PWmangband, likes and dislikes

[schroeder]

Me and emulord were playing PWmangband the past 2 days, and their were some things that we liked a *lot*, and others that we didn't faver so very much...
This thread is here for people who have played PWmangband to comment about their experience, and say what they liked and didn't like.

likes:

Time bubbles are incredible. Though they can be quite scarry the first few times you experience them, you get used to them, and "it feels like bullet time". Even emulord, who had devoutly said he disliked the idea of time bubbles, loved them once he got to experience them.

The resizable map works quite well. Being able to see much more of the map makes the game much safer, and makes you feel like you know more of whats going on. One thing which i hadn't quite gotten used to yet, was how far from the center you get. Perhaps their can be an option to set the sensitivity of re-moving the window? Its not *important*, but it could be a nice feature.
Essentially, it would change the map center location when you weren't as close to the edge of your map sector, so that you didn't freak out when you get close to the edge of the screen.

The great variety of different races and classes is great! Allows for quite a lot of exploration into new, fun territory.

Although I didn't get to get used to the new macro system, I could clearly tell that many improvements have bean made over the previous system. And, although I do still think it would be confusing for a new player, I believe it would be more manageable than the previous system.

The shop configuration in PW is nice Items get well distributed. And also, the autoexit shop function is nice, once you get used to it (i still have not). It will stop many accidental shop holdings.

The safety lines, which are an imported feature from angband are quite nice! Very helpful for remembering not to kill yourself because of a trap. Not as usefull for low lvl characters without detect spells though, but still quite nice overall.

dislikes:

Me and emulord have had quite a lot of trouble from 'auto retaliate'. Firstly, let me say I disagree from having auto retaliate instead of autoattack. Sure, having autoattack *can* be dangerous sometimes when >ing next to powerful monsters, but this is outweighed, imo, by how much you will get hurt by not getting the first attack many times! This is *especially* true with monsters that move randomly. You never know which square to select to attack, cus by the time its your move, they may have moved out of it.
However, I must say the *worst* part of 'auto retaliate', how it appears to be implemented, is that you only retaliate if you tell it to. From mine and Emulord's experience, the game will let your character be killed by a weak monster if you don't tell the game to attack that monster. I do not know if this is intentional or not, but I do know that it can easily get you into a fight which you cannot win.

I really fealt the lack of some mangband features, like the @ symbol. I loove the @ symbol. It helps me a lot. Don't know why it doesn't work in PWmang.

The chat system, though it now prevents errors by not being able to get back into the game from the chat while your character is killed, mildly annoys me when i cannot type long messages. Perhaps the chat system could be buffed up more? Like the game could add text to the talk window while you typed it with :, even though its being handled by the main window.
Also adding features like still being able to ctrl+v(paste) while in the main window would be quite nice, since otherwise, you would have to click on the chat window to do that, and well, there we still have our 'can't get back to game' problem

The windows and their sizes seam quite messed up to me (the subwindows). they are much too big for their own good, and they interfere a bit in the gameplay. Perhaps changing the default size to lower would help?
Also, The size-changing for the main window appeared to be a bit funky to me and emulord, and we couldn't change the font size so we could see even more in a smaller space.

[CloneDeath]

I agree completely with the window resizing. That was the largest problem for me and my room mate.

As for not showing the @ symbol, I have mixed feelings about it. Long story short, it is harder to recognize a fellow player, but I like being able to see "he is a dragon!" lol. (Dragon was the only race I played >_<, gotta try more)

While the new "crystal" magic item seemed cool, it seemed unpolished... maybe "c" for crystal instead of "m" for magic? Either way, I loved it.

Can't wait to try out Shapechanger. Once Marth permadies, I am switching over to PW for a while.

[Hades]

We appreciate the feedback from our fellow players =). Every bit of feedback and advice will be put into consideration following other releases. I do note that usually when a new release comes out always check to make sure you have the proper client I am seeing a lot of "failed handshake" errors on the server coming from people using the MAngband client and not the PWMAngband client. But again we thank you for the feedback and advice and as I said before, everything will be taken into consideration, and if considered implemented into the following releases. Keep up the good work guys =). But most of all, have fun.

