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ID Category Severity Reproducibility Date Submitted Last Update
0001770 [DCSS] Documentation minor always 2010-06-16 16:15 2011-04-11 10:57
Reporter user308 View Status public  
Assigned To Kate
Priority normal Resolution done  
Status resolved   Product Branch 0.7 ancient branch
Summary 0001770: Spellcasting aptitudes clarification
Description I notice the new aptitudes table lists +/- scores instead of raw aptitudes, with 0 correlating to an aptitude of 100.

The new values, as suggested by the reference chart, suggest that aptitudes have changed somewhat since 0.6. Are the correlations absolute?

I'm especially curious about spellcasting. Humans have a spellcasting aptitude of "0". Is this a special case where 0 actually means an aptitude of 130, or did spellcasting just get easier across the board? My guess is it's the latter. Was the old standard Spc of 130 just an arbitrary index that has simply been restandardized to 100?

Also, as I ask above, are the new values absolute or approximations? E.g. Hill Orcs had Spc of 200 and Mountain Dwarves had Spc of 210 in the old table, and both are now listed as "-3" (which would be 168 according to the new values). Do they now have identical Spc or is there still a slight difference?

Is there a need to clarify this in the in-game documentation? There's still a notice in the docs about changes from version 0.3.4, is this another significant change that people should be alerted to explicitly?
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-  Notes
(0005679)
mwoody (reporter)
2010-06-16 20:05

 I guess I'm probably late to the party here, but I have to say, I don't really understand why the change was made at all. It has made explaining the aptitude system to a new player just that much more difficult. Rather than just "those are percentages applied to the skill required to level up," I now have to add a whole extra level of explanation and track down a chart of values to convey their functionality.

It's taken an admirably simple but powerful system and made it confusing and vague.
(0005680)
user308
2010-06-16 20:15

 I like the change, I think, the only lack of clarity is how it differs from the old attributes. One could do +/- percentages instead of a +/- index, but whatever.

I just want to know if the values are exact, and if this has any effect on the balancing of spellcasting aptitudes - e.g. if Humans now have an effective 100 in Spc they become more interesting to use as magic users than if it is still just like when they had 130.

There is a note in the documentation to the effect that different skills will be learned at different speeds, so comparisons between aptitudes (eg. Fighting and Spellcasting) are meaningless, it's only across species for the same aptitude that meaningful comparisons can be made.

So, is 100 simply the "new 130" for spellcasting, or did Humans and others just all get way better at Spellcasting? And, is each +1 equivalent? Eg. High Elves and Deep Elves used to have 90 and 80 in Conjurations respectively, but now they are both "+1". Is that rounded, or do the two species now in fact have identical aptitudes in Conjurations?

Documentation to this effect would be good for people who are used to the old system. For new players I think the new system is great.
(0005681)
OG17 (reporter)
2010-06-16 20:31

 What you see is what you get, though I'm not sure how spellcasting was converted.

And I think it's an improvement too, as there wasn't any need for the old system's trivial differences. Just explain it as how relatively good or bad a race is at learning stuff - there's no need to bring the math into it.
(0005684)
mwoody (reporter)
2010-06-16 23:19

 But with the numbers, you knew exactly how much better or worse one race was versus another at a glance. One has aptitude 100, one has aptitude 150; the latter takes exactly half as much again xp to level that skill.

Anyway, it's already changed, so I guess it's not worth my whining. Back on topic, I, too am curious re: the question in this issue. Did humans get better at spellcasting, or were the numbers normalized?
(0005691)
dpeg (administrator)
2010-06-17 12:27

 Spellcasting has not been made easier. The change (from 100 etc. to 0 etc.) introduced some rounding modifications. aptitudes.txt contains the following paragraph (right at the top, but you seem to have missed it):

If you consider figuring out such things yourself to be fun, stop
reading now. Otherwise, just go ahead. (The numbers in brackets
are the aptitude values shown in version 0.6 and older.)

 -5  (238)  abysmal aptitude
 -4  (200)  very poor aptitude (learning half as fast as Humans)
 -3  (168)  poor aptitude
 -2  (141)  bad aptitude 
 -1  (119)  slightly disfavoured aptitude
  0  (100)  standard aptitude (Humans)
 +1   (84)  slightly favoured aptitude
 +2   (71)  strong aptitude
 +3   (59)  very strong aptitude
 +4   (50)  outstanding aptitude (learning twice as fast as Humans)
 +5   (42)  exceptional aptitude


djnrempel: Yes, the numbers are exact. The old table is obsolete. Spellcasting with now 0 is what was Spellcasting 130 before. I thought this was clear from the phrasing -- do you think it should be stressed more?

I don't buy the complaints I see here.

mwoody: "It's taken an admirably simple but powerful system and made it confusing and vague."

