Nonsense about spells (split from minimum delay change)

[Volteccer_Jack]

while we're at it, how about give magic dart a power cap of 200, after all breakpoints are The Ultimate Evil(tm) and "we can always nerf it later"

incidentally, if i'm expected to spend most of the game swinging weapons at >10 aut, i'm gonna be doing even more fiddly bullcrap and probably just stop playing melee altogether because I don't wanna have to worry about whether or not that hydra will get to attack twice this turn

[acvar]

A better solution is to simply give people more incentive to train weapon skills. I said it in another thread and I will say it again here. The game would be better if the main thing that determined damage was weapon skill and stats instead of what weapon you weild. If damage was primarily an effect of weapon skill/stats, and the weapon you weilded only had a small effect on the equation then the magic numbers although still relevent would not be hard breaks and there would be good reason to train your weapon skills past those break points.

while we're at it, how about give magic dart a power cap of 200, after all breakpoints are The Ultimate Evil(tm) and "we can always nerf it later"

I realize you were not serious, but I think the game actually would be better if the most damaging spell you got were your first level spells. Basically if it went like this:

Spells have no cap on spell power.
Freeze has the highest damage per spell power of all the cold based attacks.
Throw frost has a little less damage per spell power but allows you to attack at range.
Bolt of cold has even less damage per spell power, but allows you to attack multiple targets in a line.
Ice Storm continues the progression, but allows you to hit large areas.

This means that if you are facing a hord of monsters you would want ice storm, but if you just have one big bad in your face you would blast them with freeze since it would do more damage.

[dck]

What it means is you only want freeze and throw frost or better yet just magic dart and dart everything in the game to death. It also shows complete disregard for the exp it costs to get spells of higher level working and the MP it costs to use them at all.

Breakpoints are bad in some situations, breakpoints for weapon delay are completely sensible and normal within the system that already exists and only have the disadvantage of not being easily portrayed to the player without directing his attention to them too much and making him value things like min delay more than they are actually worth. And ever since weapon speed is properly displayed next to the turncount when you attack an empty square I don't even think this is an issue anymore to begin with, certainly not something worth breaking the weapon system in half for.

[acvar]

What it means is you only want freeze and throw frost or better yet just magic dart and dart everything in the game to death. It also shows complete disregard for the exp it costs to get spells of higher level working and the MP it costs to use them at all.

Actually no. This is what we currently have. Currently you just want to ice storm everything to death once you get it. I want to make it so you actually have a choice as to which spell you throw at the enemies. If a hoard of draconians is bearing down on you are you going to sit there and wait for them to walk into freeze range? No you will blast them with ice storm. If they are all comming down a corridor currently you just ice storm them. With my system bolt of cold would be the best spell in that situation. The experience you spend to get those other spells gives you options and power just not raw damage. Even if throw frost does a little less damage then freeze it is still well worth its investment since you can blast things before they get in melee range, and even if bolt of cold does less damage per target you can blast several opponents per shot.

Having magic numbers for weapon skill is bad but the one thing it does well is it makes 1h weapons improve more quickly that 2h weapons. There was a proposal here last year or so which had some dev support that basically made it so going from skill 0->27 in any weapon gave you 1 extra attack per turn with that weapon. That succeeds in one way: it makes weapon skill's effect smooth, which is a good thing. The problem is that it makes 2h weapons improve more quickly, at any skill level, than 1h weapons, given the damage/delay values for the weapons in the game.

If you want to do something similar I think you are going to also have to revamp weapon stats from scratch, because right now crawl weapons break down like this: 1h weapons are bad but get better quickly at low skill (for instance qblade is 5 dam/7 delay at skill 0, but maxes out at skill 8). 2h weapons are good but get better slowly (lajatang is 16/14 at skill 0, great mace and great sword are 17/17 and 16/16 respectively). I have thought a big and did not come up with anything that would both eliminate magic numbers and retain the dynamic that currently exists. Possibly you are smarter than I am! If that's the case then great, let everyone know how to do it. The proposal in the OP does not do this; it makes big 2h weapons get better more quickly than small ones (I don't want to do the math to compare e.g. qblade to 2h stuff), which is a problem since the big weapons are already better at skill 0 (see the slopes of the lines in the graph). Alternatively you can redo all the weapon stats, but hopefully you can see how that would be difficult to get into crawl.

Here is my stab at removeing "hard" break points.

1. all weapons have the same minimum delay (perhaps have quickblades be the one exception).
2. Base damage is rand((weapon skill + stat)/2)
3. Weapons have a damage modifier with 1h weapons ranging from 90%-110%, 2h range from 120%-130%.
4. enchantment bonuses are added to the weapons damage modifier so a weapon with a base modifier of 100% with a +9 enchantment would have a 109% modifier.

