Improved Odds on Successful Enchant Weapon

[Osgoodbad]

I'm getting tired of using 6 EW scrolls on a +4 weapon, only to have it refuse to take any additional enchantment. I would rather see a situation where fewer enchant scrolls spawn, but they have a higher success rate, or are guaranteed to succeed (like Enchant Armour scrolls already are.) Or perhaps modify the success rate to at least make corrosion immunity guaranteed. What are your thoughts?

[reaver]

I believe the reason that success rates are set as they are is to encourage people to possibly enchant multiple weapons, either in sequence (enchant a trident even though you know you will replace it) or in parallel (enchanting both a antimagic and a freezing great mace in the endgame). The only serious reason I could see modifying the chances is to combine the enchant weapon scrolls with another type of scroll (like enchant armor).


"I'm getting tired of" is never a good reason to propose something. Think of why you are getting tired of the enchant weapon scrolls, and find a solution which fixes that problem specifically.

[tasonir]

You're getting tired of something with a .7% chance of happening? How many hundreds or thousands of games did you play before this happened twice? Failing can be frustrating, but your numbers are considerably exaggerated. You have a 56% chance of success on +4 weapons.

[ackack]

I think it's weird that enchant armour and enchant weapon work differently. The argument about incentivizing people to enchant multiple weapons only applies to people who already know how the scrolls work. Much of that audience already understands that spending some scrolls to improve your early weapons is worth having slightly worse later weapons. Actually, I would argue the inefficiency of weapon scrolls is such that enchanting multiple weapons is pretty much the only thing you should be doing with them; the space of decisions would probably enlarge if scrolls worked every time. So I'd be pretty happy if EW worked every time and EW1 and EW2 were generated more rarely.

[Osgoodbad]

If there’s anything this forum cannot tolerate, it is a small amount of hyperbole.

This can and has happened to me, and mathematically it will happen about 1/64 games (roughly, I’m not interested in doing the exact math.) While it is true that the odds of it happening are very small, the 4 scrolls in a row will fail in every 16ish cases. Three scrolls in a row will fail in about 8ish. This is for the very lowest level of not-guaranteed enchantment, with the numbers going up drastically per each level of enchantment, and enchantment scrolls are a finite resource (unless scumming is your thing.)

I can see how this would encourage enchanting multiple weapons, which has its merits, but I would also like to see less diminishing returns for the endgame weapon that I have chosen. Even if the chances of corrosion are relatively small when it’s enchanted to +4, I’m still not comfortable using the weapon around ugly things or jellies until I have that extra level. Perhaps this is not the emergency that I am (unintentionally) conveying, but it is an annoyance, and I wanted to know how everybody else felt about it.

-reaver-
The only serious reason I could see modifying the chances is to combine the enchant weapon scrolls with another type of
scroll (like enchant armor).

I don’t understand this, please clarify what you mean.

[reaver]

I can see how this would encourage enchanting multiple weapons, which has its merits, but I would also like to see less diminishing returns for the endgame weapon that I have chosen. Even if the chances of corrosion are relatively small when it’s enchanted to +4, I’m still not comfortable using the weapon around ugly things or jellies until I have that extra level. Perhaps this is not the emergency that I am (unintentionally) conveying, but it is an annoyance, and I wanted to know how everybody else felt about it.

So you're saying you want this because you don't like attacking with weapons that can be hist by corrosion? Then make a proposal to remove corrosion.

-reaver-
The only serious reason I could see modifying the chances is to combine the enchant weapon scrolls with another type of
scroll (like enchant armor).

I don’t understand this, please clarify what you mean.

Currently enchant weapon scrolls don't have very many decisions. I could see combining scrolls of enchant weapon and scrolls of enchant armour into a single "scroll of enchantment" which would enchant armour when used on armour and weapons when used on weapons. This would probably require changing the enchant success rates to make both options viable.

[tasonir]

While it may sound like nitpicking, many of us are fairly technical people, enjoy math, and try to be as accurate as possible. Your spell success chance is calculated with tetrahedral numbers for cryin' outloud! Why? Well, why not? In any case, overstating how common an issue is will make people take your proposal less seriously when they don't see it as being that common.

There's a noticeable difference between 50% fail and 44% fail, especially after repeated attempts. After 3 attempts, 50% fail has a 12.5% chance (1 in 8) to fail completely, but 44% is 8.5%. You're almost 50% more likely to fail 3 times at 50% than 44%. The difference between the two increases with each scroll you read, of course.

So to fail 6 times, the 0.72% chance, does not mean that it will happen once every 1/.0072 games (~139 games). That just isn't the right way to calculate it. It could happen in the very first game. It could happen 3 times in the first 3 games. Or it could never happen in 10,000 games. It's fairly easy to calculate the chance of it never happening in X games, because there's only one way for that to happen; it has to fail every time. Calculating the odds of it happening X times in Y games is more involved, so I usually don't bother, but if you are familiar with combinatorics, it isn't too bad.  For 0 times in X games, just take 1 - the chance of it happening (.0072), or .9928, to the power of X games. So after 100 games, for example, the odds of it NOT happening are 48.5%. The remaining 51.5% chance doesn't mean it only happened once, but contains all of the cumulative odds of it happening once or twice or all 100 times.

Some of us just like math <.<

[duvessa]

I would like to eliminate the +4/+5 breakpoint.

