy the ring he comes from instead of turning it into a brass ring. The djinni would like to destroy its former prison, no? ;)

My preference would be to make it that you can only dip 1 item at a time into PoEX (like with PoRC). Otherwise you can still get 19 wishes for a dip, which is gamebreaking enough, you just can't build the engine.

A few more bugs or weird behaviours:

This might have been intentional, but the "Justifier" artifact is completely useless to priests, despite the fact they can be crowned with it. It's believed that whereas paladins get double damage with it, priests deal half the reported damage.
When you melt a weapon or armor with a prefix/suffix/rusty/broken (eg. with firebolt), this tag is carried over to the ingot that is created. The ego ingot doesn't seem to do anything special, but it strangely named (eg. poisonous ingot).
Cursed scrolls of repair will "break" normally unbreakable equipment like herbs and potions.
Necromancers will occasionally start with a tract of order or book of Confuscious instead of a spellbook. Could be intentional, I guess.
Some monsters will overflow experience and only give 1 point instead of full value. Andor Drakon and the Cat lord are classic examples.

zasvid
04-05-2010, 11:54 PM
Well gauntlets of peace autoidentify because they are autocursing.

But that's not something you notice when you see another pair lying on the ground, never touched by character's hand before.

sorear
04-06-2010, 12:26 AM
Everything listed as a "Major bug" in http://it-is-law.com/adom/index.php?title=Known_Bugs_%26_Game_Suggestions .

The Metro Gnome
04-06-2010, 02:59 AM
The save scumming thing should be kept (for regular adom) because noobs like me need a little extra help.

Also, the necromancer To thingy. It should only count for base To instead of boosted To.

adom-admin
04-06-2010, 05:09 AM
Thanks a lot for the enourmous and great feedback, folks! But I fumbled in a serious way... see my posting from this morning (http://www.adom.de/forums/showthread.php?p=48382#post48382). I would be very greatful if you could add you bug reports (bug by bug) to the ADOM project management tool (http://www.adom.de/forums/project.php?projectid=2) as explained in the post.

This will help to speed up ADOM 2.0.0 development immensely!

Thanks! And I'm sorry for not thinking about this earlier. I'm still getting attuned to ADOM development after the long absence ;-)

The Metro Gnome
04-06-2010, 04:30 PM
Well, thanks for coming back TB! It's been too long since you left!

Unforgiven82
04-06-2010, 07:35 PM
* the candle birthsign is way too overpowered compared to others

Adom was never supposed to be balanced in all it's aspects. Leave this as is (since I really don't even think this is too overpowered compared to Raven for example. Natural healing becomes insignificant after some spence gardening, +10 to speed is great all through the game).

Edit: Same applies to Vanquisher, but the double chance of getting it for Barbarians is perhaps too good (still it's a two-hander which means you'll have about 30 less DV in the end game so I'll take Executor over Vanquisher any day)

Edit2: Metallurgy skill has way more practical use than Haggling for example (especially for the people not reading the GB). Again imo there must be also less usefull (useless?) skills or bards will become even more overpowered than they already are. That being said I think metallurgy should be the skill affecting ore gains from mining the way gemology affects gems, since the logic would then be more consistent.

The Metro Gnome
04-06-2010, 09:15 PM
I've played many barbs and only once got vanquisher. Mostly I get skull or death's blade.

I don't think this qualifies as a bug, but it is SUPER annoying. Herb generations should be set to a certain value. I had a really good herb explosion going until five generations past before I could get to it (and I was super close) and it went into another threesome regeneration (when there are three at the top, bottom, and both side [some distance apart] and they keep going vertical to horizontal.

Unforgiven82
04-06-2010, 11:24 PM
I've played many barbs and only once got vanquisher. Mostly I get skull or death's blade.

I don't think this qualifies as a bug, but it is SUPER annoying. Herb generations should be set to a certain value. I had a really good herb explosion going until five generations past before I could get to it (and I was super close) and it went into another threesome regeneration (when there are three at the top, bottom, and both side [some distance apart] and they keep going vertical to horizontal.

If herbs could be harvested without fear of a cyckle hitting in between all of my chars that find an altar in the beginning caves (which is almost all of them) would precrown three times. rest would have to settle for two because of the Si being generated. If you olay around even a bit with a LIFE simulator you'll very soon find out that very simple patches can be grown to huge proportions quite fast. I think herbs are overpowered as is and if anything they should be nerfed. They're so powerfull that the boring grind it takes to get the "necessary" herbs is practically mandatory, and all mandatory grinding in any game is a big minus in my books.

