Guaranted starting spellbook completely skewering spellbook distribution in the game
issueid=3798 08-18-2015 09:42 AM
Senior Member
Number of reported issues by Scooter Fox: 14
Guaranted starting spellbook completely skewering spellbook distribution in the game

Applies to:
- Druids - guaranteed Divine Wrath/Lightning Bolt and extreme abundance of Lightning Bolt spellbooks throughout the game.
- Necromancers - same but with Frost Bolt
- Salamander-born Wizards - same but with Fire Bolt

Already reported here in a more limited version: http://www.adom.de/forums/project.php?issueid=3696
Non-bug report thread: http://www.adom.de/forums/showthread...-Divine-Wrath!

My druid, from Dwarftown, through dwarven graveyard, pyramid, IQD/FGJC, a few random dungeons, Minotaur Maze up to and including Tomb of the High Kings found following number of spellbooks (names converted to arcane from clerical):
- Bless: 5
- Burning Hands: 2
- Calm Monster: 1
- Cure Critical Wounds: 1
- Cure Disease: 3
- Cure Light Wounds: 1
- Cure Serious Wounds: 2
- Darkness: 3
- Death Ray: 1
- Frost Bolt: 1
- Invisibility: 1
- Know Alignment: 1
- Light: 1
- Lightning Bolt: 22
- Magic Map: 1
- Mystic Shovel: 1
- Neutralize Poison: 2
- Revelation: 1
- Strength of Atlas: 2
- Stun Ray: 1
- tract of chaos: 1

22 out of 56 spellbooks were of one type. This is beyond ridiculous. I'm very sure it wasn't like that in prerelease 23 and the older bug report points to R57.
If it's a feature, it's completely overtuned in my opinion and doesn't make much sense. If it's supposed to limit accessibility to other spells, just generate less books - finding 30 books of the same kind feels weird and unnatural.

I'd like to ask for a clarification whether it's intentional or a bug.
Issue Details
Issue Number 3798
Project ADOM (Ancient Domains Of Mystery)
Category All
Status Fixed
Priority 1 - Highest
Affected Version ADOM r59
Fixed Version ADOM r68 (v2.2.2)
Milestone (none)
Users able to reproduce bug 7
Users unable to reproduce bug 0
Assigned Users (none)
Tags (none)




06-23-2016 09:20 AM
Ancient Member
I posted a 100 book test with a R60 Salamander Wizard here:
http://www.adom.de/forums/showthread...847#post109847
32/100 books were Fire Bolt

06-23-2016 06:04 PM
Has anyone tried checking this on r65 to see if it's still an issue with the current release? If not, I can do it, I just would need to know how you guys are generating your spellbooks.

06-23-2016 10:22 PM
Ancient Member
Check the thread linked above, the spellbook distribution research thread. We are testing r65 and would love your help :)

06-24-2016 05:33 AM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by adom-admin
I just used debug mode to test this further with a dwarves druid (currently on D: 16). I generated lots of random spell books and received the following distribution (which looks totally ok to me):


This raises the question: What is special about your game?
- Which OS are you running on?
- Are you on Steam?
- Are you playing story mode?
- Did you adjust any game customization options (treasure rarity or whatever)?
- What is your star sign (the code doesn't care about your star sign but who knows...)?
- Anything else that seems special?

Currently I just can't reproduce the problem :-(
I've did 100 books (R60 no Steam Raven Troll necro I1-I6 ) and got 25/100 Frost book. This is somewhat similar to poeple in game experiences (I would say 20-40% books being of dominant type).
I would boldly guess that main difference is us not using debug mode...

Overall we had several speculations:
-Starting spell (Frost/Lightning/Fire bolts for Necro/Druid/Salamander wizzards) happening as extra loot bonus (kind of like kobold bows/orc knives, etc - that would be probably extra bonus on all monsters)
-Spellbook type being driven by how easy it is to learn them, so some bug/fix affecting starting spells (there is supposed to be bonus on reading them, right?) somehow affecting spellbook drops.

I think at this point it is very clear that book distribution has changed compared to 1.1.1 and some clarification would be nice.

p.s. Apparently code cares for Salamander sign for wizards quite a lot.

06-24-2016 09:11 AM
Senior Member
This bug (if it is a bug) should be a concern only if they get less of other spellbooks - that is, a Salamander-born wizard after a thousand kills would get more Fire Bolts and less of all the rest of the spellbooks than the wizard born into any other month.
Thus, it should apply only to Salamander-born wizards - for necromancers and druids it is shouldn't matter at all, as each class has its own spellbook drop rate.

06-24-2016 10:17 AM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by SinsI
This bug (if it is a bug) should be a concern only if they get less of other spellbooks - that is, a Salamander-born wizard after a thousand kills would get more Fire Bolts and less of all the rest of the spellbooks than the wizard born into any other month.
Thus, it should apply only to Salamander-born wizards - for necromancers and druids it is shouldn't matter at all, as each class has its own spellbook drop rate.
??
Necros get more spellbooks of Frost bolt both per player perception and per limited testing. So I am not sure what your post is saying.

As far as game design goes... important thing is(IMHO) perceived ratio. You can read plenty of posts on how people perceive it.

06-24-2016 12:22 PM
Senior Member
High drop rate of Frost Bolts spellbooks for necromancers means they can read them at once, and cast them whenever they want without being afraid of running out - it is their staple spell and they always have access to it, they don't have to conserve and bookcast it. The point is, they don't lose anything from that higher drop rate (at least not perceivably: since every class has individual book drop rate, you can't tell that they lose out on other spellbooks).

But if higher drop rate of Fire Bolt spellbooks for Salamander wizards is not a bonus but a replacement (so that if ordinary wizard gets 10 random spellbooks out of every 1000 goblins they kill, and Salamander-born get 3 Fire Bolt and 7 random instead), they lose access to other spellbooks they would've gotten normally - in which case it is a bug. It is not a bug if they get the same 10 random + extra 3 Fire Bolt.

06-24-2016 12:56 PM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by SinsI
High drop rate of Frost Bolts spellbooks for necromancers means they can read them at once, and cast them whenever they want without being afraid of running out - it is their staple spell and they always have access to it, they don't have to conserve and bookcast it. The point is, they don't lose anything from that higher drop rate (at least not perceivably: since every class has individual book drop rate, you can't tell that they lose out on other spellbooks).
Dude, seriously...

I played necros in 1.1.1 and in lot of pre and r versions. At some point Frost Books started to drop commonly. This easily forms clear perception of having less other books. (Since no one has a clue(maybe good code divers do) how many books you get per 100 kills or 20000kills or whatever).

But mostly what is difference between necros with frost and wizzies with fire? Salamander born wizards always start with Fire bolt, fire is their month sign, so anything you've said about necros applies here.
Sucks, that their trademark spell is worst, but that does not change anything narrative wise.

And as far as i know, no classes don't have individual drop rates - tehre is like three general drop percentages and books are skewed depending whether you are arcane or clerical caster. It's not like mindcrafters have different distro than barbarians (to the best of my knowledge)

06-26-2016 10:47 AM
Ancient Member
The Creator has clearly implied that this was not intended (he said that it didn't happen in his tests). If something works differently from intended, it is clearly a bug, regardless of whether we like it or not (I personally don't, some skew towards the "trademark spell" would be fine but it is too large IMO).

08-28-2016 03:56 PM

08-28-2016 03:56 PM
The Creator
I now have found and fixed this problem. It was related to the auto-saving feature introduced a while ago. There no longer should be any corruption of the spell book content.

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