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diff --git a/crawl-ref/docs/todo.txt b/crawl-ref/docs/todo.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..6974ecff3b --- /dev/null +++ b/crawl-ref/docs/todo.txt @@ -0,0 +1,456 @@ +Enhancements: + +* make screen update correctly when player vision is <2. + +* Make dangerous things be shown on top of a stack. This includes traps, + walls of fire, etc. + +* Make food acquirement give you more kinds of food. + +* file locking for the high score file + +* adjust EV for low levels. + +* repopulate levels on the way out + +* should species armour bonus work on EV instead of AC? + +* make rings of fire/ice (and others?) auto identify with use + +* miscast effects too weak? Not enough of a threat, especially when used + by gods, Zot traps, or mummies as a form of punishment. + +* add toggled stealthy mode? + +* print out '@' status in character dumps (might be nice to have the + chacters status in the dump... method of death might be good as well). + +* fix green crystal room so its not boring (pretty vault, just no real + point to it currently) + +* fix the summoning abuse problem properly. Ideally, the player should + not get piety for killing things he summoned, but should get piety + for things that are summoned against him. + +* Add a wizard debugging function to output several thousand items for + a particular depth (should make item frequency tuning easier). + +* Perhaps races should be physically "described" (stucture or bit + fields) to keep track of their size and physical body parts that + interfer with armour. This could also be used in other ways... + small races could be harder to hit with ranged weapons + than larger ones, but the larger races might get a bonus + to carrying capacity... could also probably simplify the + extra unarmed combat attacks code + +* Speaking of the character info, I really like that Linley now displays + the weapon being wielded. We should think about displaying all ten + wielded/worn objects. + +* Need to make sure that ghost names will be OK when long player names + are used. + +* Blink prompt is bogus (probably also happens elsewhere). Can probably + fix this by adding a prompt argument to look_around. + +* Some of the more important messages should be in color? + +* The spores contaminate the food by exploding, only the + > explosion effect should destroy food on the ground. + + Right. Maybe this should be implemented (it shouldn't be too + hard; fiery explosions already destroy scrolls laying on the + floor). + + One idea I had with contaminated food was to use the it_plus2 + variable (which IIRC is currently unused for all types of + food) to store the number of items in a stack of food which + are contaminated. Say you have a stack of 4 meat rations, if the + plus2 value is 1 then one is bad, 3 are good. Any operations + carried out on the stack (eating, dropping, picking up etc) + have a 1 in 4 chance of taking the bad ration and 3/4 of + taking the good. A quantum thing, sort of. Poisoned food could + be done in the same way (if there are any variables left - dam?) + + This means that contaminated food doesn't just disappear, it + stays around to haunt you. + + This could perhaps lead into a 'food' skill, which lets you + cook food, get the most out of corpses, separate the good + food from the bad etc. + +* Heavy armor doesn't offer enough protection? + >The big problem is the strange evasion modifier calculation that + >results in armour completely destroying your EV with the + >double subtraction thing. + + I don't think this is so strange. It only affects chars who have + high dodging skills, and it makes sense to me that dodging + effectively and wearing heavy armour should be mutually + exclusive unless you're used to wearing heavy armour, in which + case the evasion penalty is reduced according to your armour + skill and the dodging skill (which can only be picked up when + you're wearing light or no armour) is usually ignored. + + I did it this way so that the two skills (dodging and armour) + would rarely both be useful at the same time, so players would + have to choose between them. Otherwise they could just practice + both and everyone would end up the same. + + Personally, I think the double subtraction thing should be left + in, but with the following changes to the way armour works: + - base AC should be upped considerably, as discussed + - the limit on the proportion of the evasion penalty removed by + a high armour skill could be raised or scrapped (currently only + half of the evasion penalty of a piece of body armour can be + negated by the armour skill) + + I would have fixed these problems before I stopped working on the + code myself, except that nobody ever complained about them and I + didn't notice them myself. + + -- EV penalty now recovered faster, Armour skill slightly easier to + get -- base ACs should probably still be upped (bwross) + +* New spell realms (Linley