Also I got the vanquisher three times in a row playing barbs so that evens it out that you're not getting any ;)

fazisi
04-07-2010, 12:06 AM
I can't endure farming stoma for more than two precrowns. The third is too expensive for my patience.

The Metro Gnome
04-07-2010, 01:34 AM
Herbs are a bit overpowered. I started out with a small t shaped and ended up with a huge poke ball shaped thing, which then went south after 5 simultaneous generations.

Unforgiven82
04-07-2010, 07:05 AM
I can't endure farming stoma for more than two precrowns. The third is too expensive for my patience.

As it is I agree. If however they could be always groomed without risk of multiple gens passing three precrowns and a crowning wouldn't even take too long (you can make ingredible stuff out of a simple T-shape fairly quickly if you manage to groom it properly). Which was my point.

Al-Khwarizmi
04-07-2010, 08:00 AM
I can't endure farming stoma for more than two precrowns. The third is too expensive for my patience.

Well, I can't endure farming stoma for more than zero precrowns. The first is too expensive for my patience.

Anyway, these observations about herbs aren't bugs.

Universal
04-07-2010, 04:41 PM
Technically it's not a bug(or maybe it is? I'm not sure about that), but I would like see removed possibility of obtaining rings of djinni summoning by dipping stack of any rings into blessed potions of exchange. That easily leads to wish engine(infinite wishes) which is game breaking.

grobblewobble
04-07-2010, 06:53 PM
Fazisi was kidding..

Of course the real bug is that non-dragons do not double gold, so it's too hard to get infinite gold and stats and piety.

coppro
04-08-2010, 04:20 AM
What about the unicorns?

The Unicorn starsign actually makes you get more corrupted, not less. I think there's a few alignment-related signs that are inverted as well (Tree?)

meekrab
04-08-2010, 10:07 AM
The Unicorn starsign actually makes you get more corrupted, not less. I think there's a few alignment-related signs that are inverted as well (Tree?)
Sounds like multiplication is being used instead of division.

Tannis
04-15-2010, 07:56 PM
I think most super pressing things have been mentioned. I would like to see some of the scumming clamped down on. So the following is a list of feature request/bug hybrids I think:

I think there should be hard caps on how much stat gains you can get from stone giant and killer bug corpses, so that getting insane stats with potions of exchange is not so easy. Same with Garth and stat training.

I think the Casino shouldn't give out unlimited money, and if it does there should be some cost like corruption.

I would LOVE to see the pre-crown system changed. Farming monsters and herbs for precrowns is very good for getting a nice artifact but so terribly boring. I would suggest taking a peak at how dungeon crawl stone soup has changed the god system of the original dungeon crawl. It would be nice if there was a prayer mode in adom, kind of like a new tactical setting, where all monster kills go to piety and as a trade off give no xp. That way, you can pray to your god to build up your piety as you simultaneously play the game, and collect a precrown later when you find a co-aligned altar.

And most importantly: I think fluffballs should not work in the water dragon cave. Just have a message like: "the fluff ball explodes but the gremlins instantly drown, stopping the chain reaction!" That would prevent gremlin bombing the cave. Actually, you could still gremlin bomb via other ways, so it might make the most sense to make gremlins be generated with nothing that can be pickpocketed.

The Metro Gnome
04-15-2010, 10:33 PM
I found one bug but it's not super important. I just got blinded in a dark room via door trap and after I could see again (which I really don't know how I could tell) I was able to see my character. Still couldn't read though.

Edit: Apparently now when I walking into a dark room I can see myself.

Pumpernickel
04-27-2010, 11:21 AM
I think most super pressing things have been mentioned. I would like to see some of the scumming clamped down on. So the following is a list of feature request/bug hybrids I think:

I think there should be hard caps on how much stat gains you can get from stone giant and killer bug corpses, so that getting insane stats with potions of exchange is not so easy. Same with Garth and stat training.

As others suggested, this could be achieved by using the 'base' stat instead of 'current' (modified e.g. by a ring of weakness) value when checking for stat gains.
If you're not averse to tricky fiddling, maybe allow an extra chance of a _temporary_ bonus when the current stat is particularly low.



I think the Casino shouldn't give out unlimited money, and if it does there should be some cost like corruption.