[bcadren]

I'd thought about this before and my serious thought was (1) make enchant {foo} scrolls rarer. while (2) making their effect differ with current enchantment more drastically like:

• -5 and lower: adds 2d3.
• -4 to +0: adds 2d2.
• +1 to +4: adds 1d3
• +5 and higher: adds 1d2

Or in short, the scrolls are rarer, but never fail, but have a chance of adding far more enchantment on really poorly enchanted stuff; this would both make it more feasible to use all the scrolls you find to max the enchantment on something and make it sound to stash one to use after Slime to try to return a very corroded thing back to normal condition, though not necessarily exactly like the example.

[banei]

Another proposal:
1) If there is a available hidden parameter on weapons, it could be used as a remainder. Enchantment per scroll = min(10 - current enchantment, 7) / 7
2) Make attacks against acid decrease (step or ln) as enchantment increases, maybe making it 1 in 4 at 0,0 up to 1 in 400 chance at 9,9
Scrolls of weapon enchanting III will work as using I and II twice. Or 1d2 of each.

[damiac]

I like Banei's idea. Instead of random failure, just take more EW scrolls past a certain enchantment.

[Zammy]

I believe the reason that success rates are set as they are is to encourage people to possibly enchant multiple weapons, either in sequence (enchant a trident even though you know you will replace it) or in parallel (enchanting both a antimagic and a freezing great mace in the endgame). The only serious reason I could see modifying the chances is to combine the enchant weapon scrolls with another type of scroll (like enchant armor).

For me the low success rate does just the opposite. Since I know I want my Really Goog Weapon at some point I must now stack up scrolls to ensure that I get good enough enchant for it. Why waste a scroll on some weapons that I know I'll replace probably sooner than later.
I know my playstyle is far from optimal, but if the intention is to make people enchant multiple weapons I must say that they have failed miserably in my case.

In conclusion, I'd really like to see better odds with enchant weapon scrolls.

[Osgoodbad]

"For me the low success rate does just the opposite. Since I know I want my Really Goog Weapon at some point I must now stack up scrolls to ensure that I get good enough enchant for it. Why waste a scroll on some weapons that I know I'll replace probably sooner than later."

For better or for worse, this is how I approach the situation as well. The low success rates, especially at higher enchantments mean that I am more likely to horde scrolls rather than waste early ones, because I want my real weapon to be as good as possible. My secondary weapon is usually a swap that I only use situationally (and so has a lower priority than my main weapon), or an artifact that has specific properties on it that I need, but that can't be enchanted further anyway.

[rchandra]

Usually I want to live more than I want some tiny damage bonus in the endgame, so enchanting my flail of protection or whatever in lair is is pretty good. Similarly for say Pan as a berserker, I'll probably have more use out of having a +7 holy and +7 antimagic weapon than a +9 of either.

[reaver]

For me the low success rate does just the opposite. Since I know I want my Really Goog Weapon at some point I must now stack up scrolls to ensure that I get good enough enchant for it. Why waste a scroll on some weapons that I know I'll replace probably sooner than later.

For better or for worse, this is how I approach the situation as well. The low success rates, especially at higher enchantments mean that I am more likely to horde scrolls rather than waste early ones, because I want my real weapon to be as good as possible. My secondary weapon is usually a swap that I only use situationally (and so has a lower priority than my main weapon), or an artifact that has specific properties on it that I need, but that can't be enchanted further anyway.

Well, nobody can expect the game to be designed about players purposely playing poorly.

[Psiweapon]

You can keep burning echant weapon I and II scrolls on a +4/+4 crossbow with no freaking effect. It's a waste of resources.

[Klown]

Does it even need a fail rate outside of a +9 +9 maxed weapon?
Without it, you'll actually have to make decisions 'super trog artifact vs. super enchanted morningstar.'
I usually end up wasting them on my default weapon to help through early game, because I know I'm getting a non-enchantable artifact later that is twice as good anyways.

[XuaXua]

Increase the odds for each subsequent enchant scroll burned. Reset the odds on a successful scroll use.

[Baldu3]

Does it even need a fail rate outside of a +9 +9 maxed weapon?
Without it, you'll actually have to make decisions 'super trog artifact vs. super enchanted morningstar.'
I usually end up wasting them on my default weapon to help through early game, because I know I'm getting a non-enchantable artifact later that is twice as good anyways.

Ummmm what? If I'm mainly melee and not following trog/okawaru I'd say roughly 3/4 of the time I'm using a self-enchanted weapon. I just want it to get to +5 because I don't like corrosion at all, and in fact I wish troll armour could be enchanted to +5 since it's the main reason I almost never use it instead of sometimes use it.

[TheDefiniteArticle]

I usually end up wasting them on my default weapon to help through early game

That's not even remotely a 'waste', the early game is by a huge margin and for various reasons the most important part of the game, enchanting weapons early is a very good idea and exactly the sort of thing the fail chances encourage.

Re lategame, +4/5/6 is more than sufficient to beat the game if your weapon's base type and brand are even vaguely decent, you're obsessing over numbers that don't matter just because they are visible, this is exactly why Crawl hides numbers.

And @ OP if you hate corrosion, just make a thread about corrosion. But quick warning, the devs love corrosion and will never change it no matter how dumb it is.

2) Make attacks against acid decrease (step or ln) as enchantment increases, maybe making it 1 in 4 at 0,0 up to 1 in 400 chance at 9,9

That's actually even worse, because now no matter how enchanted your weapon is, you'd never ever want to hit a jelly with it ever (let alone take it into Slime!). Which means carrying around junk weapons, WHEEEEEEE SO FUN AND DEFINITELY NOT STUPID