Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)
Greetings,
When playing nethack I write down in a file called YANIs anything that
I think might make the game better. Since I've now ascended every
class, I'm going to be taking a long long break. I also think I am now
qualified to present the edited highlights of this file for your
consideration. It's large, so I've split it up into several sections:
major changes, minor tweaks, purely aesthetic changes, and bugs.
I think my ideas are pretty conservative. Nethack does not need more
objects, it needs better interactions between existing objects. Class
differentiation is good, but not to the point where you're playing a
different game by playing different classes.
Some areas which could use general development: scoring system,
Gehennom, and pudding farming (!). These topics have been dealt with
elsewhere so I won't go into them any further than to cheer on efforts
to fix them.
Major Changes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
These YANIs are quite general. I don't expect them to be incorporated
into the game; they are merely what I would find interesting additions.
* Pits could stand to be improved. Digging a pit next to water fills it
with water, but if this pit is part of a line of pits, this trench
doesn't get filled with water. So it appears that pits are not
interconnected. This should change. This way you could create cool
flood traps.
* Landmines don't set off adjacent landmines. If this were possible,
you could create chain-explosions reminiscent of exploding barrels in
Doom. I have a feeling the code changes required for this YANI would be
similar to those for the one above.
* Nothing happens when you dig down in water. Either there should be a
message ("The silt rushes in and immediately fills the newly-dug hole")
or it should actually work: the square is turned into a hole and you
wind up on the next level, possibly with a square of water next to you.
* I like the way smoky and milky potions have effects based on their
color, regardless of their actual type of potion. This should be
extended further. Perhaps all fizzy potions should cure confusion, or
all plumed helmets should raise charisma by 1. See also the recent YANI
about dull spellbooks.
* Traps should affect things passing through them. That means
anti-magic fields should block rays/spells, and items should polymorph
if you throw them through a polymorph trap. There are some other neat
tricks that this might enable, for example remote triggering of land
mines and rolling boulder traps.
* All intelligent artifacts should resist being put in a container.
This makes the game somewhat harder, but harder in a good way.
* #chatting should be a bigger part of the game; thus mute could become
a new conduct. The #sit command is also underused. I read a YANI a
while back about #sit enabling Monks to meditate, with various effects.
I would very much like to see underused command like these expanded
rather than new commands added.
* More varied main dungeon. Example: Why do Vladtrap/vaultporters only
ever occur on north or south walls of rooms? Why are all rooms
rectangular? There are many, many things like this, small changes to
which could greatly increase the variety of the dungeons.
* If you drop something in lava, it sinks to the bottom. However, if
you #sit, you sit on the item.... If you try to pick it up, you are
told "you would burn to a crisp", even if fire resistant. If you are
Fire Resistant, you still die when you sink into the lava. I propose
that instead, you should be able to swim, if your strength is high
enough and you are wearing an amulet of magical breathing. Xorns should
be able to move freely through lava, at least.
* Monsters should use wands of wishing. Monsters should loot unlocked
containers. Monsters should stop zapping you if they see you have
reflection. Monsters with weak melee attacks should retreat if they
have stronger non-melee attacks. All of this only applies to
monsters with minds, of course.
* When engulfed in blob-like monsters, digging down currently almost
kills them. How about instead of this, they divide like a pudding and
you are expelled. This make Juiblex considerably harder. No bad thing
IMHO.
Minor Tweaks
~~~~~~~~~~~~
These I consider fairly non-controversial and I believe would genuinely
improve the texture of the game. I'm afraid I can't offer code, but I
would very much like to see these ones incorporated.
* Electric eel corpses should grant a large Pw increase. Possibly blue
dragons too.
* Amulets of restful sleep should confer regeneration for the turns
that you spend sleeping.
* Fainting while wielding a c corpse should give same result as falling
with one: stoning!
* Vomiting on an altar should offend its God, as should digging on it.
* Dragons should have a smaller chance of leaving scales if they are
killed with a sharp weapon.
* Shopkeepers are happy to deal with invisible customers if they enter
the shop other than through the front door. They should refuse to deal
with you.
* Silver arrows should cost more, by virtue of being silver, and
"precious" rings should have some kind of surcharge too, above the base
cost of that type of ring.
* Wands of light should be weapons against vampires. "The lit field
sears the vampire's flesh!"
* Pick-axes should do double-damage against Earth-elementals, clay
golems and stone golems.