-Hades/Later

[schroeder]

As for not showing the @ symbol, I have mixed feelings about it. Long story short, it is harder to recognize a fellow player, but I like being able to see "he is a dragon!" lol. (Dragon was the only race I played >_<, gotta try more)

Well, what i meant was actually the fact that pressing '@' does nothing, so I cannot check who is online, and in what party

[Emulord]

I love shapechangers. They are multiclassing wizards! I would switch from mage / ranger / speed body / ghost, allowing me to shoot from afar, and survive amazingly. In this respect, they might be a little too good.

[PowerWyrm]

dislikes:

Me and emulord have had quite a lot of trouble from 'auto retaliate'. Firstly, let me say I disagree from having auto retaliate instead of autoattack. Sure, having autoattack *can* be dangerous sometimes when >ing next to powerful monsters, but this is outweighed, imo, by how much you will get hurt by not getting the first attack many times! This is *especially* true with monsters that move randomly. You never know which square to select to attack, cus by the time its your move, they may have moved out of it.
However, I must say the *worst* part of 'auto retaliate', how it appears to be implemented, is that you only retaliate if you tell it to. From mine and Emulord's experience, the game will let your character be killed by a weak monster if you don't tell the game to attack that monster. I do not know if this is intentional or not, but I do know that it can easily get you into a fight which you cannot win.

I really fealt the lack of some mangband features, like the @ symbol. I loove the @ symbol. It helps me a lot. Don't know why it doesn't work in PWmang.

The chat system, though it now prevents errors by not being able to get back into the game from the chat while your character is killed, mildly annoys me when i cannot type long messages. Perhaps the chat system could be buffed up more? Like the game could add text to the talk window while you typed it with :, even though its being handled by the main window.
Also adding features like still being able to ctrl+v(paste) while in the main window would be quite nice, since otherwise, you would have to click on the chat window to do that, and well, there we still have our 'can't get back to game' problem

The windows and their sizes seam quite messed up to me (the subwindows). they are much too big for their own good, and they interfere a bit in the gameplay. Perhaps changing the default size to lower would help?
Also, The size-changing for the main window appeared to be a bit funky to me and emulord, and we couldn't change the font size so we could see even more in a smaller space.

Auto-retaliate:

This has been done mainly because I love to play spellcasters and I hate dying because you lose a turn meleeing instead of casting. With this system, spellcasters aren't hindered by melee attacks and fighters still can auto-attack by choosing their target. A good hint for not being confused by the system: use missile weapons to target a monster instead of pressing a key to move towards it, this will automatically engage the auto-retaliator. However, the system will be slightly changed in next release: I'll add a client option to activate/deactivate auto-retaliator, so people who want to auto-attack will be able to do so. Note that this will only work when there is only ONE monster around. For multiple targets, you'll have to choose which target to attack first.

'@' command:

This command has been re-implemented in next version. For the meantime, use the knowledge menu: '~' or '|', then "(4) Display connected players".

Window sizes:

Use the menu to change them (Window/Font). Note that you need to activate them first with Window/Visibility.

Resizing:

This is broken in 1.1.2.7 because of new Win32 client. Fixed in next version.

[PowerWyrm]

Btw, if you play PWMAng, you should play on the official server. It's permanent, up to date and I usually play there...

[Emulord]

Oh also, bugs are a dislike.
When Schroeder died (he was brave). I was force logged off, so I had to log back on really quickly to not die.

[PowerWyrm]

There are a lot of problems related to pointer references to unlocated dungeon levels. Those also exist in regular MAngband. I totally rewrote the main dungeon loop in the next version so hopefully there should be way less problems...

[Emulord]

I still like autoattack, so you dont need to macro *t when you're fighting hordes of orcs. Also, we had no way of knowing this, and it was strange when autoattack would kick in, in a way we couldnt decipher.