The use of aptitudes is exactly the same as before. We have just reduced the granularity, which is generally (not just for Crawl) a good idea. Much easier to see the relevance of +3 vs +4 on a scale with few ticks, than to see the difference between 59 and 50.
(0005699)
user308
2010-06-17 18:43

 For the record, I'm not complaining.

The thing that made me unsure was the statement "(The numbers in brackets
are the aptitude values shown in version 0.6 and older.)" This is confusing / not entirely true, depending how you read it. The values listed in parentheses are not the same as any of the ones that species had in earier versionns.

I think it could be clarified as follows:
(The numbers in brackets are the TYPE OF aptitude values shown in version 0.6 and older. The one exception is spellcasting, where "0" correlates to the former aptitude value of 130. Some species' aptitudes for some skills have been adjusted slightly since 0.6.0 and earlier)

Just as an exercise for myself, here are the old Spc attributes as proportions of 130, translated to portions over 100:
70: 53/100 - Deep Elf. New value: 50/100. (6% better)
80: 62/100 - Spriggan. New value: 59/100. (5% better)
90: 69/100 - High Elf, Sludge Elf, Ogre. New value: 71/100. (3% worse)
130: 100/100 - Human, Draconian Kenku, Merfolk, Naga, Demonspawn, Mummy, Vampire. New value 100/100. (No change)
140: 108/100 - Kobold, Demigod. Kobold is now 100/100 (8% better), Demigod is now 119/100 (10% worse)
160: 123/100 - Deep Dwarf, Ghoul. New value: 119/100 (3% better)
170: 131/100 - Halfling. New value: 119/100 (9% better)
180: 138/100 - Centaur. New value: 141/100 (2% worse)
200: 153/100 - Hill Orc. New value: 168/100 (10% worse)
210: 162/100 - Mountain Dwarf. New value: 168/100 (4% worse)
230: 176/100 - Minotaur. New value: 168/100 (5% better)
260: 200/100 - Troll. New value: 200/100. (No change).

I'm fine with the changes except for Demigods - I was just starting to think they might be okay as magic users because of the big MP they get. The Demigod species is a tragic waste of a cool concept, and just contradictory - descended from the Gods but are forbidden to worship them, have amazing abilities but aptitudes that are both below average and unspecialized. /rant

This makes me wonder if there are other significant nerfs / buffs in the new aptitudes.
(0005706)
TGW (reporter)
2010-06-17 22:28

 Is there a reason the spellcasting aptitudes couldn't be cranked up by +1? There were several explicit decisions behind showing the actual aptitude, and I'm not sure why these were discarded.

djnrempel: Demigod is not a waste. Demigod is not a waste. Demigod is not a waste. Demigod is not a waste. Demigod is not a waste.
(0008109)
nrook (updater)
2010-09-07 18:23

 It strikes me that the arbitrary-seeming numbers would be easier to understand with an explicit note: "If one race has 4 greater aptitude than another, then the first race learns the skill twice as quickly as the second."

It was semi-common for newbies to say in the SomethingAwful thread or ##crawl that humans (or another race with 130 spellcasting) were "bad at spellcasting." Modifying the spellcasting aptitudes would create the same phenomenon.
(0008110)
minmay (reporter)
2010-09-07 18:38

 Note that spellcasting isn't the one exception; Invocations and Evocations train faster than other skills.

I like the aptitude changes, but I think there should be an explicit note for players of old version that aptitudes have been rounded, an explicit note for new players that the numbers in parentheses are percentages, and an explicit note for both that some skills train faster/slower than others.
(0012404)
Kate (developer)
2011-04-11 10:57

 " -4 terrible aptitude (learning half as fast as Humans)"
" +4 outstanding aptitude (learning twice as fast as Humans)"
"Please note that many things affect how quickly a character will actually
learn a skill. Thus, the numbers below are good enough for comparisons among
species, but not necessarily among skills."

I think those address all the issues here, closing this.

- Issue History
Date Modified Username Field Change
2010-06-16 16:15 user308 New Issue
2010-06-16 20:05 mwoody Note Added: 0005679
2010-06-16 20:15 user308 Note Added: 0005680
2010-06-16 20:31 OG17 Note Added: 0005681
2010-06-16 23:19 mwoody Note Added: 0005684
2010-06-17 12:27 dpeg Note Added: 0005691
2010-06-17 18:43 user308 Note Added: 0005699
2010-06-17 22:28 TGW Note Added: 0005706
2010-09-07 18:23 nrook Note Added: 0008109
2010-09-07 18:38 minmay Note Added: 0008110
2011-04-11 10:57 Kate Note Added: 0012404
2011-04-11 10:57 Kate Status new => resolved
2011-04-11 10:57 Kate Fixed in Branch => 0.9 development branch
2011-04-11 10:57 Kate Resolution open => done
2011-04-11 10:57 Kate Assigned To => Kate

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