Altar of Vi Error??

Post by **Paul Stevens** » Sun Jul 04, 2004 6:46 pm

I received the following note. Any idea whether this is
normal? Any idea exactly what is happening? Do the
original games behave this way?
================================

i was starting a game of dmatari with option csbrules switched on, (dmrules not checked respectively) and i took tiggy and daroou, and killed tiggy and resurected her on the altar and watched her stats and saw that they had increased! from 12 health to 25 health.!
That i do understand.
I recall, long ago(=amiga version) i feared that dying would prove to be bad for the characters, and wanted to know if there was a limit to resurection.
i took a character and killed him several times and watched health, stamina and mana go down. I do not know if strength ,dex, vit, wis, a-m and a-fire had also been affected, but i think they were.
this way i finally got 25/22or 25?/0 for health/ stamina and /mana stats, and 30or 25?? for str,dex,.....as minimum values.

anyway, when, back then, i reincarnated characters at a mirror and they had stats of 30 , they actually got an increase there of some points.( i think in csb prison it is the same for low stats)
maybe even random stat increase, since hissssa could get strength of 60 at the start,but again, this was amigaversion and i do not remember everything, do not know for sure, but wisdom 100% got eventually an increase if tried several times(load new game and ressurect; restart; ressurrect....)

well, when i take dmatari and start a new dungeon and reincarnate heros they

a) do not get any stat increase of one to three points in strength, dexterity, vitality, wisdom, a-m, a-f...

b) do not loose any stats of health, stamina, mana when laid upon an altar of vi

sucinum · Post by **sucinum** » Sun Jul 04, 2004 6:50 pm

i remember losing some max-hp on the when using an altar.
1st altar: 1
2nd altar (before worms): 2
3rd altar: before the tomb: 4 or 5
last altar (dragon): 7
i also tried how much max-hp you can lose and found out, that the minimum hp after using the altar is 25.
i don't remember any other stat was touched, though.

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Sun Jul 04, 2004 7:06 pm

yes, vi altars reduce your health, to a minimum of 25. It was a percentage reductuion, with slight random fluctuation i think, of your health score. I too did trials, on the PC version, and recall no other stats being affected, just health. There was no check about lower than 25 health, because this should be impossible with normal starting characters, so again the upping to 25 is normal

in dm you got attribute points (not h/s/m) in trade for the levels you lost, to make either choice equivalent (less experienced more powerful characters vs normal).
csbrules reincarnate takes away not adds stats since the initial champions are so powerful, the design is instead to start with approximate beginnign DM characters, not trading off between two paths anymore. I'm not sure, in addition to the h/s/m decrease, other stats shouldn't get reuduced too

so assuming dmatari was tried with csbrules, then a) is fine, it's just b) somehow the health reduction has been neutralised, all other stats decreases aren't substanciated
if dmrules was implemented with the dm atari dungeon, then a) has a problem too

Post by **Paul Stevens** » Sun Jul 04, 2004 8:05 pm

I am too confused to know what has been said here.

It seems beowuuf says that DM ruls should give a boost to all the
stats (strength, dexterity, etc) when a champion is reincarnated.
Is that right? And the boost should be random 1 to 3?

Post by **cowsmanaut** » Sun Jul 04, 2004 8:23 pm

All I know about reincarnated players is this:

Reincarnated players tend to get higher stats when the finally reach Master or Archmaster than if they were just ressurected. you see when they knock down their stats as they remove the skills (ninja, wizard, preist, worrior) the subtraction is not a precice calculation of what they will earn to get back up there.. it's more like a percentage.. so basically it's saying I'm going to give you a small handicap but you'll get a greater reward for your hard work. Though I do not know the range.. If it's a calculated loss(Ie the precise ammount they will have when they get back to this level of skill) decreased by a random percentile value?

moo

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Sun Jul 04, 2004 8:49 pm

no, in dm rules, levels -> more stats when reincarnated. You aren't handicapping yourself by reducing your character back in DM, you are creating an alternative choice with slightly better stats and the ability to gain more. And it is a randomgain (just as the increase in stats at each level is random).