The cost of hunger/stunning has been introduced, but i find it more symbolic.
A harder limit on stat gains would remove much of the incentive for massive milking of the casino (can't call it 'gambling', as the profits are virtually guaranteed).
Maximum purse for the casino might be applicable, too - say 1/2 the accumulated price of everything in the gift shop. Once you hit the limit, the machines will be disabled.


And most importantly: I think fluffballs should not work in the water dragon cave. Just have a message like: "the fluff ball explodes but the gremlins instantly drown, stopping the chain reaction!" That would prevent gremlin bombing the cave. Actually, you could still gremlin bomb via other ways, so it might make the most sense to make gremlins be generated with nothing that can be pickpocketed.

Water-Cave Gremlins are already generated without any items. Pick pockets doesn't access monster inventory, AFAIK it creates an item out of thin air, provided the monster is humanoid and isn't flagged as picked. So the solution might have to include making gremlins non-humanoid.

Also in the water dragon cave, i think it'd be best to generally exclude everything vulnerable by water from the hoard. As it stands, the hoard can probably initially include scrolls, fluff balls and the like. Such stuff should have been destroyed the moment Shyssiryxius brought it into the cave, it shouldn't last exactly up until the instant an adventurer enters the place. And of course creating only waterproof stuff means more LOOT ^^

And one oldie but goldie: i'd still like to see the Mutant Spiders from Outer Space with Laser Beams plugged (a.k.a. the ?berjackal effect). The easy way would be to just junk the feature of monsters getting experience by having their brethren killed by the character. The experience decay for killing lots of monsters of the same type would still make steel golem farming very unattractive.

If you really want to keep the concept, perhaps keep seperate counters, so summoned/bred monsters _don't_ contribute to the 'racial experience counter'? This way, dark elf vaults would be annoying because of massive hordes, omnipresent webs and tough elves, not death of meleeers because of super-powered zero-exp large spiders. And at the same time, the blue dragon cave would still become extra-nasty once ~200 ancient blues are dead.

Silfir
04-27-2010, 02:59 PM
Slightly tune down the power-gaining effect for certain monsters maybe (as a whole I just conceptually like the uberjackal effect, my main grip however is the bugged supermonsters that kill your level 50 endgame tank in one hit out of nowhere. Worms are especially likely to do this.)

JellySlayer
04-27-2010, 09:52 PM
Personally, I think the uberjackal effect is fine as a general feature, I just think that there are a handful of monsters whose counters are far too low considering how common they really are. Eg. it takes 50 (75?) rats for them to gain 1 level, whereas it only takes jackals 12. Simply setting jackals and a handful of other monsters to sensible levels would remove most of the irritation from this.

Twinge
04-28-2010, 10:55 PM
I'm going to go ahead and post my initial responses here (had half of them typed before I knew he wanted the bugs elsewhere :P), then go ahead and start adding to the Project Tools list when I get a chance.


The one thing that probably counts as 'feature request' that I'd say is essential for this bugfix release is some form of crash recovery. The worst bugs in the game are the crash bugs, and that is because there is no way to recover from them and you just lost a character that is often many hours old. Fixing the known crash bugs is great, but making it so you can still reload your game and continue when it DOES crash is even better.



"Uberjackal" effect (http://www.adom.de/adom/report.php3?ident=4995) where summoned creatures and pre-existing monsters, notably jackals, wolves, and chaos servants, get too much stronger by the end game.

To go into further detail, the issue is that only the natural generation rate of monsters is taken into account when applying the increased monster strength effects based on how many you've killed. For most monsters this is fine, and probably even too weak of an effect -- but for monsters that can be summoned and monsters that are pre-set at various places in the game, it causes major issues.

A lazy quick-fix for this issue would be to boost the natural Jackal spawn rate from 25 to 50 and Chaos Servant from 10 to at least 25 (possibly 50). This is obviously not ideal, but it would be a really easy way to temporarily fix it until a real solution could be coded.


Perhaps keep separate counters, so summoned/bred monsters _don't_ contribute to the 'racial experience counter'?

This is a fantastic solution, and not even much harder to implement that my temp. fix above. I think summoned monsters are already flagged, too. I imagine the required coding would be pretty simple:

1) Create a pre-set monster flag, assigned to every monster that is created by the game rather than randomly.
2) Create a second counter for killed monsters only for summoned & pre-set.
3) When a monster is killed, check the flags to see if it was summoned or pre-set. If so, increment new counter; else, increment old counter.
4) When tallying total monsters killed, add together both counters. When checking strength increases, only check the random generation counter.



