Archive for May, 2020:

Thursday, May 28th, 2020 09:13

Last 0.25 Updates and Release/Tournament Date

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The 0.25 Updates mumble some strange words. The 0.25 Updates miscasts Dragon Form. The 0.25 Updates are flooded with distortional energies!

Greetings fellow crawlers, it’s time for a quick 0.25 update with the last changes that snuck in before the 0.25 feature freeze. All changes since May 22 have been balance changes and fixes to existing content rather than the addition of significant new features. But before we get to those changes, let’s talk about the release and tournament dates.

The 0.25 release will be Friday, June 5th, with the 0.25 tournament starting at 8pm UTC that same day. We don’t don’t yet have a rules page installed on this server, seeing as how ebering, chequers, advil, and (eventually, I promise!) myself are at work on the new scoring scripts. Until then, check out the writeup ebering made that describes the new rules in detail. We’ll be sure to make a follow-up post once that page is available.

Now for those last 0.25 updates. Please note that these are only the changes since that last Trunk Update. Please see the changelog for the full set of 0.25 changes:

  • Transmutations miscasts have been reworked to remove the bad form polymorphs, given the player more contamination instead. Given how often I see you all quaffing lignification before death, I’m surprised more of you didn’t enjoy becoming a tree!
  • Allies no longer stay out of the player’s line of fire. The ranged AI was updated previously to have monsters give ranged allies a clear path to hit their foes, but having them do this for the player’s line of fire proved annoying for the most common scenarios. This functionality might return in some way in the future, if we can work out a good method and UI.
  • Xom is now stimulated when you worship from a faded altar. Just a little gift to the people crazy enough to use those contraptions. Xom, of course, thinks you’re all hilarious.
  • Trove fees have been adjusted to not ask for potions of stabbing and to add possible fees for scrolls of fear and fog.
  • Formicids can no longer cast the Swiftness spell. Look, we don’t want you crawling away that easily. Try a shaft instead!
  • Paralysis, sleep, and confusion status icons are now shown for allies.
  • Many new random artefact description words have been added. Nouns, verbs, adjectives, you name it!
  • Tiles have finally been added for Cigotuvi’s Embrace, Hood of the Assassin, and Tins of Tremorstones. What, you didn’t like those fancy TO/DO icons?

The stone_soup-0.25 branch is available in the repository, but hasn’t been installed on servers yet. This will change in coming days, and at that point you can help us test the 0.25 beta. Until then, please report any bugs you notice in trunk (now 0.26 alpha!) on github or mantis. As always, and until next time, happy crawling!

5 comments!
Saturday, May 16th, 2020 06:36

Trunk Updates 15 May 2020 and tentative 0.25 release tournament info

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The trunk updates explode into fragments!

Hello crawlers and welcome to the last featureful trunk update of the 0.25 cycle. We’re entering into feature freeze today, the remaining time before the 0.25 Release and Tournament will be devoted to bug fixes, balance tweaks, and polish—as well as implementing a new tournament scoring system. You can give your feedback on the proposed new system on the tavern. Tentatively the 0.25 Tournament will start on either May 29 or June 5, depending on the implementation of the new scoring system.

So as you oil up those tab keys and clean your monitors, lets look at the very latest round of changes you’ll face in the upcoming release (stay tuned for the full 0.25 changelog! edit: since this post is getting shared and continues to be confusing to people reading it out of context; this list is not a 0.25 changelog, but rather a trunk update covering just the last few weeks or so):

  • Abyss exits that spawn from earning xp can spawn after the initial spawn, instead of every subsequent spawn being a downstair.
  • A few Nemelex cards have changed:
    • The Pain card no longer summons flayed ghosts, instead it torments monsters at high power (not the card user, though)
    • The cloud card now places vision obscuring black smoke instead of damaging clouds
  • Tins of Tremorstones are now an XP charged evocable with 3 charges that scales with evocations and automatically targets the center of all visible monsters. Wands of Scattershot have been removed.
  • Several amulet, scarf, and cloak egos have been shuffled or adjusted:
    • Gourmand, Harm, and Rage amulets are no more.
    • Amulets of reflection now attune at full HP and give +5 SH. Additionally, piety is now properly given for reflected missiles, banishment, and poison damage.
    • Scarves of cloud immunity and spirit shield are removed; new scarf egos harm and invisibility are added.
    • Invisibility cloaks are no more (you need a scarf for that now!); cloaks can now grant stealth or preservation (corrosion resistance).
  • Jewelry with plusses now get constant plus values: strength, intelligence, and dexterity rings give either +6 or -4; protection, evasion, and slaying rings give either +4 or -4.
  • Summon Lightning Spire now places the spire on a random square.
  • Malign Gateway tentacles can no longer attack out of LOS and appear sooner after casting.
  • Scrolls of acquirement are now cancelable, allowing you to fully inspect your character, stash, etc. before making a decision. When you reread the scroll, you’ll get the same choices until you make a final selection.
  • Leech is now a (cosmetic) sloppy eater: large hits will sometimes turn monsters into large blood explosions!
  • Sceptre of Torment can now be used with spectral weapon. You’d just better be undead unless you want your spectral weapon to torment you!
  • An ASCII screenshots section has been added to morgues, and a screenshot is made there every time you take a note with the : key.
  • Target acquisition for the Foxfire and Conjure Ball Lightning spells has been improved so they only acquire targets within player LOS.
  • Formicids can no longer cast the spell Swiftness.
  • The option auto_butcher defaults to true and the option auto_butcher_max_chunks now defaults to 10.
  • The option explore_auto_rest now defaults to true.
  • Several usability improvements for visually impaired players have been implemented.
That wraps it up for this set of trunk updates. Stay tuned for more tournament details and until next time, happy crawling!
The burst of trunk updates engulfs you!! Ouch! That really hurt…
5 comments!
Friday, May 1st, 2020 20:08