* High level spellcasting monsters should have stone-to-flesh in their
arsenal. Then they can use it on statues which come to life, always
fighting on their side. They should also attempt to cast Charm Monster
on your pets, with success inversely proportional to the pet's level.
* The description for the katana says it can be used as a two-handed
sword. Maybe #twoweapon could be adapted for this, i.e. use both hands
on the weapon for an extra damage bonus based on strength, at the
expense of being able to use a shield.
* Cavemen should get a large damage/to-hit bonus when throwing spears
at large mammals.
* Asmodeus is a "cold" demon. Perhaps he should not be visible with
infravision?
* Should be able to use either #monster or #chat while poly'd into a
foocubus to seduce (i.e. de-robe) @ monsters.
* #Sitting on the floor should mess up things written in the dust.
* Fire/Water elementals should not only not be injured by fire/water
traps - they should be strengthened! This might make the plane of fire
tougher.
* Lighting multiple light sources should illuminate a large area. Got
two magic lamps? Put them both to use!
* Polytraps disappear after you've used them, but not after monsters
have. Why the inconsistency?
* Foobane should be a little more baneful, i.e. maybe they should scare
the foo as well as causing extra damage.
* Beartraps should injure your feet like xans do.
* The quest-text associated with the Sceptre of Might suggests it
confers strength. This is a good idea! The +n Sceptre of Might should
act like a +n ring of gain strength.
* You should have a greater chance of failing to write in the dust if
your fingers are slippery.
* Wands of opening zapped down whilst in a beartrap should free you
immediately.
Aesthetic Tweaks
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Chatting to hallucination monsters should give YAFMs.
* YAFM required for when polymorphed into a glass golem and you rub a
touchstone against "-" (which IIRC is yourself).
* Relatedly, apply '-' for a YAFM: "$(QUESTLEADER) always said you
needed to apply yourself!"
* New fortune: "20% off Genuine Black Dragon tins. GUARANTEED to make
you VERY FIRM. Nurse approved!"
* The appendage ("foreclaw") for a paper golem should be "forescroll"
or something. "Endpapers"?
* Death descriptions should distinguish between "killed by a falling
boulder", "killed by a hurled boulder", and "killed by a rolling
boulder."
Bugs/Interface
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Pick up some unholy water and some holy water in a shop. Both should
cost 100zm. Dip one in the other. The resulting water costs 100zm in
your inventory, but if you drop it, it changes to costing 5zm. You are
only charged 100zm for the consumption of one of the two potions. You
should be charged for the consumption of both.
* If the castle drawbridge opens when blind, you don't hear it, but you
*do* know that the correct tune is the passtune. The tune should not be
identified as the passtune until you have seen the drawbridge open.
* If vault guards get angry and attack you, #chatting to them results
in "please drop that gold and follow me". If you do so, he says "Please
follow me". But he continues to attack you! I suggest a new line for
angry guards: something like "Master didn't get rich by putting up with
the likes of you!" You also get the message "The corridor disappears"
after killing a guard, even if you kill him nowhere near the corridor.
* If you escape a pit which has items at the bottom, you can #sit on
the items, but still be unable to reach them if you try picking them
up. #sit or '>' should make you enter the pit.
* The message "There is already a game in progress under your name.
Destroy old game? [yn]" (when a game is currently running) should have
q as an option, since it is accepted.
* Saved games should save the previous N messages, so that one can find
out what happened recently upon returning to a game after a long break.
* Option to make the confirmation letter "Y" instead of "y" so that you
don't accidentally hit people when moving in the "y" direction.
* The entry in the encyclopedia for Monk has a typo: "month"/"mouth"
Outlandish ideas
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Just throwing these out here for the fun of it.
* Being bitten by a zombie should reduce your Int by one point. If it
drops below 3 by this method, you turn into a zombie. Curable by
unicorn horn, so it's not so bad, although early characters will have
to watch out since zombies are a common low-level monster.
* Give the Healer intrinsic Disease resistance at XPlvl 17. Demogorgon
and Pestilence become much easier, making up for this class being
rock-hard at the beginning.
* Or perhaps a less drastic change: a healer should be able to hit
Death bare handed and get something like "Your healing hands sear
Death's body!"
Finally, why is Wizard Lock not just called Lock? Is this a D&D
holdover?