-Death on a Monday from low HP is still possible (though exceedingly rare)

I think this is rare enough that it is probably fine to leave as is - it IS kind of a hilarious way to die :)



*This might have been intentional, but the "Justifier" artifact is completely useless to priests, despite the fact they can be crowned with it. It's believed that whereas paladins get double damage with it, priests deal half the reported damage.

That is exactly the case. A simple removal of the 'half damage for non-Paladins' effect should fix this fine; it's cool that it deals double for Pallys but it doesn't need to deal only half for everybody else on top of that.



*Cursed scrolls of repair will "break" normally unbreakable equipment like herbs and potions.

Which can then be fixed with a blessed scroll of repair -- this lets you bless huge stacks of items (say, Stomafilla) all at once and is pretty abuseable.



*Necromancers will occasionally start with a tract of chaos or book of Confuscious instead of a spellbook.

They are set to start with a random item from the entire BOOK item set (well, up to danger level 3) rather than specifically a spellbook. This basically means they are just horribly gimped 10-15% of the time, and this should be fixed.



*Most monsters have no resistance to blindness, confusion, stun, or paralysis. This includes the orb guardians and Andor Drakon.

To further clarify this, it is commonly abuseable to throw potions of any of these effects or cursed potions of invisibility at boss monsters and make the fights completely trivial. Most (maybe not all) of the major bosses should not be vulnerable to these effects or at least have a higher chance of resisting them.



I believe the Unicorn starsign actually makes it easier to change alignment rather than harder to as it claims.

Correct - It makes it easier to become chaotic rather than harder. This should only be a matter of changing a *1.1 to *0.9 or something simiarly simple.



So the solution might have to include making gremlins non-humanoid.

That is the best fix for Gremlin Bomb abuse - simply make them not have pockets to pick. One simple change removes one of the most abuseable scummy tactics available and is a lot less complicated than other possible fixes.


Also in the water dragon cave, i think it'd be best to generally exclude everything vulnerable by water from the hoard.

There's a check to see if the randomly generated item is made of Paper, and if it is, delete it instead of creating it. I don't see it look back to create another item in this case, though - so I think it just deletes the item and moves on to the next one rather than generating a new item for the same spot.

I'm not certain on this one, but from what I see I would bet adding a simple loop (or if necessary a goto) so that it keeps making items until it makes a non-paper one for that square would fix this pretty easily.




*The metallurgy skill appears to have little-to-no practical effect on gameplay.

There's a ton of stuff like this, though. I'd categorize this under 'necessary game improvements' rather than bug and say it should be ignored for now, but definitely a priority for later.


Edit2: Metallurgy skill has way more practical use than Haggling for example (especially for the people not reading the GB).

For someone that has all the basic information about the game available, Metallurgy does absolutely nothing, while Haggling at least does something (even if the effect is weak). Even for an unspoiled player Metallurgy's information is pretty paltry; the skills in general need to be better balanced, but again, that's something for the 2nd update and not the first.


-stat training from herbs/corpses/Garth is based on currently modified stats instead of base stats (leading to abuse of sickness and starvation to pump stats artificially high)

This system definitely needs to be overhauled, but I don't think it really qualifies as something that should be fixed right now. A high priority for the 2nd update, though.


Adom was never supposed to be balanced in all it's aspects. Leave {Candle Birthsign} as is

True, it doesn't need to be perfectly balanced, but it should be BETTER balanced, and Candle is strictly the best birthsign as it currently stands. However, this isn't a bug, and is something to look at for the 2nd update.

grobblewobble
04-28-2010, 11:56 PM
1) Create a pre-set monster flag, assigned to every monster that is created by the game rather than randomly.
2) Create a second counter for killed monsters only for summoned & pre-set.
3) When a monster is killed, check the flags to see if it was summoned or pre-set. If so, increment new counter; else, increment old counter.
4) When tallying total monsters killed, add together both counters. When checking strength increases, only check the random generation counter.


The game already keeps track of which monster are bred or summoned and
which monsters are not, because you can't sacrifice bred/summoned monsters
at altars. So creating such a flag is probably not even needed (or it already
exists).

fazisi
04-29-2010, 12:23 AM
Hey was saying to add a flag for pre-set monsters, monsters that are placed specifically for vaults and the like instead of randomly created by the RNG. The specific one for me that comes to mind is spider lesser vaults but this goes hand in hand with dark elven spider factories making them so buff to begin with.