In CSB rules though, i think you might lose stats aswell as your h/s/m since you are taking the 'advanced' option, not taking an equally valid choice

For vi altars, i don't think anything but health should be degraded, at a certain percentage (so you lose more health for higher health characters), with a cap at 25 (this worked at in 0.96v2or 96v4, so not sure what has changed that would know this)

zoom · Post by **zoom** » Mon Jul 05, 2004 1:10 pm

Wether there is some difference in the different versions (Amiga, pc, atari) or our memory plays tricks on us has yet to be made clear.

I played the amiga version a lot.

ok,as far as i can recall in csback you simply divide everything with 1.25(maybe wrong value) and get the resulting stats. As simple as that.
(i did that some years ago, and it is located somewhere in a 2 feet high heap of notes and drawings.I have to search it..I also tested how strenght values would affect load. what would also be interesting is damage range ( i once had killed a screamer with one berserk, around 380-412?? damage .) But that is another story.)

in dungeon master when reincarnated a character you definitely got an increase of a random attributes [and / or? iam not sure if it was just one attribute or could also be two...] (strength,dexterity,vitality,wisdom,anti-magic,anti-fire)
Halk would get a higher wisdom than 30 and daroou would get a higher dexvalue than 30 with some luck... Hissssa could get higher strength than 58 and so on...

in csback prison i cannot remember quite well , but i really think that you would get skelar some wisdom points by reincarnation.

I never used any (crappy) altar of vi, because i wanted the highest stats possible, and it made your heroes weaker.

So, i cannot say if later altars would have a higher decrease but i doubt it.

I do think that it made stamina go down as well as health, like the example of tiggy shows, where you have 18 stamina and get 22 !(why should the programm reset it then? if there was no minimum value. And as logic tells, you are weaker and not so healthy if you died,as well as loose some memory...)

oh well, this has to be tested on the different platforms.
regards, zoooom

Post by **cowsmanaut** » Mon Jul 05, 2004 9:26 pm

I dunno.. I remember reincarnating a few characters once and discovering that I lost mana and HP as well as other things like dex etc. So I don't remeber and boosts to stats.. I rememeber thinking.. well this must be some kind of difficulty level sort of thing.. I weaken my characters to make the game harder.

I later had it explained to me that reincarnated characters were able to advance levels faster in the beginning and that your over all stats.. mana hp etc etc would all be able to go higher than just ressurecting them.

At any rate my memory is going to be fuzzy since I never reincarnate.. I've always ressurected since that first time.

zoo-hoom · Post by **zoo-hoom** » Mon Jul 05, 2004 11:00 pm

I just tested reincarnation and altars with the dungeon master for pc version(multilingual of dmencyclopaedia).

it seems that in this version with reincarnation there is a random increase of all the attributes;
Altar of vi does decrement the health by one point for every death?/ressurection? of the character and all the other attributes and stats stay the same.
(i am convinced that the different platform versions (pc - amiga - atari ) are not dealing with all the things in the game in the same way.i fear it is the same with csback and dm...)

I never played any of the real atari versions ,but maybe reincarnation and, well, ressurection (with the altar of vi) did not alter stats. Could be possible.

What should it be like in csback for windows linux? Should there be no alteration of the stats for dying and what about reincarnation and stats? Think about a 64 level module and about those who want to take one character

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Mon Jul 05, 2004 11:12 pm

Custom dungeons introduce a strange new variable

DM - starting charatcters are weak, and it's a slow dungoen, so reincarnation trades you an immediate benefit for taking the slower path to building them up
CSB - charatcters are powerful, and levels can be gained swiftly enough - so reincarnate reduces starting characters stats to make it more of a challenge

Custom dungeons of course can start with even bigger characters, or pitiful characters, or ones in between - do these two options, available through dm/csb rules, cover all eventualities? And which version, if there are differences, of dm and csb rules do people want to follow?

VI altars - if everyone is happy with the mechanic that until recently happened in it, that only health is affected, at a percentage reduction to a minimum of 25, then i say stay with it