Chunkless experimental branch playable on CSZO and CBRO

[Sjohara]

6) You are a Vampire, Ghoul, or Troll ... you're suddenly given the middle finger when you try to do anything in the extended endgame.

One of these days you should really try doing extended with a vampire, ghoul, or troll.

I would, but then I would have to play a Vampire, Ghoul, or Troll. And also be good enough to get to extended reliably.

Seriously though, I'll admit that this is based on paranoia rather than actual experience. Although, if it's not a problem, how DO Vampires and Ghouls deal with extended stuff other than the obvious "worship Kikubaaqudgha"?

[crate]

Pan has corpses all over the place now, hells have corpses, in tomb you just accept a bit of rot and don't care since you're a ghoul. (You can also rot a bit in other places and not care, you'll still have better hp than humans anyway). Vp can go find blood somewhere else for tomb or just not bother with tomb or just do it while bloodless if you have enough /hw charges.

[and into]

^ And on that helpful note from crate, let's end the off-topic discussion over advice for Gh/Vp in extended, shall we? If people want to continue discussing that, make a thread in Dungeon Crawling Advice.

Obviously it is fine to discuss food in extended in this thread, but only in terms of the game design of the chunkless branch.

Thank you!

[gammafunk]

People commenting on simulacra seem to not be aware of the following commits in chunkless:

Rework the player version of simulacrum

and

Rework monster simulacrum to act like animate dead

The player version makes multiple simulacra from one corpse, but you have to stand over the corpse (like animate skel). We might increase the simulacra duration at some point. The monster spell is now like animate dead, but makes half as many simulacra per monster (still based on corpse weight) as it did before. It might be a bit ridiculous, but the number of simulacra made can be further adjusted.

For the branch in general, we're still mulling over what option to pursue. The core thing we have to decide is if we want to change how food works in the long term. Moving to floor-only food drops and removing spell/ability hunger (food usage only to prevent scummy behavior) is one direction. This direction could possibly lead to the removal of food at some point, but even if not the role of food would be reduced. A different direction would be to retain both monster and floor food drops but have more meaningful, possibly more pervasive use of food costs (BEWARE!). If we don't really want to change the way food works, we'll likely go with either a tweaked version of what's in chunkless now or a "chunk-lite" branch that neil has proposed, which is a simplification of the current chunk food system. PleasingFungus has outlined the three approaches that have been talked about, and I summarized the issues with deciding what to do with food/chunks, both in CRD emails. So as reaver said, we're working in it, and regardless of what overall change we make to food, we'll certainly have to handle food generation rates, the relevant configuration options, and possibly make other interface changes before we're done.

[and into]

Can someone explain why this is clearly better? If we have to actively automate a part of the game that we're claiming is a) vital for balance but b) so annoying we want the computer to take care of all the busy work, why do we bother to have that part of the game at all?

If something can be reasonably automated, it should be. Some things are fundamental or vital to the game but also can be fully or partially automated (autopickup, skill training, exploration, combat).

More generally, I get the sense that a lot of stuff is still being worked out with chunkless, so at least having the code in a patch gives developers more options. Final, general point: When fundamental aspects of the game are being fiddled with, sometimes things get worse before they get better (e.g., heavy armor from 0.5 --> 0.6 --> 0.8 or whatever).

[Sjohara]

For the branch in general, we're still mulling over what option to pursue. The core thing we have to decide is if we want to change how food works in the long term. Moving to floor-only food drops and removing spell/ability hunger (food usage only to prevent scummy behavior) is one direction. This direction could possibly lead to the removal of food at some point, but even if not the role of food would be reduced. A different direction would be to retain both monster and floor food drops but have more meaningful, possibly more pervasive use of food costs (BEWARE!). If we don't really want to change the way food works, we'll likely go with either a tweaked version of what's in chunkless now or a "chunk-lite" branch that neil has proposed, which is a simplification of the current chunk food system. PleasingFungus has outlined the three approaches that have been talked about, and I summarized the issues with deciding what to do with food/chunks, both in CRD emails. So as reaver said, we're working in it, and regardless of what overall change we make to food, we'll certainly have to handle food generation rates, the relevant configuration options, and possibly make other interface changes before we're done.