doesn't like these): + NATURE - spells connected with some nature forces, animals and plants +e.g. summon small mammal, summon scorpions, summon elemental, passwall, +resist <element>, create plant/fungus, charm animal/plant and so on + + PROTECTION - protective spells - shield, resist sth., Fire/Ice armor, +Deflect missiles... HEALING - Cure Light/Serious/Critical Wounds, Cure +Disease, Neutralize/Slow Poison, Heal + +* DRUID class - with spells allowing him to summon animals & plants, +charm them, also some to work with natural forces - eg. elementals, +resist fire..., also some healing spells - neutralize poison etc... + +* Maybe some God of Nature, which offers to his believers some of Druid + ablities + +* "write scroll" skill + +* Dagger of Backstabbing - hit and Damage bonus when you are backstabbing + +* purify food spell + +* create water/lava pool spell, also some monsters creating this kind + of terrain + +* Some work needs to be done for multi-user environments. + -- some done, more could be useful (bwross) + +* Targetting isn't intuitive enough? + -- slightly improved (bwross) + +* Use gdbm to save games? However gdbm won't compensate for endian + differences... + +* Use gdmn to save bones? + +* Use zlib to compress saved games? + +* larger windows + -- number of lines is now handled more dynamically, but only at + during init or compile time (depending on NUMBER_OF_LINES) (bwross) + +* multiple-windows + +* Use XML for monster definitions + +* Use XML for room layout/fixed levels + +* Use XML for item definitions? + +* moves[0], beam[0] should be simplified to use pointers to structs instead. + +* Locking to prevent multiple game loads/save file overwrites? + +* Allow access to the new longer high score files... add user id field (for + multi-user systems). + +* Add DEC graphics support for non-IBM machines (like nethack). + +* Come up with a better save file system that will accomidate versions + easily and involve (hopefully) one smaller file... instead of the + large number of current files. + +* Add Food/Survival skill + +> (1) Cooking Food -- by far the most potential to unbalance the game. +> +> Cooking food should probably cost a limited resource to use (fire +> sources? -- some like spellcasting would be very powerful). It would +> allow anyone to eat chunks of flesh, thus removing an advantage +> that carnivores and gourmands have... so you probably don't want +> to add other advantages like extended shelf life. The food value +> of chunks of flesh would probably have to be made smaller to maintain +> the food balance. +> +> Maybe cooking should be an ability that's either granted by a god, +> being a member of a race or class, or becomes available with a +> certain (high) level of the Food skill (perhaps Survival is a better +> encompassing name... it could potentially be used for other things +> as well then). +> +> (2) Butchery -- not much of a game unbalance. +> +> This doesn't effect the game balance unless its made really powerful +> (ie. I can get 6 chunks from a bat). Right now you can get a full +> stomach off of any number of large monsters. A few extra chunks +> doesn't count for much unless you can improve their shelf life. +> +> (3) Detecting Bad Food -- depends +> +> If Giant Spores secretly contaminate rations this could be an +> important skill. Perhaps it could give you a slightly better +> save on eating meat chunks (limiting the advantage of the +> carnivore's save and to a lesser extent the "AotG). It could +> also warn you about things like mutagenic and necrophage meat +> (give you a yes/no prompt you wouldn't normally get). + + +* New inventory/equip/drop system + +>>> // > Makes a certain sense, but I can drop any number of the healing potions +>>> // > as one action that suggests a bit more care... also I could just drop +>>> // > all of my potions and that would take an action for each stack I had, +>>> // > whereas all it probably requires is me dropping my "potion sack" or +>>> // > dumping it out. +>>> // > +>>> // How about a compromise where you can hit d% to drop all your food, +>>> // or d! to drop all your potions, but if you want to discriminate you have +>>> // to do them individually? +>>> +>>> I'm wanting something a bit more featured like the nethack system (not +>>> the old traditional, but the newer ones). Bascia concept would be that +>>> I could either select via inventory slot letter, or optionally pull down +>>> an inventory browser/selector and select the items I want. Complete +>>> with options like "select all potions", "toggle all potions", "select all", +>>> and "unselect all" (for example). +>>> +>>> If you want to add aditional time for discrimination, you can do it +>>> Ragnarok style (I like the Ragnarok armour equip system) and have a +>>> counter on the top line (with a short list of commands) that tells the +>>> player how many turns the action will take. There are a few problems +>>> with calculating this value, because