Trunk Updates 1 May 2020

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You miscast the trunk update. You are blasted with magical energy!!!!!!!

Hello crawlers. The 0.25 development cycle continues apace. Expect an announcement about a forthcoming release and tournament within the month.

This round of updates comes with an overhaul of the spell miscast system, to couple with the magic overhaul of this version. Miscasts have been thoroughly simplified, to the point that the effect of miscasting a spell can be included in its description! Read on for details and the scoop on the latest from the Iron City.

  • Zot traps have had their effect flowchart replaced with an effect table with a more focused list of awful terrible things to do to the player.
  • The Wu Jian Council met in executive session and tweaked some of their martial arts. Wall jumps move only to the ‘a’bility menu, movement triggering is no more. Whirlwind attacks no longer pin. Heavenly Storm has had its slaying mechanics simplified.
  • With miscasts simplified Xom now finds them boring and has turned their attention to summoning more demons on low level players.
  • As a prelude to the miscast changes several gods no longer use miscasts in their retribution. The new wraths are:
    • Trog replaces fire miscasts with pure fireballs in her fiery rage.
    • Lugonu exchanges translocations miscasts with a chance to banish, summon Abyssal things, or teleport the penitent to nearby monsters.
    • Cheibriados replaces miscasts with a chime on their clock before putting the player to sleep at high tension, and stat damage at low tension.
    • Fedhas’ elemental damage is now more focused: a corrosive bolt, a primal wave, or a thorn volley await those who would trample the flowers.
    • Yredelemnul prefers the simplicity of a bolt of draining to necromancy miscasts.
    • Kikubaaqudgha will still impose necromancy miscasts on those who attempt to use necromancy while under penance; for outright retribution they now apply the same ancient and terrible death curses used by mummies.
  • The scythe of Curses also replaces necromancy miscasts with death curses.
  • The distortion brand no longer teleports on hit; unwielding a distortion weapon has a chance to teleport the unwieldier to nearby monsters, contaminate, or banish.
  • Regeneration items (troll armour, artifacts) must attune to a player before granting their effect. No more carrying TLA to swap while resting!
  • Mummies have consulted the book of death and determined that necromancy miscasts no longer suit their vengeful needs. Death curses are now their own effect table, separate from miscasts. Kikubaaqudgha was involved as well, and still protects loyal followers from curses.
  • New monster: nameless horror. Nameless horrors are brought into the world by summoning miscasts, have an antimagic attack and abjure other summons as a natural ability.
  • Absolute Zero has been reduced to a fixed range of 5 (up to 6 with Vehumet), the noise now scales with power down to 0 at maximum power.
  • Leda’s Liquefaction regains its slow movement penalty, but the caster remains immune to its effects on melee combat.
  • Deflect Missiles has been removed. The tedious-but-optimal armour-wizardy-int dance has danced its last!
  • Lesser Beckoning and Teleport Other now turn allies hostile.
  • Tukima’s Dance cannot be used by Ru followers who have sacrificed Love.
  • Two new Gauntlet maps are live: one presents a sequence of arenas, after each you can chose to press your luck or turn and face the minotaur. The other has a choke point in the sequence: there is only one middle arena in the three-arena-sequence to the minotaur.
  • Miscast effects have been simplified. When miscasting a spell, the player receives magical contamination, and if the miscast is bad enough an additional effect that scales with the spell’s current failure chance. These effects vary by school as follows (compare to the old miscast effects, which could you even correctly lists all of them without a source dive?). For damaging effects the damage message is punctuated like other damage messages.
    • Charms and Hexes: debuff and slow
    • Summoning: durably summon a nameless horror
    • Translocation: dimension anchor
    • Transmutation: polymorph
    • Conjuration: irresistible AC-ignoring damage
    • Elemental schools: school flavored damage (Earth magic does fragmentation damage like Lee’s Rapid Destruction).
  • Monsters on D:1 are now back asleep, after briefly getting into the coffee.
That’s all for now, so until next time happy crawling!
Desperate hands claw out at the trunk update. A nameless horror comes into view. The trunk update vanishes in a puff of smoke!
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