Good to know that all these considerations are on the table.

I don't know what Neil's proposal is exactly, but if the Simulacrum change is set in stone, I'd probably do this:

Eliminate the distinction between clean and contaminated chunks (modified nutrition value can be whatever).
Eliminate species distinctions for chunks.
Poisonous chunks can only be eaten by species with innate poison immunity or some specific dietary mutation (equipment doesn't help).
Chunks don't rot; they simply disappear (either when they normally would have rotted, or at some point in between the rotting and vanishing timer).
Ghouls heal from all chunks as though they were rotted.
Pressing 'c' once automatically butchers the single most valuable corpse on the tile without confirmation.

That solves almost all of the interface issues (minus the need to hit C occasionally, but it gets rid of the annoying stream of individual prompts for corpse stacks) while having virtually no impact on nutrition as a mechanic. Really Simulacrum is the only thing standing in the way of doing the vast majority of that (and Saprovore to a minor extent, but that's no great loss...you could even simulate it by making chunks disappear slower if you wanted to).

[reaver]

Can we add an option to automatically eat a ration if we're resting and no nutrition would be wasted? Would such a patch be welcome? (Not sure why I'm asking on tavern but I'm not going to go on irc at work.) It seems like there's no longer a reason not to do that, and by making it rations only, the tactical advantage of fruit can still be used when combat relevant. I just don't have to think about pushing buttons to eat when it's a no-brainer.

johlstei has implemented this and the option have been pushed to chunkless. Currently this uses auto_eat_chunks and easy_eat_chunks options - probably a bad idea if/when this gets to Trunk, but for now it allow for Trunk rc files to work well in chunkless. It's quite possible to completely ignore food with these options on. Perhaps long term the drawbacks of the current system are too much (such as lacking the tactical effects of food), but the annoyance of food has disappeared.

[Leafsnail]

Does food really need a tactical aspect? Every time I think about how one could recreate that I basically come to the idea of a "stamina bar", which we already have in the form of MP.

That said, without a tactical aspect you may as well simply abstract food away and have a nutrition score instead that goes up when you find certain items (thus "goldifying" it).

In order to make what remains strategically meaningful without being unfair I would probably
- make it permafood only, without any monster food drops
- possibly lower the spawn rate of food
- remove starvation - the penalty for running out of food is that you can no longer perform actions that require food costs (it could also have some additional penalties, but basically I'd want to remove the "instant death" aspect from it)

That way you could make food a potentially important strategic consideration without screwing some people over and eliminate the inventory aspect entirely. You could also re-introduce every type of perma-food.

There are obviously quite a lot of things that would need to change under this system, including:
- Fedhas powers. You could maintain a "fruit score" for each piece of fruit you pick up, this could possibly be displayed on Fedhas' god screen
- Ghouls. Rot-over-time that heals when they kill things? Or maybe they'd have to still eat corpses? In any case I'd want to remove the "waiting around for things to rot" aspect.
- Trolls. Faster hunger clock, but they get nutrition when they kill edible things seems reasonable. Again I think having only trolls and ghouls devour raw meat is a flavour improvement, and it would probably be less annoying if you didn't have to do it with almost every character you played.
- Vampires. Dunno really. They could just stay as they are, any reform to make them less annoying would probably have to be separate from this one.
- Ely. With appropriate balancing of the hunger costs of her abilities I think she could work fine under this system.

[Siegurt]

My suggestion for hunger looks like this:

New bar: Energy, it starts maxed lowers with actions taken (various energy costs for various abilities), it restores itself when you kill stuff, or explore new territory, *not* when you rest (you lose a little energy when you rest), if it gets to 0 you die (or are potentially seriously disabled like being drained to 0 in a stat).

Some possible options for the energy bar:
1. It raises with XP gained rather than monsters killed, this means you're forced to delve deeper to find things that are worth XP to restore it.
2. It doesn't raise when you kill Undead (This helps preserve the foodless aspect of places like the crypt and tombs)
3. Mummies regain energy with rest.
4. Staff of energy when invoked restores some MP *and* some energy (Making it distinct from MP-only restoring things)
5. Vampires don't gain energy when killing stuff, they must suck blood as normal to increase their energy bar, current hunger states are tied to the energy bar instead.
6. Ghouls have a smaller energy bar, and when their energy bar is less-than-full occasionally they'll get a point of rot and gain some energy back. When they would gain energy, and their bar is already full, they sometimes restore some rot.
7. You lose a little more energy than you would normally for an action if you regenerate hps, if you are invisible, if you are hasted, if you are under the effects of a charm or transmutation.
8. Sublimation of blood is split into two spells, sub blood takes hps for MP, sublimaton of vigor takes a fair-sized chunk from the energy bar to restore MP.