there are any number of ways +>>> I can select all potions and the value should be independant of +>>> which ever I choose to use. +>> +>> Well, it would seem that the time calculation should depend on the +>>final set of selected items rather than the steps taken to select them. +>>That would remove abiguity. We could generate a time based on the variety +>>of things dropped. So, if you were dropping potions, swords, rings, and +>>scrolls, it would take you much longer than to just drop your rings. It +>>might be worth it to let weight factor into drop speed as well. +> +>You don't want to get too complicated. There's a limit to the +>granularity here, as you probably don't want to have it taking a +>couple dozen actions to drop some equipment. A simple little +>penalty for dropping only part of a stack, or only some types +>of potions is probably enough of a change. + + +* Options files + -- must keep two distinct types of options and handle them separate: + - ones that would be loaded from a "crawlrc" file and would effect + the players characters in a general way. + - ones selected during the game and would be carried between + saves, but not to other characters the player is playing. + +* fix non-magical traps + -- should have some number of "charges" for those that shoot items... + these should be more dangerous as well. + -- monsters should "learn" the traps of a level. + +> Could be done with a bit array (if there is a limit of 32 traps on +> a level, that would be bonus... but it could be extended to more +> for not too much trouble). That would take up little space, and +> testing would be by simple boolean operators (to test if the monster +> knows about trap X, you check (monster.traps & (1 << X))). We could +> have the code test the line of sight from a trap everytime it is +> activated, and set the appropriate bit of the array in any monster +> within line of sight. + + +* Revert/change the Elementalist spellbooks? + +> // >This brings up another little problem around here. People around +> // >here weren't entirely happy about the change to the Elemental +> // >Spellbooks in 3.30. For the most part its considered that the +> // >elementalists are becoming less individual in flavour and that +> // >they're now just slight variations of Fire. In particular (and +> // >pertaining to this discussion), was the loss of levitation from +> // >the Air book, which was considered a useful "Tensor's Disk" for +> // >lifting stuff up stairs. +> // +> // I removed levitation because it no longer fit, and I didn't +> // want to stretch air out to three books. As for the other changes, +> // these were made because I thought the non-fire elements were too +> // weak by far. Which spells in particular are problematic? (I'll +> // try to write an explanation for the differences between the +> // elements when I have a little more time) +> +> Well, we didn't think the other elements were actually "weaker". +> They're only weaker in combat potential -- Fire was all attack, the +> others offered more utility and defensive abilities. There was +> enough combat in the others to get you well into the midgame, at +> which point you adapt to whatever books you find (its typically +> quite hard to get the advanced versions of your magic discipline... +> I remember how happy I was when I finally had a necromancer find +> Unlife... my Paladin had a complete set of death books early on). +> +> The main problem is that the elements were made too similar (we +> really liked the fact that they all played quite different, it +> was one of the things that made crawl really popular here). +> +> For example, they all start with a slight variation of the same spell. +> This means that they all start playing the same way, with the same +> tactics. Before you could play Earth for the range attack, or Air for +> the somewhat risky-yet-powerful Shock. +> +> There's still a little varity left, but certain bits are gone. You +> can't depend on getting summoning when you start with Ice, for +> example. The Levitation spell is now only in the Enchantment book, +> it used to be a something you could depend on as an Air mage (now +> you have to hope to get the book of Sky, and that gets you Fly, which +> is better, but is also a level four spell). +> +> Earth had a little issue before (too many similar throwing spells), +> but replacing Throw Pebble with Crush just makes it the same as the +> other elements. Stone Arrow has always been better than Iron Bolt, +> IMO... iron bolt just isn't effective enough to justify the extra +> cost and difficulty... it requires really high skill levels to +> be better. I would have rather seen Iron Bolt go, in favour of +> something a bit more interesting (Earthquake, Pass Wall, Stair +> Creation). + +* Improve running code + +* Carrion eating mutation + -- like vegetarian and carnivore, only gives a preference for + rotten meat. Progesses with level until the character + can only