Twinge
04-29-2010, 08:04 PM
So creating such a flag is probably not even needed (or it already
exists).

Yes; the line above what you quote said that I was pretty sure a summoned flag already exists so only the pre-set one would need to be created :P

However, thinking about this a bit more the idea isn't as perfect as I had thought. This would still let you abuse summoned monsters as much as you wanted to which is subpar. The idea could still be used, but would need tweaked in some way - e.g. make 1/4th of the 2nd counter count towards strength increases, so they can still power up just not so rapidly?

mike3
05-02-2010, 04:20 AM
I think the "piety overflow" needs to be fixed, and also it'd be a good idea to tone down the "uber-jackal" thing for the jackals. If the fear is that doing so would make it give too much XP, just increase the XP falloff-vs-kill (if there's one already there -- if not, then put one in). Rats don't get as strong as fast as jackals & spiders do. Maybe make it closer to rats, maybe just a little higher, or put bigger (or put in if not there) XP penalties on summoned monsters, esp. more common ones (e.g. jackals). There's various ways this could be done but I think the current effect is too much and I certainly don't think toning it down would "break" the game.

Pumpernickel
05-02-2010, 10:11 AM
Yes; the line above what you quote said that I was pretty sure a summoned flag already exists so only the pre-set one would need to be created :P

However, thinking about this a bit more the idea isn't as perfect as I had thought. This would still let you abuse summoned monsters as much as you wanted to

What for? I can imagine only one use for summon-farming - the corpses. And those aren't game-breakingly useful. I just can't see any easy profit you can get out of killing 200 jackals - as it stands, you'll get extremely poor exp. to begin with and the exp. per kill will drop drastically with increasing kill count. And jackals drop very poorly - you'd get better item returns from farming the bigroom, with much better xp and less hassle.

JellySlayer
05-02-2010, 07:23 PM
What for? I can imagine only one use for summon-farming - the corpses. And those aren't game-breakingly useful. I just can't see any easy profit you can get out of killing 200 jackals - as it stands, you'll get extremely poor exp. to begin with and the exp. per kill will drop drastically with increasing kill count. And jackals drop very poorly - you'd get better item returns from farming the bigroom, with much better xp and less hassle.

Drop rate is fairly efficient with treasure hunter talent installed. 200 jackals would give you ~25 items.

mike3
05-04-2010, 06:02 PM
Drop rate is fairly efficient with treasure hunter talent installed. 200 jackals would give you ~25 items.


So why not tone it down a little? Take it to like 12 items, i.e. halve the rate. Or perhaps have, tied to the summoning counter, something that causes the item drop rate to decay asymptotically to zero or a small fixed value (smaller than current rates) as the summoned-kill number approaches infinity, or the item quality to drop.

Or what not still have them get tougher, but at a slower rate? They seem to get tougher even quicker than rats!

There's got to be some reasonable way to fix this, the jackals get too tough too fast the way it is.

fazisi
05-04-2010, 11:04 PM
I don't understand what everyone is complaining about. Pressing bug fixes, the thread title says. Wizards don't have a problem with jackals so why is everyone requesting it get fixed?

vogonpoet
05-05-2010, 08:59 AM
I don't understand what everyone is complaining about. Pressing bug fixes, the thread title says. Wizards don't have a problem with jackals so why is everyone requesting it get fixed?

Agreed.

"oh no, my PC went from being vulnerable to stone block traps to being a walking death tank in just 40 game days, its completely unreasonable that other monsters in the same game universe should get more powerful over time. Wa wa wa."


Accelerated evolution, learn to love it folks, and stop whining :)

Al-Khwarizmi
05-05-2010, 12:49 PM
It's not a problem if you know it (I haven't lost any characters to uberjackals since I noticed what happened, it's just a matter of being careful). But it can be a problem to newbies that may not understand why their lvl. 30 char has been pwnt by a jackal, since it is quite unrealistic in the way it's balanced.

That said, I agree that is not a pressing bug fix. Pressing bug fixes are the ingot bug/Khelly crash, Skilled talent bug, piety/speed overflow bugs, mindcraft crash, and arguably exploits like kickrobbing or name buffer overflow. This is just an annoyance that would be nice to see fixed but is not so important.

fazisi
05-06-2010, 03:53 AM
I was actually just trying to be sarcastic. Play a pure melee class and you'll see just how bad summoners become when their summons keep getting harder and harder and harder without you being able to remove their source.

