>
> WRT my current Hack'EM game the wyrm room of the Lawful quest was
> adjacent to the entry room, and immediately visited. (As far as my
> old memory serves.) There were some other monsters (of type 'a'
> IIRC) besides the wyrms, and my instant suspicion was that these
> monsters might have ate the corpses; this would be the simplest
> explanation (if it applies), so I spare the time to get and inspect
> the ttyrecs for the moment.

The explanation is that the maggots immediately infect the dragon corpses, and soon there are giant flies.
An unexpected interaction between new maggot behaviour and the Lawful branch, which makes the dragon corpses almost pointless,
unless you genocide the maggots first. I asked the developer, but he didn't seem inclined to change anything about it :-)

On 10.05.2023 23:12, Mobi Leuser wrote:
>
> [...] I asked the developer, but he didn't seem inclined to change
> anything about it :-)

Maybe he's still pondering about it? - After all, Erik recently said:
"If you check it out, let me know what you think - it's still very
much in development."; so reasonable suggestions and opinions may
make him re-think about one thing or another. It could also be that
he just has other priorities at the moment.

While I think that he seems to have collected and changed a lot of
stuff in a good way I found a few things I'd rather change. I'm not
sure, though, whether the - now pointless, I agree - dragon corpse
issue is important enough; my priorities would certainly be on other
issues. :-)

Janis

On Thursday, 11 May 2023 at 00:04:13 UTC+2, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
> On 10.05.2023 23:12, Mobi Leuser wrote:
> >
> > [...] I asked the developer, but he didn't seem inclined to change
> > anything about it :-)
> Maybe he's still pondering about it? - After all, Erik recently said:
> "If you check it out, let me know what you think - it's still very
> much in development."; so reasonable suggestions and opinions may
> make him re-think about one thing or another. It could also be that
> he just has other priorities at the moment.

Oh absolutely, Erik (and very active contributor "hatcatter") have already implemented lots of suggestions by players!

Is the artifact supposed to blast me if it's granted by my god...?

Your sacrifice is consumed in a flash of light!
An object appears at your feet!
The voice of Amaterasu Omikami thunders: "Use my gift wisely!"
You are blasted by the silver spear named Holy Spear of Light's power!
You have a little trouble lifting
u - a silver spear named Holy Spear of Light (brilliantly lit) (33 aum).

Janis

On Thursday, 11 May 2023 at 14:18:06 UTC+2, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
> Is the artifact supposed to blast me if it's granted by my god...?
>
> Your sacrifice is consumed in a flash of light!
> An object appears at your feet!
> The voice of Amaterasu Omikami thunders: "Use my gift wisely!"
> You are blasted by the silver spear named Holy Spear of Light's power!
> You have a little trouble lifting
> u - a silver spear named Holy Spear of Light (brilliantly lit) (33 aum).

It's attuned to Undead Slayers. Sometimes I find the Holy Spear on the ground as chaotic non-Slayer and I can't even pick it up.
Yeah, nasty surprise if your god grants you something that actively hurts you. Sometimes the gods are jerks ;-)

I've been pretty busy but I'll try to reply to what I've read so far.

Medical kits have the appearance of a "white bag" now so hopefully that avoids confusion in the future.

The alignment abuse from attacking from Elbereth should not be too bad, I think -5? The key difference between Hackem and Evilhack is that in Evil you get a x in 50 chance of angering the quest guardian (where x is your alignment abuse score), but in hackem you can go down to -64, but after that you guarantee you have to kill the quest guardian to keep your quest artifact.. It basically means you can kill up to 4 peaceful shopkeepers (or always peaceful monsters) before you cross that, since they are -15 each.

Robbing the black market will be more difficult, but I do encourage people to try! Most of the anti-theft measures from UnNetHack are in place now, so you can't just phase out. I think the best strategy brainstormed by shadowrider is using a combination of scrolls of time, potions of invulnerability, and trying to just kill One Eye'd Sam quickly. I haven't heard of anyone trying that yet though.

That's interesting about the swamp ferns... Might have to look into that.

RE: The fear attacks, mobileuser's answer is correct. Also, if you play as a Necromancer, you will resist most fear attacks (except dragons).

RE: Lawful quest. The maggots eating corpses comes from SpliceHack, I didn't anticipate how it would interact with the dragon corpses in the Lawful quest, but that's part of the fun of mixing different features hehe. I like mobileuser's strategy of genociding maggots, but unfortunately it seems to just result in other 'w' taking their place. In a recent game of mobile's they were replaced by Hellminths - which are worms that ALSO eat corpses. This however, is a bug because hellminths are not supposed to generate randomly, they are only supposed to be created when a Worm That Walks dies, so that will require a fix.

Thanks a bunch for your feedback! If you have a github account I encourage you to create issues on https://github.com/elunna/hackem/issues. I created issues for the maggots, grunds error, and Holy spear so far. It will probably be a while before I crank out the next version, but it's good to keep the issues updated, then I won't forget about them and maybe others will be motivated to do PR's!