effectively eat rotten food. + +* Add rumours/fortune cookies? + +* Improvements to the character dump + -- is the current dump as verbose as wanted/too verbose? + -- add spell failures to dump? + +* Change character for throwing weapons to '(' and small armour to '['. + -- Problem: '(' is used for dancing weapons. + +* Put some limits of teleport/teleport control? Make it rarer? + +* Improve artefacts to compete better with Sword of Power? Improve + non-sword weapons so they become more of a choice? + +* Currently possible to gain 0hp when gaining a level... should + be safeguards added to make sure this is at least never negative, + if not guaranteeing 1hp / level. + +* should be able to see contents of books in stores? + +* remove possibility of teleport control with the Blink spell (require + the player to use the Control Blink spell instead). + +* merge the chardump spell listing code with the other spell listing code. + +* throw traces to target should coincide with line-of-sight better + +* item inscriptions + +* are crossbows correct? The other launchers seem to be adding their + skill bonuses twice + +* The Throwing skill isn't particularly useful. You could use it for + throwing daggers, axes, or spears but they don't stack and are + heavy. + +* add some weapons/change weapon code so that non-swords are more of + an option + + // >I was thinking that this might be a good way to increase the value of + // >non-sword weapons. + // + // .. which probably needs to be done anyway. One or two + // suggestions for new weapons which could help: + // + // - axe (just axe, no 'hand' or 'battle' there): this would be to + // a hand axe what a long sword is to a short sword. Skills may + // need to be adjusted (a new 'great axes' skill, covering the + // two-handed axes? Or just condense the sword skills). + // - Spiked flail: like a flail, but more damage and slightly + // slower (heavier etc). + // - Great flail/mace: two-handed versions. + + These would certainly help out a bit. The other weapon classes were + lacking good intermediates. I don't think a "great axe" skill is + required, removing "great swords" might be correct (although it + does add a limiting factor on the power of swords). Having weapon + skills where only one member of the class exists doesn't seem very + worthwhile. Maybe fighting style skills could be used instead... + + - 'two handed weapons' could be a skill for all two handed weapons, + it would be used in conjunction with the appropriate weapon skill. + + - 'shields' would cover "weapon and shield" style, maybe allowing + for the possibility of offensive shield bashing. + + - 'unarmed combat' or 'fighting' could cover the cases where one + or both hands are empty. Characters not using one of the other + styles should be able to use unarmed strikes more often and + more efficiently. + + Potentially, you could add a bastard sword to the game. Its hand and + a half nature could put it in any of the above categories (if you + have a shield, it would be the second... if not it could be either + of the other two). + + Of course, adding new skills has its own problems... there is already a + shortage of space on the skills screen. + + -- add special attacks to weapons and allow them to be accessed by the + player via SHIFT-<move> onto an adjacent monster. + +- fix monster enchantments to have proper timeouts and a better structure + +- score file still gets messed up from time to time... should probably + change the format into something that can be expanded and contains more + information that might be printed (user id on multiuser systems, time, etc) + +-- add checking for legal background colour (or just let it ignore the + "bold" colours like it does now?) + +-- change file formats and functions + -- change score file format (see nethack for additional fields... also + maybe a field for damage done by killing attack... could be used to + spice up the death description (use final HP?))... also a userid + field for MULTIUSER systems would be nice (to tell likenamed + charcters apart and identify the player). + +-- sort out spells into separate spl-* files based on type/skill + +-- make all this you.inv_*, mitm/itm stuff the same instead of + having conversions everywhere. + +-- differentiate the good gods more + +-- break up dungeon.cc more + +-- a check floor for lava/water function + +-- a simple "summon hostile unfriendly/random demon" spell with fewer params? + +-- centralize the elemental resistance code into a single entry point that + takes damage and type and does the appropriate things... some of the + cases are notably special, so some extra damage cateogries might have + to be created (ie. stepping/falling into lava is an instadeath for + characters with negative fire resistance, but being hit with a lava + bolt is only extra damage). + +-- functions to check for specific equipment (ie reduce checks for "!= -1") + +-- move ghost/demon array into a proper structure. + |