Still, it's not pressing. It just requires some tweaking to rework it so the effects aren't so unbearable later in the game so it can wait until the next version of ADOM after the bug fix version.

Evil Knievel
05-06-2010, 06:42 AM
Agreed.

"oh no, my PC went from being vulnerable to stone block traps to being a walking death tank in just 40 game days, its completely unreasonable that other monsters in the same game universe should get more powerful over time. Wa wa wa."


Accelerated evolution, learn to love it folks, and stop whining :)

I don#t know .. if you play a long winded character that doesn't have many ways to deal with summoners ...like a troll beastfigher or something, it can be a problem. I never thought so, but I am now no more afraid of ghost lords and such than from large spiders. Problem is: they are everywhere.

My mistake was: I got trapped in the big room by a some dark elves ... (>500 spiders dead) now the room is unpassable until i get teleportation ... meaning I have to get past the eternal guardian now without teleportation or ring... well, back to topic: for certain race class combinations the effect is nasty.

Twinge
05-06-2010, 08:52 AM
If noting else, the effect simply isn't fun at all as implemented; it makes trodding through creatures like jackals at the very least tedious and dull even if its not that dangerous if you know what you're doing.

Soirana
05-06-2010, 02:43 PM
Are we still pretending where will ever be bug fix for ADOM? I mean before Duke Nykem Forever is released?

mike3
05-06-2010, 11:58 PM
I don#t know .. if you play a long winded character that doesn't have many ways to deal with summoners ...like a troll beastfigher or something, it can be a problem. I never thought so, but I am now no more afraid of ghost lords and such than from large spiders. Problem is: they are everywhere.

My mistake was: I got trapped in the big room by a some dark elves ... (>500 spiders dead) now the room is unpassable until i get teleportation ... meaning I have to get past the eternal guardian now without teleportation or ring... well, back to topic: for certain race class combinations the effect is nasty.

I know. Spiders suffer from this too. Maybe cut down on generation of summoners (esp. spider factories and jackalweres) in the big room?

The problem is not that the monsters get more powerful, but that certain types can do so way _out_ of proportion to the power increase of the PC, and not to mention that monster XP levels are unlimited (I think) while the PC tops out at level 50. Thus their power can keep ramping up and if this happens too fast. Most of this is due to summoners.

Though as for the main topic of this thread, I'll say that the crash bugs should probably take the highest priority, then the exploitable overflow/buffer bugs (piety overflow is one example -- and it can also happen in the reverse direction (overflowing upward so the piety wraps down to the negative numbers) with devastating effects), then this one, then all the rest below that.

Pumpernickel
05-07-2010, 10:21 AM
I'd like to pipe in too to say that the ?berjackal discussion is both off-topic and old. Sorry for having joined in.

The most pressing fixes are the crash bugs - the berserking ally crash and most importantly the lolcrash (khelly crash, ingot crash, stack pickup crash, whatever you call it).

Then, the evident bugs would be worth looking into - summonable ancient karmic wyrms, circle kick with a nearby friendly, piety wraparound, dragon gold doubling.

After that, the abusable features would warrant treatment - gremlin bombs, stat scumming with rings of weakness.

And then, game features that only make the game more annoying instead of fun/challenging could use some help, like most of the panic/berserk code and ?berjackals.


For damage reduction, you could also change the savefile handling, so that the savefile is not erased upon loading, but overwritten at saving time. 'Resurrecting' a dead character has always been possible by backing up the file, so the current routine has only served to destroy characters that fell victim to segfault crashes.

mike3
05-07-2010, 07:36 PM
I'd like to pipe in too to say that the ?berjackal discussion is both off-topic and old. Sorry for having joined in.

However isn't that a little subjective, since some may consider it "pressing" (I consider it somewhat so, but not as much as the crash bugs), thus it's "off-topicness" is debatable?

mike3
05-08-2010, 03:11 AM
The cost of hunger/stunning has been introduced, but i find it more symbolic.
A harder limit on stat gains would remove much of the incentive for massive milking of the casino (can't call it 'gambling', as the profits are virtually guaranteed).
Maximum purse for the casino might be applicable, too - say 1/2 the accumulated price of everything in the gift shop. Once you hit the limit, the machines will be disabled.