I'm sure there's other considerations that would need to be addressed as well.

[Hirsch I]

this proposal looks beautiful, Siegurt.

[Bim]

My suggestion for hunger looks like this:
New bar: Energy, it starts maxed lowers with actions taken (various energy costs for various abilities), it restores itself when you kill stuff, or explore new territory, *not* when you rest (you lose a little energy when you rest), if it gets to 0 you die (or are potentially seriously disabled like being drained to 0 in a stat).

While interesting, punishing players that don't push onwards immediately isn't going to appeal to everyone and it severely punishes players that don't know what they're doing. Not raising it when you kill undead would make crypt/undead branches a nightmare (Demons would probably also count for consistency?) and so you'd be forced to run off and kill lots of living stuff or have energy restoring items (which is the same as hunger). To me it just seems to obfuscated and complicated, and it'd require a huge overhaul of mechanics. Thinking objectively, if someone said that or just having a simple hunger system, I'd pick the hunger system.

Overall, I dislike scrapping food altogether - it serves a good purpose but it's just meaningless in it's current state. I think making hunger meaningful can be accomplished with some tweaks rather than just ditching it. Sjohara's tweaks sound great, and they'd definitely get rid of some of the annoyance of food whilst keeping it there as a balancing factor.

[Leafsnail]

If you want to force people onwards then why make it restore itself with kills? You can easily get kills even if you're grinding.

Moving to what is effectively a chunk-only system also seems like it might encourage monster stashing.

[Siegurt]

Well, the "default" proposal is "get more energy on kills *AND* on exploring new territory" this is more or less the status quo, currently you get food when you explore new territory (you find rations and perma food) and when you kill things (they drop corpses that you can butcher for food).

"Not for undead (or as was also suggested demons)" was one "optional" component to also maintain parity with the current system (no chunks from those sources, note that undead areas don't prevent you from exploring new territory to regain energy, just like you might find rations in the crypt)

Changing the "recharge energy on kills" part to "recharge energy on XP gain" (one of the optional components) would be a solution to monster parking and discourage scumming respawns. If that's deemed important enough to address this way.

[Siegurt]

My suggestion for hunger looks like this:
New bar: Energy, it starts maxed lowers with actions taken (various energy costs for various abilities), it restores itself when you kill stuff, or explore new territory, *not* when you rest (you lose a little energy when you rest), if it gets to 0 you die (or are potentially seriously disabled like being drained to 0 in a stat).

While interesting, punishing players that don't push onwards immediately isn't going to appeal to everyone and it severely punishes players that don't know what they're doing. Not raising it when you kill undead would make crypt/undead branches a nightmare (Demons would probably also count for consistency?) and so you'd be forced to run off and kill lots of living stuff or have energy restoring items (which is the same as hunger). To me it just seems to obfuscated and complicated, and it'd require a huge overhaul of mechanics. Thinking objectively, if someone said that or just having a simple hunger system, I'd pick the hunger system.

Overall, I dislike scrapping food altogether - it serves a good purpose but it's just meaningless in it's current state. I think making hunger meaningful can be accomplished with some tweaks rather than just ditching it. Sjohara's tweaks sound great, and they'd definitely get rid of some of the annoyance of food whilst keeping it there as a balancing factor.

Note that the proposal "as is" doesn't push players onwards any more than current hunger state does, it simply removes the need for an interface to deal with it, and inventory management to pay attention to. Essentially this is the same as current hunger, except:

1. We use a bar to indicate your hunger state.
2. All the interaction with it is passive, rather than active
3. I renamed "hunger" to "energy"

It doesn't require any change of any mechanics (for example you could leave spell hunger and troll hunger exactly as-is. That's by design)

[XuaXua]

My suggestion for hunger looks like this:

New bar: Energy, it starts maxed lowers with actions taken (various energy costs for various abilities), it restores itself when you kill stuff, or explore new territory, *not* when you rest (you lose a little energy when you rest), if it gets to 0 you die (or are potentially seriously disabled like being drained to 0 in a stat).