The numbers here are all up for debate of course, but this would definately remove the hard breaks. It would mean that "smaller, faster weapons would still be better at low skill levels, and bigger slower weapons would be better at higher skill levels. It would remove the complaints people have about weapon balance and rarity since weapons just don''t have the huge effect they currently do. It would bring Str and Dex more inline with Int for hybrids instead of pumping Int being a no brainer. I really don't see how the current system is better other then it is already written and tested. The rewrite seems simple, and I am sure we could find somebody to test it.

[dck]

I like how you completely disregard as well the ungodly ruckus ice storm makes and its MP costs again, all of this while living in a fantasy world where people not only learn but cast god damn ice storm on draconians instead of beating them up. Because fighting twenty oofs and elec golems from zot: 1 to $ must be the national sport in said fantasy world I guess.
Anyway, that's OT enough.

[acvar]

I like how you completely disregard as well the ungodly ruckus ice storm makes and its MP costs again, all of this while living in a fantasy world where people not only learn but cast god damn ice storm on draconians instead of beating them up. Because fighting twenty oofs and elec golems from zot: 1 to $ must be the national sport in said fantasy world I guess.
Anyway, that's OT enough.

And I love how you completely ignore the meat of the argument and focus on the irrelevent and randomly chosen details in the argument. Red herring much?

[dck]

Well, your argument seems to be that all damaging spells should have a place in the game at absolutely any point no matter how much you've improved in that school at all and in fact that a spell you might as well have chosen at random (it so happened to be first one) should be the most damaging one, so I'm having trouble taking it seriously at all.
Lehudib's stone arrow has an okay ring to it I suppose.

[Sandman25]

I like how you completely disregard as well the ungodly ruckus ice storm makes and its MP costs again, all of this while living in a fantasy world where people not only learn but cast god damn ice storm on draconians instead of beating them up. Because fighting twenty oofs and elec golems from zot: 1 to $ must be the national sport in said fantasy world I guess.
Anyway, that's OT enough.

And I love how you completely ignore the meat of the argument and focus on the irrelevent and randomly chosen details in the argument. Red herring much?

His point was that Bolt of Cold can be superior to Ice Storm depending on noise/MP/position/failure rate. I don't stop casting Bolt of Cold when I have Ice Storm online either.

[acvar]

Well, your argument seems to be that all damaging spells should have a place in the game at absolutely any point no matter how much you've improved in that school at all and in fact that a spell you might as well have chosen at random (it so happened to be first one) should be the most damaging one, so I'm having trouble taking it seriously at all.
Lehudib's stone arrow has an okay ring to it I suppose.

I just think things would be more interesting if higher level spells opened up more options istead of just being better damage dealers. And yes the earth spell are horrible at this. What is the point of the progression of stone arrow -> iron shot -> crystal spear other then to make amnesion matter, and to punish players who are unlucky enough not to find the appropriat spellbook fo the school they trained?

[sardonica]

Well, your argument seems to be that all damaging spells should have a place in the game at absolutely any point no matter how much you've improved in that school at all and in fact that a spell you might as well have chosen at random (it so happened to be first one) should be the most damaging one, so I'm having trouble taking it seriously at all.
Lehudib's stone arrow has an okay ring to it I suppose.

I just think things would be more interesting if higher level spells opened up more options istead of just being better damage dealers. And yes the earth spell are horrible at this. What is the point of the progression of stone arrow -> iron shot -> crystal spear other then to make amnesion matter, and to punish players who are unlucky enough not to find the appropriat spellbook fo the school they trained?

If the only difference for you between Stone Arrow, Iron Shot and Crystal Spear is power/damage, I would question your grasp of crawl mechanics. For example, CS is a lot louder. By the time you get CS online and reliably castable, this can matter a lot.

EDIT: having perused your other posts in this forum I am no longer interested in conversing with you. Please don't reply.

[Hirsch I]

ouch, that really hurt.

[Confidence Interval]

I don't mind things being sent to CYC if they go off topic or just become plain silly but I don't like them appearing here because they've turned into abusive shouting matches between angry internet men. There should be a separate forum for such aggression to be worked out.

[Grimm]

And I love how you completely ignore the meat of the argument and focus on the irrelevent and randomly chosen details in the argument. Red herring much?

[Confidence Interval]

Red herring much?

Only occasionally. And where's the harm in that?!

[Grimm]

I just bought a big jar of pickled herring for Christmas.

[Confidence Interval]

Rollmops ftw!

[Grimm]

http://www.hepafilters.com/products-pag ... mop-6-300/ ?

[Confidence Interval]

http://www.hepafilters.com/products-page/cleanroom-products/tacky-mats/tacky%C2%AE-roll-mop-6-300/ ?

Nom nom nom.