880: Hengband \\ High-Elf Weaponsmith start! But watch that first quest! = oo
1Starting a High-Elf Weaponsmith!
0:00 - start
2:00 - character creation - random!
7:40 - High-Elf Weaponsmith in Outpost
11:17 - "O" - "Power" menu
11:47 - "M" - Essences & enchanting menu!
21:50 - More "M" essences menus
27:03 - Yeek cave
36:50 - Dr.Volga
42:04 - Greater Hell-Beast
56:14 - Essence extraction & enchantment
1:05:37 - IDing & selling in town
1:22:38 - Dump Witness quest
1:24:48 - restart ;_;
1:30:08 - Yeek cave redux
1:41:30 - Laika, the greatest beast of USSR
2:01:41 - Poltergeist
2:03:54 - Town
2:13:44 - Katana
2:18:34 - wrap-up & what's next!
Oh I forgot to try that "O" key "Judgment" power (11:30) again once I hit level 5.
I was thinking of reporting the inclusion of Hato Poppo, whose description calls him a "natural human," in the Bird category of the monster Knowledge base (1:31:59) as a bug, but I think I enjoy imagining him as a secret bird man.
I generally hate "crafting" in games but this weaponsmithing thing actually seems kind of cool so far. It also seems like something that could just end up way overpowered, but there's a ton I don't know about, like, what are the limits on how many enchantments an item can have, what enchantments can go on what items, and so forth.
I looked back at my previous play of the "Danger level: 5" "Dump Witness" quest https://youtu.be/otPi3xAh5VI?t=7816 , and there is indeed a Cloaker hiding in the middle of the main room--that's a level 13 monster. It didn't kill my Barbarian Berserker because they were a) level 19 and b) had an item of Free Action, so it couldn't paralyze them--but I still don't think it's very cool to ambush a noob with a level 13 monster in a "level 5" quest, and probably the very first quest they take; it was making THIS noob think they just shouldn't try quests anymore; one moment the level 6 weaponsmith was checking out the "items" scattered around the room, no monster in sight in the room, and the next they were dead on the floor, having been ambushed, paralyzed, and killed by the cloaker--a monster over twice their level--in the blink of an eye.
And the Killer Bee, behind glass in the adjoining room, is level 9. How is this "Danger level 5"??
I've reported this to the Hengband team as an issue to look at: https://github.com/hengband/hengband/issues/2472 . They may just tell me "get good, noob," which is legit; or possibly they *like* teaching the player a harsh lesson at the beginning, to try to teach you to do things I'm too lazy to do, like constantly using detection spells/abilities, or making sure to get an item with Free Action before you do anything at all (although I'm now level 8 and don't think I've seen one yet, drat).
Guess I ain't gonna try that quest again until I get something with Free Action. I suppose I could try shooting the cloaker from across the room with the crossbow I have now...but if it survived that barrage it could still paralyze and kill me. Yeah better get Free Action first.
Update 4/4:
The developers' reply actually covered "get good, noob," schooling the player, and using a ranged weapon: "Mimics are NOT move, so player can easily defeat them by long-range attacks.
The game has a myriad of enemies that can easily bury the unprepared player.
This quest is responsible for conveying the "die and learn" balance of the entire game.
"danger level" 5 is intended."
So I guess you're supposed to use enemy detection of some sort? Not that my level 6 character had any sort of detection capability yet anyway. I dunno, this whole bit seems like a big turn off--on quests, at least. I wonder if Hengband's random dungeons are going for "die and learn" balance as well--if they are, I may just have to stick to Angband, which has a fairly explicit don't-require-lore mantra, and in recent years (decades?) at least has gone for a "don't just kill the player with something new instantly" approach to balance, which is much closer to my preference.
4/3/22
#hengband #roguelike #freegame #opensourcegame #opensource #cygwin #rpg
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hengband is a free, roguelike dungeon exploration game, available in Japanese and English: get for Windows from https://hengband.github.io/ or play through your browser at https://angband.live
It is open source; you can download the source code and compile the game for yourself. I'm running an English ASCII version I compiled in Cygwin in Windows 11, based on the latest code under version 3.0.0Alpha57, with a few tweaks (white color slightly dimmed, picking random locked doors always succeeds).
I compile and run Hengband in Cygwin (free from cygwin.org) in Windows 11 with these commands:
git clone https://github.com/hengband/hengband.git
cd hengband
aclocal
autoconf
autoheader
automake --add-missing
autoreconf
./configure --disable-japanese
make install CXXFLAGS="-g0 -O2"
Then delete the "Hengband" directory of VS build files inside my hengband project directory so it won't block running the compiled .exe with
./hengband -- -right 46x24,* -top *x12