If you want to discuss new feature ideas or new features already introduced in GnollHack, or maybe even old features from NetHack, you can post your thoughts here.
GnollHack Feature Discussion
- Thread starter Janne Gustafsson
- Start date
transcendreamer
New member
OK, I'll just repost and try to summarize here my ideas, comments & notes from "bug reports" thread.
- Expand resource collection/utilization to cover more items in the game: maybe consider decomposition to raw materials? maybe repairing broken items?
- Adding firearms and grenades to game? Archaic firearms like flintlock pistols and muskets? They should be relatively rare to keep balance and quite desirable for player.
- One more idea is cooking recipes. Because eating corpses looks very primitive. It could be better to have some recipes for boiling/frying/baking killed enemies adding herbage and mushrooms - ( which are already added in the Gnollhack ) - and if the recipe is met - that would also convey useful resistances/abilities to the character - and it makes sense for the player to spend time on that.
- Of course crafting and new features should add something valuable or mission-critical to the gameplay and follow general Gnollhack spirit and game design plan.
Thanks, we'll keep these in mind. In some fantasy games, e.g. dwarves have firearms, so it might be worthwhile to think about them. But maybe this should be somehow combined with mixing gunpowder etc. to make it slightly more interesting, maybe sort of another type of technological magic feel to it, just to make sure they do not ruin the fantasy atmosphere. But in any case, some more planning etc. is needed there.
Coming back to this game after a couple months. Nice to see that it has progressed from alpha to beta. I have a question about Monks. Now that martial arts is trained only after maxing out bare-hand combat, it seems like to achieve Grand Master skill would use all 36 of the Monk's max-level skill slots. Is that intended? Seems to contradict the dual combat/spellcasting nature of the traditional monk role. I suppose the idea is that the player must decide whether to invest in maxing out martial arts. But isn't this obviously a poor investment? If I am reading the source code (weapon.c) correctly, GnollHack copies NetHack's +9 martial arts damage at Grand Master skill (pre-strength bonus). This is all that matters -- to-hit bonuses are irrelevant for high level characters with max luck. But now it costs 36 skill slots to get +9 damage vs 15 skill slots in NetHack? This seems like it all but eliminates the incentive to use martial arts in GnollHack. What am I missing here?
Since Monk starts with Basic in Martial arts, he needs to spend only 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 = 26 skill points to reach Grand Master level, which leaves 9 skill points (35-26) to be spent on other skills. However, it is true that it is pretty costly this ways, and we might consider lowering it in some way. Still, Martial arts is pretty good, giving you some multihit % on higher levels (25% on Skilled and 100% on Grand Master).
Hi, the skill slot costs were indeed a bit unnecessarily onerous. We updated the bare handed combat and martial arts skill slot costs to be:
- Bare handed: 1 / 1 / 2
- Martial arts: 2 / 3 / 3 / 4 / 4
The changes are now on the public servers.