Some possible options for the energy bar:
1. It raises with XP gained rather than monsters killed, this means you're forced to delve deeper to find things that are worth XP to restore it.
2. It doesn't raise when you kill Undead (This helps preserve the foodless aspect of places like the crypt and tombs)
3. Mummies regain energy with rest.
4. Staff of energy when invoked restores some MP *and* some energy (Making it distinct from MP-only restoring things)
5. Vampires don't gain energy when killing stuff, they must suck blood as normal to increase their energy bar, current hunger states are tied to the energy bar instead.
6. Ghouls have a smaller energy bar, and when their energy bar is less-than-full occasionally they'll get a point of rot and gain some energy back. When they would gain energy, and their bar is already full, they sometimes restore some rot.
7. You lose a little more energy than you would normally for an action if you regenerate hps, if you are invisible, if you are hasted, if you are under the effects of a charm or transmutation.
8. Sublimation of blood is split into two spells, sub blood takes hps for MP, sublimaton of vigor takes a fair-sized chunk from the energy bar to restore MP.

I'm sure there's other considerations that would need to be addressed as well.

Rename the attribute from "Energy" to "Morale" and let it represent the oppressiveness of the Dungeon of Zot bearing down on the player character, who has an increasing chance to commit suicide (ala "Forget to breathe") at 0. In all other areas, replace the word "energy" with "hope".

[Hirsch I]

and the sublimations can become "sublimation of blood" that takes HP, and "sublimation of soul" that takes Hope.

[XuaXua]

and the sublimations can become "sublimation of blood" that takes HP, and "sublimation of soul" that takes Hope.

Or just call it "sublimation of hope"...

[tasonir]

From page 1 of this thread (I got here late, sorry!):

Can we add an option to automatically eat a ration if we're resting and no nutrition would be wasted? Would such a patch be welcome? (Not sure why I'm asking on tavern but I'm not going to go on irc at work.) It seems like there's no longer a reason not to do that, and by making it rations only, the tactical advantage of fruit can still be used when combat relevant. I just don't have to think about pushing buttons to eat when it's a no-brainer.

A patch for this would definitely be welcome.

It is my understanding that a player hungers faster at full/very full/engorged, and so even if you could store the nutrition and go to very full, you'll then burn through your nutrition faster and have to eat sooner than if you had waited until very hungry and didn't ever hit full. I'm not arguing that this actually matters or is noticeable, just that I think it's technically true, unless I am misunderstanding hunger. My proposed solution would be for the above patch to be made, because it's nice, and also to remove the higher hungering for being very full.

Or just call it "sublimation of hope"...

  Code:

You cast sublimation of hope.
You begin to have dark thoughts about the futility of life.
You cast sublimation of hope.
You cut several scars into your wrists and thighs.  You begin wearing bracelets and believe that no one will notice.  They do.
You cast sublimation of hope.
You finally have the courage to end it all.  You die...


I'm going to vote against this one. Too dark

[crate]

It is my understanding that a player hungers faster at full/very full/engorged,

nope

[tasonir]

Found my error. I was going off this post: viewtopic.php?p=174857#p174857

Which shows that hunger rate does change based on your state - if you're a vampire. Missed the "if you're a vampire" part. I suppose that would be something to keep in mind for the above patch, it would have to special case vampires. Everyone else should be fine.

[johlstei]

Found my error. I was going off this post: viewtopic.php?p=174857#p174857

Which shows that hunger rate does change based on your state - if you're a vampire. Missed the "if you're a vampire" part. I suppose that would be something to keep in mind for the above patch, it would have to special case vampires. Everyone else should be fine.

The patch doesn't do anything for vampires and ghouls - I only wanted to automate the no-brainer stuff, vampire can reasonably choose to be bloodless or not.

[nilsbloodaxe]

Put up a YAVP with a TrBe in Chunkless. viewtopic.php?f=12&t=12825

I really liked the auto eating option.