Phew! That's that. All of the above were accumulated over about 18
months of playing. I now intend to take a break... at least until the
next version is released
Sam
Greetings,
When playing nethack I write down in a file called YANIs anything that
I think might make the game better. Since I've now ascended every
class, I'm going to be taking a long long break. I also think I am now
qualified to present the edited highlights of this file for your
consideration. It's large, so I've split it up into several sections:
major changes, minor tweaks, purely aesthetic changes, and bugs.
I think my ideas are pretty conservative. Nethack does not need more
objects, it needs better interactions between existing objects. Class
differentiation is good, but not to the point where you're playing a
different game by playing different classes.
Some areas which could use general development: scoring system,
Gehennom, and pudding farming (!). These topics have been dealt with
elsewhere so I won't go into them any further than to cheer on efforts
to fix them.
Major Changes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
These YANIs are quite general. I don't expect them to be incorporated
into the game; they are merely what I would find interesting additions.
* Pits could stand to be improved. Digging a pit next to water fills it
with water, but if this pit is part of a line of pits, this trench
doesn't get filled with water. So it appears that pits are not
interconnected. This should change. This way you could create cool
flood traps.
* Landmines don't set off adjacent landmines. If this were possible,
you could create chain-explosions reminiscent of exploding barrels in
Doom. I have a feeling the code changes required for this YANI would be
similar to those for the one above.
* Nothing happens when you dig down in water. Either there should be a
message ("The silt rushes in and immediately fills the newly-dug hole")
or it should actually work: the square is turned into a hole and you
wind up on the next level, possibly with a square of water next to you.
* I like the way smoky and milky potions have effects based on their
color, regardless of their actual type of potion. This should be
extended further. Perhaps all fizzy potions should cure confusion, or
all plumed helmets should raise charisma by 1. See also the recent YANI
about dull spellbooks.
* Traps should affect things passing through them. That means
anti-magic fields should block rays/spells, and items should polymorph
if you throw them through a polymorph trap. There are some other neat
tricks that this might enable, for example remote triggering of land
mines and rolling boulder traps.
* All intelligent artifacts should resist being put in a container.
This makes the game somewhat harder, but harder in a good way.
* #chatting should be a bigger part of the game; thus mute could become
a new conduct. The #sit command is also underused. I read a YANI a
while back about #sit enabling Monks to meditate, with various effects.
I would very much like to see underused command like these expanded
rather than new commands added.
* More varied main dungeon. Example: Why do Vladtrap/vaultporters only
ever occur on north or south walls of rooms? Why are all rooms
rectangular? There are many, many things like this, small changes to
which could greatly increase the variety of the dungeons.
* If you drop something in lava, it sinks to the bottom. However, if
you #sit, you sit on the item.... If you try to pick it up, you are
told "you would burn to a crisp", even if fire resistant. If you are
Fire Resistant, you still die when you sink into the lava. I propose
that instead, you should be able to swim, if your strength is high
enough and you are wearing an amulet of magical breathing. Xorns should
be able to move freely through lava, at least.
* Monsters should use wands of wishing. Monsters should loot unlocked
containers. Monsters should stop zapping you if they see you have
reflection. Monsters with weak melee attacks should retreat if they
have stronger non-melee attacks. All of this only applies to
monsters with minds, of course.
* When engulfed in blob-like monsters, digging down currently almost
kills them. How about instead of this, they divide like a pudding and
you are expelled. This make Juiblex considerably harder. No bad thing
IMHO.
Minor Tweaks
~~~~~~~~~~~~
These I consider fairly non-controversial and I believe would genuinely
improve the texture of the game. I'm afraid I can't offer code, but I
would very much like to see these ones incorporated.
* Electric eel corpses should grant a large Pw increase. Possibly blue
dragons too.
* Amulets of restful sleep should confer regeneration for the turns
that you spend sleeping.
* Fainting while wielding a c corpse should give same result as falling
with one: stoning!
* Vomiting on an altar should offend its God, as should digging on it.
* Dragons should have a smaller chance of leaving scales if they are
killed with a sharp weapon.
* Shopkeepers are happy to deal with invisible customers if they enter
the shop other than through the front door. They should refuse to deal
with you.
* Silver arrows should cost more, by virtue of being silver, and
"precious" rings should have some kind of surcharge too, above the base
cost of that type of ring.
* Wands of light should be weapons against vampires. "The lit field
sears the vampire's flesh!"
* Pick-axes should do double-damage against Earth-elementals, clay
golems and stone golems.