So then how are you supposed to get high stats, then? Putting too many caps in too many places would make it too hard, no?

If one wants to stop the casino being exploited, make it work like a real casino -- house advantage instead of "player advantage". It doesn't make sense the way it's set up now, and there's that huge gift shoppe there, which could still provide something to use the "milked" money on. Better to just choke off the tide of money than to impose so many caps. Combined with the gold-doubling removal...

Al-Khwarizmi
05-08-2010, 10:06 AM
I agree that the casino just doesn't make sense. It should be fixed in some way so that you can't just get infinite money (or at least that you need effort to do that), because it totally breaks the game from that point.

Another possible fix would be making the slot machines corrupt per use. That would make sense.

Pumpernickel
05-08-2010, 01:47 PM
So then how are you supposed to get high stats, then?

Well, that'd be the discussion of whether you're actually supposed to get 40+ stats in the first place.

Seeing as how there are rather hard limits on most "scummable" stat gain methods (corpses, herbs), the workarounds and infinite scums (sickness, casino) break the concept. Therefore, i'd consider it a good idea to even it out again - either by plugging the loopholes or by removing the limits entirely.

Still, not a pressing bug fix in any case.

And i'd like the casino mostly slashed - just leave maybe ten machines, with standard casino mechanics - bank has the advantage, but with good RNG luck you might end up with a nice big wad of cash.

Evil Knievel
05-09-2010, 06:01 PM
And i'd like the casino mostly slashed - just leave maybe ten machines, with standard casino mechanics - bank has the advantage, but with good RNG luck you might end up with a nice big wad of cash.

or implement the gambling addiction corruption ? ;)

The Metro Gnome
05-11-2010, 01:40 AM
What I'd like to see is the option to throw the weapons in your hands (Like :t or something) so that when you wield the Runecovered trident or the hammer of the gods, you don't have to switch them around to throw them. (Unless of course the weapon is cursed, then you can't)

Also, the inventory map would be a good idea so that you don't have to remember where the nearest forge/alter/herbs/whatever is. And then the option to name spots on the map would be nice such as "This rooms locks a cat" or "tension room filled with baddies" to avoid them.

JellySlayer
05-11-2010, 07:55 PM
What I'd like to see is the option to throw the weapons in your hands (Like :t or something) so that when you wield the Runecovered trident or the hammer of the gods, you don't have to switch them around to throw them. (Unless of course the weapon is cursed, then you can't)

A more natural solution is to have it that you have to put your missile weapons in your hands to fight with them. How you can dual wield two maces and shoot a crossbow at the same time is beyond me :)


Also, the inventory map would be a good idea so that you don't have to remember where the nearest forge/alter/herbs/whatever is. And then the option to name spots on the map would be nice such as "This rooms locks a cat" or "tension room filled with baddies" to avoid them.

There's a program called "Notepad" that works great for this sort of thing. Some people consider using it a bit scummy though.

The Metro Gnome
05-12-2010, 03:01 PM
Well, realism usually spoils a game. But having the throw thingy would be nice (or a compromise would be it takes longer to shoot if not in the hand unless you have a dagger or something)

Notepad doesn't record down specific details like what some levels look like or the exact location of the alter.

SinsI
05-27-2010, 09:49 AM
Well, that'd be the discussion of whether you're actually supposed to get 40+ stats in the first place.

Seeing as how there are rather hard limits on most "scummable" stat gain methods (corpses, herbs), the workarounds and infinite scums (sickness, casino) break the concept. Therefore, i'd consider it a good idea to even it out again - either by plugging the loopholes or by removing the limits entirely.

Still, not a pressing bug fix in any case.
There is already a great limit - potential maximum of each stat. IMHO, game should use those, and not something arbitrary like "25". Corpse limits should apply only to their ability to raise potentials - as long as you are below your own limit, you should get an increase in that stat almost automatically.
That would completely eliminate all too scummable stat gains - and you'd be able to regain drained stats much easier.

As for pressing bug fixes - mid- and late- game crushes are the most annoying, so ingots/khellavaster bug should have the most priority.

Adom
06-01-2010, 10:13 PM
In my 2 wins (archer and wizard), I don't think I used anything scummy at all. I am a pretty bad ADOM player, so I did get very lucky, but I think that advanced players can with without so much luck and without scumming. I did not ID hop, did not use herbs at all, did not do some other things which I cannot remember, and I think that it is possible to win with 20 of all stats.