On 11.05.2023 16:39, Erik L wrote:
> I've been pretty busy but I'll try to reply to what I've read so
> far.

Thanks for your comments. I'll add my 2 ct below... :-)

>
> Medical kits have the appearance of a "white bag" now so hopefully
> that avoids confusion in the future.

This experience fell under my category of "not yet known - better
inspect bag next time". In other words; I wouldn't have expected a
change to be necessary. But I also think that your intended change
makes also sense.

>
> The alignment abuse from attacking from Elbereth should not be too
> bad, I think -5? The key difference between Hackem and Evilhack is
> that in Evil you get a x in 50 chance of angering the quest guardian
> (where x is your alignment abuse score), but in hackem you can go
> down to -64, but after that you guarantee you have to kill the quest
> guardian to keep your quest artifact. It basically means you can kill
> up to 4 peaceful shopkeepers (or always peaceful monsters) before you
> cross that, since they are -15 each.

Here I have a fundamentally and strong differing opinion. If I read
the source code correct both alignment records (normal and abuse)
gets incremented by the same amount of penalty, where the normal
record will be leveled over time and the abuse record is permanent.

Permanent effects, non-fixable, but game changing effects are IMO
not a good design principle. Off the top of my head I can think of
a couple ways to address that...
(a) Reduce the amount for the permanent record from x to sign(x),
optionally also increase the scale. That means that 15 pts. normal
alignment penalty would add just 1 pt. to the permanent record.
And add clear messages for the player with every possible abuse.
(b) Introduce a (more or less slow) timeout for that record so
that with sufficient time spent for probation you get (partly or
fully) an absolution.
(c) Have your deity occasionally fix it (by prayer or sacrifice),
either to get full absolution, or a percentage, or have the abuse
record adjusted against the normal alignment (fully or partly).
(d) Any combination of these measures.

(There had been another suggestion some time ago; IIRC, to solve
some specific quest to fix it. - This (IMO) isn't a good choice,
but your mileage may vary.)

>
> Robbing the black market will be more difficult, but I do encourage
> people to try! Most of the anti-theft measures from UnNetHack are in
> place now, so you can't just phase out. I think the best strategy
> brainstormed by shadowrider is using a combination of scrolls of
> time, potions of invulnerability, and trying to just kill One Eye'd
> Sam quickly. I haven't heard of anyone trying that yet though.

In Slashem I just wait for a domestic creature that I can tame
with food. (I seem to recall that scrolls of taming and the like
would not work and have averse effects?) Put all interesting loot
in a spare bag (ideally a blessed bag of holding) and let the pet
pick it up. A magic whistle does the rest. The pet must be of a
strong type (large cat, war horse, etc.) to pick up heavy bags and
get all the loot in one round. - Don't know if that's possible in
Hack'EM as well. (I wouldn't try the melee path, for sure. :-)

>
> That's interesting about the swamp ferns... Might have to look into
> that.

It worked astonishingly very well. The problem was only to lure
them around the corners on the a bit twisted Market level design.

But what can be seen with this example is of principal value for
the game design. Wherever you have unlimited items, monsters, or
processes/routines that provide unlimited entities, you likely
can create some imbalance; either a positive one (like pudding
farming in older variants/releases), or negative ones (e.g. like
the exponentially growing summoning cascades of high level spell
casters). - Such things need fixing (IMO). (And there are often
quite easy means to fix such things.)

>
> RE: The fear attacks, mobileuser's answer is correct. Also, if you
> play as a Necromancer, you will resist most fear attacks (except
> dragons).

Yeah. If that works nothing will have to change here; it's of the
type "a new feature to get to know and master".)

>
> RE: Lawful quest. The maggots eating corpses comes from SpliceHack, I
> didn't anticipate how it would interact with the dragon corpses in
> the Lawful quest, but that's part of the fun of mixing different
> features hehe.

But as Mobi Leuser said; as implemented it's completely pointless.

> I like mobileuser's strategy of genociding maggots,

That's not only overkill. It's from a design perspective poor; you
need "tool" A to get to "place" B - primitive like a "Leasure Suit
Larry" game (for those who remember).

Better just fix it.

> but unfortunately it seems to just result in other 'w' taking their
> place. In a recent game of mobile's they were replaced by Hellminths
> - which are worms that ALSO eat corpses. This however, is a bug
> because hellminths are not supposed to generate randomly, they are
> only supposed to be created when a Worm That Walks dies, so that will
> require a fix.
>
>
> Thanks a bunch for your feedback! If you have a github account I
> encourage you to create issues on
> https://github.com/elunna/hackem/issues. I created issues for the
> maggots, grunds error, and Holy spear so far.

On my list would also be the "shambling horror" arbitrariness. While
it could also be nerved (level-wise) to something more sensible I'd
rather remove it completely. IMO it adds almost nothing to the game,
but being a "fancy gimmick".

> It will probably be a
> while before I crank out the next version, but it's good to keep the
> issues updated, then I won't forget about them and maybe others will
> be motivated to do PR's!

No hurry, it's just a game! ;-)

Janis