* High level spellcasting monsters should have stone-to-flesh in their
arsenal. Then they can use it on statues which come to life, always
fighting on their side. They should also attempt to cast Charm Monster
on your pets, with success inversely proportional to the pet's level.
* The description for the katana says it can be used as a two-handed
sword. Maybe #twoweapon could be adapted for this, i.e. use both hands
on the weapon for an extra damage bonus based on strength, at the
expense of being able to use a shield.
* Cavemen should get a large damage/to-hit bonus when throwing spears
at large mammals.
* Asmodeus is a "cold" demon. Perhaps he should not be visible with
infravision?
* Should be able to use either #monster or #chat while poly'd into a
foocubus to seduce (i.e. de-robe) @ monsters.
* #Sitting on the floor should mess up things written in the dust.
* Fire/Water elementals should not only not be injured by fire/water
traps - they should be strengthened! This might make the plane of fire
tougher.
* Lighting multiple light sources should illuminate a large area. Got
two magic lamps? Put them both to use!
* Polytraps disappear after you've used them, but not after monsters
have. Why the inconsistency?
* Foobane should be a little more baneful, i.e. maybe they should scare
the foo as well as causing extra damage.
* Beartraps should injure your feet like xans do.
* The quest-text associated with the Sceptre of Might suggests it
confers strength. This is a good idea! The +n Sceptre of Might should
act like a +n ring of gain strength.
* You should have a greater chance of failing to write in the dust if
your fingers are slippery.
* Wands of opening zapped down whilst in a beartrap should free you
immediately.
Aesthetic Tweaks
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Chatting to hallucination monsters should give YAFMs.
* YAFM required for when polymorphed into a glass golem and you rub a
touchstone against "-" (which IIRC is yourself).
* Relatedly, apply '-' for a YAFM: "$(QUESTLEADER) always said you
needed to apply yourself!"
* New fortune: "20% off Genuine Black Dragon tins. GUARANTEED to make
you VERY FIRM. Nurse approved!"
* The appendage ("foreclaw") for a paper golem should be "forescroll"
or something. "Endpapers"?
* Death descriptions should distinguish between "killed by a falling
boulder", "killed by a hurled boulder", and "killed by a rolling
boulder."
Bugs/Interface
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Pick up some unholy water and some holy water in a shop. Both should
cost 100zm. Dip one in the other. The resulting water costs 100zm in
your inventory, but if you drop it, it changes to costing 5zm. You are
only charged 100zm for the consumption of one of the two potions. You
should be charged for the consumption of both.
* If the castle drawbridge opens when blind, you don't hear it, but you
*do* know that the correct tune is the passtune. The tune should not be
identified as the passtune until you have seen the drawbridge open.
* If vault guards get angry and attack you, #chatting to them results
in "please drop that gold and follow me". If you do so, he says "Please
follow me". But he continues to attack you! I suggest a new line for
angry guards: something like "Master didn't get rich by putting up with
the likes of you!" You also get the message "The corridor disappears"
after killing a guard, even if you kill him nowhere near the corridor.
* If you escape a pit which has items at the bottom, you can #sit on
the items, but still be unable to reach them if you try picking them
up. #sit or '>' should make you enter the pit.
* The message "There is already a game in progress under your name.
Destroy old game? [yn]" (when a game is currently running) should have
q as an option, since it is accepted.
* Saved games should save the previous N messages, so that one can find
out what happened recently upon returning to a game after a long break.
* Option to make the confirmation letter "Y" instead of "y" so that you
don't accidentally hit people when moving in the "y" direction.
* The entry in the encyclopedia for Monk has a typo: "month"/"mouth"
Outlandish ideas
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Just throwing these out here for the fun of it.
* Being bitten by a zombie should reduce your Int by one point. If it
drops below 3 by this method, you turn into a zombie. Curable by
unicorn horn, so it's not so bad, although early characters will have
to watch out since zombies are a common low-level monster.
* Give the Healer intrinsic Disease resistance at XPlvl 17. Demogorgon
and Pestilence become much easier, making up for this class being
rock-hard at the beginning.
* Or perhaps a less drastic change: a healer should be able to hit
Death bare handed and get something like "Your healing hands sear
Death's body!"
Finally, why is Wizard Lock not just called Lock? Is this a D&D
holdover?
Phew! That's that. All of the above were accumulated over about 18
months of playing. I now intend to take a break... at least until the
next version is released
Sam
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