0011749: "Your [armour/shield] prevents you from hitting the foo" incorrect

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Category

Severity

Reproducibility

Date Submitted

Last Update

0011749

[DCSS] Bug Report

minor

always

2018-11-05 03:45

2022-01-06 03:14

Reporter

minmay

View Status

public

Assigned To

Kate

Priority

normal

Resolution

done

Local or Remote

Both

Status

resolved

Operating System

All

Projection

none

Console or Tiles

Both

ETA

none

Fixed in Branch

longterm development (0.31+)

Product Branch

0.23 ancient branch

Product Version

Summary

0011749: "Your [armour/shield] prevents you from hitting the foo" incorrect

Description

melee_attack::player_why_missed() gives you this message if your to-hit is lower than the target's EV and your to-hit plus your armour/shield penalty is greater than or equal to the target's EV.

This message is usually wrong, for several reasons:
1. The armour/shield penalty is deducted from your to-hit prior to the maybe_random2() call that, on average, more than halves to-hit. So player_why_missed() is pretending that the armour/shield penalties are more than twice as impactful as they actually are. So in the majority of cases where you get this message, your to-hit would have still been lower than the target's EV even without the penalties.
2. Even if the correct armour/shield penalty values were used, having a to-hit greater than or equal to the target's EV does not ensure that the attack will hit. There is a 2.5% chance of missing anyway.
3. Even if the correct armour/shield penalty values were used, having a to-hit less than the target's EV does not ensure that the attack will miss. There is a 2.5% chance of hitting anyway.

The result is that unspoiled players are misled about the severity of armour/shield accuracy penalties.

Steps To Reproduce

Additional Information

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Notes
(0032785) NormalPerson7 (reporter) 2018-11-05 20:01 edited on: 2018-11-05 20:02	player_why_missed describes why an attack, that has just been calculated to miss the enemy, has missed. Therefore the 2.5% chances have already been rolled. For this reason, there is a simple fix for point 2 (add a check for if(ev_margin<=-AUTOMATIC_HIT) at the start of the method), and point 3 has no effect because if the attack has rolled the 2.5% chance to hit anyway, this method will not be called. You are very much correct with point 1; I think we have all been severely misled by this.

(0034387) PleasingFungus (administrator) 2021-11-02 16:49	6f86257384905e1e50639bcbe62e6ee20c40e4d8 should more or less address point 1. Haven't thought about point 2 yet.

(0034391) Kate (developer) 2022-01-06 03:14	This is fixed by 4f6bc678f.

Issue History
Date Modified	Username	Field	Change
2018-11-05 03:45	minmay	New Issue
2018-11-05 20:01	NormalPerson7	Note Added: 0032785
2018-11-05 20:02	NormalPerson7	Note Edited: 0032785
2018-11-08 13:18	TAS2012	Issue Monitored: TAS2012
2021-11-02 16:49	PleasingFungus	Note Added: 0034387
2022-01-06 03:14	Kate	Note Added: 0034391
2022-01-06 03:14	Kate	Status	new => resolved
2022-01-06 03:14	Kate	Fixed in Branch	=> longterm development (0.28+)
2022-01-06 03:14	Kate	Resolution	open => done
2022-01-06 03:14	Kate	Assigned To	=> Kate

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